Rinap

Rinap ('Kni Nape Rinhikhyri' meaning 'The Language of Ancestors') was created for the fantasy world of juhhmi, Grundet, in the beginning of 2013, and it was intended to be the main language of the seventh era Eastern Empire with over 10 million native speakers. This a priori language belongs to Herookian language family, but at the moment, it is the only one completed. The language itself suffered a decline during fifth and sixth era, but was soon revived and partly reconstructed based on ancient texts. The old Doslox writing system was also returned into use. Since the new language is a bit clumsy and spoken over a wide region, many different dialects have appeared.

Dictionary

See Rinap-English Dictionary.

Phonology

Consonants

	Bilabial	Labio-dental	Dental	Alveolar	Post-alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal	m			n		ɲ
Plosive	p b			t d			k g
Fricative		f v	θ ð	z s	ʃ ʒ		x	χ	h
Affricate				ts			kx
Approximant						j
Trill				r
Lateral app.				l

Phoneme /ɲ/ appears in the beginning of past participles such as 'nabeat' meaning 'gone', and 'ng' is pronounced as /ɲ/ in words such as kang /kɑɲ/ meaning time. 'Z' is often /ʒ/ in the beginning of words, but also if preceded by /ɲɑ/. 'S' preceding a consonant is often pronounced as /ʃ/. 'J' used at the end of a word is pronounced as /i/.

'H' is most often pronounced as /χ/, but also appears /x/ at the end of words, and sometimes /h/ before vowels in the beginning of words. 'H' is also pronounced as /f/ when preceded by a non-sibilant frigative (such as /χ/ and /θ/) plus vowel: 'dohuho' becomes /doχu:fo/ (meaning 'many sheep').

Vowels

	Front	Back
Close	i y	u
Open-mid	ɛ œ	ɔ
Near-open	æ
Open		ɑ

Before vowels in the beginning of words, /y/ and /i/ become /jʷ/ and /j/.

Phonotactics

Most common syllable structure is CV, and the other possible ones are (C)(C)V(C)(C) where C is for consonants and V for vowels and diphthongs.

Diphthongs

Diphthongs are very common in short words and come in great variety. Their pronunciation doesn't much differ from the combined vowel sounds, but the component sounds do come closer to each other, for example the most common 'ao' is /ao/ instead of /ɑɔ/ and ea /ea/ rather than /ɛɑ/. However, word forming and declension can produce stranger vowel combinations which are pronounced more easily by lengthening and/or modifying vowel sounds: thöa /θɜ:ɐ/ (Though the author is not sure about this)

Orthography

Writing system of Doslox has graphemes derived from pictograms, and their order is based on an old story ('Halox Dozkepyr' or Hunter's Day' which is where the name originates). Later, Wadoslox was developed to simplify the script and make it easier to read. Each grapheme represents a singe phoneme or syllable, but the words for original pictograms didn't sometimes even include the actual letter - rather the sound was thought to be essential to the word: for example, symbol for 'j' comes from 'nanyalt' /nɑnjɑlt/ meaning 'loved'. With Doslox, every word can be written without raising your pen of the paper.

Special marks in the beginning and at the end of sentences are used to separate them from another |sentence| thus marking initials and dots or to indicate whether they are an interrogative (zo-question) or an imperative <sentence>: |neym juhhmi(zoneyh phe) where the second '|' has been left out. Mid-sentence upper case letters can be marked with a line under the letter. With Latin script of course, these marks aren't used to avoid misunderstandings.

Romanized versions and their pronunciation:

• A - /ɑ/ Symbol 'o' also used for their sun, Halla, as originally.
• K - /k/
• P - /p/
• D - /d/
• E - /ɛ/
• B - /b/
• H - /χ/, /x/ or /h/
• NI - /ni/ 'called'-symbol in names, e.g. 'Hithul ni-Xathen' means 'Hithul called-bear'
• KH - /kx/
• NA - /ɲa/ Past participle prefix
• V - /v/
• F - /f/
• D - /d/
• M - /m/
• Ö - /œ/
• O - /ɔ/
• HO - /χɔ/
• L - /l/
• I - /i/
• W - /w/
• Y - /y/
• ZO - /ʒɔ/ Question-prefix
• R - /r/
• T - /t/
• TH - /θ/
• X - /ks/
• G - /g/
• Z - /z/ or /ʒ/
• S - /s/ or /ʃ/
• PH - /pʰ/
• Ä - /æ/
• J - /j/
• N - /n/
• HI - /hi/ Rarely used, most often for 'as'
• U - /u/

Grammar and Syntax

Rinap is a nominative-accusative language so the subjects of transitive and agents of intransitive verbs are treated as the same. Transitive verb objects are declined into the objective case: 'Zodoih phe nik pemoztek doileke knoik?' (¿See you the bird beautiful that?) 'Do you see those beautiful birds?' This 'naphuk' or 'k-language' is the formal way of speaking so in casual situations and dialects the postfixes are often omitted.

Primary word order is VSO, and since verbs conjugate, the pronouns can be dropped off in simple sentences: 'Neym geva.' 'I'm here.' Interrogative sentences always begin with interrogative 'zo'-words or verbs formed with 'zo'-prefix such as in the first example above. If interrogative word is at the beginning, verb comes the second: 'Zowa neo do?' or simply 'Zowa neo?' meaning 'Where is it?'

Relative clauses are being avoided although relative pronouns exist and are recommended for use. They can be used similarly to question words altering the word order: 'Zoze nei Narok sohi zuo si Laha?' translated to 'Where is Narek who comes from Laha?' If the relative pronoun is left out, spoken sentence can be shortly paused or in written language marked with comma: 'Zoze nei Narok, zuo si Laha?' In this specific example, past participle can be used: 'Zoze nei Narok, si Laha nazut.' but this almost means 'To where has Narok from Laha come?'

Rinap is quite head-initial so that all determiners except articles and numerals are placed after the noun: 'kni gekhu okku pär knoi' 'the house small my that'. The order for those is article-noun-adjective-possessive-demonstrative as in the example. It should be noted that articles are used even if there is a demonstrative pronoun.

Pronouns

Personal

Pronouns have three cases: Nominative is used when the pronoun is subject or agent in a sentence, but nominative pronoun can be dropped off in simple senteces: 'Beam pa po kweo' 'I'm going there.' Objective form is used when pronoun is an object or with prepositions such as 'for': 'Bekoram dek ki phik.' 'I'll give it for you.' Possessive pronouns are used to indicate ownership: 'Sapam pär' 'My hand' In more formal speach, the possessive pronouns are also given suffixes depending on the head noun they're determining: 'Sapam päry' and plural 'Sapamoh pär(y)s'

	1st singular	2nd singular	2nd sg. polite	3rd sg. masculine	3rd sg. feminine	3rd sg. neutral	3rd sg. inanimate	1st plural	2nd plural	2nd pl. polite	3rd plural
Nominative	pa	phe	Pheor	thy	thi	tha	do	phoo	peooh	Pheohar	thoo
Objective	pök	phik	Pheik(h)	thuk	thek	thok	dek	phoek	pewek	Pheohox	thoek
Possessive	pär	phor	Pherör	thur	ther	thor	dör	phoör	phewör	Pheökhör	thoör

Second singular polite is used when talking to a person with higher social status, for example an elder, priest or noble. The rare second plural polite is especially used when addressing court members or the Six Elemental Guardians of Golden Islet. 3rd singular neutral is used if the gender of a person, who is being talked of, is not known: 'Donba thor' 'His/her book'.

There is only one reflexive pronoun for all, 'par' (self), which is used together with objective case when subject does something to itself: 'Doe thek.' means 'She sees her.', but 'Doe thek par.' means 'She sees herself.' Similarly 'Xamimho phoek par' 'We wash ourselves.' However, if subject does something by itself, 'pre' is used: 'Doe thek pre.' 'She sees her by herself.'

Demonstrative

Demonstrative pronouns can be used by themselves or as determiners. There are different forms for singular, plural and three levels of distance. When working as determiners, they are declined with postfixes to indicate the case, where -k is for objective and -r for possessive, or gender of (often) definite nouns by adding -y for masculine and -i for feminine. Examples: 'Neo kwa dongi!' 'This is interesting!' 'Kny tut hoke kfey.' 'That distant big town.'

Singular	kwa	(this)	kno	(that)	kfe	(that distant, yonder)
Plural	kwaoh	(these)	khoo	(those)	kefo	(those distant)

Nouns

Nouns in Rinap are inflected according to two numbers, definiteness, three genders and three cases.

Gender

Three-gender system of Rinap includes masculine, feminine and a peculiar divine. Nouns ending with consonants are in the masculine 'wy'-class while feminine 'wi' nouns end with a vowel. The words are often altered so that they are placed to the 'right' gender class: 'wy mub' for 'a man' and 'wi nidi' for 'a woman'. Divine 'a'-gender indicates that the noun is of divine origin, and the last phoneme can be either a consonant or a vowel: 'a heran' is 'a god' and 'a ge' means 'a heart'. Fourth gender, 'Krai' or the high Divine, is a definite sub-class of divine and can be used to raise the importance of a word or to express the very essence of the noun: 'Krai Halla' is 'the Sungod Halla', the six elements such as 'Krai Nyraka' meaning 'the Element of Fire' and some essences such as 'Krai Nida' which means 'Femininity' (notice how the last vowel either becomes 'a', or it is added after a consonant).

Cases

Rinap nouns have three cases for different uses similarly to pronouns. All the determiners are also inflected, but especially with objective nouns, some of the determiners are often kept in the nominative form.

• Nominative case is the basic form of a noun, and it is used when the noun is the subject of a clause: 'Brelo dozmur.' 'Animal is running.'
• Objective case, combination of accusative and dative cases, is used when the noun works as verb's object or together with prepositions: 'Neuho mo nyk khuolketik hokege kfeyk.' 'They are in that distant big building.'
• Genitive (possessive) is used as determiner when expressing ownership and origin: 'kni dheto nidori' 'the woman's hat'

Article system

In Rinap, articles, which always precede nouns, work as inflected determiners. They are included even if nouns have other determiners such as demonstrative pronouns: 'kny beak rilia kno' 'the long road' However, members of lower social classes often use the demonstrative in the place of the article.

	Masculine sg.	Masculine pl.	Feminine sg.	Feminine pl.	Divine sg.	Divine pl.	High Divine	Negative
Indefinite:	wy	wys	wi	wis	a	az		öwe
Objective	wyk	wyx	wik	wix	ah	ash		öwek
Genitive	wyr	wyrs	wir	wirs	ar	ars		öwer
Definite:	kny	knys	kni	knis	kha	khaz	Krai
Objective	nyk	nyx	nik	nix	kah	kash	Krah
Genitive	nyr	nyrs	nir	nirs	kär	kärs	Kren

The genitive article can also be thought as a preposition similar to 'of' in English, and objective article is sometimes used to indicate dative 'for' or accusative (object), depending on context.

Declension

Nouns are declined according to two numbers and three cases. Examples here are for feminine 'wi nidi' ('a woman'), masculine 'wy mub' ('a man') and divine 'a ke' ('a human'):

	Nominative	Objective	Genitive
Feminine sg.	nidi	nidek	nidor
Feminine pl.	nid(i)ho	nidohek	nidohor
Masculine sg.	mub	mubik	mubyr
Masculine pl.	muboh	mubehk	mub(o)hyr
Divine sg.	ke	keox	keör
Divine pl.	keol	keolox	keolör

In older and especially in more poetic texts, the vowel change depends on the last vowel similarly to verb conjugation shown below: y → u → i → (e ↔ o) ← a ← ö. Here objective vowel moves one step towards the centre and genitive outwards (so that y→ö and vice versa e.g. fyg→fygör), but the 'nidi'/'mub' declensions have apparently become the universal way. Traces of a similar vowel change can be seen in the pronoun inflection as well.

Verbs

In Rinap, all verbs conjugate according to person, number, tense, aspect, mood and voice. Various affixes can be added and vowels change mostly according to this pattern: y → u → i → (e ↔ o) ← a ← ö. Whether 'e' or 'o' is used depends on the vowel combination: 'pei'→'peo' for 'to see'→'sees' and 'doi'→'doe' for 'to hear'→'hears'. If infinitive ends with a consonant, the last vowel is repeated for conjugated forms and then changed ('brel' as an example in the table below).

Verbs have two participle forms, present active and past, former formed with suffix 'infinitive-(i)ba' and latter with circumfix 'na(n)-infinitive-t'. The present participle can be used as an attributive verb with nouns: 'wy mub breliba' 'a running man'. When forming the past participle, three-syllable words are favoured so last vowels are sometimes omitted: for example 'benupe' → 'nabenu(p)t' ('travel' → 'travelled').

Tenses and aspects

Rinap has three tenses, present, past and future, all of which can be formed by conjugation and suffixes. There are also three aspects for those: simple, continuous (progressive) and perfect.

First conjugated forms of verb 'brel' meaning 'to run' and irregular 'ney' 'to be':

	1st singular	2nd singular	3rd singular	1st plural	2nd plural	3rd plural
Present simple	brelem	breleh	brelo	brelemho	breleho	brelomho
Past simple	brelom	breleni	breloni	brelemhi	brelehi	brelomhi
Present simple	neym	neyh	nei/ney/neo	neymho	neyho	neuho
Past simple	mein	neyni	neini	neymhi	neyhi	neuhi

Three forms of 'ney' are used for different genders: nei for feminine, ney for masculine and neo for neutral. There are also some other 1st sg. past forms beginning with 'm' ('meäp'='I' went and 'meal'='I had') which may come from combination of original simple past and 'mon' meaning 'then'.

Future form can be constructed by adding '-ra' to the 3rd sg. form of a verb and then again conjugating: 'ney' → 'neora' for 'be' → 'will be' and 'dhyzo' → 'dhyzeram', 'to write' → 'I will write'.

The present tense can be translated as both simple and continuous aspects of present, but if speaker wants to emphasize continuity, present particle can be used with the verb in present: 'Brelem' or 'Neym breliba' for 'I'm running.' To form past continuous (or imperfect), again present active particle can be used with conjugated simple past 'ney' similarly to English or by using 'urne' ('still') with verb in simple past: 'Mein breliba' or 'Brelom urne' both meaning 'I was running.' For the future, continuous aspect is formed similarly to that of past, but conjugated 'neora' ('will be') is used as the auxiliary verb: 'Neoroho keol veo Grundet nepakiba.' 'Humans will be living on Grundet.'

To create the three perfect aspects, present, past (or pluperfect) and future perfects, past participle form is used together with conjugated auxiliary verb 'ney' listed above: 'Neym kni gekhu päri nakholt.' 'I have built my house.' in which 'nakholt' is from 'khuol' meaning 'to build'. With 'ney' there is also a form 'nayh' for 'I/we have been', but it isn't used very often. Example of the future perfect: 'Neorah phe mon natläsut.' 'You will have died then.'

Moods

Interrogative form is used in the beginning of questions and has always a 'zo'-prefix: 'Zoneyh rope urt?' 'Are you happy now?'

Conditional mood is formed similarly to future so that '-se' is added to the 3rd sg. and then regularly conjugated: 'baxta ji leu' → 'Baxtosemho sej leisemho bax.' in English 'to pay and to have' → 'We would pay if we had money.' Conditional form is used in the dependet clause as well.

It is possible to use the infinitive form as an imperative, but the best way is to add postfix '-xu' after the original conjugated verb: 'Ney(h)xu kweo!' or 'Ney kweo!!' meaning 'Be there!' The bare infinitive imperative is more powerful and used in sudden situations such as 'Rix!' 'Watch out!' (instead of 'rixihxu'). It is even possible to command oneself: 'Dhemumxu!' translating to self-suggestive 'Think!'

Passive Voice

When there is no active agent, but rather a patient to which something is done by someone unknown, passive voice is used. The circumfix construction: a(x)-3rd sg.-(time/mood)-my (the core verb can be conjugated). Examples 'xau' → 'Axainimy dok.' where 'to do' → 'It was done.' and 'neini nathonyt' → 'Aneinimy thoek nathonyt.' is 'had protected' → 'They had been protected.' and 'beheok' → 'Abeheokeseramy pewek.' a rare combination from 'to sacrifice' → 'You would be sacrificed in the future.' There is no way or need of marking the agent of passive (as in English the by-structure) so active voice is used: 'Xaini Hiwau dok.' meaning 'Hiwau did it' ('It was done by Hiwau')

Auxiliary Verbs

The infinitive of a main verb is used together with auxiliary verbs. Helping word 'öx' is used for negation: 'Öxöm ney kweo' 'I am not there.' Modal helping verbs such as 'lio' ('can') and 'xun' ('must') are also in use: 'Zoxunum bea po kweo?' 'Do I have to go there?'

Adjectives

Rinap adjectives all end in vowels and work as noun determiners which come after the head noun and should be declined according to the noun they determine (but often aren't): Suffixes are added in a same way to the main stem (in this case 'henu' meaning 'good')

	Nominative	Objective	Genitive
Feminine sg.	henu(i)	henuke	henure
Feminine pl.	henus	henukes	henures
Masculine sg.	henu(y)	henuge	henuru
Masculine pl.	henuz	henugez	henuruz
Divine sg.	henu(a)	henuxe	henuro
Divine pl.	henul	henuxel	henurol

Comparing: With circumfixes

Positive - Comparative - Superlative

• good - better - best = henu - hohenu - hohenut
• short - shorter - shortest = oru - horu - horut
• big - bigger - biggest = hoke - höke - höket

Example: 'Kni gekhu hokei nyr mubyr hobaxutru' 'The big house of the richest man' With superlative, consonant and vowel of inflection suffix can switch places: hobaxutur (from the previous)

Adverbs

Rinap adverbs, which qualify various word classes (e.g. verbs) and clauses, are most often placed at the end of sentences and come in many categories:

Adverbs of manner: Can be formed from adjectives by changing the last vowel according to vowel change pattern and adding a '-ku' postfix: 'henu' → 'heniku' where 'good' → 'well'. This works with comparatives as well so that 'beldo' → 'beldeku' is 'slow' → 'slowly' from which 'hobeldo' → 'hobeldeku' is 'slower' → 'more slowly' and 'hobeldut' → 'hobeldetuk' for 'slowest' → 'most slowly'. Example of use: 'Brelehxu odoziku!' 'Run fast!'

Adverbs of time, place and degree: These are words such as 'now' ('urt' in Rinap), 'today' ('kualox'), 'here' ('gewa') and 'many' ('hoxi').

Example: 'Beam beldeku po kweo knuang.' means 'I'm slowly going there at the moment.'

The order of the adverbs is not very restricted, but adverbs which determine adjectives, usually follow the head: 'wy ket doile roh' 'a very beautiful place'.

Particles

In Rinap, similarly to English, particles are uninflected and include for example conjunctions (connectors such as 'and' = 'ji') and interjections (emotionals such as 'yes' = 'hu').

Prepositions

Rinap uses only prepositions to indicate place, direction and location in time. They can be combined: 'po' + 'mo' = 'pomo' where 'to' + 'in' = 'into'

Example: 'Zobeah po Laha barei knok?' 'Are you going to Laha after that?'

Numerals

Numbers are of base 6 (six for senary system) which is the sacred number of Grundet's fantasy universe. The use of finger calculation must also have given rise to this system and can clearly be seen in the numeral names: 'öpa' = 'zero', 'öpam' = 'fist' and 'sapa' = 'five', 'sapam' = 'hand', 'waot' = 'six' and 'wao' = 'new'.

Cardinal numbers

0	öpa
1	wah	7	woah	13	noatah
2	noh	8	won	14	noaton
3	kram	9	worom	15	noakram
4	akta	10	wokat	16	noakta
5	sapa	11	wopas	17	noatas
6	waot	12	noat	18	kramwaot

• Numbers after that are formed by adding the smaller after the larger: 'kramwaotwah' = 'nineteen', 'kramwaotnoh' = 'twenty' and 'kramwaotkram' = 'twenty-one'.
• Most full sixes are formed by adding the multiplier in front of the power of six: 'aktawaot' = (four times six) 'twenty-four'
• Special numbers: 'sawek' = 'thirty', 'noswek' = 'sixty', 'wahok' = '120', 'nehok' = '240' and 'krahok' = '360'.
• Important numbers of position: Each number position tells how many times the different powers of six are included (similarly to our decimal system of base ten).
  • '10₆' = 'waot' = '6₁₀' (six)
  • '100₆' = 'wawat' = '36₁₀' (six squared)
  • '1000₆' = 'wakrim' = '216₁₀' (six cubed)
  • '10 000₆' = 'wawinoh' = '1296₁₀' (six to the power of four)
  • '100 000₆' = 'wakirik' = '7776₁₀' (six to the power of five)
  • '1 000 000₆' = 'wawikram' = '46656₁₀' (thirty-six cubed) (the last ones are rare).

Example: '244₆' means 'nohwawat.aktawaot.akta' which is in our decimal system 2*36+4*6+6 = '100₁₀' or 'one hundred'

Ordinal numbers: '1st' = 'wahhi', '2nd' = 'nohhi', '3rd' = 'kramet', '4th' = 'aktaet'... (continues by adding '-et' suffix)

Calculation: 'poi' means multiplication, 'rih' division, 'jie' ('ji'='and') addition and 'wer' substraction. 'Ki' ('for') is used for exponentation.

When used as determiners, Rinap numerals replace indefinite articles or come between definite articles and the head noun: 'noh nibaho' is 'two apples' and 'kni nohi nibaho' means 'the two apples'. Notice the 'i' in the definite numeral.

Derivational morphology

Ways of deriving words from other word classes by adding suffixes

• Verb → Noun
  • Abstract '-(o)su': 'mipi' → 'mipisu' meaning 'to rain' → 'rain'
  • Doer '-(a)ke(p)': 'muxi' → 'muxike' where 'to cook' → 'female cook' (English '-er'; the last consonant 'p' can be added to create a male version)
• Adjective → Noun
  • Abstract '-sui': 'hwasui' is 'whiteness'
  • Doer '-kei': 'zusmokei' for 'opener'
• Verb → Adjective
  • Doing '-(i)ba': 'benupeba' is 'travelling' (very similar to English '-ing' and its use as present participle)
  • Doable '-(i)beu': 'makhibeu' means 'touchable' (compare to '-able' English)
• Noun → Adjective
  • Like '-(i)re': 'nyrakire' is 'fiery'