Hulunhäle

Hulun'äle (/hulun̥a:le/) is a language spoken in the nation of Kerajamon'at'linu. It is known to be one of the oldest known languages that are still spoken by many living on the many islands on the 'All Lands' (In Hulun'äle: Atojiatowo). It is known for being, syntactically, one of the easiest languages to learn due to massive amounts of simplification, at least in its standard form. Its dialects, however, still retain many features of irregularity from its predecessor.

Classification and Dialects
For clarification, this page will be talking about Classical (Standard) Hulun'äle for simplicity (however Hulun'äle's newer dialects will be mentioned).

Classical Hulun'äle was derived from the late language Huluonasuwolasonka (Lit: Gift of speech). Huluonasuwolasonka diverged into many dialects, however the capital dialect of Classical Hulun'äle was the language most revered, as it is considered the language of the many deities. However, the capital dialect was regularised to the extent where there are almost no instances of historical spelling, irregular conjugations, etc. This was done by the royalty in order to make standard Hulun'äle easier to learn, as the nobility wants to make dialects apart from the capital dialect virtually extinct. The dialects (collectively known as Huluqölamon’ataroke) were seen as the dialects of the common people, because they were mostly spoken in the southern island (Kerajatojiatokani) which was the island where the lower classes mostly lived in.

As a result, many dialects went extinct and the few remaining are mainly spoken by the elderly whom are illiterate. 'Uncivil' dialects have no official capacity in the government. All texts written in the Huluqölamon'altaroke were burnt in a fire to prevent people from reconstructing their traditional dialects.

Phonotactics
Front and back vowels cannot co-exist in the same word unless a neutral vowel is in the next syllable or the syllable before it. In its romanisation system, an umlaut (¨) is placed over a vowel to lengthen the vowel.

Writing System
The nobility threw out the old pictographic writing system and replaced it with an alphabet called 'Ts'atekamu' (Lit. Common script). The letters were loosely based off of the old pictographic system and is written from right to left.

Nouns
Nouns usually end in an a, except if the word is a compound word. Note: 'mon'a' is the adjective marker. 'Täpa' is already a word, so even though 'täpamon'a' should be an adjective, it is one of the rare times where the adjective acts as a noun.

Examples
Jurna - Day

Atojia - Land

Toma - Place

Fawulena - Woman

Suwonka - Mango

Täpamon’a - Plant

Exceptions to the usual are when the noun is describing a part of the body, in which case the ending cannot be predicted as this part of the vocabulary was much less affected by changes from Huluonasuwolasonka to Classical Hulun'äle.

Examples
Ts'ame - Eye

Part (of body) - Ts'ï

Nouns only change their ending depending on the case. There are no such things as genders in Classical Hulun'äle, though some linguists believe that in Huluonasuwolasonka, there were three declensions, Animate person, Animate animal and Inanimate. This is hotly debated and is generally not accepted.

Verbs
Verbs are conjugated depending on their person and tense. Some linguists believe that Huluonasuwolasonka had a much more complex system of plurality and tenses, however this theory is highly debatable.

In order to make the language easier to learn for common people, King Atopiko II purged all irregularities in verbs except of the verb 'h'lane' (to be) in the standard language. However, in the various dialects of Hulun'äle, irregularities still do exist. The pronoun is also attached to the end of the word after the verb as Hulun'äle's dialects are generally not pro-drop. The only pro-drop dialect remaining is the dialect of Täpotetoma. When two or more verbs in the sentence exist, the second verb usually is V2 (unless not in VSO word order), uses the simple present conjugation and drops the pronoun.

When there are brackets, it represents the conjugation of 'H'lane'. The conjugation always reduplicates the first syllable (except in 1st person conjugations) as this was what conjugations were in the Proto-Language.

E.g. Tisera fo n'aja n'ane suwolasonkauke kosuma ko ? - Did you want to eat my durian? (More accurately: Didst thou want to eat my durian?)

Literally: Want (simple past 2nd person) you (informal singular) my durian (accusative) eat (simple present 2nd person)

(Note: Word order is generally VSO, however due to cases, more unusual constructions exist. Kosumako n'ane suwolasonka diserafon'aja? is also grammatically correct.)