Atuko

Main Goal and Brief History

Atuko Akuto
Pronunciation:	IPA: Same as IPA
Created by:	Atilla Mert Can (Okoromokoro)	December 17th 2020
Setting and usage:
Total speakers:	Atukons
Category (purpose):	constructed language  Atuko
Writing system:	Atukon Script (Syllabary)
Official status
Official language of:	Atukonia
Regulated by:	no official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	art
ISO 639-3:	—

Atuko is an isolated language (Made by me) that is spoken by Atukons (Atukohu) that live in an Island named Atukonia (Atukoma) that is located between Norway, Iceland, and Greenland. The language is isolated however Atukons are not much primitive. They are advanced enough to have a well-developed language with thousands of words. They have lack of interest to other cultures so they don't like to travel. That was the brief history but my main goal is to help anyone learn, and pronounce the language easily. Also one can use the language in daily life with someone that knows Atuko, or can speak the language with someone who doesn't know Atuko and confuse them :) Atuko has a lexicon with 2500-3000 words. For those who are interested, I will put a whole new page about the lexicon later on. (Actually, I don't have too much lexicon right now). We now move on to Phonology.

Phonology

Consonants:

	labial	alveolar	palatal	velar	glottal
nasal	m	n
stop	p	t		k
fricative	f	s			h
approximant	w	l	j
trill		r

Vowels:

	back
close	u
mid	o
open	a

As you can see, there are only 3 vowels and 12 consonants. There are not much sounds and those sounds are really common. So I hope you won't have trouble pronouncing these sounds. If phonology is clear, we can move on to phonotactics.

Phonotactics

In Atuko, there are 3 rules about phonotactics.

1. Consonant clusters are not possible.
2. Words cannot end or start with a consonant.
3. Stress is always at the middle or the last syllable depending on what you emphasize.

These are the phonotactics of Atuko. I think this is one of the most important things that makes Atuko pronounciation easy. Also the first 2 rules make Atuko sound like Hawaiian or Japanese. However Japanese, Hawaiian, and Atuko are not related at all. If you understood Phonotactics, we can move on to Orthography.

Orthography

Not much to say about Orthography but because of the isolation, Atukons have their own script. If I need to specify more, the script is a syllabary. But we will be looking for the Romanization. In Romanized script of Atuko, each sound is the same as in IPA. I guess Orthography must be clear because it is as simple as Toki Pona, so we can move on to the longest and one of the most important part: Grammar.

Grammar

Word Order

Atuko has a free word order. Which means, you can basically put words anywhere in the sentence. But in Atuko, changing word order means changing what you emphasize. There is a main rule about it; Last element of the sentence is the non-emphasized one. To make it more clear, I want to show you the list.

1. SOV= Emphasizes mostly subject and mildly emphasizes object
2. SVO= Emphasizes mostly subject and mildly emphasizes verb
3. VSO= Emphasizes mostly verb and mildly emphasizes subject
4. VOS= Emphasizes mostly verb and mildly emphasizes object
5. OSV= Emphasizes mostly object and mildly emphasizes subject
6. OVS= Emphasizes mostly object and mildly emphasizes verb

So, in Atuko, you emphasize something by the word order and stress in Atuko. It might be a little bit confusing but emphasizing is not much important in Atuko. So you don't need to care much about it. I guess we can now move on to the type of the language.

Type

Firstly, Atuko is an agglutinative language. Which means there are huge amount of suffixes in Atuko and they are so important, and there are no prefixes at all. There will also be a list of suffixes, in the lexicon page for those who are interested.

Secondly, in Atuko, there are no genders unlike European languages. That means, He/she/it are all one word in Atuko. I think this is one of the things that make Atuko easy to learn too, because you don't need to memorize the genders of the object unlike French, Spanish or so.

Thirdly, subordinatives in Atuko, nouns come before adjectives unlike English and just like Spanish, Arabic or Toki Pona. For example, if you want to say "Large Door" you say "Door Large" in Atuko. I guess, those who know Spanish, Arabic or Toki Pona wouldn't have much trouble about this.

Lastly, in Atuko, there are no articles at all. "The" and "a" are not included in Atuko.

If the type is clear we can move on to Tenses.

Tenses

There are 3 tenses in Atuko; Past, Present, and Future however words don't change due to tense and you don't need to specify the tenses. You make or specify tenses like this in Atuko:

1. Past Tense:English logic:I did this Atuko logic:I do this before
2. Present Tense:English logic:I am doing this Atuko logic:I do this now
3. Future Tense:English logic:I will do this Atuko logic:I do this after

These are the tenses but as I mentioned earlier, you don't need to specify the tense. If you don't want to specify, you can just say "I do this". Tenses are really simple we could move on to suffixes.

Suffixes

As I mentioned earlier, Atuko is an agglutinative language, so there are huge amount of suffixes. But how are we going to put suffixes in order? You first need to make sure if the word is positive or negative. Like this:

1. Do=Uwa
2. Undo=Uwato

Then you add the person. Just like this:

1. Undo=Uwato
2. I undo=Uwatoku

Then you add the tense. Just like this:

1. I undo=Uwatoku
2. I am undoing (I undo now):Uwatokufo

I think this is practical enough but I may extend it afterwards. That's it, so we can move on to numbers.

Number

Firstly, you need to know that Atuko use Dozenal System (Base 12) and number chart is like this:

Cardinal

Number (Dozenal)	English	Atuko
0	Zero	O
1	One	Awu
2	Two	Osa
3	Three	Uko
4	Four	Aja
5	Five	Omo
6	Six	U
7	Seven	Alu
8	Eight	Opa
9	Nine	Uhu
A	Ten	Ata
B	Eleven	Oju
10	Twelve	Awu o
11	Thirteen	Awu awu
12	Fourteen	Awu osa
13	Fifteen	Awu uko
14	Sixteen	Awu aja
15	Seventeen	Awu omo
16	Eighteen	Awu u
17	Nineteen	Awu alu
18	Twenty	Awu opa
19	Twenty one	Awu uhu
1A	Twenty two	Awu ata
1B	Twenty three	Awu oju
20	Twenty four	Osa o

Ordinal

Number (Dozenal)	English	Atuko
0th	Zeroth	Ono
1st	First	Awuno
2nd	Second	Osano
3rd	Third	Ukono
4th	Fouth	Ajano
5th	Fifth	Omono
6th	Sixth	Uno
7th	Seventh	Aluno
8th	Eighth	Opano
9th	Ninth	Uhuno
Ath	Tenth	Atano
Bth	Eleventh	Ojuno
10th	Twelveth	Awu ono
11th	Thirteenth	Awu awuno
12th	Fourteenth	Awu osano
13th	Fifteenth	Awu ukono
14th	Sixteenth	Awu ajano
15th	Seventeenth	Awu omono
16th	Eighteenth	Awu uno
17th	Nineteenth	Awu aluno
18th	Twentieth	Awu opano
19st	Twenty first	Awu uhuno
1And	Twenty second	Awu atano
1Brd	Twenty third	Awu ojuno
20th	Twenty fourth	Osa ono

Like this, there are 12 single-digit numbers and you write the each digit's name in multi-digit numbers than to make it ordinal, you add the suffix "-no". Easier than most of the languages. It is nothing more than reading digits in dozenal system so we can move on to expressions.

Expressions

In Atuko, things are expressed just like in Toki Pona, Spanish or Swedish. You say, "I eat" instead of "I am eating". But if you want to add the tense, you could specify it like I mentioned in the Tenses part. It is really easy so now we move on to people.

People

	Singular	Plural
1st person	ku	kumu
2nd person	apo	apomu
3rd person	ufo	ufomu

People don't completely change due to belonging unlike English. That's because it's an agglutinative language. To emphasize the belonging, we only add a suffix. If you got it, I must say, that's all about Atuko for now. I will expand and develop more in the future but for now this is it.