Nuktaq

Setting
Nutavik is an a-priori language created by John Stevens. Its grammar is inspired by Welsh, which the author can speak fluently. It is spoken by the Nutavik elves, a tribe of about 300 forest elves who live in the kingdom of Unaasseq. The elves live a traditional and simple life and have no modern technology, so their language lacks many modern words you'll find in English. The Nutavik don't like borrowing words from other languages, so when they need to create a new word they combine existing morphemes together to create the word rather than borrowing from another language. Nutavik has a fairly simple grammar with few irregularities. The Nutavik originally had their own script but in recent years have adopted the Latin alphabet. Nutavik has a moderately small sound inventory. It has a lot of sounds that are foreign to the English speaker, such as the nasal schwa /ə̃ /, the uvular consonants /q χ ʁ /, the implosive /ɗ /, and the lateral fricative /ɬ/.

Phonology
Nutavik has a phonemic inventory consisting of 14 consonants and four vowels. The language has no labial consonants at all. The consonant inventory includes three plosives (/t k q/), one implosive (/ɗ/), five fricatives (/s z ʂ ɬ x χ /), two nasals (/n ŋ/), and two approximants (/l ʁ /). Nutavik has a symmetrical four-vowel system consisting of three oral vowels, /i a u/, and a nasal schwa, /ə̃ /. The close vowels /i/ and /u/ become allophonically lowered to [e] and [o] respectively when occurring adjacent to a uvular consonant (/q/, /χ / or /ʁ /), and this is shown in the orthography. There is no phonemic vowel length and there are no diphthongs. The plosive consonants are always pronounced as unaspirated. /l/ is realized as a tap [ɾ ] when occurring word-medially between two vowels. The velar fricative /x/ becomes palatal [ç] after the front vowel /i/ (including its allophone [e]).

Consonants
Nutavik has the following consonants:

Vowels
Nutavik has the following vowels (allophones are in brackets):

Phonotactics
All roots (including affixes) begin in a consonant and also end in a consonant. Consonant clusters can occur root-medially and root-finally, but not root-initially. Root-medial clusters can be up to three consonants in length, while root-final clusters never exceed two consonants in length. Vowel clusters are not permitted.

Monosyllabic roots have the structure CVC(C), disyllabic roots have the structure CV(C)C(C)VC(C), and trisyllabic roots have the structure CV(C)C(C)V(C)C(C)VC(C). No roots exceed three syllables in length.

<p style="line-height: normal;">Root-medial two-consonant clusters can be of the following types: “plosive + plosive or voiceless fricative”, “voiceless fricative + plosive or approximant”, “voiced fricative + implosive or approximant”, “nasal + fricative or approximant”, or “approximant + any consonant type”. Three-consonant clusters in roots are always of type “approximant or voiceless fricative + plosive + voiceless fricative”. Root-final two-consonant clusters are always of type “approximant or voiceless fricative + plosive”. A vast number of additional two- and three-consonant clusters that don’t occur in root words are possible in compound words across root boundaries.

<p style="line-height: normal;">Morphemes never begin in the consonant /ɬ/. /ɗ/ does not occur in any syllable codas, and nasal consonants do not occur in root-final codas.

Basic Grammar
The grammar of Nutavik has few irregularities and is fairly simple, and so is easy to learn. Nutavik is a predominantly isolating language which uses particles and prepositions rather than inflection to convey the meaning of grammatical case, number, mood, tense, aspect and voice. Nutavik is strongly right-branching and is prepositional rather than postpositional. Word order is strictly Subject-Verb-Object. Nutavik has no grammatical gender. Tense and aspect are indicated simultaneously by particles preceding the verb. There are three tenses (past, present, future) and three aspects (perfective, habitual, continuous/progressive). There are five evidential paradigms (visual sensory, nonvisual sensory, inferential, reportative, assumed) that are indicated by suffixes. Nutavik has three grammatical numbers: singular, dual and plural. Each root word in Nutavik belongs to a default part of speech. Particles are used to turn root words into a different part of speech from their default. Nutavik makes no distinction between adjectives and adverbs.