Sallia

Phonology
Sallia uses an alphabet of 17 letters: A [ɑ, a] B [b] K [k] D [d] E [e, ɛ] F [f] 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 syllables have one of the following structures: V, VC, CV, CVC and, more rarely, VCC and CVCC. Out of all consonants, only L, M, N, R, S and T can be syllable-final.

Stress
The stress usually falls on the last syllable of the root. For example

suobó river

deahúodéni (deahu + o + de + ni) on the top of the tower

tía (ti + a) arrives

méniot (men + i + ot) about people

men tíasi (ti + a + si) if he comes

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

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

Nunamen duna - The boy plays.

Punase deattia - The tree grows.

Nunaei dunsdana - The children laugh.

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 the sufix -s-, which is introduced before the -a ending. Similarly, the prospective aspect is marked by -t-. Thus,

Miadasobo tia - The train comes/The train arrives

Miadasobo tias - The train has arrived

Miadasobo tiat - The train is going to arrive

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

Me sia miadasobou - I see the train

Miadasobo siera mede - The train is seen by me.

To negate a verb, the prefix s- (se- before vowels and "s") is used:

Me smiat -- I am not going

Me deu skia siate -- I can't see you.

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)

Nouns
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", with passive) -de

Genitive/Posessive ("of") -o

Instrumental/Instructive ("with"/"using", "by") -ul

Dative ("to") -ti

Benefactive ("for", also indicates purpose) -te

Causal ("because of") -se

Conditional ("if") -si

Comitative ("with") -uli

Abessive ("without") -umi

Semblative ("like", "as") -sen

Comparative ("than") -res

Equative/Essive ("same as") -le

Partitive ("of" with amounts) -lo

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

Allative ("to") -nit

Locative ("in") -ni

Ablative ("from") -nis

Perlative ("through") -nist

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

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

inside -one

top -ode

front -oso

bottom -oder

back -osor

neighborhood, place near -oke

away - oker

surface -oten

place outside, around -oner

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

The following suffixes transform other words into location or time indicators

place of -ona

time of -oto

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. Typically they 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 panres -- the most beautiful

Use the Semblative and Comparative cases with superlatives in comparisons:

losia tenosunsen -- beautiful as the sun

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

Ka ia meo hule - This is my house.

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

Deo hu losia - Your house is beautiful.

Gerund
A verb, with its -a ending, can be treated as a gerund. 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.

Here are some examples:

Sia ia kensiale - Seeing is believing

Me ria de miate meuli - I want you to go with me.

Me kia tiate de siateliasi misu meti - I can come if you show me the way (note two gerunds here: tiat "to come" = ti + a + te, and siateliasi "if show" = siateli + a + si)

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

Met tisa koupenani dan - She came, breathing heavily

Met hasa teu men sesiaotoni -- 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.

sulma - to drink (sul - ma, "eat water")

sunoto - day (suno - to, "time of light")

deahu - tower (dea - hu, "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 have to be last, so when one takes a compound word apart, he would find objects placed before verbs (sul - ma), and adjectives before nouns (dea - hu).

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

miadasobo - train (mia - daso - bo, "length of moving cars")

sunotenodeopin - east (sunoteno - deo - pin, "side of rising sun")

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

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

Example text
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.

Duapinoko e Sunoten bethias hoahe doroaot, misomen miaotoni duafeul ranotenni.

Hei sanhia danisiate heu keatoni pal misomen herate durafeu doroahesen buoheres.

Duapinoko koumia ro he kiasen oi he koumiaotoni doro misomen featepena doro durafeu ranotenni;

e Duapinoko diratoni daonenistira palteleu. Karatoni Sunoten dursuna e misomen hera durafeu boatoni.

E Duapinoko bia salsehiate Sunoten doroau buaheres.