Sallia

Phonology
Sallia uses an alphabet of 17 letters: A [ɑ, a] K [k] D [d] E [e, ɛ] G [g] H [h] I [i, ɪ] L [l] M [m] N [n] O [ɔ, o] P [p] R [r] S [s] T [t] U [u, ʊ].

Overall, the letters sound the way you would expect them to be, regardless of their placement. When it is not stressed, the letter "i" tends to form diphthongs [aɪ], [eɪ], [oɪ] and [uɪ], as well as [ɪa], [ɪe], [ɪo] and [ɪu] when it comes in contact with another vowel. Other vowels are pronounced separately from each other.

Phonotactics
The Sallia syllable structure is described by the (C)V(C)(C)(C) pattern. Out of all consonants, only L, M, N, R, S and T can be syllable-final, and only L, M, N or R can precede them.

Stress
The stress usually falls on the last syllable of the root or a stressed suffix. For example

seogó river

duahéodúni (duahe + o +du + ni) on the top of the tower

tía (ti + a) arrives

múniot (mun + i + ot) about people

mun tíasi (ti + a + si) if he comes

It can happen that stress is essential for recognizing the word correctly, e.g.

penasú -- "tree"

pénas -- "because it is hard"

Basic Grammar
Sallia is an agglutinating language. It has a lot of cases and compound words.

Rules for adding suffixes and endings
When a suffix or and ending is added to a Sallia root that ends with a vowel, special rules may apply. The reason for it is that such roots used to end with the letter -l- that is dropped in modern speech but makes a reappearance in certian situations.

Namely, when the root ends with a vowel, and the suffix/ending starts with the same vowel, the second vowel is dropped and replaced by -l.

For example:

ti + a --> tia (no change)

pa + a --> pal (final -a is dropped and replaced by -l)

Verbs
Sallia verbs and adjectives always have the final -a (sometimes substituted by -l, see below):

Nenamun dena - The boy plays.

Penasu deattia - The tree grows.

Nenakei densdana - The children laugh.

Aspects
The verbs do not change according to tense, but can be put in three different aspects: prospective, imperfective and perfective. The perfective aspect is marked by -ns, which is attached to the -a ending. Similarly, the prospective aspect is marked by -a followed by -nt. Thus,

Miadasogo tia - The train comes/The train arrives

Miadasogo tians - The train has arrived

Miadasogo tiant - The train is going to arrive

Passive Voice
Verbs can be put inot passive voice by adding the suffix -er. E.g.

Me sia miadasogou - I see the train

Ka ia miadasogoel sierans meos - This is the train I've seen.

A case prefix can be added to the verb in passive voice when the subject is not the direct object in the active voice. For example:

Ka ia hell ni-helra meos - This is the house in which I live.

Me teti siatliant reolanu ot-tonerans meos kado -- I'll show you the book I've heard so much about.

Negative
To negate a verb, the particle es is placed before it. After a vowel es is commonly replaced by 's:

Me es miant -- I am not going [Me's miant]

Me teu es kia siat -- I can't see you. [Me teu's kia siat]

Moods
There are four moods in Sallia, indicative, subjunctive, conditional and imperative. While the indicative mood has all three aspects, the other moods has only one aspect each.

The subjunctive describes an action (imaginary or in the past) that could have occured but did not. It is indicated by verb ending -ars. It is often followed by a noun or supine in the Causal case:

Me miars te tiathias meu -- I would have come if you called me.

The conditinal mood describes an action that may or may not occur in the future, depending on the circumstances. It is indicated by verb ending -art. It is usually followed by a noun or supine in the Conditional case:

Me miart te tiathiasi meu -- I'll come if you call me.

The imperative mood conicides by ending with the prospective aspect, but a verb in the imperative takes no subject. Thus,

Te miant. -- You'll go.

Miant! -- Go!

Es miant! - Don't go!

Cases
Sallia nouns can be put in many different cases by adding different endings to the root word.

Nominative/(Absolutive with passive verbs) - (zero ending)

Accusative -u

Ergative ("by", agent of passive verbs) -os

Genitive/Posessive ("of") -o

Dative ("to", indicates direct recipient) -ti

Benefactive ("for", indicates indirect recepient, purpose or goal) -t

Causal ("because of", "as a consequence of") -s

Conditional ("if") -si

Comparative ("than", "out of") -or

Equative/Essive ("same as", "as", indicates assumed equality or role) -el

Partitive ("of" with amounts) -ol

Topical/Oblique ("about", "concerning", "with respect to") -ot

The following four cases deal with location but can also be used to indicate time.

Allative ("to") -nit

Locative ("in") -ni

Ablative ("from") -nis

Perlative ("through") -nist

The following cases can be viewed as special cases of composite words; they are stressed at the penultimate syllable.

Instrumental/Instructive ("with"/"using", "by") -ulali (from -u + lal + i)

Semblative ("like", "as") -usanai (from -u + sana + i)

Comitative ("together with") -ulanai (from -u + lana + i) or -uali (from -u + al + i)

Abessive ("apart from") -uslanai (from -u + (e)s + lana + i) or -uarai (from -u + ara + i)

Suffixes
To further specify location, nouns can be augmented with the following suffixes:

inside -oni- (from o + ni "inside")

top -odu- (from o + du "up", "high")

front -oso-  (from o + so "front")

bottom -odur- (from o + dur "down", "low")

back -osor- (from o + sor "back")

neighborhood, place near -ogor- (from o + gor "short", "near")

away -ogo- (from o + go "long", "far")

around -otun- (from o + tun "shell", "surface")

outside -onir- (from o + nir "outside")

These suffixes are placed before the case marker, and are stressed.

The following suffixes transform other words into location or time indicators. They are also stressed.

place of -ona- (from na "place")

time of -oto- (from to "time")

To form the plural, the suffix -i- is added after the root and before the case markers:

kolhon - a bird

kolhoni - birds

kolhonti - to the bird

kolhoniti - to the birds

and so on.

Adverbs
Adverbs usually have no ending or end with -i when derived from a different part of speech. Adding -i to the supine produces an adverbial participle.

Typically adverbs follow the verb they modify, but may precede it as well.

Adjectives
Adjectives in Sallia are verbs in disguise. They do not agree with the nouns they modify, and they can take all verb forms. Adjectives always have the -a ending.

To make a superlative form of an adjective, one adds the prefix do- (lit. "more") to it. Prefixing an adjective with dor- has the opposite effect, e.g.

losia -- beautiful

dolosia -- more beautiful

dorlosia -- less beautiful

dolosia panor -- the most beautiful

Use the Semblative and Comparative cases with superlatives in comparisons:

losia tunosenusanai -- beautiful as the sun

Copula
The copula ia (root i-) is usually followed by an object in Essive case (-el).

Ka ia hell meo - This is my house.

Since Sallia adjectives are morphologically very close to verbs, no copula is required before an adjective.

Teo he losia - Your house is beautiful.

Supine
A verb, with its -a ending, can be treated as a supine. In this capacity, it can have a subject, objects and adverbs modifying it, and, at the same time, it can accept case markers and be treated as if it was a noun (nomen actionis). An adjective can be treated in the same way.

Supines are very frequently used in Sallia; they serve as bases for all kinds of syntactic constructions.

Here are some examples:

Sia ia kunsiael - Seeing is believing

Me ria te miat meulanai - I want you to go with me.

Me kia tiat te meti siatliasi misu  - I can come if you show me the way (note two supines here: tiat "to come" = ti + a + t, and siatliasi "if show" = siatli + a + si)

The most common use of supine is with a modal verb, putting the supine in the Benefactive case:

Me ria malt -- I am hungry (lit: I want to eat)

Me es kia miat pat dogo -- I can't go any further

The other widespread use is with -ni or -otoni (= o + to + ni "in the time of") to it:

Mut tians koupunani dan - She came, breathing heavily

Mut halns tul mun es siaotoni -- She took it when he was not looking

Compound Words
The Sallia dictionary is rich with compound words. Sometimes even the most basic words' origins can be traced to a compound, e.g.

sellma - to drink (sell - ma, "eat as liquid")

senoto - day (seno - to, "time of light")

duahe - tower (dua - he, "tall house")

Sallia compound words are formed by taking a well-formed phrase and fusing it together into one word. In a compound, the main word always has to be last, so when one takes a compound word apart, he would find objects placed before verbs (sell - ma), and adjectives before nouns (dua- he).

Some of the compound words can be pretty complex, but in their formation they still follow the same pattern:

miadasogo - train (mia - daso - go, "length of moving cars")

senotunodaopin - east (senotuno - dao - pin, "side of rising sun")

Some of the roots that are most frequently seen as forming compound words are:

ke (person): dalke "leader", maugalke "cook", saltliake "teacher", lelrake "darling"

to (time): senoto "day", tiato "future", moattiaoto "birthday"

lon (surface): dealon "sky", taolon "writing desk", maolon "table", raolon "bed"

lan (collection, gathering): ruolan "book", dinalaogollan "cleaning brush", dorolan "dust", paolan "experience"

hon (animal): kolhon "bird", derabouharahon "sheep", konakanuleahon "bear", ormitahon "wolf"

li ("let"): saltlia "teaches", tiratlia "frees", siatlia "shows"

pa ("make", "cause"): lanatpal "adds", tiatpal "attracts", "attractive", dorpiatpal "cruel"

hi ("say", "tell"): sanhia "agrees", sorthia "answers", louhia "approves", guthia "argues"

and so on.

Personal Pronouns
Sallia personal pronouns can be summarized as follows: In the IIIrd person, mun is translated as "he", and mut as "she"; however, it is very common to use the gender-neutral ke. Te is used with things ("it").

These pronouns can be put in any case; so meo means "my", met means "for me", meli means "with me" and so forth.

Demonstrative Pronouns
Putting words ka "this", kar "that", ho "what", pan "everything", pat "something" and es "nothing" in any of the noun cases yields all sorts of demonstrative pronouns:

kani -- here

kanis -- from here

kal -- this

ka -- such

kaltoni -- now

karatoni -- then

hos -- why?

hoti -- to whom?

hot -- what for?

panni -- everywhere

esni -- nowhere

and so on.

Numbers
Cardinal numbers are grammatically adjectives in Sallia:

nenamut kua -- one girl

kolhoni gea -- two birds

To express ordinal numbers, Sallia puts the same roots into Genitive. They can be put before or after the noun:

he kuo -- first house

saso lon -- third floor

and so on.

The North Wind and the Sun
The North Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger, when a traveler came along wrapped in a warm cloak.

They agreed that the one who first succeeded in making the traveler take his cloak off should be considered stronger than the other.

Then the North Wind blew as hard as he could, but the more he blew the more closely did the traveler fold his cloak around him;

and at last the North Wind gave up the attempt. Then the Sun shined out warmly, and immediately the traveler took off his cloak.

And so the North Wind was obliged to confess that the Sun was the stronger of the two.

Deapinoko e Senotun guthians hoake doroaot, misomun miaotoni al derahul ranotunni.

Kei sanhia danisiat keu kuotoni pal misomun hurat derahul doroakell geakeor.

Deapinoko koumia karo ke kiausanai oi ke koumiaotoni doro misomun huatpuna doro derahul ranotunnit;

''e Deapinoko diratoni danistira paltluau. Karatoni Senotun dersena e misomun hura derahul goatoni.''

E Deapinoko gia salshiat Senotun doroau geakeor.

The Babel Text
1. Now the whole earth had one language and the same words.

Kei panakoro kaltoni alns hiomisu kua e hiolatiu sana.

2. And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.

Heatmiaotoni senotunodaopinnis kei salttia korolonu kororeni Shinaro e heattia karnit.

3. And they said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly." And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar.

''E kei tonathia, ke kuo keti geo: Mei palnt pinapolpeniu e deatliant tuiu ro. E kei lal pinapolpeniu koropenel e koromiraseu penulanasell.''

4. Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.

''Kaltoni kei hia: Mei lotatpalnt heolanu e duaheu al dul dualonni. E mei palnt kinu meiti, mei es latatpalt renit panakoro.''

5. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built.

E Panudalke durattia siat heolanu e duaheu lotatpaerans menomerios.

6. And the Lord said, "Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.

''E Panudalke hians: Siant kei iau keolanel kua, e kei alu hiomisu kua, e ka ia diel tuio kiera palt keios. E esu palthiera keios es kiant kei palt.''

7. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another's speech.

Me durattiant karnit e hitant hiomisu keio, ke kuo es salt ke geo hiau.

8. So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city.

Ka Panudalke latatpal keiu renit panakoro, e kei mirans lotatpalt heolanu.

9. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth. And from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth.

''Ka tu kinera Babilonel, Panudalke hitas karni hiomisu panakoro. E karnis Panudalke latatpal keiu renit panakoro.''