Sgen language

The Sgen language is a language isolate spoken in Nevira, it is also spoken in South Jute by the Sgen people, it has no known relatives, both living ones and historical ones, and records of the historical stages of the Sgen language is poor.

Despite being a minority language, the Sgen language is not moribund or endangered, it is still spoken by most Sgen people of all age groups and is used in all occasions of daily life, and it is estimated that about 80% of children of the Sgen ethnicity are monolingual in the Sgen language.

Phonology

With only 6 consonants and 4 vowels, the Sgen language has arguably the smallest phonological inventory among all languages in Sahar; however, the consonants are subject of allophony and the pronunciation can vary greatly depending on the phonological conditions and can also vary between dialects or between individual speakers.

Consonants

	bilabial	dental	velar
voiceless	p~ɸ	t~t͡s~s	k~x
voiced	β~b~m	ɾ~d~l~n	ɣ~ɡ~ŋ~ɰ

vowels

	front	back
closed	ɪ	o
open	ɛ	ɑ

Phonotactics

• Syllable structure:(C)V
• Stress usually falls on the penultimate syllable, but the distinction between stressed syllables and non-stressed syllables is vague.
• /t/ consistently becomes [t͡s] or [s] before /i/.
• /β/, /ɾ/, /ɣ/ become [b], [d], [ɡ] word-initially respectively.
• [l] and [ɰ] are in free variations with /ɾ/ and /ɣ/ respectively.
• [m], [n], [ŋ] are allophones of /β/, /ɾ/, /ɣ/ respectively, and are in free variations with /β/, /ɾ/, /ɣ/ respectively; however, nasal consonants are almost never used between native speakers and are only used for humor effects or in some recent loanwords.

Transcription

• A - /ɑ/
• E - /ɛ/
• G - /ɣ/
• I - /ɪ/
• K - /k/
• V - /β/
• O - /o/
• P - /p/
• R - /ɾ/
• T - /t/

Vowel Harmony

If vowels of the stem of a word are front vowels, the vowels of affixes change into front vowels; If vowels of the stem of a word are back vowels, the vowels of suffixes change into back vowels. In words containing both of the front vowels and the back vowels, the vowel of the suffix harmonizes with the last vowel of the stem.

The vowel Harmony rule is shown below:

• o(close-mid back vowels or near-close back vowels)<->i(near-close front vowels)
• a(Open-mid back vowels or open back vowels)<->e(Open-mid front vowels)

example:

• raka("person") --> raka-ro("to the person")
• ikerevi("child") --> ikerevi-ri("to the child")
• rao("lake") + teriki("land") --> rao-taroko("Sgen Homeland, world")

However, in the modern language, compound words often don't follow the vowel harmony rule

Grammar

Syntax

Word Order

• Basic Word Order: Subject-Object-Verb(SOV)
• Adpositions are postpositions, conjunctions are at the end of the sentence

Morphology

• Noun inflections:
  • Numbers:
    • dual:-po/-pi
    • plural:-pa/-pe
  • Cases:
    • Nominative:-va/-ve
    • Genitive:-ta/-te
    • Dative:-ro/-ri
    • Accusative:-vo/-vi
    • Benefactive:-ga/-ge
    • Instrumental:-go/-gi
    • Comitative: -pao/-pie
    • Locative:-to/-si
    • Ablative:-ra/-re/-ka/-ke

• Verb inflections:
  • infinitive/adverbial: -to/-si
  • Tense-aspects-mood:
    • Indicative:
      • present:-paro/-peri
      • past imperfective:-poka/-pike
      • present continuous:-roka/-rike
      • perfective:-gata/-gete
    • subjunctive: -ra/-re
    • conditional: -raga/-rege
    • hortative:-govo/-givi
  • Other marks:
    • question maker:-kaga/-kege
    • negation:-pavo/-pevi

Note: The dictionary form of verbs are in the present tense instead of the infinitive form.

Derivation

• Causative I: -pa/-pe(suffix)
• Causative II: -tapa-/-tepe-(infix between the first and second syllable)

words

This is only a part of the words, the complete word list is under construction.

Numbers

1. one: vo
2. two: pi
3. three: pepi
4. four: evi
5. five: poka
6. six: pokavopao(5+1)
7. seven: pokapopao(5+2, vowel mutation)
8. eight: pokapapopao(5+3, vowel mutation)
9. nine: pokaavopao(5+4, vowel mutation)
10. ten: taa

• twenty: tegi
• thirty: pepive
• forty: evive
• fifty: pokava
• sixty: pokavopaova
• seventy: pokapopaova
• eighty: pokapapopaova
• ninety: pokaavopaova
• hundred: kaavaa
• -th:-ata/-ete(note: first is tota)

Pronouns

Personal pronouns:

	single	dual	triple	plural
1st exclusive	ako	akopo	akoka	akopa
1st inclusive	ako	akopota	akopotapo	akopotapa
2nd	pite	pitepi	piteke	pitepe
3rd general	avo	avopo	-	avopa
3rd near(this/these)	eri	eripi	-	eripe
3rd far(that/those)	ara	arapo	-	arapa

Interrogative pronouns:

• who:
• what:
• which:
• where:
• when:
• how:
• why:
• how much/how many:

Indefinite pronouns:

• anyone/anybody:
• anything:
• any:
• someone/somebody:
• something:
• everyone/everybody:
• everything:
• every:

Demonstratives:

• this:
• that:
• these:
• those:
• here:
• there:

Conjugations and other words

• And: a
• Or: e
• If: i
• Then: vepi
• Because: ka
• So; therefore: ta
• before(also used with dative nouns): pie
• after(also used with dative nouns): pa
• when(not pronoun); as soon as: apo