Halcánian dialect

back to Dalcurian main page

Page currently undergoing information additions

The Halcarnian dialect, also known as: Söemi'Dal'qörian (Finno-Dalcurian) and Gerödn'qonvetarämös (lit: under speech-an unfavourable term and offensive to Halcarnians), has several differences between itself and 'Dal'qöriádn-Standard Dalcurian'. These include:

• Noun cases/markers

• Spelling, pronunciation and word differences

• Pronouns

• Modal expressivness

• Possesive structure

• Word order

Here are brief descriptions of those differences.

---

Noun Cases and markers

Halcarnian has fifteen noun cases: 3 grammatical cases, 6 locative cases, 3 essive cases and 3 marginal cases.

Halcarnian cases
Case	Suffix	English prep.	Sample	Translation
Grammatical
nominative		-	taloj	house
genitive	-in	of	talojin	of (a) house
accusative	-an	-	talojan	house (as an object)
Locative (internal)
inessive	-asa	in	talojasa	in (a) house
elative	-ta	from (inside)	talojta	from (a) house
illative	-sta	into	talojsta	into (a) house
Locative (external)
adessive	-la	at, on	talojla	at (a) house
ablative	-lta	from	talojlta	from (a) house
allative	-le	to	talojle	to (a) house
Essive
essive	-na	as	talojna	as a house
exessive	-atta	from being	talojatta	from being a house
translative	-iksi	to (role of)	talojiksi	to a house
Marginal
instructive	-in	with (the aid of)	talojin	with the house
abessive	-uta	without	talojuta	without (a) house
comitative	-ne	together (with)	talojne	with a house

Although the above cases almost replicate those of the Finnish language, their usage is much more 'definate'. And, since Halcarnian is an inflected dialect, word order within sentences can be comparatively free - the function of a word being indicated by its ending. But, for emphasis, word order does change on a regular basis:

• Danutt taloj. There is a house. (but its not important).
  • Talojan danutt! Look, a HOUSE! (although in this sentence, HOUSE isnt technically an object, the object marker is used to give special attention to it).

• Mina gavisur talojan . I saw a house.
  Often, Halcarnians will leave off the object marker if the object carries no special importance. However, if it's the object that is to be emphasised, it nearly always goes first, in which case, the marker must be used:
  • Talojan gavisur mina! I saw a HOUSE!
    Leaving off the marker here could cause confusion. Taloj gavisur mina potentially translates as A house saw I!

• Han habitr talojasa . He lives in a house.
  • Talojasa habitr han! It's a HOUSE he lives in! He lives in a HOUSE!

• Sihan gakamur talojata. She came out of (from inside) a house.

• Anke goria talojsta. Anke is going into a house.

• Anke talojla. Anke is at home.
  • Talojla Anke! Anke is at HOME!

• Anke gagor talojlta. Anke left a house. (lit: Anke went away from a house)

• Anke goria talojle. Anke is going to a house.

• Jonäokni, til talojna. At the moment, it's a house.

• Eren gafukr til talojatta taloturijeliksi' They changed it from a house into flats.
  In taloturijeliksi, turi is a diminutive suffix (makes something small) and el is the plural marker, as in Standard Dalcurian.

---

Spelling/pronunciation

The main differences are:

ö is written as u

é is written as ee

á is written as aa

ø is written as ok but pronounced hard as in lock

c is replaced with k and pronounced hard

Þ is replaced with tt but pronounced the same

qu is written as ku

kk-the way to voice this is to pronounce the first k hard, the second is voiced like the English Y in yacht or the soft J in the German Javol or Ja. One has to be careful of spelling traps too, for example the Halcarnian word for a thin, summer jacket is hakan, but the same word spelled hakkan means peace or serenity. Here are some examples in Standard and Halcarnian respectively:

• strömi, strumi-hot

• vélø, veelok-cold

• iáda, iaada-today

• alsalöátsi, alsaluaatsi-fanatic

• eÞöa, ettua-some

• hemørämös, hemokrämus-forgiveness

---

Pronouns

Halcarnian pronouns are as follows:

Nominative, Accusative:

• mina-I

• sina-you

• han-he

• sihan-she

• til-it

• eren-they

• meena-we

Accusative (objective) pronouns are denoted with the noun markers:

• Mina gavisur sinan I saw you.. (If the subject noun or pronoun ends in a only an objective n is added)

• Han gavisur minan. He saw me.

• Meena gavisur gadurajan. We saw a dog. ( This sentence can also be written as: Gadurajan gavisur meena. It still means, We saw a dog because of the objective marker, but gives more importance to the dog as if to say, It was a DOG we saw!)

• Sihan kualteedria hanan. She's asking him a question.

The Halcarnian case system makes it difficult for speakers of of Indo-European languages to grasp-especially if you're used to using prepositions to place a noun. Thankfully, this case system doesn't extend into the articles a and the as in German. In fact, the absence of the definate article the automatically renders a, and di is only used when its really neccessary to identify the noun:

Danutt abudä. There is a house. but:

Danutt di abudä. There is the house.

Not all prepositions in Halcarnian are noun markers; those such as: between, against, and prepositional phrases such as, inspite of, contrary to, in aid of, in respect of, etc are all rendered as standard Dalcurian (with spelling changes).

Word order

Generally, Halcarnian word order is SVO, though for emphasis it can change to OSV:

Mina goria abudäanen. I'm going into a house. but for emphasis:

Abudäanen mina goria! It's a HOUSE I'm going into!

Note: Some might say that in the above example, house is in the dative; Halcarnian still recognises this as an object rather than an indirect object because nothing else is being acted upon by the verb. Therefore abudä must still take the objective marker an as well as its 'illative' marker.