Coastal Jutean

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Jutean
Coastal Jutean
Tahivi a net / Jute
Pronunciation/tahiʋi a net/ / /jute/
EthnicityCoastal Juteans (native), River Juteans, Klambari, Samwati (common second language)
Native speakers1,570,000  (no date)
Language family
Juto-Ngutanic
  • Proto-Jutic
    • Ancient Jutean
      • Middle Jutean
        • Reformed Jutean
          • Colonial Jutean
            • Jutean
DialectsSitti, Laina
Official status
Official language inJute
CWS code
[[File:Languages.png|]]

Background

Origin and goal

Started out as a language developed for a nation on Nationstates (a political simulator and rp platform for nation-rps). It can be found at nationstates.net/jute. The goal was (and is) to create a language that can be used for most purposes and that at least short texts can easily be translated to it to give the nation more depth.

Setting and inspiration

Since it's a tropical island and I had gotten interested in Hawaii and Hawaiian, the compact phonology is inspired by it, though of course with some changes. For example, it lacks the glottal stop, but has a /j/ and a /ʋ/.

Peculiarities

To make sure the language doesn't up being to similar to Indo-European ones, the Austronesian alignment from Tagalog was adopted, adjectives as a separate part of speech dropped, as well as marked tense, articles, and number (except for pronouns). Later on, separate voices were dropped in favor of triggers.

Possessive pronouns were excluded, too, in an effort to show the different concepts of the speakers of the language regarding ownership. A genitive-like construction is solely used for inalienable possession, for alienable ones relative nominalizations are used, such as "the land I live on", or "the boat I'm sailing" rather than "my land" or "my boat".

The language has three genders, or noun classes. Common, abstract/immaterial and "wilderness". Common includes everything related to daily life in a village or city, humans, and things made by humans. Abstract/immaterial is largely self-explaining, used for ideas and concepts, intangible as well as unknown things or sometimes for generic terms. "Wilderness" includes everything that has to do, or can be found with the jungle, the ocean or anything else seen as "wild". This includes animals, plants as well as some inanimate items. It can also be used in a more poetic way, for example for the subconscious, the "wild, untamed" part of the mind.

Personal pronouns, while having the standard 1st/2nd/3rd person, are unusual when it comes to other aspects. There are three numbers (arguably four in 1P), clusitivity, gender and animacy distinctions. See below, 3.6 Pronouns.


Phonology

Consonants

Bilabial Labio-dental Dental Alveolar Post-alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m n [ŋ]¹
Plosive t, d k
Fricative f s, [z]² [ʃ]³ h
Approximant ʋ j
Lateral app. l

¹at codas when followed by /k/, allophone of /n/

²at syllable onsets before long vowels, allophone of /s/

³in a few dialects, allophone of /s/

Vowels

Front Near-front Central Near-back Back
Close i, i: u, u:
Near-close
Close-mid e, e:
Mid
Open-mid
Near-open ɐ ɐ:
Open [a:]¹ ɑ, ɑ:, [ɒ:]²

¹in some dialects, allophone of /ɐ:/

²in some dialects, allophone of /ɑ:/

Diphthongs

ɑi ɑe ɑu ie iɐ iɑ iu ui ue uɐ uɑ eɑ eu ei eɐ ɐu ɐi ɐe

Triphthongs

iɑ: e:ɑ

Phonotactics

Syllable Structure

(C)V(V)(V/C), though CVC, CVVC and particularly CVVV are used sparingly. CV or VC are preferred.

Consonant clusters can thus only appear at syllable boundaries, and only the geminations of /t/, /k/, /m/, /n/ and /l/ as well as two-consonant clusters starting with /n/, /m/ or /l/ are allowed.

VV are either long vowels or vowel diphthongs, and VVV are long diphthongs.


Stress information Mostly on the penultimate syllable, sometimes on the last syllable with a long vowel/diphtong, but it's not fixed and can also be used to emphasize a part of a word, for example the negating suffix '-l' or '-al'.

Orthography

Aa /a/ Dd /d/ Ee /e/ Ff /f/ Hh /h/ Ii /i/ Jj /j/ Kk /k/

Ll /l/ Mm /m/ Nn /n/, /ŋ/ Oo /ɑ/ Ss /s/, /ʃ/ Tt /t/ Uu /u/ Vv /ʋ/

First word of a sentence has a capital letter, as do names.

Morphology

To be expanded.

Nouns

Nouns have a gender and decline for three cases, with some exceptions.

Gender Common Abstract (-i) Wilderness (-u)
Noun dova (tree) dovi (tower, height) dovu (jungle tree)

Gender is mostly predictable if you either know the meaning of a word or the spelling of it, however not all words ending in -i are of the "abstract" gender, nor are all nouns of that gender ending in -i, and the same is true for the other two classes.

Case Direct Indirect Oblique
ending in consonant dovan (forest) dovaniti dovanede
ending in vowel saini (person, mind) sainiti sainide


The direct case more or less equals the absolutive or nominative (depending on the trigger used, see below for more information regarding them), where as indirect and oblique roughly correspond with the direct and indirect object respectively, however they can also have other functions. Most notably, words answering the question "where to?" need the indirect case, whereas the oblique one is used for inalienable possession, relationship or authorship.

Adjectives

They don't have a distinct morphology and are seen as nouns. The only difference is that most adjectival nouns don't decline, like for example haad "bigness".

To intensify them, a haada "of biggerness", is used, so hohi a haada would translate to "very new" (literally "newness of biggerness"). An exception would be "very big", where just haada would be used.

Comparative of a adjectival noun is formed by adding a haada "of biggerness", and either hehe "still, even" to the end of the sentence, or adding a construction with ehe "than", like for example: No ta a nihaa a haada ehe he na "I am older than you" (literally "I am of oldness of biggerness than you")

The superlative is constructed with a haadat "of biggestness" after it, as in Nuno ta an mihonode a nihaa a haadat. "I live in the oldest house" ("I live in the house of oldness of biggestness")

Negation

Negation of a noun or verb is formed by adding -l (if the word ends in a vowel) or -al (if the word ends in a consonant) to the end of the word. If the verb already has a mood or trigger suffix, the 'al' particle is postponed instead. This can also be done with nouns with a case ending or gerund forms, however it is also possible to add -l to the end (however this is somewhat uncommon with declined nouns)

Verbs

Verbs always end in -o and have no tense, number, voice or transitivity marked. Similar to ergative verbs in English like "break", the meaning often changes based on whether the sentence has an object or not, for example deko means 'to hear' in transitive sentences, but 'to listen' in intransitive sentences. This is often used in lieu of a proper passive voice. Some verbs, like 'mihinido' (to sleep) are always intransitive, and thus always convey an active meaning, and would need a more complicated construction to render a sentence passive-like, noitono mihinido ('be made to sleep', literally 'be lead to sleep), which use a patient suffix as a trigger on an auxiliary verb, but more on that later. Other ones are always transitive, though these are very uncommon and usually only additional meanings of ergative verbs, so they are sometimes not treated as a proper separate category. An example would be most meanings of daho (base intransitive meaning: 'to have space'), such as 'to accommodate', 'to make room', 'to send into space', to name a few, are transitive.

Several aspects exist: habitual, progressive/continuous and perfective are the most common ones. They are usually indicated by adverbs, but sometimes verbs or nouns can also be used for that.

There are also five moods, Indicative, Imperative, Conditional, Subjunctive and Hortative.

Indicative

Used for describing reality, general truths and statements proven or, based on some kind of evidence, very likely to be true. It is the default mood and has no suffix.

File:Indicative examples.png

Imperative

For commands and urges. It is formed by reduplicating the first two syllables of the infinitive, however some verbs are irregular here and only reduplicate part of the second syllable. The personal pronoun can be omitted in this case, or included for emphasis or clarification.

File:Imperative examples.png

Conditional

In Jutean it's used for the hypothetical result of an assumed change in conditions of the world, or, in some cases, for the polite expression of instructions or wishes you don't have much confidence or interest in becoming reality or that are more or less impossible. It's generally seen as the "humble" mood used when talking to someone of high respect or someone you just like that much. It can also be used for exaggerations that are supposed to be a proof of that or just joking. Formed by adding -ke to the end of the infinitive, which becomes -k in front of words starting with 'h' or in front of verbal particles.

File:Conditional examples.png

Subjunctive

Among other things used for energetic proposals, declarations, resolutions, or wishes you have absolute or near absolute faith in becoming true at some point or the time you mentioned. Also a more polite way to command someone to do something. Formed from infinitives with the -t suffix

File:Subjunctive examples.png

Hortative

This mood can often be seen as being somewhere between the two last ones, used for example for unbinding, but nevertheless assertive or affirmative suggestions, reminders or instructions. This would be translated into English with an auxiliary like "let" or "should". Formed with the -fe suffix attached to the infinitive.

File:Hortative examples.png

Triggers

Since Jutean has the Austronesian alignment, it uses triggers to mark the focus of a sentence. These can also be used to express what other languages use voices or cases at nouns for.

To put it shortly, triggers can signify a change in the morphosyntactic alignment from nominative-accusative or ergative-absolutive or vice versa, or highlight specific objects similar to how definite articles can do it. They can also express that a verb is reflexive or a reciprocal.

Triggers include patient (-no),agent (-mo), causative (-vo), reciprocal (-hut) and reflexive (-he). Instrumental (-de) and Locative (-hen) exist, but are rather uncommon. They are all also attached to the verb, unless it already has mood or gerundive marking. (See "Suffixation" for more information)

Examples for the ergative verb joo (to see)

File:Jutean example sentences.png

Transitivity

In intransitive sentences the meaning is by default understood as patientive. The patient trigger -no is used in transitive sentences to express this, since the agent-trigger is default and unmarked. An agentive trigger/suffix -mo still exists, is only used in intransitive sentences with ergative verbs to turn it agentive (similar to an antipassive), or sometimes with unergative verbs as well as ergative verbs in transitive sentences for emphasis, since intransitive sentences can not take a proper agent trigger, since triggers in general can only be used in transitive sentences, this includes aside from the agent trigger also the reciprocal, reflexive and causative trigger. Though instrumental and locative trigger-suffixes can be used and make an intransitive sentence have an implied impersonal subject:

Mihinidohen mihinon. The bed is where you sleep/one sleeps sleep-LOCV bed

Joohen maja. The eye/Eyes is/are with what you see/one sees. see-LOCV eye


Gerund

A gerund form exists, formed via suffixing -hi, and used to create nominalized subclauses. (See below)

Suffixation

If multiple suffixes would have to be added, for example mood and trigger or trigger and negation, only one of them is attached to the verb, with the other ones forming a particle. Which one is added to the verb is decided based on their position in this order: Mood < Trigger < Gerund suffix < Negation, meaning that if a mood morpheme is present, it will be the one added to the verb, with the other one or two forming a particle. If only the trigger and the negation are present, the trigger will be attached and the negation become a particle directly after the verb.

Adverbs

To follow.

Pronouns

Personal pronouns are rather complex, and some forms are thought to be almost unique to Jutean. The inanimate pronouns are gendered, the 3rd person pronoun referring to humans (and other sentient beings) however doesn't make distinctions.


Person 1st 2nd 3rd 3rd (plants and animals) 3rd (inanimate)
Singular ta na la uvu ehi, aha, ohu
Plural fa (incl.), fanal (excl. of 2SG),

fanafal (excl. of 2PL)

naf laf uvuf ehif, ahaf, ohuf
Collective fa (incl.) fafanal (excl.) fan fal uvuf, (fuvu) ehif, ahaf, ohuf (a af/efi/uf)

For the indirect case, the particle he is put in front of the pronoun, for the oblique case the circumferential particle me ... ma is used.

Example: ta I

he ta me, to me

me ta ma for me, of me, by me (etc.)


Demonstrative pronouns

They are distinguished by gender and distance (proximal, medial and distal).

Gender Common Abstract/Immaterial Wilderness
Proximal ja ji ju
Medial jam jim jum
Distal jaha jahi jahu

Possessive pronouns don't exist. See "Possession" below on how possession is expressed.

Other pronouns to follow.

Adpositions

These can sometimes be gendered as well, for example ado/ido/udo at, by, etc.


Question particles

To form a question, these are attached at the end of a sentence, separated by a comma. They are usually formed by taking the basic particle haa and adding the thing/concept/detail in question to it, however making new forms "on the fly" is uncommon and very informal.

Examples:

haaja/-ji/-ju "what?" haan "where?" haasin "who?" hasooni "when?" haava "made of what?" haatoni "how?" haano "why?"

Derivational morphology

In general, these affixes can be used to derive nouns from other nouns or verbs. For adverbs, -e is usually added to the end, while verbs take -o or -ho, barring some exceptions.


Gender-changing derivations

-a Generic noun suffix for common, physically existing things not related to the wilderness. Derived from the ending of most Common-gender nouns, -a

Known synonymous suffixes: (tba)

Examples: donosani 'experience' → donosana 'experienced person' niooni 'dream' → nioona 'picture, illustration'

-i Generic noun suffix for immaterial and/or abstract things, ideas, concepts etc., also used for some generic nouns and for deriving nouns from verbs. Derived from the ending of most Abstract/Immaterial-gender nouns, -i.

Known synonymous suffixes: -hi (particularly used when the word already ends in -i)

Examples: nesano 'to know' → nesani 'knowledge, knowing' vuha 'sun' → vuhi 'light'

-u Generic noun suffix for all wilderness-related things that physically exist, such as things to be found in jungles, oceans or other worlds, sometimes also outer space. Also has a few metaphorical uses. Derived from the ending of most Wilderness-gender nouns, -u

Known synonymous suffixes: (tba)

Examples: dova 'tree' → dovu 'jungle tree' saini 'mind, person, people' → sainu 'instinct, subconscious'


Changes in size or mightiness

-at General augmentative suffix, mostly quantitative. Derived from haadat, "biggestness"

Known synonymous suffixes: -aha, -haa, -haad, -ahad

Examples: saanu 'sea' → saanuahad 'ocean, ocean surface' seda 'pot' → sedaat 'cauldron'

-it Qualitative augmentative suffix, used when something exceeds something else in a defining quality, for example "magnifying glass" → "microscope". Derived from combining -at with -i.

Known synonymous suffixes: -at (rarely)

Examples: vunojahivo 'magnifying glass' → vujahivit 'microscope' dooni 'time' → doonat 'special occasion, celebration'

-fi General diminutive suffix. Etymology unclear.

Known synonymous suffixes: -fe (when used with adverbs), -ihame (for persons, rare, no longer productive), -ila/-ilu/-ili (gendered variants, rare, no longer productive)

Examples: dooni 'time' → doonifi 'moment' favefa 'meal, dish' → favefafi 'snack'


Instrumentals and resultatives

-ivo General instrumental suffix, for things that are needed or very useful for something. Probably related to vo 'use'

Example: hotio 'to write, be written' → hotivo 'pen, quill, writing implement'

vaili- Tool or machine derivation prefix, used for tools or machines that, rather than making a job easier, complete it for the most part themselves, like soap vs. washing machine.

Example: to 'to go' → vailita 'vehicle'

To be expanded.

Possession

Since possessive pronouns are nonexistent, a + personal pronoun in the oblique case are used for inalienable possession, relationship or authorship.


Vunam a he laf ha "Their parent" ("Parent of them")

Hotif a he ta ha "My book" [a book that I wrote] ("Book of me")

Ova a vuhatatede "The top of the mountain" ("Top of mountain")

For alienable possession, a relative nominalization is used, for example vailita a vohi a me ha ma "vehicle that I use" (literally "vehicle of using of me").

Syntax

Mainclauses

Strictly VSO, including in questions. Adverbs come last, with locations preceding time adverbs. Auxiliary verbs precede the other verb directly. Subclauses are usually nominalized, especially relative ones.

The complete order would be:

1. Conjunction (if two main clauses are connected)

2. Auxiliary verb

3. Auxiliary verb particle

4. Verb

5. Verb particle

6. Subject (Noun/pronoun in direct case)

7. Direct object (takes the indirect case)

8. Oblique/indirect object (usually takes the oblique case)

9. Adverbs (manner - place - time)

10. Question particle (separated by comma)

However, if the oblique object is animate, and the direct object is inanimate, sometimes the oblique object can come before the direct object.

Subclauses

Subclauses are usually avoided, often by turning them into main clauses, where possible. These are linked with a conjunction, (most of the time "u", "and").

In other case, when a subclause is needed, a nominalization is used, as is the case with, for example, relative clauses.

Multiple subclauses in a single sentence are almost always avoided, since they can easily become confusing for the listener or let the speaker "trip" over their own words and cause you to lose your train of thought. This still applies, albeit less so, for written language.

Word order in nominalized subclauses is still VSO and otherwise unchanged as well, though there is no need to always have a distinct subject, as subclauses can refer back to the subject of the main clause. They are usually introduced by "a", "of, from, by, about", followed by the gerundive form of the verb.

Numerals

Jutean uses a base-5 counting system, so "ten" would be literally translated as "two five". Ordinal numbers (first, second, third) are formed by adding the oblique case ending -ede/-de. Numbers aren't declined.


Number Cardinal Ordinal
1 iki ikide
2 leke lekede
3 kiuki kiukide
4 kihaki kihakide
5 kiif kiifede
6 kiif-iki kiif-ikide
7 kiif-leke kiif-lekede
8 kiif-kiuki kiif-kiukide
9 kiif-kihaki kiif-kihakide
10 leke-kiivi leke-kiivide
11 leke-kiivi iki leke-kiivi ikide
12 leke-kiivi leke leke-kiivi lekede