# Midekʰ

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

for context: a minimal map of the world in question

![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]

Rinna has the following goals for Midekʰ:

* 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.

### 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.

TKTK

### 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 passive voice are marked elsewhere in a
snetence.

There are three special forms of a 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.

## Derivational 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

TKTK