Emdeni

Phonotactics
Stress is always on the penultimate syllable.

Vowels can be both short and long. Long vowels can be written either with an accent (á é í ó oú ú) or with a double letter (aa, ee, ii, oo, oou, uu)

Spelling changes
There are two ways a word can change it's spelling:

Sheema
Sheema is a change happening at the beginning of a syllable. It happens because of endings attached to the syllable which change it's structure.

It only happens to letters n, l and s:

n --> ny

l --> ly

s --> sh

Theema
Theema is a change happening a the beginning of a word. It is affected by the previous word in such a way that the ending consonant of the first word drops out the primary vowel of the second word. The two words must be written together, with a hyphen (-) between them.

Verbal nouns
Verbs don't have an infinitive form, but rather a verbal noun is used as a stem.

Verbal nouns are divided into four groups based on their ending letter: -a, -i, -ou and a consonantal ending.

Most of the verbs belong in that group, although some are also irregular and have their own way of forming tenses from verbal nouns.

Present tense is formed in the following way:
 * 1) If the verbal noun ends with -a then nothing changes. calya(loving) --> calya
 * 2) If the verbal noun ends with a consonant, an -a is added. clis(crying) --> clisa
 * 3) If the verbal noun ends with an -ou, then ha /ça/ is added. bou(fearing) --> bouha
 * 4) If the verbal nouns ends with an -i, it is exchanged for an -a. ghínyi(knowing) --> ghínya
 * 5) If the verbal noun ending with -i is monosyllabic, the -i is lenghtened. gli(building) --> glí

Personal pronouns
Personal pronouns are as follows:

éme --> I

éte --> You, singular, informal

én --> He/She --> Used to talk about people and living beings

éa --> It --> Used to talk about things

es --> He/She/It --> Used to talk about dead people and things long gone

éméni --> We

éméti --> You, plural, informal

éni --> They --> Used to talk about people and living beings

éana --> They --> Used to talk about things

ési --> They --> Used to talk about dead people and things long gone

isa --> You, singular, formal

isáni --> You, plural, formal

Genders
There are four distinct grammatical genders:
 * 1) Human ( only words connected to humans, such as professions, titles, nationalities etc.)
 * 2) Natural (Animals, natural forces, plants, and other things considered "natural")
 * 3) Mechanical (Anything considered "unnatural" or "manmade")
 * 4) Dead (Encompassing dead people and things long gone)

Articles
There are eight distinct articles, two for each gender: The articles always specify a concrete person, or a thing.
 * 1) Ét --> Human, singular
 * 2) Étes --> Human, plural
 * 3) Éph --> Natural, singular
 * 4) Éphes --> Natural, plural
 * 5) Él --> Mechanical, singular
 * 6) Éles --> Mechanical, plural
 * 7) Éd --> Dead, singular
 * 8) Édes -->Dead, plural

The articles are always placed after the noun they accompany.

Cases
Emdeni has four cases. Subjective, Possessive, Objective, and Postpositional.

Subjective denotes the subject, the doer of an action, Possessive denotes the possessor, or to whom something belongs, and Objective denotes the object, or the recipient of the action.

Postpositional is a bit more complicated, and will be explained later on.

The Possessive case is formed by two simple rules: Note that the prefix is separated from the stem by a hyphen, and is never capitalized.
 * 1) If the subject begins with a consonant, the prefix eme- is added
 * 2) If the subject begins with a vowel, the prefix, emen- is added.

The objective case is formed similarly: Just like with the possessive, the prefix is never capitalized, and is separated by a hyphen.
 * 1) If the object begins with a consonant, the prefix ava- is added.
 * 2) If the object begins with a vowel, the prefix avan- is added.

Basic Sentences
Sentences follow the VSO order, meaning that sentences start with verbs.

If we compare the english sentence "He is making his bed" which begins with the subject, followed by the verb and then the object.

He - Én

To make - Gli

Bed - Saba

The sentence in Emdeni would be "Glí én emen-én ava-saba él."

The object needs an article, because it is known whose bed it is.

Personal pronouns in object form
All personal pronouns have a special object form :

éme --> aváme

éte --> aváte

én --> aván

éa --> avá

es --> avás

éméni --> avámi

éméti --> aváti

éni --> aváni

éana --> avána

ési --> avási

isa --> avísa

isáni --> avísani

I fear him. --> Bouha éme aván.

I love him. --> Calya éme aván.

Adjective placement
Adjective placement not a complex matter. One just needs to follow the two rules : The adjective is always added as a suffix or a prefix to the noun (separated by a hyphen)
 * 1) If an adjective is a personal opinion or a color, it goes after the noun.
 * 2) If the adjective specifies the object (like size, age ...) it goes before the noun.

For example:

I am building a red house --> Glí éme ava-cana-lapi.

House --> Cana

Red --> Lapi

I see the old house. --> Mána éme ava-ada-cana él.

Seeing --> Mána

Old --> Ada

"To be" and "To have"
Emdeni has neither the "to be" nor the "to have" verb, instead a bit stranger construction is used.

The verb "to be" is dropped altogether:

Eeme bugou. --> I (am) a boy.

Een hiina --> He/She (is) a woman.

The verb "to have" is pretty similar, it just requires an object in the objective case.

Eeme ava-cana. --> I (have) a house.

Een ava-bugoulaa --> He/She has a boyfriend.

Plural
The plural is formed by adding a suffix -nii.

If the word ends in a consonant, the sufix is -inii.

It causes the sheema.

eemeeni nyoutinii --> We are men. (man --> nout)