Simik

Simîk is one of many languages spoken by the Zireen of the planet Rishai.

Phonology

Consonants

	labial	alveolar	retroflex	alv-palat.	palatal	velar
stops		t				k
nasals	m	n
fricatives	v	s z	š r	ś ź	c j
lat. appr.		l

Vowels

	front	central	back
high	i		u
mid	e
low		a

Tones

Simîk has four tones:

• high rising: á é í ú
• high falling: â ê î û
• low rising: ǎ ě ǐ ǔ
• low falling: à è ì ù

For convenience, the low rising tone is written without a tone mark. Each of these tones may also occur on long vowels (or diphthongs), so it is often said that Simîk has eight tones.

There should be 16 possible combinations of tones in two-syllable Simik words. However, most of these combinations only appear in compounds and foreign words. If you account for vowel length separately, only four or five of the possible tone patterns are common in native Simik roots, and many of the exceptions are emphatic forms that are derived from shorter roots. Historically, Simik developed from a language with pitch accent. The five tone patterns are especially apparent in words with short vowels:

• pattern 1 (HF-LR): jûma "dream", mâjar "to carry", nârik "right-hand"
• pattern 2 (HR-LR): nécla "Yitha", tílma "logic", źálin "to assemble", źérit "bird"
• pattern 3 (LR-HF): imâk "metal", mekî "puzzle", tazâ "six", valâr "finger"
• pattern 4 (LR-HR): izá "cat", jaśí "imbalance", saré "right, proper"
• pattern 5 (LR-LF): jerìn "left-hand", njeźà "lubricant", rizù "to thank"

In the ancient language, at most one syllable of a word received a stress, which could be rising or falling. The fifth pattern is accounted for by words without inherent stress. The various tone patterns of modern Simîk arise from different combinations of pitch accent, vowel length, and other factors.

ancient:	jùma	néškla	imàk	iðá	ježin
modern:	jûma	nécla	imâk	izá	jerìn

Morphology

Verbs

There are three conjugation patterns for verbs.

• 1st conjugation (intransitive verbs)

taacèi	I sleep
nîicèi	you sleep
nâacèi	we; you and I sleep
secèi	he/she/it/they sleep(s)
kúucèi	we; he/she/it/they and I sleep

• 2nd conjugation (transitive verbs)

kítai	I like myself
sîitai	I like you
setai	I like him/her/it/them
síitai	you like me
kíitai	you like yourself
séetai	you like him/her/it/them
leetái	he/she/it/they like(s) me
iitái	he/she/it/they like(s) you
àtai	he/she/it/they like(s) him/her/it/them
kàtai	he/she/it/they like(s) himself/herself/itself/themselves

• 3rd conjugation (reciprocal verbs)

núilic	you and I kiss
śilic	he/she/it and I kiss
zilic	you and he/she/it kiss
valic	they kiss