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 when the word ends with a vowel. Words that end with a consonant get stressed on their last syllable.

Word Forms
Mišhilli words assume different grammatical forms by changing their first syllable. For example: telefon (a telephone); tetlefon (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 illustrated 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). All these pronouns can assume different word forms, depending on the context in which they are used.

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

Kurunus isir huhru - The boy sees a house.

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

Musisir huhru - I see the house.

Direct and indiect objects expressed by pronouns are also written together with their verbs:

Musisirtutru - I see you

Negative
To add negation to the verb, the postfix me is used. In case of a complex verb, it goes after the first (changing) part of the verb. For example:

isir - sees, isirme - does not see; musisirme - I do not see

etelefon - call over the telephone, etlemefon - did not call; musetlemefontutru - I did not call you.

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 memleunus isirloso roso - I love a very beautiful girl (the word roso "strongly" is modifying isirloso "beautiful")

Musulur memleunus isirloso a roso - I love the beautiful girl 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 sisirtetre - 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 babradonnoresse - 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 babradonnoresse a kurrunus - I want the bread to be eaten by the boy

Without a, 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:

Kurunus iknidoro misislasanosos - The boy is tired of walking

Musulur memleunus akar a sirirlosomelle - I love this girl for her beauty (lit: for her being beautiful)

Gerund
The gerund use in Mišhilli is more restricted to that in English. Most of the time, Mišhilli phrases with a gerund can be translated into Elglish by using a subordinate clause introduced with "that". For example

Kurasar tittirmeturru - He knows that you are not coming.

The subject of the action expressed by the gerund is placed in Genitive after the gerund.

Plural
Plural of nouns is indicated by repeating the first syllable of the word. The repeated part precedes the word and does not take any grammatical forms. For example:

hur - house; hur-hur - houses;

hurru - of the house; hur-hurru - of the houses

Prepositions
Prepositions take the word forms of an adverb, to-infinitive (for moving to or into somehting) or of-invinitive (for moving from a location or a state) and are followed by the noun in genitive. For example,

Musimis nanar hurrutirrisasar - I am going to school

Kur-kurunus itirsasar nara hurrutirrisasar - The boys study at the school.

Mišhilli prepositions maintain a close relationship with verbs. Prepositions are often formed using verb roots; e.g. sasar "about" from asar "knows". Many propositions that indicate place or time can be used stand-alone; in this case they assume verb forms. For example:

Kurunus anar hurrutirrisasar - The boy is at school.

Musanra hurruparra - I have been at work.

Example text

 * 1) The sun shines. Teysummu apar sumum.
 * 2) The sun shone. Teysummu apra sumum.
 * 3) The sun will shine. Teysummu appar sumum.
 * 4) The sun is shining again. Teysummu apar sumum nara torrounum.
 * 5) The sun will shine tomorrow. Teysummu apar sumum nara torrosummuitir.
 * 6) The sun shines brightly.Teysummu apar sumum roso.
 * 7) The bright sun shines. Teysummu summuodor apar sumum.
 * 8) The sun is rising now. Teysummu imisdeder nara torroakar.
 * 9) All the people shouted. Pay kur-kurru ihliroso.
 * 10) Some of the people shouted. Pal kur-kurru ihliroso.
 * 11) Many of the people shouted twice. May kur-kurru ihliroso nara turrutorro.
 * 12) Happy people often shout. Kur-kur torrolos kur ihilroso nara mayyatorro.