Inote

Inote

Inote is the language of the Catmandir, a feline species from the planet Leo Epsilon IV, better known as Ikuna. It has 5 vowels and 7 consonants. They are as follows:

• a as in father
• d as in dark
• e as in pen
• i as in it
• k as in kick
• n as in nun
• o as in got
• p as in push
• r as in run
• s as in slush
• t as in touch
• u as 'oo' in book

All letters are pronounced, no matter what. There are no 'silent e's' in Inote, and no current irregularities.

Syllables

Inote syllables use this structure (C)V(C). There must be a vowel, and it may be preceded by or precede a consonant. Dicons are not permitted in Inote, nor are dipthongs. Thus ineru (to hunt) is permitted, while sant is not permitted.

Nouns

Nouns have three cases: nominative, objective, and posssessive.

• Nominative is used as the subject of a sentence and is not changed from the base form.
• Objective is used as the object of a sentence. An objective noun is modified by the addition of t- (if the word starts with a vowel) or ta- (if the word starts with a consonant) during the daytime and t- (if the word starts with a vowel) or te- (if the word starts with a consonant) during the nighttime.
• Possessive is used to show ownership. A possessive noun is modified by the addition of n- (if the word starts with a vowel) or na- (if the word starts with a consonant) during the daytime and n- (if the word starts with a vowel) or ne- (if the word starts with a consonant) during the nighttime.

Sample nouns:

• neteror-storyteller; na-/neneteror-storyteller's; ta-/teneteror-[done to] storyteller
• okunus-rabbit; nokonus-rabbit's; tokonus-[done to] rabbit
• porar-corn; na-/neporar-corn's; ta-/teporar-[done to] corn

Adjectives

Adjectives are placed before the noun, similarly to English. They do not agree with nouns as in some languages. Sample adjectives:

• otar-other; En otar Inote.-The other catmandir.
• ret-red; En ret pora.-The red nut.
• ninorak-disloyal; En ninorak ninenek.-The disloyal slave.

Verbs

Verbs in Inote have three tenses: past, present and future.

• Past is used to talk about thinks that have happened prior to the conversation or writing.
• Present is used to talk about things that are happening at the same time as the conversation or writing.
• Future is used to talk about things that will happen after the conversation or writing.

Verbs also have six persons and two temporal differentiators. These are:

• 1st Person Singular-I do something
• 2nd Person Singular-you do something
• 3rd Person Singular-he, she, or it does something
• 1st Person Plural-we do something
• 2nd Person Plural-you (plural) do something
• 3rd Person Plural-they do something
• Daytime differentiator-the verb action occurred/occurs/will occur during the day. Events that happened at unknown times are automatically assumed to happen during the day.
• Nighttime differentiator-the verb action occurred/occurs/will occur during the night.

These are represented by pronouns. All sample pronouns are in the daytime differentiator. To make them nighttime, change the beginning a- to e-.

• Ane-I
• Ate-you
• Are-he
• Ake-she
• Ape-it
• Anen-we
• Aten-you (plural)
• Apen-they

To conjugate an infinitive verb for the present tense (a verb ending in -ru), add the first two letters of the appropriate pronoun to the ending, reversing them and add -n for plurals (so eke becomes -ek, then -ke, while anen becomes -an, then -na, then -nan).

• Ineru-to hunt; ineruna-I hunt
• Iperu-to be; iperuke-she is (nighttime)
• Inuru-to live; iperutan-you live (plural)
• Inoru-to fight; inorupen-they fight (nighttimr)

To conjugate for the past tense, change -ru to -ra and add the appropriate ending. For future tense, change -ru to -ro and add the appropriate ending.