Tales of the Swampwitch

Noun Categorizers, Plurals and cases

The first thing I want for this language, mostly for the fun I can have with descendants, are noun categorizers, each of these has five cases.

As an important note, the noun categorizers are postfixed to a noun, but can be used as standalone words, in which case they are third person pronouns.

Final important note is that the plural morpheme <gaz> will be postfixed -after- the categorizer, and the case marker after -that-.

Now for the list of Noun Categorizers…

• <gat> – Friend/Companion (also used for pets and the like. Animate)
• <muk> – Predator/Enemy (Animate)
• <ci>- Phenomenon (Rain, Fire, etc. Animate)
• <pac>- Prey (Animate)
• <xo> – Food (Inanimate)
• <tog> – Object (Inanimate)
• <kik> – Concept (Inanimate)

Yes, Phenomena are considered animate by this culture. The remaining Animate classes are meant to reflect the pack-based predatorial nature of the species this language is for.

Finally, we have 8 cases. The Nominative (1st case), the Vocative (2nd case), the Genitive (3rd case), the Instrumental (4th case), the Locative (5th case) Ablative (6th case), Allative (7th case) and the Objective (8th case, Which covers both the direct and indirect object.)

1. (unmarked)
2. <co>
3. <ki>
4. <ge>
5. <ce>
6. <gu>
7. <xe>
8. <ku>

As an example word, consider talking about a group of prey you’re hunting that you’ve spoken about earlier, and are currently moving towards. You’d use <pacgazxe> /paG’gaz.xe/ (fricative at the end of the first syllable is voiced due to adjacent voiced plosive.)

Unnamed Conlang

I’m starting a new conlang project, since I lost all data on old ones.

As usual, let’s start with some design goals and limits.

• I want this language to be a-priori
• I want this language to be easily pronounced by me, to encourage myself to learn it. This means I will not use any very exotic phonemes or consonant clusters.
• I want this language to have an interesting noun class and case system.
• I eventually want to create a custom orthography, but there will always be a Latin-based orthography for ease of use.
• I want this language to use a lot of Velar consonants, for aesthetic purposes.
• I want this language to represent a non-human way of thinking, without going into full-tilt alien.
• This language will be the ancestor for a small family of languages, each with their own unique features. Due to this being a proto-language, it’s okay if it’s somewhat unnaturally regular.

The first step is, of course, deciding on phones and phonology.

Consonants

Plosives: /t/ /d/ /k/ /g/
Fricatives: /f/ /v/ /s/ /z/ /x/ /G/
Affricates: /ts)/ /dz)/ /kx)/
Nasals: /n/ and /N/

Special Note: Velar consonants will be more common than others.

Vowels

/a/ /e/ /i/ /o/ /u/

Syllable Structure

CV(C)

Special note: Nasals in the coda preceding a plosive in the next syllable (whether across word boundaries or not) will debuccalize towards the plosive.

Latin Ortography

Single word lowercase CXS characters will be spelled in their normal latin forms. /G/ will be <c>, /N/ will be spelled <m> affricates will be spelled <ts>, <dz> and <kx>