Nytal

Nytal is a costructed fantasy language, born to be isolated and not related to any linguistic family in the world.

Phonology and Pronounce

Basical pronounce

• a = like a in father

• b = as in English

• c = always like ch in church

• d = as in English

• e = like open e in lady or close e in men

• f = as in English

• g = always like g in get

• h and ' = these two graphemes represent a phoneme which is unknown to the most European languages: the glottal stop. Danish language has it and use it very often for distinguishing words but does not give it an alphabetic sign. Semitic languages use it more and more largerly, in fact it is considered as a single consonant. It is not easy to pronounce, in English we can find some example in the stop we make when we pronounce Bat'man. The real glottal stop is a fast movement open/closed of the vocal cords, but for the speakers who do not know how to pronounce it we advise to pronounce it as a little stop during pronunciation.

• i = always like ee in meet

• j = always like ee in meet

• k = as in English

• l = always like l in lane

• lij = as in Spanish ll or Italian gl

• m = as in English

• n = as in English

• nij = as in Spanish ñ

• o = like open o in rock or close o in orange

• p = as in English

• q = sounds like k

• r = rolled Italian/Spanish-like r

• s = as in English, but can only be unvoiced

• š = like sh in shop

• t = as in English

• u = like u in put

• v = as in English

• x = as in English

• y = this is the most difficult vowel to pronounce, because it appears rarely in romance or germanic languages. Instead, it is present in English, it is the schwa. It almost corresponds also to Russian Ы. A romance or germanic speaker can pronounce it by saying the ee of meet (or i in "ilusiòn" for Spanish, "illusion" for French and German) but lowering the tongue in the middle of the oral cavity and obtaining a sound middle-way between close e and ee.

• z = as in English, it can be voiced or unvoiced

Phonology in IPA

Consonants

This is the consonant system in the IPA consonant table:

	Bilabial	Labio- dental	Dental	Alveolar	Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	p b		t d				k ɡ	ʔ
Nasal	m	ɱ	n			ɲ
Vibrant			r
Fricative		f v		s	ʃ
Affricate				ʦ ʣ	ʧ
Approximant						j	ɰ
Lateral approximant			l			ʎ

Vowels

This is the vowel system in IPA vowel table:

	Front	Near-front	Central	Near-back	Back
Close	i u e o ə ɛ ɔ a
Close-mid
Mid
Open-mid
Open

Morphology

Nytal is an isolating language. It means that its particles (substantives, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, etc...) never flect according to their quality or function.

Substantives

Nytal substantives never flect for genre, number or cases.

They only can be accompanied by the pluralizing particle le which is placed before them

• city: syr

• cities: le syr

There are no articles at all, neither definite articles nor indefinite ones.

Adjectives

Nytal adjectives never flect according to their substantive. They are placed always after their substantive.

• the big city: syr haron

• the big cities: le syr haron

Adjectival comparison

Nytal has two degrees of comparison: the comparative and the superlative:

1. Comparative. Adjectives build their comparative by placing the particle ty before the adjective. The second term is expressed by particle udh.

They do not usually use less-comparative.

1. Superlative. Adjectives build their superlative by placing the particle jrje before the adjective. The second term can be expressed with the preposition yd (of) or okled (between, among)

• she is the most beautiful woman of the entire city: si ad’jo mec jrje skon yd syr vsj

Pronouns

Personal pronouns

Nytal has only three forms for personal pronouns:

Person	Pronoun
First person	ni
Second person	ok
Third person	si

They never flect for genre, number or cases. They can only be accompanied by their pluralizing particle la, which is placed after them.

• I love: ni a'ljek

• we love: ni la a'ljek

• I love you: ni a'ljek ok

• you love me: ok a'ljek ni

The role played by the pronoun is decided by the position in the sentence word order, not as in English where there are different form like I / me.

If a personal pronoun is placed after a substantive, it plays the role of a possessive adjective:

• my husband: sik ni

• their cities: le syr si la

It exists also a proper reflexive possessive pronoun, su, which is used when the subject and the owner are the same, for all persons.

• I love my wife: ni a'ljek mec su

In third person, if it is used the proper third person pronouns, it means that the owner is not the subject itself:

• si a'ljek mec su: He loves his own wife

• si a'ljek mec si: He loves his wife (of another man).

Demonstrative pronouns and adjectives

They can be used both as pronouns and adjectives.

This	tjel
That (near to the listener)	afris
That (far from both speakers)	skj

When they are used as pronouns they can take the pluralizing particle la after themselves, when they are used as adjectives they follow all adjectives' rules.

Relative pronoun

There is only one indeclinable relative pronoun kj.

• The cows you see belong to my husband (the cows, which you see, are of my husband): le desti, kj ok a'ljub, ad'jo yd sik ni

Interrogative pronouns

These are the interrogative pronouns; they are all indeclinable.

who	ejik
what	ejek
which	kjel
how much/many	tyka

Adverbs

Nytal adverbs, which are derived from an adjective, are distinguished by the particle klo which is placed just before the adjective. You can find many isolated adjectives, used as adverbs anyway.

• finally: klo blek

Numbers

Cardinal

Nytal number system is a 10 base one:

1	js
2	do
3	vif
4	ti
5	so
6	kha
7	ejk
8	tjhr
9	von
10	djneh

Numbers over 10 are constructed:

• numbers x 10: add -'djn.

• numbers x 100: add -'odhj

• numbers x 1000: add -'medjh

composed numbers are formed with a (and). Examples:

• 25: do'djn a so (twenty and five)

• 456: ti'odhj a so'djn a kha (four hundert and fifty and six)

Each number has to be intended as an adjective but it can be placed before its substantive.

Ordinal

The ordinal numbers are formed by placing the particle tjux after all simple numbers:

• first: js tjux

• fifteenth: djneh a so tjux

and they follow all adjectives' rules.

• the fifth city: syr so tjux

Verbs

Nytal verbs do not decline as Indo-European verbs do according to number and tenses.

They only take some particles which indicate the temporal position of the action.

Infinitive	- (zero)
Present	a'-/ad'-
Past	be'-/bed'-
Future	fi'-/fid'-
Conditional	bif'-
Imperative	- (zero)

As in English, Nytal verbs always require the presence of a subjects, substantives and personal or demonstrative pronouns.

To negate a verb you have to place the particle ta just before the verb.

• I love you: ni a'ljek ok

• I do not love you: ni ta a'ljek ok

From the verb we can obtain an adjective with a passive meaning which corresponds to our past participle, by placing -'lo after the verb

• to see: ljub

• seen: ljub'lo

This is a special form because Nytal verbs do not have a passive form.

Each verb has to be intended as transitive and intransitive if possible: With an object it must be translated it with the transitive form, without any object it must be considered as an intransitive verb.

In English it is the same in the sentences: The boy broke the window (transitive) / The window broke (intransitive)

• the man broke the window: sik be'krijg eknje

• the window broke: eknje be'krijg

Derivational morphology

Since all words in Nytal language could, in theory, play the rule of substantive, adjective, (pronoun) and verb, the derivational morphology was almost nonexistent. Some traces of a derivational morphology existed, a very few processes of derivations:

- the couple "prefix me- + word + suffix -(j)er", added to a verb, create a new word with the leading meaning of "one who makes the action", equivalent to the English suffix -er. The new word could be used as adjective or as verb too.

• skit, to write → meskitjer, writer

• xenoj, to take care → mexenojer, caretaker

• finans, debt, to be in debt → mefinanser, debtor

This prefix and this suffix were maybe born as independent particles, because of the isolating nature of the language, and only after the continuos usage they were felt as an added prefix and suffix.

Syntax

Word order

Nytal is a strictly SVO language, i.e. its components in the independent sentences are placed Subject - Verb - Object.

This word order is respected in every kind of sentences, dependent and independent; only by this the words can play their exact role in the sentences, because no word has cases or changes according to its function as in Indo-European languages does:

• ni a'ljek si: I love her but if the pronouns' position changes, the sense of the sentences changes: si a'ljek ni: She loves me.

There are only a few cases where the word order can change:

- In the relative sentence we can find an OSV order, because the relative pronoun is the object, accusative:

• the man which you see: sik kj ok a'ljub

- In direct questions we can find an OSV order, because the interrogative pronoun is the object, accusative:

• Which city did you visit?: kjel syr ok be'ljeuben?

Usage of words

Nytal words can have more than an only function:

A substantive can be easily used as an adjective or a verb:

love: ljek → to love → relative to the love

I love my wife, it's a great love: ni a'ljek mec su, tjel ad'jo ljek haron

to see: ljub → seeing, vision

beautiful: skon → beauty → to get beautiful → to make beautiful

I am beautiful: ni ad'jo skon

I got beautiful: ni be'skon

She will make her own house beautiful: si fi'skon toj su

man, husband: sik → human, masculine, male

to stop, to finish: blek → end, termination → final

and so you can find many words with different functions, which you can recognize because of their accompaining particles