[Wiki] / Sources / Page / Languages / Midekh.djot

# Midêkʰ

This is one of several conlanguages [][@:Rinna] is working on for an
eventual Dark Dungeons X (BECMI D&D retroclone) setting.
(fae welcomes input.)

rinna uses the token "TKTK" to mark places where more stuff is needed
later.

a minimal map of the world in question is below for a bit of context.
it is also necessary to know that all or most sentient creatures in the
setting are anthropomorphic animals, but that the corresponding
ordinary animals also exist but are considered non-sentient.

![map of an as-yet unnamed world, with three contents and a few
islands](https://lyssa-rpg-docs.neocities.org/media/blorb-world-map-minimal.png){width=600}

Rinna has the following goals for Midêkʰ:

* it will serve as a proto-language for a number of languages spoken
  along the west coast and within the temperate interior (mostly the
  30°-45° zone) of the southeastern continent, possibly plus some
  further-flung offshoots.
* fae wants to build it around a system of biliteral or triliteral
  consonantal roots (as in Afro-Asiatic languages such as Tamazight,
  Egyptian, Amharic, Hebrew, Akkadian, etc.)
* fae is inclined to include few vowel qualities, but with some
  additional complication such as pitch accent, vowel length, or
  extensive use of diphthongs that may develop into a more extensive
  vowel system in daughter languages.
* it should not be too difficult to pronounce for the native US
  English and Rioplatense Spanish speakers likely to play in the
  setting, particularly since the most likely places for faese games
  to start out will have this language prominent.
  but some such difficulties can be resolved in daughter languages via
  sound change.
* the proto-language and descendant languages will mostly but perhaps
  not exclusively be used for names (of people/places/texts/etc.)

## Phonology

To help with approachability for English/Spanish speakers, [][@:Rinna]
opted to draw inspiration from
[Wikipedia's account of Proto-Indo-European phonology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_phonology#Vowels){title="Wikipedia on reconstructed PIE phonology"}.

Consonant table:

|           | labial | coronal | p.velar | velar | l.velar | glottal |
|-----------|:------:|:-------:|:-------:|:-----:|:-------:|:-------:|
| nasal     | m      | n       |         | ŋ     |         |         |
| voiceless | p      | t       | kʲ      | k     | kʷ      |         |
| voiced    | b      | d       | gʲ      | g     | gʷ      |         |
| aspirated | pʰ     | tʰ      | kʲʰ     | kʰ    | kʷʰ     |         |
| fricative | f      | s       |         |       |         | h       |
| liquid    |        | r l     |         |       |         |         |


The language featured three series of stops: voiceless, voiced, and
aspirated (voicing was not phonemic in aspirated consonants).
Each of these series included a labial stop, a coronal (dental or
alveolar) stop, and three variants of a velar stop: a plain variant, a
palatalized variant, and a labialized variant.

There were three fricatives: a (bi)labial fricative, a coronal
fricative, and a glottal fricative.

There were three nasal stops: labial, coronal, and velar.
There were two coronal approximants: rhotic and  lateral.
Both the nasals and the approximants could be used as syllable nuclei.

There were three vowels: `*e` (mid front), `*o` (mid back), and `*i`
(close front).
Each vowel could be pronounced long or short, which was phonemic.
Long vowels are transcribed with a macron.

One syllable in each multisyllabic word was emphasized, likely with a
raised pitch (marked with an acute accent on the vowel).
Long vowels of accented syllables are marked with a circumflex for
ease of processing.

A syllable begins with a consonant followed by either a vowel, a nasal,
or an approximant as a nucleus.
A syllable with a short vowel can additionally have a final consonant.

## Morphology

Most content words are derived from a "root" (TKTK) consisting of two
to four (but usually three) consonants, which are combined with a
particular template (TKTK) of surrounding and intervening sounds
(mostly vowels) to form a particular word.
Roots will be represented with their consonants separated by hyphens,
for example: `m-d-kʰ` (which is the root for language).
Templates can include any vowel but only  certain consonants: nasal
stops (n m ŋ), the coronal and glottal fricatives (s h), and the
voiceless coronal stop (t).

### Adjectives

Adjectives are marked for number, gender, and case to match the noun
modified.

TKTK

### Nouns

Nouns are marked for number (singular and plural) and case using a
prefix for case and a suffix for number.
Each noun also has a gender: either masculine, feminine, or neuter.

The cases present in the language were:

* Nominative: used for the subject of the verb.
* Accusative: used for the object of transitive verbs.
* Vocative: used for a party directly addressed by the speaker. 
* Dative: used for the recipient or beneficiary of an action.
* Prepositional: used for the complement of most prepositions, although
  some prepositions require or allow other cases.

### Verbs

Verbs are inflected for tense, aspect, mood, person, and number.
Person is first, second, and third.
Number is either singular or plural.

There are two tenses, which reflect the time at which the action
occurred:

* Non-past: used for events happening now, in the future, in the
  immediate past, or at an uncertain time.
* Past: used for events that started in the past, but not the immediate
  past.

There are three aspects, although the continuous and habitual are only
distinguished in the indicative mood:

* Continuous: used to describe an ongoing process.
* Habitual: used to describe a recurring or cyclical activity.
* Perfective: used to describe an action as a single unit.

There are three moods:

* Indicative: used for statements of facts.
* Optative: used for wishes and hopes, conditional events, and some
  commands.
* Subjunctive: used for hypothetical events, future events, and more
  polite commands.

Issues such as questions and the active or passive voice are marked
elsewhere in a sentence.

There are three special forms of each verb:

* The verbal noun, which functions as a noun and can represent the act
  of the verb occuring or a object related to the activity described by
  the verb.
  The gender of a verbal noun is determined by the verb's conjugation
  group, but they receive affixes for number and case normally.
* The active participle, which functions as an adjective or adverb and
  indicates that the modified word is related to the subject of the
  verb.
* The passive participle, which functions as an adjective or adverb and
  indicates that the modified word is related to the verb's object.

Both participles receive the normal affixes for number, gender, and
case agreement.

TKTK

### Derivational morphology

The derivational morphology of Midêkʰ is based around the combination
of a root with a template to form a stem (TKTK).
These stems are further modified by infection to arrive at final word
forms.

This section and the following one on inflectional morphology will
represent roots using their consonants separated by hyphens: e.g.
m-d-kʰ, p-ŋ-r, h-s-t.
Groups of roots sharing only certain components will be represented
with a question mark `?` for any unspecified consonants: p-?-r would
include p-ŋ-r, p-k-r, p-s-r, etc.
Templates will be written with their surrounding and intervening sounds
and with the position of each root consonant represented by a plus
sign, for example: `+i+ē+`.
Groups of templates sharing certain components will be represented
using a question mark for any unspecified template positions: for
example, `?+i+?+?` represents all noun templates (which all place a
short /i/ between the first two consonants).

This section and the following will primarily use the root `m-d-kʰ` as
an example to express how roots are combined with templates to form
stems or words.

All noun templates place /i/ between the first two consonants of the
root, but vary in other positions.
These are summarized below, with more details below:

| pattern | description  | m-d-kʰ   | gender | english gloss            |
|---------|--------------|----------|--------|--------------------------|
| +i++é   | abstraction  | midkʰé   | f      | linguistics/all language |
| +i+ê+   | prototype    | midêkʰ   | varies | the Midêkʰ language      |
| so+í+i+ | place        | somídikʰ | n      | TKTK                     |
| mi+í++o | instrument   | mimídkʰo | n      | pen, stylus              |
| +i+és+e | emphasis     | midéskʰe | m/f    | conversation/command     |
| hê+i+o+ | personal     | hêmidokʰ | m/f    | orator, author, sage     |
| hi+i++í | diminutive   | himidkʰí | f      | word                     |
| ŋô+i++o | derogative   | ŋômidkʰo | m      | nonsense, pleading       |

* The noun of abstraction represents the abstract category of the root,
  both the set of all of the things (or at least a particular type of
  thing) encompassed by the root, the idealized concept of the root,
  and sometimes the academic, artistic, or other sort of field related
  to the root.
  The noun of abstraction is not normally used in the plural, but this
  may have occasionally happened in poetic language to refer to many or
  all things belonging to the category.
* The prototype noun represents the prototypical object related to a
  root.
  For some roots, the prototype refers to a specific thing (as "Midêkʰ"
  for the language) as a proper noun, in which case it cannot be used
  in the plural and it has feminine gender.
  In other cases, it refers to a typical type of object related to the
  root (e.g. p-s-ŋ 'liquid' has the prototype pisêŋ 'water'), in which
  case the noun may be used in the plural and has neuter gender if it
  refers to a mindless animal and masculine gender otherwise.
* Nouns of place refer to a place associated with the root.
* Nouns of instrument refer to a tool used in performing actions
  associated with the root.
* Nouns of emphasis refer to a repetition or intense form of an action
  related to the root.
  They are usually masculine, but in some cases a root gives rise to
  two nouns of emphasis with identical form but with one masculine and
  one feminine.
  When this occurs, typically the feminine noun relates to intense
  action and the masculine noun relates to repeated action.
* The personal noun refers to a type of person associated with the
  root's meaning.
  The noun is gendered according to the individual being referred to.
  When not referring to a particular individual of known gender, the
  word is typically masculine except when the meaning of the word was
  strongly associated with women.
* Diminutives refer to something small or dear related to the root.
* Derogative nouns refer to something disapproved of related to the
  root.
* There are also several "common noun" patterns which can give rise to
  various nouns associated with the root without specific semantic
  implications from the pattern.
  Each root only is used with a subset of the common noun patterns.
  Some patterns for common nouns (with the resulting noun's gender in
  brackets) include "+í+o+" (f), "to+i+í+" (n), "te+i++ó" (m),
  "no+i+é+" (f), "si+í+e+" (m).

Verbs are similarly formed by combining a semantic root with one of
several patterns.

### Inflectional morphology

TKTK

## Syntax

As a summary of word order concerns:

* Adjectives always follow the noun, but demonstratives and numerals
  precede it (demonstratives preceding numerals when both are present)
* Relative clauses follow the noun.
* Prepositions
* Typically subject-verb-object, but it may vary
* The question particle begins the sentence
* Questions do not alter sentence order
* Conditional sentences typically places the condition before the
  conclusion
* Comparisons are of the form adjective-marker-standard (i.e. the
  adjective being compared, an analogue to "than", then the standard
  against which the comparison is being made)

## Semantics and Pragmatics

TKTK

## Writing System

TKTK

## Examples

TKTK

## Lexicon

Lists here are sorted using roughly the collation order of English.

### Roots

* m-d-kʰ: language
* p-s-ŋ: liquid/water

TKTK

### Word stems

Format: stem (root): part of speech. gloss (notes).

Parts of speech: **n**oun (**m**asculine, **f*eminine, **n**euter,
**v**arying by referent), **v**erb (**t**ransitive, **i**ntransitive),
**adj**ective.

* hêmidokʰ (m-d-kʰ): nv. orator, author, sage
* hêpisoŋ (p-s-ŋ): nv. cupbearer
* himidkʰí (m-d-kʰ): nf. word
* hipisŋí (p-s-ŋ): nf. pond, lake
* midêkʰ (m-d-kʰ): nf.sg. the Midêkʰ language 
* midéskʰe (m-d-kʰ): nf. command, order
* midéskʰe (m-d-kʰ): nm. conversation, dialogue (this can refer to a spoken conversation or a written dialogue)
* midkʰé (m-d-kʰ): nf.sg. linguistics, language in general
* mídokʰ (m-d-kʰ): nf. book, scroll
* mimídkʰo (m-d-kʰ): nn. pen, stylus, other writing instrument
* mipísŋo (p-s-ŋ): nn. canal
* nomidékʰ (m-d-kʰ): nf. message, letter
* ŋômidkʰo (m-d-kʰ): nm. nonsense, pathetic request
* nôpisŋo (p-s-ŋ): nm. urine
* pisêŋ (p-s-ŋ): nm. water 
* pisésŋe (p-s-ŋ): nm. flood
* pisŋé (p-s-ŋ): nf.sg. liquids (the state of matter, and the science of its behavior)
* simídekʰ (m-d-kʰ): nm. language, script
* sipíseŋ (p-s-ŋ): nm. mouthful (esp. of liquids)
* somídikʰ (m-d-kʰ): nn. TKTK (some sort of language place)
* sopísiŋ (p-s-ŋ): nn. body of water or other liquid, esp. an ocean
* tepisŋó (p-s-ŋ): nm. blood
* tōmidíkʰ (m-d-kʰ): nn. sentence
* tōpisíŋ (p-s-ŋ): nn. cup, waterskin, jug