Rajat

Rajat is spoken in much of the Measceineafh, as it is rapidly becoming a local lingua franca, largely because of indigenous political control.

Phonology

	Bilabial	Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	p  b	t  d	ɖ	ɟ	k
Fricative	f	s		ç		h
Nasal	m	n
Approximant		l	ɻ  ɭ

Vowels: /a e i o u/

Morphology

Nominal Morphology

Five major cases are distinguished morphologically - nominative, accusative, genitive, instrumental, and dative. Nominative is the base form, while the suffix -i is added to regular nouns to form the accusative. Meanwhile, the other cases are formed by what were prepositions (and now are prefixes), those being fi- (genitive), di- (instrumental), and ni- (dative).

Verbal Morphology

Verbs conjugate for tense, mood, person, and number in a somewhat agglutinative fashion.

a deimi aiebauna
a deim-i ai-e-bauna
1.S.NOM 3.S.INANI.STR/ACC-ACC IMP-1-eat
I was eating that.

This is roughly one of the most simple conjugations, as the mood is realis and the subject's number is singular (although, even if it was plural it would be marked without that because the subject is not in first person). For a more complex example:

ti deimi inababauna
ti deim-i i-n-a-ba-bauna
3.P.NOM 3.S.INANI.STR/ACC-ACC FUT-IRR-2-P-eat
They might go and eat that.

To begin, the tense and aspect section proceeds all others, then the mood-encoding morphemes (or a null), then the obligatory person marker, and then the plural marker, if necessary, and finally the root noun-verb.

Starting with tense, four major distinctions are made - perfect, past imperfect, present progressive, and future. Each has its own marker on regular verbs, and these are virtually always distinct on irregulars as well. For example:

a uebauna
a u-e-bauna
1.S.NOM PRF-1-eat
I ate.

a aiebauna
a ai-e-bauna
1.S.NOM IMP-1-eat
I was eating.

a eebauna
a e-e-bauna
1.S.NOM PROG-1-eat
I'm eating.

a iebauna
a i-e-bauna
1.S.NOM FUT-1-eat
I will/shall eat.

Moving on to mood, four moods are distinguished. These are the realis (null), irrealis (-n-), negative (-z-), and emphatic (-t-). Realis functions similarly to the indicative of other languages, but is used for statements that are known to be true or would be true given the correct changes (the then clause in and if-then construction). Irrealis mirrors this, being used for statements that may be true, could be true, or are unknown as to their validity, as well as in the if-clause in said constructions. Negative is used obviously to mark a statement as false. Meanwhile, the emphatic has a more convoluted meaning. Used for all imperatives (even negatives, which mark their negativity in a different manner), it is associated with things that should or must or otherwise have some requirement to be true.

a aiebauna
a ai-0-e-bauna
1.S.NOM IMP-REAL-1-eat
I was eating.

a ainebauna
a ai-n-e-bauna
1.S.NOM IMP-IRR-1-eat
I may have been eating.

a aizebauna
a ai-z-e-bauna
1.S.NOM IMP-NEG-1-eat
I wasn't eating.

a aitebauna
a ai-t-e-bauna
1.S.NOM IMP-EMPH-1-eat
I needed to eat.

As for person, it's relatively simple, as there are only three versions: -e- for first person, -a- for second, and -o- for third.

a eebauna
a e-e-bauna
1.S.NOM PROG-1-eat
I'm eating.

noz eabauna
noz e-a-bauna
1.S.NOM PROG-2-eat
You're eating.

daun eobauna
daun e-o-bauna
3.S.ANI.NOM PROG-3-eat
(S)He's eating.

The plurality of the subject is only encoded for third person (and then the singular is marked with a null, so marking in total is very limited). For example:

daun eobauna
daun e-o-bauna
3.S.ANI.NOM PROG-3-eat
(S)He's eating.

ti eobabauna
ti e-o-ba-bauna
3.P.NOM PROG-3-P-eat
They're eating.

Changes from Central Measceineafh

• f v ʒ x > DELETE
• θ > f
• f# v# s# z# > DELETE
• ɟʝ) > ɟ
• æi ɑi ei oi ui > e æ i ø y > e æ i e i
• æCi ɑCi eCi oCi uCi > eCi æCi iCi eCi iCi
  • Where C is /p b f m k h ɟ ç/
• æ ɑ > a
• e [-stress|+closed syllable] > E > ə > a
• ʃ + i,e + V > ʃV ([ʒ] where intervocular) > ç ([ʝ] intervocularly)
• q > h
• Stress regularizes to intial where there are three or fewer syllables; penultimate where there are more.
• Fusion of fi (genitive), di (instrumental), and ni (dative) to beginning of nouns produces further cases and pushes stress back to second syllable, when it then regularizes again to penultimate in all words (except nouns, where it is initial for nominative and accusative (prior to the adding of the prefixes).