Đesniu

General information
'Đesniu' (or Thesnian) is a language isolate which originates on the Thesnian Islands. The language developed for centuries in isolation until Goidelic tribes first landed near the port town of Baldawir ushering in a golden era of trade between the two ethnic groups which lasted centuries. There have been many Celtic influences on Thesnian vocabulary - however, many efforts were made during the First Celto-Thesnian War (Mora Cadwa Uđan, or First Great War, in Thesnian) to remove Celtic influences from the language.

Thesnian is a highly agglutinative language. Prepositions are few - instead there is a developed system of suffixes and prefixes which index prepositional meaning. The language is, like English, a SVO language.

Alphabet
Aa Bb Cc Dd Đđ (Đð) Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Rr Ss 'Tt 'Þþ Uu Úú Vv Ww Yy

NB. 'Sc' dentoes / ʃ/; 'ng' denotes / ŋ/. 'Y' can come to represent either /j/ or / ɪ/ depending on the word. Example: yadaroh (last week) is pronounced /'jadaroç/, whereas, ysađysca (in the town, city) is pronounced / ɪs'a ð ɪ' ʃa/.

Verbs
All infinitives end in -en. Verbs are conjugated depending on the person which means personal pronouns can be ommitted in the nominative case. In the present tense, you remove -en from the infinitive to give you the stem and then add the following endings:

1st person singular          -em          plural          -emye

2nd person singular          -ec          plural          -esce

3rd person singular           -eo          plural          -eos

To form the past tense (no differentiation between perfect, imperfect or pluperfect), one must simply add -dac to the end of a conjugated verb form [NB: irregular pronunciation in that final 'c' pronounced /x/]:

1st person singular          -emdac          plural          -emyedac

2nd person singular          -ecdac          plural          -escedac

3rd person singular           -eodac          plural          -eosdac

To form the future tense (the idea of intention, whether or not one completes the action), one must add the following endings to the end of verb stem:

1st person singular          -emú          plural          -emyú

2nd person singular          -ecú          plural          -escú

3rd person singular           -eyú          plural          -eosú

There are very few irregularities in terms of verb conjugation. The main one is "to be, to exist" - þion which is conjugated as follows:

present -     þiom, 'þioc, 'þiot                   'þiomye, 'þiosce, þiotos

past -          þiomac, 'þiowac, 'þiođac     'þiomyac, 'þioscac, þiotoscac

future -        þiomú, 'þiocú, 'þiotú             'þiomyú, 'þioscú, þiotosú

Nouns
Nouns in Đesniu do not bear grammatical genders. Indefinite nouns have no article. Definite nouns are shown by adding prefix - pa-. There are two types of plural - a plural specifically assigned for 2 nouns (dual plural), and another for 3 or more of said noun (multiple plural). The dual plural is formed by adding -(a)rđu to the end of a noun ('a' included if pronunciation is difficult with only 'r', there are rules associated with facilitating pronunciation). The multiple plural is formed by adding -(a)r.

E.g., đanda - letter, a letter          pa-đanda - the letter          đandar - (some) letters (3 or more)          đandarđu - 2 letters (indefinite)          pa-đandarđu - the 2 letters

The indefinite forms of the noun are used a lot more frequently that the definite forms. The definite forms are only used for clarity. If, from context, a certain noun is easily identifiable, the indefinite form is used. For example, if you are discussing 'the earth' (era), you will not need to use the definite article as it is clear what you are referring to as there is only one 'earth' - 'the earth has seven continents' would be: Era ygeo riha morinar.

Adjectives
Adjectives tend to end in a in Thesnian and come before the noun. Generally, two or more verbs do not follow each other. Instead a longer noun is created with the main adjective coming before the newly formed noun. For example, blue sky = valada inna; clear blue sky = pescca valadinna; big dog = mora đedano; big, black dog = mora cirhđedano or cirha morđedano, depending on what is the more important attribute.

Nouns can easily be made adjectives by adding "đa" to the end. For example, winter - yihilda, wintry weather - ''yihildađa amscyro. Some words will add "yđa" to aid pronunciation, e.g., left (n., adv.) - pulug becomes pulugyđa'' as an adjective.

Adverbs
There is an 'adverbalisation' suffix - "-oh" - which can be added to nouns, verbs and adjectives to create adverbs, the passive and other constructions. They can also bear the meaning "by means of", "by", "through", or "for" and generally come directly after the verb it is describing.

Denominal adverbalisation - normally with nouns relating to time, tools, transport, machines, etc. Examples: hiscar (centuries) becomes hiscaroh (for centuries), auto (car) - autoh (by car),

Vocabulary
=== ===

Suffixes
-ob - in, on, to (NB: -obob is colloquially used in modern Thesnian to refer to "inside", used mainly for clarity as there is sometimes confusion between meanings of "on, on top of" and "in, inside of")

-ys - possessive, of (NB: 'y' is ommitted with some specific words, e.g. calla - girl, callas - the girl's, of the girl)

-oh - adverbalisation, causative (i.e. making an adjective or verbal form an adverb or showing 'by means of' when used with a noun, pronounced /oç/)

-ut - until, by (time) (NB: "u" replaces any final vowel)

Example text
General introduction of this page translated into Thesnian:

Đesniu þiot isolda þđunga donscieda þoh Đesniui ilyenarob. Pa-đunga tinscweleodac hiscaroh isolaob túrlinggalut Gudalici scribarys uđani bordbalave Baldawirys, bo hycmaenye sol þatsca scydivatys pa-eđnetscribarđuwac bo durenye hiscar. Þiođac multa Geldecsa envlensar Đesniui viaharob, scu multa bađewudor yeoda þeo Morai Cadwareng Uđan, mur hiđaulen Geldecsa envlensar đungayesc.

===Đesniu þiot arđoh-aglutaniva đunga. Ramviahar  þiotos bega - aldu  þiot tinscweleoda þa sistema aruwirorys ag maswirorys bo indesccenye sawinyú ramviaharys. Đunga  þiot SVOa đunga mey Engelsciu. ===