3 This is one of several conlanguages [][@:Rinna] is working on for an
4 eventual Dark Dungeons X (BECMI D&D retroclone) setting.
7 rinna uses the token "TKTK" to mark places where more stuff is needed
10 a minimal map of the world in question is below for a bit of context.
11 it is also necessary to know that all or most sentient creatures in the
12 setting are anthropomorphic animals, but that the corresponding
13 ordinary animals also exist but are considered non-sentient.
15 ![map of an as-yet unnamed world, with three contents and a few
16 islands](https://lyssa-rpg-docs.neocities.org/media/blorb-world-map-minimal.png){width=600}
18 Rinna has the following goals for Midêkʰ:
20 * it will serve as a proto-language for a number of languages spoken
21 along the west coast and within the temperate interior (mostly the
22 30°-45° zone) of the southeastern continent, possibly plus some
23 further-flung offshoots.
24 * fae wants to build it around a system of biliteral or triliteral
25 consonantal roots (as in Afro-Asiatic languages such as Tamazight,
26 Egyptian, Amharic, Hebrew, Akkadian, etc.)
27 * fae is inclined to include few vowel qualities, but with some
28 additional complication such as pitch accent, vowel length, or
29 extensive use of diphthongs that may develop into a more extensive
30 vowel system in daughter languages.
31 * it should not be too difficult to pronounce for the native US
32 English and Rioplatense Spanish speakers likely to play in the
33 setting, particularly since the most likely places for faese games
34 to start out will have this language prominent.
35 but some such difficulties can be resolved in daughter languages via
37 * the proto-language and descendant languages will mostly but perhaps
38 not exclusively be used for names (of people/places/texts/etc.)
42 To help with approachability for English/Spanish speakers, [][@:Rinna]
43 opted to draw inspiration from
44 [Wikipedia's account of Proto-Indo-European phonology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_phonology#Vowels){title="Wikipedia on reconstructed PIE phonology"}.
48 | | labial | coronal | p.velar | velar | l.velar | glottal |
49 |-----------|:------:|:-------:|:-------:|:-----:|:-------:|:-------:|
50 | nasal | m | n | | ŋ | | |
51 | voiceless | p | t | kʲ | k | kʷ | |
52 | voiced | b | d | gʲ | g | gʷ | |
53 | aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | kʲʰ | kʰ | kʷʰ | |
54 | fricative | f | s | | | | h |
55 | liquid | | r l | | | | |
58 The language featured three series of stops: voiceless, voiced, and
59 aspirated (voicing was not phonemic in aspirated consonants).
60 Each of these series included a labial stop, a coronal (dental or
61 alveolar) stop, and three variants of a velar stop: a plain variant, a
62 palatalized variant, and a labialized variant.
64 There were three fricatives: a (bi)labial fricative, a coronal
65 fricative, and a glottal fricative.
67 There were three nasal stops: labial, coronal, and velar.
68 There were two coronal approximants: rhotic and lateral.
69 Both the nasals and the approximants could be used as syllable nuclei.
71 There were three vowels: `*e` (mid front), `*o` (mid back), and `*i`
73 Each vowel could be pronounced long or short, which was phonemic.
74 Long vowels are transcribed with a macron.
76 One syllable in each multisyllabic word was emphasized, likely with a
77 raised pitch (marked with an acute accent on the vowel).
78 Long vowels of accented syllables are marked with a circumflex for
81 A syllable begins with a consonant followed by either a vowel, a nasal,
82 or an approximant as a nucleus.
83 A syllable with a short vowel can additionally have a final consonant.
87 Most content words are derived from a "root" (TKTK) consisting of two
88 to four (but usually three) consonants, which are combined with a
89 particular template (TKTK) of surrounding and intervening sounds
90 (mostly vowels) to form a particular word.
91 Roots will be represented with their consonants separated by hyphens,
92 for example: `m-d-kʰ` (which is the root for language).
93 Templates can include any vowel but only certain consonants: nasal
94 stops (n m ŋ), the coronal and glottal fricatives (s h), and the
95 voiceless coronal stop (t).
99 Adjectives are marked for number, gender, and case to match the noun
106 Nouns are marked for number (singular and plural) and case using a
107 prefix for case and a suffix for number.
108 Each noun also has a gender: either masculine, feminine, or neuter.
110 The cases present in the language were:
112 * Nominative: used for the subject of the verb.
113 * Accusative: used for the object of transitive verbs.
114 * Vocative: used for a party directly addressed by the speaker.
115 * Dative: used for the recipient or beneficiary of an action.
116 * Prepositional: used for the complement of most prepositions, although
117 some prepositions require or allow other cases.
121 Verbs are inflected for tense, aspect, mood, person, and number.
122 Person is first, second, and third.
123 Number is either singular or plural.
125 There are two tenses, which reflect the time at which the action
128 * Non-past: used for events happening now, in the future, in the
129 immediate past, or at an uncertain time.
130 * Past: used for events that started in the past, but not the immediate
133 There are three aspects, although the continuous and habitual are only
134 distinguished in the indicative mood:
136 * Continuous: used to describe an ongoing process.
137 * Habitual: used to describe a recurring or cyclical activity.
138 * Perfective: used to describe an action as a single unit.
140 There are three moods:
142 * Indicative: used for statements of facts.
143 * Optative: used for wishes and hopes, conditional events, and some
145 * Subjunctive: used for hypothetical events, future events, and more
148 Issues such as questions and the active or passive voice are marked
149 elsewhere in a sentence.
151 There are three special forms of each verb:
153 * The verbal noun, which functions as a noun and can represent the act
154 of the verb occuring or a object related to the activity described by
156 The gender of a verbal noun is determined by the verb's conjugation
157 group, but they receive affixes for number and case normally.
158 * The active participle, which functions as an adjective or adverb and
159 indicates that the modified word is related to the subject of the
161 * The passive participle, which functions as an adjective or adverb and
162 indicates that the modified word is related to the verb's object.
164 Both participles receive the normal affixes for number, gender, and
169 ### Derivational morphology
171 The derivational morphology of Midêkʰ is based around the combination
172 of a root with a template to form a stem (TKTK).
173 These stems are further modified by infection to arrive at final word
176 This section and the following one on inflectional morphology will
177 represent roots using their consonants separated by hyphens: e.g.
178 m-d-kʰ, p-ŋ-r, h-s-t.
179 Groups of roots sharing only certain components will be represented
180 with a question mark `?` for any unspecified consonants: p-?-r would
181 include p-ŋ-r, p-k-r, p-s-r, etc.
182 Templates will be written with their surrounding and intervening sounds
183 and with the position of each root consonant represented by a plus
184 sign, for example: `+i+ē+`.
185 Groups of templates sharing certain components will be represented
186 using a question mark for any unspecified template positions: for
187 example, `?+i+?+?` represents all noun templates (which all place a
188 short /i/ between the first two consonants).
190 This section and the following will primarily use the root `m-d-kʰ` as
191 an example to express how roots are combined with templates to form
194 All noun templates place /i/ between the first two consonants of the
195 root, other than the verbal noun patterns which place /ī/ there, a long
197 These are summarized below, with more details below:
199 | pattern | description | m-d-kʰ | gender | english gloss |
200 |---------|--------------|----------|--------|--------------------------|
201 | +i++é | abstraction | midkʰé | f | linguistics/all language |
202 | +i+ê+ | prototype | midêkʰ | varies | the Midêkʰ language |
203 | so+í+i+ | place | somídikʰ | n | TKTK |
204 | mi+í++o | instrument | mimídkʰo | n | pen, stylus |
205 | +i+és+e | emphasis | midéskʰe | m/f | conversation/command |
206 | hê+i+o+ | personal | hêmidokʰ | m/f | orator, author, sage |
207 | hi+i++í | diminutive | himidkʰí | f | word |
208 | ŋô+i++o | derogative | ŋômidkʰo | m | nonsense, pleading |
210 * The noun of abstraction represents the abstract category of the root,
211 both the set of all of the things (or at least a particular type of
212 thing) encompassed by the root, the idealized concept of the root,
213 and sometimes the academic, artistic, or other sort of field related
215 The noun of abstraction is not normally used in the plural, but this
216 may have occasionally happened in poetic language to refer to many or
217 all things belonging to the category.
218 * The prototype noun represents the prototypical object related to a
220 For some roots, the prototype refers to a specific thing (as "Midêkʰ"
221 for the language) as a proper noun, in which case it cannot be used
222 in the plural and it has feminine gender.
223 In other cases, it refers to a typical type of object related to the
224 root (e.g. p-s-ŋ 'liquid' has the prototype pisêŋ 'water'), in which
225 case the noun may be used in the plural and has neuter gender if it
226 refers to a mindless animal and masculine gender otherwise.
227 * Nouns of place refer to a place associated with the root.
228 * Nouns of instrument refer to a tool used in performing actions
229 associated with the root.
230 * Nouns of emphasis refer to a repetition or intense form of an action
232 They are usually masculine, but in some cases a root gives rise to
233 two nouns of emphasis with identical form but with one masculine and
235 When this occurs, typically the feminine noun relates to intense
236 action and the masculine noun relates to repeated action.
237 * The personal noun refers to a type of person associated with the
239 The noun is gendered according to the individual being referred to.
240 When not referring to a particular individual of known gender, the
241 word is typically masculine except when the meaning of the word was
242 strongly associated with women.
243 * Diminutives refer to something small or dear related to the root.
244 * Derogative nouns refer to something disapproved of related to the
246 * There are also several "common noun" patterns which can give rise to
247 various nouns associated with the root without specific semantic
248 implications from the pattern.
249 Each root only is used with a subset of the common noun patterns.
250 Some patterns for common nouns (with the resulting noun's gender in
251 brackets) include "+í+o+" (f), "to+i+í+" (n), "te+i++ó" (m),
252 "no+i+é+" (f), "si+í+e+" (m).
253 * Finally there are verbal noun patterns that are treated below.
255 Verbs are similarly formed by combining a semantic root with one of
257 Unlike nouns, the patterns for verbs are grouped into several "forms",
258 each form consisting of several patterns for different uses of a verb.
259 The application of the patterns of a form to a given root are
260 considered different variations of the same verb.
262 Verb forms will be distinguished using a number (e.g. 1st form, 2nd
264 Each form has patterns for the non-past tense stem, the past tense
265 stem, the verbal noun, the active participle, and the passive
267 The verb stems must then be inflected for aspect, mood, aspect, number,
268 and person to be used.
270 The patterns for each verb form are indicated in the following table,
271 with information about typical semantics and other properties of the
272 forms described after the table.
274 | Form | non-past | past | verbal noun | active part. | passive part. |
275 |------|----------|--------|-------------|--------------|---------------|
276 | 1st | +é++i | +e+í+ | +ī++é | +ó++o | +o+ó+ |
277 | 2nd | +én+i+ | +e++ín | +î++en | +ó++on | +o+nó+ |
279 * The 1st form refers to the action seen as most directly connected
280 with the meaning of the root.
281 They may be either transitive or intransitive depending on the
282 meaning of the verb, although ditransitive 1st form verbs are rare.
283 The verbal noun is of neuter gender.
284 * The 2nd form typically has a meaning related to some action with a
285 lasting effect or impact, although in some cases it is instead an
286 emphatic or more intense version of the root's 1st-form verb.
287 They may be either transitive or intransitive.
288 The verbal noun is of neuter gender.
294 ### Inflectional morphology
300 As a summary of word order concerns:
302 * Adjectives always follow the noun, but demonstratives and numerals
303 precede it (demonstratives preceding numerals when both are present)
304 * Relative clauses follow the noun.
306 * Typically subject-verb-object, but it may vary
307 * The question particle begins the sentence
308 * Questions do not alter sentence order
309 * Conditional sentences typically places the condition before the
311 * Comparisons are of the form adjective-marker-standard (i.e. the
312 adjective being compared, an analogue to "than", then the standard
313 against which the comparison is being made)
315 ## Semantics and Pragmatics
329 Lists here are sorted using roughly the collation order of English.
334 * p-s-ŋ: liquid/water
340 Format: stem (root): part of speech. gloss (notes).
342 Parts of speech: **n**oun (**m**asculine, **f**eminine, **n**euter,
343 **v**arying by referent), **v**erb (**t**ransitive, **i**ntransitive,
344 **d**itransitive), **adj**ective.
345 Verbs are listed with the present stem separated from the past stem by
346 a slash, but collated according the present stem.
348 * hêmidokʰ (m-d-kʰ): nv. orator, author, sage
349 * hêpisoŋ (p-s-ŋ): nv. cupbearer
350 * himidkʰí (m-d-kʰ): nf. word
351 * hipisŋí (p-s-ŋ): nf. pond, lake
352 * médkhi/medíkh (m-d-kh): vi/vt. speak, say, utter
353 * méndikh/medkhín (m-d-kh): vi/vt. write
354 * midêkʰ (m-d-kʰ): nf.sg. the Midêkʰ language
355 * midéskʰe (m-d-kʰ): nf. command, order
356 * midéskʰe (m-d-kʰ): nm. conversation, dialogue (this can refer to a spoken conversation or a written dialogue)
357 * midkʰé (m-d-kʰ): nf.sg. linguistics, language in general
358 * mídokʰ (m-d-kʰ): nf. book, scroll
359 * mimídkʰo (m-d-kʰ): nn. pen, stylus, other writing instrument
360 * mipísŋo (p-s-ŋ): nn. canal
361 * mīdkhé (m-d-kh): nn. utterance, speech, act of speaking
362 * mîdkhen (m-d-kh): nn. text, act of writing
363 * módkho (m-d-kh): adj. speaking, vocal
364 * módkhon (m-d-kh): adj. literate, writing
365 * modnókh (m-d-kh): adj. written, textual, literary
366 * modókh (m-d-kh): adj. spoken, verbal, oral
367 * nomidékʰ (m-d-kʰ): nf. message, letter
368 * ŋômidkʰo (m-d-kʰ): nm. nonsense, pathetic request
369 * nôpisŋo (p-s-ŋ): nm. urine
370 * pénsiŋ/pesŋín (p-s-ŋ): vi/vt. pool (intr.); cover in liquid, flood, overflow (trans.)
371 * pésŋi/pesíŋ (p-s-ŋ): vi. flow
372 * pisêŋ (p-s-ŋ): nm. water
373 * pisésŋe (p-s-ŋ): nm. flood
374 * pisŋé (p-s-ŋ): nf.sg. liquids (the state of matter, and the science of its behavior)
375 * pīsŋé (p-s-ŋ): nn. act of flowing
376 * pîsŋen (p-s-ŋ): nn. pool, puddle, act of pooling
377 * pósŋo (p-s-ŋ): adj. flowing, fluid
378 * pósŋon (p-s-ŋ): adj. pooling, overflowing, stagnant
379 * posnóŋ (p-s-ŋ): adj. submerged, flooded, overflowed
380 * posóŋ (p-s-ŋ): adj. watered (as e.g. plants, soil), irrigated
381 * simídekʰ (m-d-kʰ): nm. language, script
382 * sipíseŋ (p-s-ŋ): nm. mouthful (esp. of liquids)
383 * somídikʰ (m-d-kʰ): nn. TKTK (some sort of language place)
384 * sopísiŋ (p-s-ŋ): nn. body of water or other liquid, esp. an ocean
385 * tepisŋó (p-s-ŋ): nm. blood
386 * tōmidíkʰ (m-d-kʰ): nn. sentence
387 * tōpisíŋ (p-s-ŋ): nn. cup, waterskin, jug