Nolikan

The Nolikan language (native name: Nolikine čarg) is ethnic language of the Nolikan people, as well as sacred language of Nurhabim's religion. It is a descendant of Old Kusairan. The standard form is based on language from the so-called golden era of the Ankawi empire (3rd - 9th century); as a result modern (28th century) spoken dialects are very divergent.



Vowels
The vowels /i u/ are always pronounced, but in unstressed open syllables before /j w/ they can be deleted - miyan 'dark' is more often pronounced than. Remaining three vowels are found in pairs of allophones: in open syllables and before a nasal consonant,  everywhere else. Stressed /a/ is always, however.

Nolikan has two diphthongs, /aj aw/, in Latin transcription written as.

Consonants
The consonants in brackets exist only as allophonic variants

There is obviously some allophonic variation, as described below:
 * 1) A glottal stop occurs predictably before an initial vowel, e.g. anki 'pure' . It may be considered phonemic or not.
 * 2) are dental;  are laminal alveolar
 * 3) /n/ assimilates to the place of articulation of following stop

Stress
Nolikan has a dynamic stress, which is phonemic after loss of vowel length. For example

Phonotactics
Primary syllable structure of Nolikan is CV(C)(C), where /p/ cannot occur in coda position. The following coda consonant clusters are allowed:


 * r l + obstruent: warg 'wolf', karz 'kiss', nilj 'hail'
 * fricative + plosive: maxk '4', azušt 'salt', likazd 'tear'
 * nd: hand 'flower'

Geminates occur chiefly between morphemes and in loanwords.

Sandhi
There are some voicing assimilations in Nolikan. Voiced obstruents are devoiced before voiceless ones (ginabxaaz 'vineyard' ), but there is no anticipatory voicing (cakbinat 'only daughter' is pronounced ). Forms of the verb de 'to be' are pronounced with a after a voiceless obstruent, as in Naus de 's/he is nice' pronounced. It may be caused by the fact that the verb is usually unstressed.

There are also other, unpredictable but mostly unwritten assimilations. For example dastdarwan 'mental work' is pronounced and biškšiyak 'intestines' -.

Grammar
Nolikan is a fusional language.

Noun
Nouns are inflected for case and number. Plurals almost always end in -ak

Nolikan has 5 cases: ergative, absolutive, dative, genitive and adverbial. The dative marks inalienable possession and indirect objects, and the adverbial is used to derive adverbs from nouns. There is also an unstressed vocative particle ya, as in ya Waho 'O God'.

There is no morphological distinction between nouns and adjectives. Nouns used as modifiers are always in absolutive singular, as in mal karz 'sweet kiss', ergative: mal karzal, genitive plural: mal karzne.

Declensions
Declension I – nouns ending in -a - čida 'day'

Declension II – nouns ending in a consonant - sabax 'dog'

Nouns that end in č j have -ene in dative plural and -ili in the ergative. Another irregularity concerns the noun nan 'mother', which has endings -ok -oš in absolutive and ergative plural.

declension III – nouns in vowels other than /a/ - mabu 'grandmother'

The noun mek 'people' has its own declension. It occurs in the plural only.

Relational nouns
There are officially no prepositions in Nolikan, because genitive with a so-called relational noun is used instead. They can be divided into two groups.

First group contains seemingly ordinary nouns, which used in the adverbial become equivalents of Indo-European prepositions. In other cases, however, they have other meanings. Most of Nolikan relational nouns belong here:

Second group contains invariable lexical items, which could be called prepositions as well. However, native speakers feel that they belong to the same class as the words enumerated above and Nolikans do not care about what dixkmek linguists have to say about their sacred language.

When it does not make the sentence unintelligible, relational nouns may be omittted. "I climb the mountain" can be translated as ahauha yu tačan', or – especially in colloquial speech - ahauha tačan.

Pronouns
Possessive pronouns are never used before nouns; the genitive is used instead.

Equivalents of modal verbs
Modal verbs per se do not exist in Nolikan. Certain nouns in the adverbial case are used instead:


 * koj - willing
 * nal koja cilkut 'I want to sing' (literally: 'I will sing willingly')
 * agib - able
 * taul agiba jingarawa 'He is able to read'
 * luhat - necessary
 * či so luhata mandit 'You have to eat it' (literally: 'your necessarily it will be eaten')
 * xamič - correct
 * la xamiča jiriwaša 'You should not sleep' (said to a person which took a pill preventing sleeping)
 * dibal - legal
 * la dibala jiriwaša 'You must not sleep'

Numerals
Nolikan uses cardinal, ordinal, partitive and multiplicative numerals.

Numbers from 11 to 29 are expressed with compounds, as cašod (from cak+šod) '11' or maxkajed '24'. The powers of ten are: ganat '100', tehri '1000', warčod '10 000', warganat '100 000' and wartehri '1 000 000'. Other numbers are expressed as sums, using the conjunction wa 'and': ganat wa xajodak wa do '172'.

Some simple have their own names: nisib '1/2', burtu '1/3', pakawa '1/4', layux '1/5' i caldi '1/10'. Other fractions are expressed with numerator in absolutive and denominator in genitive: šiga tahibo '3/8' (literally, 'three of eight').

In multidigit number names, all elements except the names of powers of ten receive the ordinal or multiplicative suffix, as in maxk ganattu wa šigodu wa mot '431 times'.

The numeral mot 'once' means also 'alone', and dautu 'twice' can mean 'as a couple'.

After cardinal numerals, nouns are used in the singular (xaje bur 'seven cities'), although the plural can be used to express the notion of a collective (warčodak darwamak 'myriads of workers').

Derivational morphology
Suffixation is the most common derivational process. Most common suffixes are given below:


 * -m – added to a verbal stem to form name of an agent
 * kumle 'to listen' -> kumlim 'listener'


 * -ji used to form nomina actionis from the perspective of the object:
 * moswa 'to defeat' -> moswaji 'being defeated'


 * /a/ infix (not used in the athematic conjugation) used to form nomina actionis from the perspective of object:
 * karzi 'to kiss' -> karz 'kiss'
 * pahri 'to die' -> pahar 'death' (/hr/ is not allowed in coda)
 * čilko 'to sing' -> čilkaw 'singing'


 * -ad – added to the previous derivation, forms names of objects:
 * juke 'to hunt' -> jukay 'hunting' -> jukayad 'game animal'


 * -dan (with -tan and -an as variants) form abstract nouns:
 * zibo 'to believe' -> zibudan 'faith'
 * naus 'nice' -> naustan 'benevolence'
 * amlij 'poor' -> amlijan 'poverty'


 * -zir, -ar i -hal form place names:
 * nuda 'to wash' -> nudazir 'bathroom'
 * mend 'house' -> mendar 'inhabited area'
 * sange 'smoke' -> sangehal 'chimney'


 * -i (-ni after a vowel) forms names of inhabitants:
 * Yoked -> Yokedi
 * Šilkarya -> Šilkaryani
 * the same suffix forms names of people according to their age or disability:
 * došod '12' -> došodi '12-year-old'
 * xiwart 'tuberculosis' -> xiwarti 'a man with tuberculosis'


 * -ata forms names of occupations:
 * jiya 'sheep' -> jiyata 'shepherd'
 * awcig 'cake' -> awcigata 'baker'


 * The same suffix is often used in pejoratives:
 * bišk 'belly' -> biškata 'fat'
 * aryax 'prostitute' -> aryaxata 'man who frequents brothels'


 * -aštu forms names of ideologies and sciences:
 * četik 'free' -> četikaštu 'liberalism'
 * zilco 'to build' -> zilcuwaštu 'architecture'


 * -ade forms names of materials:
 * mijan 'pig' -> mijnade 'pork'
 * tolg 'tree' -> tolgade 'wood'


 * -nga forms tool names:
 * bizde 'to fight' -> bizdinga 'weapon'
 * nurba 'to light' -> nurbanga 'lightbulb'


 * -wa forms inchoatives:
 * jire 'to sleep' -> jiriwa 'to fall asleep'


 * -ze means finishing an acvtivity:
 * jire 'to sleep' -> jirize 'to awaken'


 * -ba forms verb of aim:
 * nur 'light' -> nurba 'to light'


 * -je means using something:
 * jebax 'throat' -> jebaxje 'to shout, literally: to use the throat'


 * -ča and -či added to (often shortened) nominal stems form diminutives:
 * pilaj 'heart' -> pilča 'little heart'
 * Sometimes it signifies small size only, without any emotional component:
 * nepul 'honey' -> nepulči 'honeybee'

The suffixes -ba -go have also variants -iba -igo, used to prevent complicated consonant clusters.

The only really productive prefix is mo-, used to negate nouns, e.g. moanki 'impure', mopahrim 'immortal'.

Nolikan has also many compound words, especially tatpurusas, cf. duštsabax 'dachshund' (literally: hole-dog). Verb-noun compounds are also productive, e.g. azarraxpo 'toad' (literally: sing-frog), as are compound with relational nouns akašangul 'forbidden' (literally: law-outside).

Reduplication is also productive, but is not strictly a derivational process. It is used to expressed emphasis, more often in colloquial and poetic language.


 * ni pana 'above me' - ni panana 'high, high above me'.
 * otug 'stupid' - otutug 'totally moronic'

Syntax
Nolikan uses SOV word order and is consistently head-final. Yes/no questions are formed by placing mu before the sentence, wh-questions with interrogative ke 'what', kam 'who' czy kaye 'where'. Nolikan has no wh-movement, unlike English:

The logic behind sentence formation is also different than in English. In the English sentence The cat hears the mouse the cat is considered more active, but in Nolikan it's the mouse who causes the cat to hear (Muryo angusal kumle).
 * Šariban ke da? 'What is love?'
 * Čukwabil kam pahraga? 'Whom did the barbarian kill?'

Conjunctions
Among most popular ones are:
 * ahno 'so': tawa la kord jit ahno otug da 'he has no head, so he is stupid' – used mainly to clarify learned and idiomatic expression
 * ašt 'because': nal kel tehma ašt waršib jat 'I drink water because of heat'
 * bil 'in order to': jolun bil bizdin 'I live to fight'
 * sax 'but': la nokri da, sax arzu 'It's no hawk, it's an eagle'
 * ul 'or': četikan ul pahar 'Freedom or death'
 * wa 'and': axčin wa binat 'Boy and girl'
 * la... wa... 'Neither... nor...': la cidaha wa horo 'Neither in the day nor in the night'
 * ter 'if': Ter la koja darwat, la mandih 'If you don't want to work, don't eat'

Subordinate clauses
They generally do not exist in Nolikan. Participles are used instead:


 * Nal pilgewaka mend laban da 'The house, which I have built, is white', literally: 'By-me built house...'.

Where participles cannot be used, paratactic clauses are found:


 * Mend, di Xasib jolawa, laban da 'The house, where Khaseeb lives, is white', literally 'House, in [it] Khaseeb lives...'.

There is no morphological marker of subordination. One of the sentences ([Sawa] di Xasib jolawa) is placed inside the other (Mend laban da).

Writing system
Nolikan has its own syllabary, based on the Yoketian syllabary, which was created from earlier ideograms. For example the syllable  is written using a descendant of ancient Yoketian hieroglyph for sheep (ya'ak). Each CV syllable has its own unique glyph. More complex syllables are written using combinations of two or three glyphs, as in maxk, written .