Lutta

General Information
The Lutta Language (native Lua-ǂhera [lɯʔəǂʰerə]) is a Luttan language spoken by the Lua-hushen, the largest group of Luttish people, a macroethnic group of Aethos (Ngawa hushen, lit. "all person") who live on the western steppe inland of the central sea of the planet Aetho (Efun).

Pulmonic Consonants
n, ny/ngy, ng, t, d, c, j, q, 0, ts, dz, tc, dj, s, z, sh, zh, x, h, f, fy, rh, l, y, ly, w, r
 * /n/, /ŋ/, /s/, /z/, /ɬ/, and /l/ become palatal consonants before /e/.
 * /t/, /d/, /c/, and /ɟ/ become the corresponding affricate before /u/.

Clicks
Due to Aethos not possessing a uvula, all clicks are pronounced with the back articulation in the pharynx. !, ǁ, ǂ, !h, ǁh, ǂh, n!, nǁ, nǂ
 * The post-alveolar clicks tend to be flapped in fast speech.

Vowels

 * /e/: [æ~e~ɪ]
 * /u/: [ɨ~ɯ~ɯ̽]
 * /a/: [ə~ä~ɑ̽]

Phonotactics
CV(N)
 * /N/ is a nasal homorganic to the following consonant. It is not found before clicks.
 * The syllable /wu/ doesn't occur.
 * The post-alveolar and lateral clicks don't occur before /e/.
 * The following consonants may be geminated between vowels: /n/, /ŋ/, /t/, /c/, /k/, /s/, /ɹ/, and /l/.

Stress and Intonation
Stress is non-contrastive in Lutta. It always presents as a high and falling pitch throughout a neutral word. An emphasized noun has a sharper drop in pitch from the first syllable of a word to the following syllable. An emphasized word in a question has a rising pitch to the middle of the word.

Isochrony
Isochrony is how a language breaks up speech into equally-timed intervals. Lutta is a mora-timed language, meaning that the intervals between morae (syllables and coda /N/) are equal.

Inflectional morphology
Lutta has very little inflectional morphology, with no grammatical gender, case, number, or definiteness. However, nouns can take many derivational affixes, and some of these affixes could be interpreted as inflectional. For example, collectives formed with -n!a and reduplication found in qaran!a "a group of kids" and qaraqara "a lot of kids, kids in general", could be used similarly to plurals.

Derivational morphology

 * reduplication: nonspecific collective, quality of an adjective, ex. anxaanxa "hatred, disgust"
 * -n!a: groups, ex. hushen!a "crowd or mob"
 * -jawe: location where an action is done, a noun gathers, or a noun originates, ex. hushenjawe "homeland"
 * -hushen: people, ex. Lua-hushen "the Lutta"
 * -ǂhera: language, ex. Lua-ǂhera "the Lutta langugae"
 * -dzu: agent, ex. ǂerhadzu "traveler"
 * hV-dzu: patient, ex. hefyelyedzu "prepared speech"
 * -tten: instrument, ex. caqetten "eating utensil"
 * -ǁuǁa: instance, ex. caqeǁuǁa "meal"
 * -nga: close by, ex. nunga "this thing"
 * -ra; far away, ex. nura "that thing"
 * ce-: diminutive, occasionally pejorative, ex. cedzudju "small chime"
 * nga-: augmentative, occasionally pejorative, ex. ngaucca "older sibling"

Pronouns

 * 1) The collective first person in used to refer to one's group or company as a unified entity, ede is used as a normal plural first person.
 * 2) Second person pronouns and third person formal pronouns are usually replaced by royal, job, or family titles, which are very complex.
 * 3) The animate third person pronouns are the only ones with a proper number distinction.
 * 4) The obviative third person is used to refer to an additional person or item to one already being referred to. The superobviative is used to refer to a further person or item. For example, "The three brothers Alan, Ashelye, and Aqqaru went in separate directions. San went east, asa went west, and eshe went further south. Atta would meet up in ǁHaqqandzuderun".
 * 5) Titles are used occasionally instead of pronouns, ex. Rafyen fyeurazheluha "The king has put forth a decree".

Postpositions and Nominal Particles
Instead of prepositions, Lutta has postpositions which perform the same function as prepositions, but appear after their associated noun phrase. Their is a highly blurred line between what is a grammatical case particle and what is a postposition. Examples:
 * dzudju nǁa "using a bell"
 * ǁHaqqandzuderun ta "in the city ǁHaqqandzuderun"
 * Ede ǁu ǂhanu. "Come with me."

Verbs
Verbs are conjugated for voice, mood, tense, formality, and placement. Some nouns can be incorporated into some verbs as well.

Tense
The tense affixes go immediately after the verb stem. They are not obligatory, though dropping them is infrequent and informal.
 * present -0- ex. caqa "I'm eating"
 * past -uh- ex. caquha "I ate"
 * future -ej- ex. caqeja "I'll eat"

Mood
Realis verbs end in -a, Irrealis in -u. The Irrealis mood is used by itself to signify hypothetical statements, commands, when verbs are negative, and in subordinate clauses. The Realis mood is used in all other circumstances.

Voice
Grammatical voice is marked by prefixes. The basic voice is active, which has no prefix.

The passive (ex. haqattesuha "I was cut") is shown using the prefix hV-, with the choice of vowel matching the following syllable's. ex. hefyea "I am done".

A causative is formed with a reduplication of the first syllable of a verb or adjective (except that former initial glottal stops become /ɹ/, ex. udjua>urhudjua) being added to the beginning of the verb. This can be combined with the passive, ex. huurhudjua "I am being shaken". The causative shows that the subject is causing another to perform the action or become the adjective.

Formality
There are two methods of making respectful verbforms. The first is suppletively, as in !an!a "to click" > !uǂella or rura "to copulate, mate" > watcunrha. The second is with the infix -zheC, placed as the penultimate syllable, where C geminates the following consonant, if possible.
 * qattesa "to cut, split" > qattezhessa
 * caqa "to eat" > cazheqqa
 * fyela "to say" > fyezhella
 * eǁula "to jump, hop" > eǁuzhella
 * fyea "to do" > fyezhea
 * udjua "to wiggle, shake" > udjuzhea
 * xungyea "to swim" > xungyezhea

There is also the ultrarespectful infix, -nasshe-. For verbs with suppletive respectful forms, it is applied to the suppletive respectful form. There are few irregulars, including: rha "to be" > zhea, rhanasshea.
 * qattesa > qattenasshesa
 * fyea > fyenasshea
 * rura > watcunnassherha

Formal forms are used to express deference and respect to others. The respectful form is the basic form to use with strangers.

Placement
There are also optional suffixes to indicate the actions spatial placement relative to where the utterance in spoken. These are placed before the final vowel.
 * Near -ang- ex. hefyeanga "I am done here"
 * Far -ar- ex. caqejara "I'll eat there"

Noun Incorporation
A direct object of a sentence can be incorporated into a verb, thereby creating an intransitive verb from a transitive one. When a noun is incorporated it is attached to the beginning of the verb root. ex. ǂafu na qattesuha. "I sliced the fruit." > ǂafuqattesuha. "I fruitsliced."

Syntax
Subject-Object-Postpositional Phrase-Subordinate Verb-Verb-Auxilliary Verb

Conjunctions
and/but/additionals (ya), or/alternatives (tsu), for/because/rationale (rhau), so/consequences (xeye)

Numbers
Like most Aethos of the western hemisphere of the planet, the Lutta count in base-14, as this is the total number of fingers (8) and toes (6) the Aethos possess.

The Lutta count in a peculiar way common to all Luttish peoples. They use the right hand to point to various body parts as indicated in the table up to the number seven, when they start using the left hand to point. The number fourteen can also be indicated by gesturing to the whole body with both hands.