Echlander

Echlander ‘Ētskęle
Type
Polysynthetic
Alignment
Direct-Inverse
Head direction
left
Tonal
No
Declensions
No
Conjugations
Yes
Genders
No
Nouns decline according to...
Case	Number
Definiteness	Gender
Verbs conjugate according to...
Voice	Mood
Person	Number
Tense	Aspect

General Information

Echlander (natively ꇠꇮꏂ‹ꅁ ‘Ētskęle /ʔe:tskẽle/) is a language isolate spoken in the remnants of the Ech Empire (‘Ēts) on the planet Patrona (‘Arquǭnę): The Kingdom of Ech, Kalatuun, and a canton, Tsōersā, of the Confederacy of Belsha (Whersā). Patrona orbits the star Deru (Tsīr) and is inhabited by the alien Patronans (‘Arquǭnęteō).

Phonology

Presented is the phonology of the prestige dialect of Nar‘ā.

Consonants

	bilabial	alveolar	dorsal		glottal
			plain	labialized
nasal		n	ŋ	ŋʷ
stop		t	k	kʷ	ʔ
affricate		ts
fricative	ɸ	s			h
approximant		l	j	w

• Stops, affricates, and fricatives are voiced between voiced phonemes.
• [m] is an allophone of /w/ before a nasal vowel.
• [ɹ] is an allophone of /l/ when in the coda.

Vowels

	front	back
close	/i/ e̝ i:	/u/ o̝ u:
mid	/ẽ/ ẽ̞ ẽ̞:	/õ/ õ̞ õ̞:
open	/e/ ɛ æ:	/a/ ʌ ɑ:

Phonotactics

(C)V(/s/, /ts/, /l/)

• /e/ and /u/ are shifted to mid nasalized vowels following a nasal consonant. ex. /n/ + /e/ > /nẽ/
• /ŋ/ and /k/ are rounded before rounded vowels. ex. /k/ + /u/ > /kʷu/
• /ɸ/ becomes /w/ preceding rounded vowels. /ɸ/ + /u/ > /wu/
• /j/ is elided preceding /i/. ex. /j/ + /i/ > /i/
• Grammatically correct words are required to have at least two morae.

Orthography

Native script

The native script of the Echlanders and all of the languages of their previously-conquered territory is a syllabary called ‘Ētskęlewosani. The symbol to the left of <ǫ> is the length mark.

Writing direction

In imitation of Manjingan writing, the Ech syllabary is written in right-to-left horizontal lines starting at the bottom of a page.

Collation and character names

Dictionaries are ordered starting with the bare vowels in the order from the table above, each immediately followed by their glottalized form. Next are the syllables starting in <n>, followed by the syllables starting in <g>, etc. as in the table above. The bare consonants <s/ts>, <r>, and the length symbol never begin words, but are considered for collation purposes to end the list.

Characters are normally named by lengthening the syllable and following it with the word for symbol, ‘ikas, e.g. <i> is ī‘ikas, <na> is nā‘ikas, and <mǫ> is mǭ‘ikas. The glottal stop syllables are named the same as their corresponding vowel syllables preceded by the word ‘ata, e.g. <‘i> is ‘ataē‘ikas. The bare consonant characters and the length symbol have unique names: <s/ts> is tsor, <r> is laya, and <:> is hāę. Two characters have irregular names: <le> is not *lē‘ikas, it is quitsolaya and <yi>, which is pronounced the same as <i> ī‘ikas, is whātaī‘ikas.

Romanization

Letter	a	ā	e	ē	ę	ę̄	g	gu	h	i
Sound	/a/	/a:/	/e/	/e:/	/ẽ/	/ẽ:/	/ŋ/	/ŋʷ/	/h/	/i/
Letter	ī	k	l	m	n	o	ō	ǫ	ǭ	qu
Sound	/i:/	/k/	/l/	[m]	/n/	/u/	/u:/	/õ/	/õ:/	/kʷ/
Letter	r	s	t	ts	w	wh	y	‘
Sound	[ɹ]	/s/	/t/	/ts/	/w/	/ɸ/	/j/	/ʔ/

Nominals

Pronouns

Pronouns are never obligatory, as the verb expresses both subject and object.

		sg	pl
1	in	nana	ketēle
	ex		gamęr
2		kis	mętēle
3	prox	nī	‘ęts
	obv	nīta	‘ętsta

Verbs

Verbs are insanely expressive in the Echlander.

Affix ordering

1	2	3	4	5	6	7
Person	Voice	Root	Various	Ability	Evidential	TM
Subjects and objects	Direct or inverse	The verb itself	Incorporated nouns, time of day, direction	Ability	Source of evidence	Tenses, Moods
ǫ-	0-	sōrkits	-‘awhīryę	-0	-hō	-ta
Tsōgua ǫsōrkits‘awhīryęhōta. "I assume he'll pass out drunk soon"

Person

The personal prefix taking up the first slot is obligatory and may be broken down as a compound prefix into most animate argument and least animate argument.

In the table, the more animate arguments are the rows and the less animate arguments are the columns.

			0	1	2		3
					sg	pl	sg		pl
							prox	obv
1	sg		i	ike	yo	iso	yǫ	ita	ina
	pl		ke		keo	keso	keo	keta	kena
2	sg		o				mǫ	ota	ona
	pl		so				somǫ	sota	sona
3	sg	prox	ǫ					ti	na
		obv	ta						tana
	pl		ni

ex. ilāga "I carry", ǫlāga "he/she/it carries", keolāga "we carry you/him/her/it", tilāga "he/she/it carries him/her/it", nalāga "he/she/it carry them", mǫislātęrqui "it's said he carried you"

Voice

There are three "voices" in Echlander. A sentence can be direct, inverse, or reflexive.

The direct voice is used when the more animate argument is the subject of the sentence. It is marked with a null morpheme in slot 2. ex. Yǫsōrkitsqui. "I knocked him out."

The inverse voice is used when the less animate argument is the subject of the sentence. It is marked with an infixed -is- in slot 2, which sometimes affects the personal prefix. ex. Yǫissōrkitsqui. "He knocked me out."

The inverse morpheme also functions as a reflexive morpheme when applied to the intransitive prefixes (the 0 column in the above table). ex. Ǫissōrkitsqui. "He knocked himself out."

Personal prefix mutations with the inverse/reflexive morpheme:

direct		inverse
i	I...	yes	I...myself
yo	I...you	iwis	you...me
keo	we...you	kewis	you...us
	we...him/her/it		he/she/it...us
o	you...	wis	you...yourself
ti	he/she/it...him/her/it	tais	he/she/it...him/her/it
ni	they...	nais	they...themselves
na	he/she/it...them		they...him/her/it

Slot 4

Slot 4 can contain any of several pieces of information, including an incorporated object, a time of day, a direction, the causative morpheme, or indications of formality.

Incorporation

When an object is incorporated, the verb becomes intransitive. Some nouns change form when incorporated.

• Taimę keotīlios‘ęga. vs. Ketīliostaimę‘ęga. "We can steal the gold."
• Męlosa kenalęgahōta.vs Kelęgamęrhōta. "I assume we will watch the children."

Time of day

		Noon seyǭtsīr "high sun" -setsi-
	Morning ‘irtonahǫ "last wake" -‘ina-		Afternoon/Evening whētsaqua "first sleep" -whetsa-
Dawn tsīrlǫtōr "sunrise" -tsilǫ-				Dusk tsīreho "sun fall" -tsie-
	Late night whēnahǫ "first wake" -whena-		Early night ‘irtotsaqua "last sleep" -‘itsa-
		Midnight nęquoīswi -nęi-

Example:

• Keguǫtsilǫgata. "We will go at dawn."

Directions

Words indicating the direction that an action is happening in can be incorporated.

• Guǫkais. "Let's go down."
• Yǫislāsirqui. "He carried me back."

Ability

There is an affix meaning "able to do", ‘ę, which takes up slot 5. ex. Ātsor iguǫ‘ęgaga. "I think I can go today."

Evidentiality

Evidentiality is a marking of the type of evidence the speaker has for what they are saying. The evidence infixes are placed in slot 6. Evidentiality is not marked in the imperative or interrogative moods.

The null morpheme describes an event directly witnessed or experienced by the speaker. ex. nitīliostaimęqui "I saw them steal the gold"

There are 3 more evidential infixes: reportative -tęr- (I was told, I hear, It's said), assumptive -hō- (I can only assume), and deductive -ga- (I suppose, I guess, I can then infer)

Tense and mood

		Past	Present	Future
Indicative	pos	qui	ga	ta
	int	quikē	kē	takē
	neg	quilar	lar	talar
Imperative*	pos		s
	neg		slar

• Personal prefixes are dropped in the imperative. ex. Guǫslar! "Don't go!" or "Let's not go!"

Particles

Conjunctive and disjunctive particles

ta "and"

Formal particles

quǫr

Vocabulary

Anatomy

• Body:
• Front:
• Back:
• Tail:
• Head:
• Eyes: 
• Nose: 
• Mouth:
• Tongue: 
• Gnathal plates:
• Head ridges:
• Ears:
• Hair:
• Arm:
• Hand:
• Finger:
• Leg:
• Foot:
• Toe:

Colors

Patronans can't see blue, so they have no need of words to distinguish it, greatly shrinking their color vocabulary. Differing hues/shades of the basic colors can be made by combining words for things that have the specific color in mind with the word for color (seyǫ), e.g. sītarseyǫ "gold". New color words can also be formed with prefixes meaning light and dark.

• Red
• Green
• White
• Gray
• Black

Numbers

	#	8+#	#*8
0	mę̄	mǫnę
1	‘aqua	mǫnę ta ‘aqua	mǫnę
2	‘arha	mǫnę ta ‘arha	‘arhamǫnę
3	tsani	mǫnę ta tsani	tsanimǫnę
4	tsalots	mǫnę ta tsalots	tsalotsmǫnę
5	hamęts	mǫnę ta hamęts	hamętsmǫnę
6	inā	mǫnę ta inā	ināmǫnę
7	‘eser	mǫnę ta ‘eser	‘esermǫnę
8	mǫnę	‘arhamǫnę	yaquōya