Akhaz

Akhaz is an inflecting language based on trilitteral roots, as in Semitic languages. There are 5 grammatical cases used in Akhaz: nominative, genitive, accusative, intrumental and vocative; 5 grammatical moods: indicative, imperative, conditional, energetic and gerundive; 4 tenses: future, present, preterite and past progressive; 2 voices: active and passive; 2 genders: masculine and feminine; 2 numbers: singular and plural (although archaic dual number is sometimes used). Sentence structure in Akhaz is extreme VSO - main verb always preceeds everything in a sentence, even interrogative particles. It's a pro-drop language. =Setting= Akhaz is spoken by Dwarves (uli Akhazar) on the world of Soil, which I created in 2008 as a setting for my books. After some time I realized I'd need whole conculture built for them, together with language, which I started in autumn of 2008. After many, many revisions, I decided to place Akhaz in the Internet, so that it won't be changed every time I'd forget it for few days and decide to put random changes in it to look cooler. Since then, Akhaz enjoys time of stability not seen before. =Basic Grammar=

Pronunciation
stops:/p b t d k g ʔ/_<'p b t d k g h'>

aspirated stops:/pʰ bʰ tʰ dʰ kʰ gʰ/_<'ph bh th dh kh gh'>

fricatives:/v s z ʃ x χ/_<'v s z sh h h'>

aspirated fricatives:/vʰ zʰ/_<'vh zh'>

nasals:/m mʰ n nʰ/_<'m mh n nh'>

trill and tap:/r rʰ ɾ ɾʰ/_<'r rh'>

laterals:/l lʰ/_<'l lh'>

approximants:/j/_<'j'>

stressed vowels:/a ɛ ɪ ɔ ʊ/_<'a e i o u'>

unstressed vowels:/ɐ ə ɨ o u/_<'a e i o u'>

Foreigners usually realize aspirations as consonant + /χ/. Consonants that don't aspirate can't end roots.

Consonants can't follow an aspirated consonant - the only exceptions are /'z, s, m, n, r, l'/ and only if they are followed by a vowel.

Neither vowel clusters nor diphthongs are allowed; if they are required by grammar laws, [ʔ] is inserted between 2 vowels making them.

Stress
Stress usually falls on the last syllable of word in nouns and on the last syllable of root in verbs. Syllable is considered a root syllable if vowel making it is fully encircled by root consonants. In adjectives and adverbs, stress falls on -d suffix.

Noun
Nouns have 2 genders (maculine and feminine), 2 numbers (singular and plural) and 5 cases (nominative, genitive, accusative, intrumental and vocative), which are marked with case endings and changes in the definite article. Nouns have different case endings depending on gender and animacy (male only).

Role of each case
Akhaz nouns are declined – that is, the ending of the noun changes to reflect its function in the sentence. Each case has a large group of verbs and prepositions after which it must be used, the only exception being Vocative.
 * The nominative case indicates the subject of the sentence, for example ul khzur means "the dwarf".
 * The accusative case indicates the direct object of the sentence, for example Zaka za dargaj means "I see a tunnel", where za is the subject and dargaj is the object.
 * The genitive case mainly indicates possession, for example khzurk ul armad/ul armad khzurk is "the gold of a dwarf " or "the dwarf's gold". However, it also indicates partitive nouns, location and an indirect object of a verb, so more appropriate translation of khzurk ul armad would be "the gold to a dwarf" or even "the gold on a dwarf". Still, possession is main function of this case and other meanings require prepositions to clarify their usage. It also serves as Akhaz adverbial case, as shown in the table below.
 * The vocative case is used for direct address, for example Khumalzadan!.
 * The instrumental case indicates an instrument used to achieve something, for example Ruhin (khe) ultum rhinuza, "he is writing with the chisel"/"he is writing by means of the chisel", where rhinuza is the instrumental form of rhinu.

Masculine
Masculine nouns are those that use ul as definite article and ends in all consonants except "t". There are 2 declension types for masculine nouns: strong and weak. If noun depicts something that is alive (machines included) then it follows strong declesion. Things that are inanimate follow weak declension. Weak declension can also be used for animate objects to achieve vulgar meaning.

Strong declension
There are 7 strong endings: ak, az, im, an, kim, um, om.

Irregural strong declension
Here irregularity is caused by last k in genitive, which gains aspiration and changes to kh, rather than adds additional k to the word. All male nouns whose root ends on k and are animate decline in this way. However, if in Nominative noun ends in kh, normal -ak is added.

Here irregularity is caused by the fact that noun uses build-in-root m rather than adds additional suffix to the word. This causes whole plural to be irregural. All male nouns whose root ends on m and are animate follow this declension. There are also nouns of much greater degree of irregularity, for istance khzur - dwarf (as a race of dwarves, not small human).

Here irregularity is caused by broken plural form, that is, a plural form that changes internal set of vowels to mark its plurality. Broken plurals behave like singular nouns, save for Vocative case, where they take average plural ending.

Weak declension
There are 7 weak endings: i, u, e, im, ak, um, o. Irreguralities are very rare in weak declension, because of lack of consonants that could mess up. Karak is rare example, but all male nouns whose root ends in k and are inanimate decline in this way.

Feminine
Feminine nouns are those that use ult as definite article and end in vowel or "t". There is only 1 type of declension for feminine nouns. Feminine nouns retain vowels they're ending on while taking case postfixes.

Irregural feminine declension
Here irregularity is seen only in Vocative case, and is caused by noun ending on u, which makes it take -a postfix, rather than -u. All feminine nouns ending on u follow this declension.

Here irregularity is caused by noun ending on a t instead of a vowel. This changes Genitive case completely. All feminine nouns ending on t follow this type of declension.

Definite articles
Akhaz has 3 definite articles: "ul" for singular masculine, "ult" for singular feminine and "uli" for plural of both. All those articles undergo declension to correspond to the noun's case. There are no indefinite articles in Akhaz, so "gold" and "a gold" are spelled the same.

Definite articles can also serve as polite pronouns; that is, "ul" for male second and third person singular, "ult" for female second and third person singular, and "uli" for second and third person plural.

Pronouns
Pronouns' special feature is that they don't undergo declension for Vocative case.

Personal pronouns
Table's so big that I split it on two parts: singular and plural pronouns. Here are all forms of singular personal pronouns:

And here are all forms of plural personal pronouns:

Demonstrative pronouns
There are 3 types of demonstratives in Akhaz, as apposed to English 2: near (dak = this); further, but near the person you are talking to (zag = that); and far from both speakers (gazad = Middle-English yonder). All those pronouns share unique type of inflection.

Nouns connected by root to those pronouns are: uduk - here; uzug - there; ugzad - very there.

Dual number
Dual number is very rare in Akhaz, preserved only for things that come naturally in pairs, such as eyes, ears or parents. However, even in these nouns dual number is continously pushed back by plural. Masculine and feminine nouns differ in declension in Gentive, Instrumental and Vocative cases. Dual number does not preserve animacy in masculine nouns.

It should be noted that these nouns still decline in plural form, but it's unnatural to decline them in plural while talking about pairs. Other nouns with dual number include, but are not limited to: kopda (leg), duzka (foot), takur (knee), abuzdu (eyebrow), abzad (mustache), buzed (sideburn), kazun (arm), tjagh (hand), nakar (thumb), uzmukh (parent), ushkat (bride, groom).

Verbs
Verbs in Akhaz are conjugated by person (first, second, third male and third female), number (singular and plural), tense (future, present, preterite, past progressive) and mood (indicative, imperative, energetic, conditional and gerundive). Indicative and conditional moods serve almost the same purpose as in English. Imperative represents direct commands and requests and is present-only. Energetic expresses something which is strongly believed to be happening or which speaker wants to emphasize and is non-future. Gerundive is future-only and expresses something that speaker thinks should be done in the future, but it's considered to be old-fashioned. Generally speaking, the main meaning of verb is created by set of consonants (called root), prefixes indicate mood (except imperative), postfixes mark tense (except for future), internal set of vowels indicate person, and aspiration of last or 2 last consonants mark plural form. This allows Akhaz verb to take almost 100 forms!

Weak verbs
Weak verbs are all those based on usual, trilitteral roots, and form the majority of Akhaz verbs.

Present tense
This tense depicts actions that are occuring in time of speaking, skills and common knowledge.

 = root consonant,  = aspiration or /h/

Indicative
This looks like this when root DRG, connected with digging, mining and doing something obvious, is added:

Imperative
Imperative mood puts great emphasize on shortening the word to make it easier to shout, so it's the only mood not created with prefix. Imperative differs number and gender, although it doesn't differ person.

Energetic
This mood is created with prefixes jv- seen in table above and expresses things speaker wants to emphasize or which he believes are happening, so ''Judurgi! ''translates to "He does dig!".

Conditional
This mood is created with prefixes kzv- seen in table above and expresses a hypothetical state of affairs, or an uncertain event that is contingent on another set of circumstances, so Kzadarghih. translates to "We would dig.".

Preterite
This tense depicts actions that were temporary and happened in the past. Change from present tense occurs only on verb's end, and is summarized in table below:

As one can see, 3rd masculine singular and 3rd feminine singular are indistinguishable in indicative, but distinguishable in other moods. Therefore Durgu. - "He / She dug.", but Jadurgu! - "She did dig!".

Past progressive
This tense depicts actions that were happening in the past for some time, but ended before present moment. As in preterite, this tense differ from other in how verbs end. Mood prefixes stay the same in this tense.

And once again 3rd masculine and feminine persons forms are indistinguishable in indicative, this time in both singular and plural.

Strong verbs
Strong verbs are those based on bilitteral roots and form the minority of Akhaz verbs. They conjugate in exactly the same moods and tenses as weak verbs, only the way they do this is different.

Present tense
This looks like this when root KhZ, connected with speaking, talking etc. is added:

Preterite
 - first root consonant,  - last root consonant,  - aspiration

Past progressive
Vowels before root take priority while adding mood prefixes, so kzokhuzi is good, while kzukhuzi is bad.

Future tense
This tense depicts something that will happen in the future (or something that one thinks will/is going to happen). Future tense is propably one of the simplest to learn, because it doesn't have division for weak/strong verbs and only 2 moods: imperative and old-fashioned gerundive. Old Akhaz didn't have future tense, only gerundive mood that was considered part of present tense. Gerundive later changed it's meaning and evolved into tense on it's own. That's also the reason why future doesn't have distinction for weak and for strong verbs and why it's marked only with prefix and not with postfix as other tenses.

Indicative mood
...is created by adding prefix d(a)-; /a/ is inserted before stops and /s/.

Gerundive mood
These could be generally translated as "should" sentences, only stronger.

Copula
It's the verb with most complicated conjugation, which retains archaic dual number. It's based on 2 bilitteral roots:ZD for present and past progressive and KD for future. It doesn't have preterite form. This verb is so strong that it takes weak verbs' ending in past progressive. Infinitive: zid for present and past and kid for future.

Present tense
Azd is often merged with 1st person singular pronoun za to create zazd, in the same way as I is often merged with am.

As you can see, forms for dual and plural in both 3rd persons are identical.

Adjectives and adverbs
In Akhaz, adjectives always follow noun they modify. The same is for adverbs which follow verb or adjective they modify.

Typical adjectives
Unlike in English, adjective must be marked, i.e. it must end in suffix indicating that it's an adjective and which gender in which number it describes. For instance, word durd (DRD - darkness, to make darker) must have suffix -id to specify that it's describing something singular male, or -da to show that it describes something singular female. If durd doesn't have suffix, it's considered noun meaning "blackness".

Typical adjectives' inflection
Yes, adjectives inflect to the same cases that modified by them nouns do.

karak azgarid - huge fortress karakim azgardi - huge fortresses

nazpa kashpada - beautiful girl nazpar kashpadra - beautiful girls

Composition adjectives
Because of dwarves' fondness to masonry, smithing, jewelecrafting and engineering, over time special type of adjectives - composition adjectives - have appeared. These adjectives denote what something is made of. For instance, one can say karvu armida to say "golden ring", but this doesn't mean the ring is made of gold - only that it has golden color. To say that ring is made of gold, one has to say karvu armadat, and then all people (or dwarves) hearing this will know that he's talking about material from which the ring is made.

The inflection of composition adjectives is the same as typical adjectives - last d gains aspiration in Genitive and Intrumental cases.

Possession
How to say "my beer" in Akhaz? Well, you can't just use Genitive personal pronoun. Instead, attach typical adjective ending to end of pronoun, creating azid bzav - my beer. Possesion adjective, as this construction is called, is the only adjective type inserted before the noun, not after. So, the proper way of telling "My sweet beer" is azid bzav zakshid.

Ofcourse, all these pronouns can take all other endings, which inflect in the same way as in all other adjectives.
 * Those forms usually overlap in everyday speech.

Adverbs
Adverbs are formed easier than adjectives, because nor adjectives neither verbs are considered to have gender or number in the same manner as nouns.

For instance zizan, meaning "fastness" can take adjectival form zizanid/zizanda/zizandi/zizandra, but only one adverbial form: zizanod , used after verbs or adjectives.

Thus, Kudkhuzu zizanod ul galmaz means "They quickly (fastly) made the machine".

Comparison marker
Only one adjective changes in the same manner as English adjectives when it comes to comparison: naraz , which translates closely to "wealth". It can take typical adjective endings, but it can also change its inner set of vowels to become Akhaz equivalent of "more" and "most". It's as follows:

naraz -&gt; nerzu -&gt; anrazo

Then it can be placed after any adjective or adverb to create comparison, so zizanid means "fast (male)", zizanid nerzu - faster (m) and zizanid anrazo - the fastest (m). When put into sentence, it looks like this: Kadku zizanod azid galmaz, khen kudku zizanod nerzu ekhid. - I quickly (fastly) made my machine, but he made his faster.

Participles
There are 2 types of participles: active and passive. Their role is very important, as they are used to create passive voice. Particples are considered nouns or adjectives.

Active participle
Active participle depicts the performer of an action. It's created by taking verb in 3rd person singular present form and adding -rd/t postfix.

For example:

kudki (he makes) -&gt; kudkird "making one"(m)

kudka (she makes) -&gt; kudkart "making one"(fm) but also kudki -&gt; kudkirt

nubi (he takes) -&gt; nubird "taking one"(m)

kuvzi (he knows) -&gt; kuvzirdim "knowing ones"(m) NOT kuvzhih -&gt; kuvzhihrdim

husna (she falls) -&gt; husnartar "falling ones"(fm)

Passive participle
Passive particple depicts an object on which the action is, or was, performed. It's created by taking verb in 1st person singular present or preterite form and adding regular -d postfix used to create adjectives, but plural form is created in the same way as in nouns.

First, let me explain present passive participle. It's base is 1st person singular verb in present tense. For example:

kadki (I make) -&gt; kadkid / kadkida "one that is being made"

naba (I take) -&gt; nabad / nabda "one that is being taken"

kavzi (I know) -&gt; kavzidim / kavzidar "ones that are being known"

Now it's time for past passive participle, which depicts an object on which the action was already performed. It's base is 1st person singular verb in preterite tense. Examples:

kadku -&gt; kadkud / kadkuda "made one"

hasnu -&gt; hasnudim / hasnudar "fallen ones"

Of course, this looks a little bit different for strong verbs (but only a little, because they still use -d postfix):

nabab -&gt; nababd/a "taken one"

= Dictionary =

Numbers
Base numbers are 10 and 60, with numbers bigger than 100 created by saying "this number of 100s or 60s", so 146 is divi akohi dvikeh rakh - "two of sixties plus twenty plus six".

0 - nekad ("nothing") /nəˈkad/

1 - ahi /ɐˈʔɪ/

2 - divi /dɨˈvɪ/

3 - te /tɛ/

4 - kvir /kvɨr/

5 - nakh /nakʰ/

6 - rakh /rakʰ/

7 - zri /zrɨ/

8 - pakh /pakʰ/

9 - dhe /dʰɛ/

10 - keh /kɛχ/

11 - kehaj /kəˈʔaj/

12 - kedvi /kəˈdvɪ/

13 - kehte /kəxˈtɛ/

14 - kekvir /kəˈkvɨr/

15 - kenakh /kəˈnakʰ/

16 - kerakh /kəˈɾakʰ/

17 - kehzir /kəxˈzɨr/

18 - kephak /kəˈpʰak/

19 - kega /kəˈga/

20 - dvikeh /dvɪˈkɛx/

30 - tekeh /təˈkɛx/

40 - kvirkeh /kvɨɾˈkɛx/

50 - nakheh /nɐˈkʰɛx/

60 - arokh /ɐˈɾɔkʰ/

70 - keharokh /kəʔɐˈɾɔkʰ/ 80 - dikrokh /dɪkˈɾɔkʰ/

90 - takarokh /tɐkɐˈɾɔkʰ/

100 - akoh /ɐˈkɔχ/

120 - divi arokhi (two of sixties) /dɨˈvɪ ɐɾɒˈkʰɪ/

600 - rakh akohi or keh arokhi /rakʰ ɐkɒˈxɪ/ or /kɛχ ɐɾɒˈkʰɨ/

1000 - keh akohi (ten of one-hundreds) /kɛx ɐkɒˈʔɪ/

1000000 - akoh akohi akohi /ɐˈkɔx ɐkɒˈʔɪ ɐkɒˈʔɪ/

As you can see, Akhaz isn't a suitable language to express really big numbers.

Numerals
All numerals, as all other adjectives, differce between gender and number. System of creating numerals looks complicated for numbers 1 to 7, but it can be brought down as further:

1 Male numerals are created by adding -p in singular and -pi in plural, thus creating "ahip" and "ahipi". Female numerals are created by adding -pa for singular and -pra for plural, which creates "ahipa"/"ahpa" and "ahipra".

2 - 4 Those are the most irregular of all numerals. Divi in singular changes into advij (m)/advija(fm) and in plural into advimi (m)/ advima (fm). Te takes the same suffixes, changing in singular into etij (m)/etja (fm) and in plural into etimi (m)/ etma (fm), while kvir changes into ikvrij/ikvrja and ikvrim/a. The -ij and -ija are remnants of archaic dual number.

5 - 7 These numerals all have suffixes -(a)hk (m)/ -(a)hka (fm) in singular and -(a)hki (m)/ -(a)hkra in plural. "A" is inserted after aspirated  in nakh and rakh. "I" in zri disappears in all cases. Other numerals are created by adding regular suffixes, so kehid - tenth (m), kehda - tenth (fm) etc.

0 - In this case, -ad just changes into -id(i) for masculine, and into -d(r)a for feminine.

Colours
All colours here are in adjectival form in singular masculine. alinid - grey

alomid - bright

durid - usual black

larzid - yellow

kalid - orange

karvid - red

khebid - dark

kushid - green

thurid - so black you can't see through, just like in an underground tunnel

ulnid - white

vagrid - blue

vazid - violet

zmurvid - azure

Days of week
All week names end in  and are feminine.

Monday - Lakmutzot

Tuesday - Ukpaditzot

Wednesday - Labzutazt

Thursday - Zarkatazt

Friday - Oznukhetzot

Saturday - Makhutazt

Sunday - Ghazkatazt

= Example text =

Genesis 11:1-9

Khuzhuzh tahkurim ghamath ukheze udnidh.

A khuzhuzh ido ikhim: Kodkhu zimi zagpum a hozkhu okod zimi ikhim azarde.

A uzduz akzu ikhim uli zagpum arkem labzak a shalgu arkem moroth.

A khuzhuzh ido ikhim: Korkhu zimi thaku a abnaku, dmuhbi ekhid pishut anadku. Kud dak aztar ad buvzirdkim ap ulth ghamath dulkidha.

A ahkudud Kazdur du anadki a zukuk ul thaku a ul abnaku karkidim kzi uzmakum.

A khuzuz: uzdhuh ul udnud a akzu ikhim ukhezu udnid, a pushdhuzu kirik harog. Kud tav nur, dukuzlhih kul kidik, ad ikhim ara kazlid.

Ahkod za ido ikhim ido ipvuki a adtot za ikhimd amkalum, dakvugh ara tav ikhim!

Buvzu Kazdur ikhim daku kidke a suhthazu ara krakaj ulk thaki.

Nurkhuzu harog ekh Babhel - aduttut kaz ugzad Kazdur amkalum tahkurkim ulth ghamath. Buvzu du ugzadi Kazdur ikhim ap ul ghamtaj dulkida.