Mišhilli

Phonology
Mišhilli uses an alphabet of 22 letters: A [ɑ, a], B [b], Č [tʃ], D [d], E [e, ɛ], F [f], G [g], H [h] I [i, ɪ], K [k], L [l], M [m], N [n], O [ɔ, o], P [p], R [r] S [s], Š [ʃ], T [t] U [u, ʊ], X [x], Y [j].

Phonotactics
Mišhilli syllables can end either by repetition of the first consonant in the syllable, or in one of the following consonants: f, l, m, n, r, s, š, x and y.

Stress
The stress falls on the penultimate syllable in two cases: 1) when the word ends with a vowel, and 2) when the last two syllables repeat each other. On all other cases, stress falls on the last syllable of the word.

Word Forms
Mišhilli words assume different grammatical forms by changing their first syllable. For example: telefon (a telephone); telelefon (a telephone - accusative), tellefon (of a telephone), etelefon (calls someone over the telephone), etlefon (called someone over the telephone) and so forth. Note that when two identical vowels have to be put next to each other, they contract into one: tel-efon - etle-efon - etlefon.

There are 12 basic grammatical forms in Mišhilli. In Mišhilli textbooks, they are usaully illistrated using the word bar (food):

Noun forms: Verb and Adjective forms: Gerund Adverb

Adjectives
Similarly to many natural languages (e.g. Hebrew), the grammatical form for adjectives in Mišhilli coincides with verbs in present tense.

Adjectives, like verbs, always follow the noun directly. For example:

kurunus imis - the boy goes

kurunus eden - a small boy

Relative pronouns
Mišhilli makes a heavy use of subordinate clauses and relative pronouns. (In that respect it is somewhat similar to French). For example, if several adjectives have to be placed after the noun, or both an adjective and a verb need to be used, you may see relative pronouns kur (who - animate, male), mel (who - animate, female) or ter (which - inanimate) used before the adjective:

Melunus imislasanosos nara layyaserre mel isirloso - A beautiful girl walks in the garden (lit: A girl, who is beautiful, walks in the garden).

Without mel, the same phrase would mean "A girl walks in a beautfiul garden".

Other relative pronouns that you will see rather frequently are tor (which time) and nar (which place).

Objects
Mišhilli is an SVO language. The object always follows the verb directly. For example:

Kurunus isir hurur - The boy sees a house.

Verbs in the 1st and 2nd person are usually written together with the coresponding pronons:

Musisir hurur - I see the house.

Adverbs
Adverbs also follow the verb. When you need to place both an adverb (as well as adverbial modifier or adverbial clause) and an object after the verb, another relative pronoun, a (which - action), is used. It is important to use the relative pronouns consistently; oftentimes dropping them may change the meaning of what you say. For example,

Musulur kururunus isirloso roso - I love a very beautiful boy (the word roso "strongly" is modifying isirloso "beautiful")

Musulur kururunus isirloso a roso - I love the beautiful boy very much (because of a being introduced, the word roso now modifies the action).

To-Infinitive
Mišhilli has two infinities. The first one roughly corresponds to English infinitive with "to" (or German with "zu", or Hebrew with "l-", and so forth) and expresses the target, or future action or state. For example,

Musiris babar - I want to eat

Musiris sisir terer - I want to see that

If the actor for the infinitive is different from the subject of the verb, it is added after the infinitive in genitive. For example,

Musiris babar kurrunus barardonnoresse - I want the boy to eat the bread.

If one wanted to change the word order in this sentence, they would need to use the action-pronoun a:

Musiris babar barardonnoresse a kurrunus - I want the bread to be eaten by the boy

Without par, the same sentence would mean "I want to eat the boy's bread".

Of-Infinitive
The second infinitive in Mišhilli expresses the source, or past action or state. Often (but not always) it corresponds to use of infinitive with "de"/"di" in Romance languages. When it is translated into English, constructions with "of -ing" or "from -ing" are used most frequently. Here are some examples: