Rikutsaren

Rikutsaren (IPA: ) is a language spoken by the inhabitants of Rikutsar, a fictional island nation in the southeast Indian Ocean. It was created in the 430s AD by the two Empresses - Faroguru and Nyrgraorur - and a committee of approximately 30 people.

''Currently, information on this page reflects Elder Rikutsaren, Rikutsaren's progenitor language. When sound changes are worked out a separate page will be made for Elder Rikutsaren.''

Vowels
(WIP)

Consonants
(WIP)

Stress
Penultimate syllables are always stressed, unless:
 * The word has 5 or more syllables, in which case the median or postmedian syllable is stressed (ex. edīazıcam)

Writing System
Modern Rıkutsaren is written by its native speakers and the government of Rikutsar using the Rikutsaren Script. Transcriptions of Rikutsaren into languages that use the Latin alphabet are almost always made using the Rikutsaren Orthography

Elder Rikutsaren is now transcribed using IPA characters only, but modern Rikutsaren would likely use a specialized romanization.'

Gender
(WIP)

Number
(WIP)

Definite Article
The singular definite article in Rikutsaren is e. It occurs before the word it affects.

Indefinite Article
The indefinite article in Rikutsaren is sam. It occurs before the word it affects. It is not affected by other particles, and always precedes any particle. The word comes from the word for "one."

Nouns
(WIP)

Pronouns
Rikutsaren is generally pro-drop but has additional standalone pronouns within transitive environments. Pronouns are standalone and precede their complement.

Personal Pronouns
Personal pronouns are formed using the root te-, then by adding the person, gender, and number respectively. As Rikutsaren has an affix-based verbal conjugation system, there are no subject pronouns.

Possessive Pronouns
Possession is marked by the Genitive case. Possessive pronouns are personal pronouns marked with the Genitive case ending -en.

Correlative Pronouns
(WIP)

Adjectives and Adverbs
Adjectives are formed by adding the suffix -an to the end of a noun. Adjectives come after the noun they modify. Adverbs are formed by adding the suffix -ag to the end of a noun. Adverbs come after the verb they modify.

Degrees of Comparison
(WIP) The Rıkutsaren language uses 2 Degrees of Comparison, "lar" and "balar" are used as Adverbs of Comparison, corresponding to "so" and "not so [much]" or "very" and "not as."

Quantity
When referring to an amount of something, the comparative affixes become standalone in verbal environments. (ex. "I have more." "Ol drefone.").

Verbs
Since Rikutsaren exhibits SOV alignment, verbs occur at the end of the sentence. Many verb forms exhibit "presentivity". Presentivity indicates whether a third party is present in the conversation. It is similar to clusivity but broader. Verbs are the most agglutinative part of Rikutsaren, taking on so many affixes that multiple tables are needed to represent all the forms.

For the purpose of these tables T is "tense", G is "gender, and P is "plural" due to its irregular nature.

Aspect and Tense
Rikutsaren has four aspects: perfective, frequentative, imperfective, and habitual. It also has three tenses: past, present, and future.

The Perfective aspect represents an action that was, is, or will be complete, no matter the tense, and also a non-habitual (generic) action. Thus it is called complete and generic.

The Frequentative aspect represents a complete action that is habitual.

The Imperfective aspect represents an incomplete action that is generic, analogous to the continuous aspect in English.

The Habitual aspect represents an incomplete and habitual action. In the early notes while developing this aspect system, this was codenamed the "pledged" aspect because it is analogous to English phrases where someone has pledged to do something, regardless of whether or not they've begun yet. For example "I have been walking", "I am walking", and "I will be walking" where "walking" refers to a habitual exercise, would all fall under Rikutsaren's habitual aspect.

Each of these aspects are

Syntax
(WIP) Rikutsaren is a non-rigid head-final language. Verbal and Adpositional phrases are head-final, whereas all other phrases are head-initial. It has the basic word order Subject-Object-Verb. Rikutsaren is a null-subject language and is also pro-drop.

Lexicon
(WIP) A comprehensive dictionary of Rıkutsaren can be found at the Rikutsaren/Dictionary page.

''Warning: this Lexicon is outdated by at least 3 years. The most up-to-date lexicon is on my computer, and I plan to upload it soon.''