Introduction

This booklet intends to be a comprehensive guide to the grammar and script of the language {Sôttao Nódaru} (Naderian) of the Squid People ({Bǎntoa Nódaru}, £bN ndr£), specifically the variant spoken by immigrants on Earth. We have strived for an intermediate approach between the descriptive and the pedagogical; it's intended both for the casual reader interested in getting acquainted with the language, and to serve as a reference for the features of the language.

Squid People are currently one of the most prominent sentient species on Earth, but they are relatively recent immigrants. In addition, differently from all other citizens of the Free State, the majority of Naderians refuses to learn standard Reticulan, and continue to speak their original language. Popular conception ascribes this to stubborness and close-mindedness of their culture, though there is also some purely linguistic, if not simply mechanical obstructions that make learning Reticulan difficult for Squid People. The truth is that it's probably somewhere in the middle.

And another truth, much better known, is that Naderians bring business. Naderians are behind the many technological advances that make life on Earth possible, like gravitino engines, human prosthetics, and weird food. Many Earthans are willing to bridge the linguistic gap for the sake of profit. This is the ultimate motivation behind the popularity of cheap Naderian crash courses. These low-quality resources have brought much confusion to the perception of the language, and have raised a generation of Earthans that stumble like rude tourists into conversations with Squid People, inevitably pushing this ethnic group farther away.

We hope to undo some of the damage and re-establish a reference for working, basic knowledge of Earth Naderian.

History of the language

All off-planet variants of Naderian descend from a single language known as Aquatic Naderian, which was spoken underwater. Because of the limitations of sound transmission in water, the language boasted some unusual features, namely an atrophic consonantal inventory, no distinction of any vowel articulatory quality whatsoever (somewhat imprecisely termed a ``one-vowel language''), several loud implosive clicks, and a very complex system of tonality and length. In effect, Aquatic Naderian was an almost completely musical language.

As Naderians progressively shifted to ground for daily life, many of these features mutated to redistribute themselves into the new space allowed by the sound transmission properties of air. All Naderian languages retain a ``one-vowel'' system, as distinguishing vowel quality is biologically difficult for this species, but much of the ``musical'' aspects transformed into a more sophisticated consonantal inventory. All in all, the resulting Surface Naderian family features languages with reasonable consonant inventories, "one-vowel", tonal systems with no length distinction, and simple phonotactics with open syllables.

After contact with alien species, one can identify a general Spacebound Naderian family spoken by off-planet Squid People. This then underwent significant fragmentation as the space-bound population spread across star system. Because of the specifics of their culture, creoles are unlikely, and influences of external languages on Naderian is suppressed. Nevertheless, the family of Colonial Naderian dialects evidences the effects of contact with the Reticulan language, and specifically Earth Colonial Naderian (ECN) has developed unique features due to the isolation of the Earth Free State.

Overview

The Naderian language is unusual by all accounts. It is hard to summarise its odd spirit in a single tagline, but let us nevertheless try and give a taste of how the way of thinking behind it functions.

The core of the language is represented by consonantal roots. These are sequences of ``consonants'' (either single consonants or clusters to be pronounced as a unit) separated by slots for the insertion of vowels. The choice and sequence of these consonants determines the basic lexical information - e.g. {k.r.ṣh.} (with dots marking the vowel slots) concerns the concepts of ``clothing'' in general - this root is shared by the verb "to wear" and the noun "clothes". One then refines this general meaning to be more specific with the insertion of a specific sequence of vowels in the slots and possibly by appending particles that increase the number of syllables.

But here's the catch: there are no vowels. Or rather, it is not in the different vowel qualities - difficult for the Naderian ear to discern - that one carries the information, but exclusively in variations in pitch, or tone. A particular tone-pattern (or ``song'') is applied to the whole word. For example, the ``Dip'' pattern asks us to start from a high pitch, drop down and then rise again slightly; applied to { k.r.ṣh. } it yields {ka˦ ro˨ ṣhe˧}, which means either ``clothes'' (Absolutive Feminine), or much less likely "to wear" (Negative Feminine). Context will then suffice to disambiguate. In general, the tone sequence carries gross grammatical information.

Finer information can be conveyed by appending particles and thus lengthening the word. For example, with the particle {-k.m.} one puts the verb "to wear" in the passive to obtain {k.r.ṣh.-k.m.}, roughly ``to be worn''. Or, we could use a singulative particle {-w.} to turn ``clothes'' into {k.r.ṣh.-w.} ``an article of clothing''

But here's the second catch: the tone pattern then spreads across the lengthened word, so the "Dip" pattern on {k.r.ṣh.-w.} gives {ka˦ ro˨ ṣho˨ wa˧}, delaying the final rise in pitch until the syllable of {-w.} itself. Thus, while conceptually the tone comes before the adpositions, in practice the order is reversed.

Equally intriguing is Naderian's treatment of arguments in clauses, which while not unattested, is still close to unique. The distinction between subject, direct object and obliques is foregone for a system more based on degrees of agency, separating Agents (doers), Patients (experiencers) and Themes (instruments). ECN holds the Patient in highest regard as an essential component of phrases and that can almost never be omitted. As an example, ``the child kicks the ball'' can not be shortened to ``the child kicks'', but ``kicks the ball'' would be perfectly grammatical. The ball getting kicked is the big scoop, who did it is secundary. A popular adage states that the language encodes the belief that events can only really be said to happen if there is someone to suffer them.

Phonology, Orthography, Phonotactics

We turn first to describing how the language sounds and is written. The most delicate aspects for a learner coincide in our opinion with the most interesting features from a linguistic standpoint: the language

• completely foregoes vowel quality for tone (pitch)
• places unusually large importance on word boundaries

We will try to carefully introduce these concept with a balance between accuracy and accessibility. We will first describe the available consonantal sounds purely phonetically, then we will talk about allowed syllable structures, provide a simpler pronunciation guide, and brush over the corresponding representation in the Naderian script. Finally, we will explain tone patterns and their romanisation.

Inventory

ECN boasts the following set of consonantal phonemes, written in the IPA:

...but it makes no phonemic distinction of vowel quality, so that there's essentially ``one vowel'':

There are some limited degrees of allophony. In the following list, inital means at the beginning of a word, final means the last consonant of a word (right before the final vowel) and medial means neither initial nor final.

• The consonants %s% %z% %sh% %zh% %ch% %cch% can occasionally either palatalise as [sʲ] [zʲ] etc., or the postalveolars be realised as fully palatal as [ç] [ʝ] [t͡ɕ] [tːɕ]. This can be seen as evidence of an embryonal "slender/broad", "soft/hard" or "laminal/apical" dichotomy in the consonantal sounds, paralleling the emergence of a front/back distinction in vowels that was initially non-existent. This is subject to heavy controversy. Some authors go as far as to claim the distinction was already fully phonemic in Spacebound Naderian, thought only grammatically and not lexically. More on this below in the section of Double Tone theory.
• Word-initial %h% > [ɸ] and is romanised as {f}, though it's not phonemically distinct and doesn't get a separate symbol in Naderian writing. Mediofinal {h} can move forward in the mouth before a low tone, as [ħ] or even [x].
• Word-initial %nt%, which is possible, develops a very short syllabic nasal: [n̩t], even if preceded by the final vowel of another word. The syllabic is not counted for the purposes of grammar and is not intended to carry a tone.
• %w% has varying degrees of retroflex articulation, spanning from a fully velar-labial [w] to a completely coarticulated labial-retroflex approximant [ɻ͡β̞]. Rounding of the lips is inconsistent.
• /ʒ/ > [d͡ʒ] for some speakers
• medial /d/ weakens to a tap [ɾ].
• The trill /r/ is also reduced to a tap [ɾ] in final position (last consonant in a word).

As an example of the last two rules, the word {Nódaru} itself ("of Planet Nadare") is phonemically %Rnadara%, but is pronounced as [nə˩.ɾɜ˧.ɾə˥]. The interpretation of a tap is thus dependent on context.

It would be naive to directly describe vowel pitch (tone) as phonemic itself - what is distinguished is tone patterns at the level of entire words, which we will present this in a later section. But if one were to go forward, these would be the phonemically distinct tonemes:

The pure tones (no glide, on diagonal) are the most common. Second come the small glides (shaded) which start or end on a mid pitch - these are actually usually very subtle and can usually become allophonic with the pure tones. Typically the information lost there is grammatical, not lexical, and therefore a speaker is always free to put in the effort to emphasize the distinction if the information is essential. For example, in a two-syllable feminine noun merging the low-to-mid small glide with a pure low confuses the Absolutive and Instrumental form of a noun:

Finally in terms of rarity come the large glides from high to low or back (remaining two corners). These are harder to fit in the length of a syllable and usually they induce some lengthening.

Phonotactics

In ECN speech is divided into distinct words, which comprise distinct pitch ``movements'' (more on this later). Words are sequences of at least two, usually three or more syllables with a very simple open structure Cə, where C stands for any one of these ``letters'', that is to say consonantal clusters:

Here are a few examples with syllabation:

The ``Class'' designation has only relevance to advanced phonotactical rules and can be safely ignored at this point. {∅} is a wovel carrier and it can only occur word-initially - by this one just means that words can begin in vowel. It's nevertheless useful for the purpose of studying the script as it constitutes a separate symbol there. We have indeed anticipated the corresponding symbols for the letters in the Naderian script.

In the table we have reported examples for pronunciation of the sounds that are already present in the Reticulan Language. For the remaining, more difficult sounds, we offer some guidance:

• {r} is a rolled, or hard r.
• {rn}, {rs}, {rz}, {ċh} are the retroflex versions of respectively {n}, {sh}, {zh}, {ch}. Try pronouncing these sounds, but placing the tip of the toungue farther back, with its underside brushing on the palate (i.e. retroflected).
• For {ny}, which some also romanise as {ñ}, separately pronouncing {n-ya} is acceptable, as there is no risk of ambiguity. But preferably, you would like to have your tongue placed as to pronounce {ya}, and then try to say {na} without actually moving the tongue in position for {na}. The middle of the tongue, instead of the tip only, should make contact with the palate.
• Geminated consonants, or ``doubles'' are not difficult, but must be understood correctly. {kk} does not mean the {k} sound is made stronger, or aspirated, or changed in quality in any way; one just has to make a quick pause on the sound itself. To distinguish {aka} from {akka}, the second is pronounced as {ak-}(pause){-ka}. The most delicate part is to not geminate single consonants, so {aka} must be pronounced with no hesitation on the stop {k}.
• Surface Naderian used to distinguish %nch% and the retroflex equivalent %ᶯʈ͡ʂ%, but these phonemes are currently merged and either form is considered allophonic. The writing system, which has a posterior origin, does not distinguish a separate glyph for %ᶯʈ͡ʂ%.

The initial and non-initial (mediofinal) syllables of words are limited to the following clusters:

In particular, note that words are allowed to start with the III-X letters, {nt-}, {nts-}, {nch-}.

To summarise these rules more simply, we can reword them as follows:

• Consonant clusters are always separated by a vowel.
• Two vowels are never adjacent within a word.
• Words always end in a vowel.
• Words cannot start in a geminated consonant

In the table, we have presented two widely employed standards for romanisation of consonants. Romanisation 2 is more convenient and will be employed in this guide. Rom 1 is employed whenever the characters {ṇ}, {ṣ}, {ẓ} are not available.

Tone Patterns

A great amount of information is carried in tone, specifically in word-level tone patterns (henceforth "tones"). There are eight possible word tones, corresponding to the three binary choices of high/low start, high/low end, and straight vs "bounced" transition.

The structure of tones is much more regular than it may appear. Straight tones consist of a uniform pitch shift from an initial to a final pitch. The bounced tones are composed of the same movement, which is then followed by a short leap into a middle pitch and then back to the regular end pitch.

The tone has to be properly distributed through the syllables of the word, which we remind also includes any postpositions. The rule is that if possible each syllable is assigned a steady pitch, and gliding syllables are resorted to only when necessary. Straight tones offer no difficulty, as each word is at least two-syllables long. For the DIP and PEAK tones, in two-syllable words the first one is at the start pitch and the second is a glide, while with three and more there is no issue. For the TUMBLE and JUMP tones, in two-syllable words one resorts to two glides, and in three-syllable words the first two are steady and the last one is the glide.

In romanisation, tone is represented by diacritics on the first vowel (or syllabic sonorant) of the word, as follows:

Equivalently, we will refer to the tones also by the initial of their names, so respectively H F D T R L J P.

Syllable elision

In some situation syllables of a word can be deleted. This can happen only if there are less syllables than pitches in the tone pattern - elision will never occur in a waythat would create a glide. Elision can happen in two ways: as deletion of a vowel between two ``compatible'' consonants, or as deletion of two vowels adjacent to a sonorant, with conversion of the sonorant to syllabic.

Single-vowel deletion (CVC -> CC) can only occur in between these combinations of preceding and following consonants:

It never affects word-initial nor word-final vowels.

As of two-vowel deletion (CVSVC -> CSC) a.k.a. syllabification, it can happen with any of the sonorants {m, n, ṇ, r} in medial position. With {n}, it can not happen before {t, ts, ch, ċh} and geminated, as one has to mantain distinction from prenasalised. Two adjacent consonants cannot be both syllabified.

As an example, consider the root {k-ṇ-t}, "apples". The absolutive collective takes the D pattern, which has three pitches to distribute, therefore no vowel can be deleted and the result is {kǎṇote}. But if one constructs the singulative by adding the particle {-w}, there is now an excess of syllables and one can delete as {kṇ̌towa}, pronounced kɳ̩˦.tɤ˨.wa˧. The {ṇ} is now syllabic, and carries tone.

Tone Crasis

Tone crasis happens between a word beginning in vowel (i.e., {∅}) and the one preceding, and consists essentially in the merger of the two into a single vowel. Crasis only occurs when the preceding vowel is a middle tone (not a glide) and when the following vowel is high or low. The preceding vowel is essentially deleted and the tone is assimilated to that of the following one. It is marked in romanisation with an apostrophe ' and by omitting the space between the words; it is not transcribed in the Naderian script.

Crasis could be seen as a simple version of tone sandhi. Crasis usually only occurs between words that have close grammatical relationship (like a noun and an adjective) or between grammatical words (pronouns) - though it is somewhat unpredictable and generally integral (lexicalised) part of commonly-used expressions, for example {kǎkkon'ǎċhokrne} /kákːònáʈ͡ʂòkr̩̀nē/ "beautiful girl".

Vowel Romanisation and Allophony

While it is to be kept in mind, as we have stated before, that Squid People make essentially no distinction in vowel quality in hearing, the statement is not as evident in the question of speaking. The idea is that in articulating the elements of speech that are important to them, a native speaker will follow a {Principle of Least Inertia} when it comes to the ones they deem least important. When pronouncing vowels, native speakers of ECN will mildly ``colour'' the base %ə% phoneme depending on adjacent sounds and the tone they want to carry, to minimise discomfort. A high tone is better carried with a more open vowel, or a certain mouth and tongue position might as well be kept from consonant to vowel. This effect is inconsistent across different speakers and it does not need to be included in speech for it to sound genuine - it is merely an accident of laziness.

The most reasonable description of the quality a vowel is coloured to following a certain consonant and having a certain tone is as follows:

The romanisation remaps these sounds to the symbols {a e i o u}:

In case of tone glides, typically the starting tone determines the quality, but in romanisation one usually employs two letters, for example the D tone on {g.x.} is {gǎxuo}, pronounced %Dgaxuo%.

In any case, the letters used for the vowels in romanisation are absolutely not binding, and at times optional. Pronunciation of the quality of vowels is really completely free. They are exclusively included as a redundant guide for the tonal patterns. They do not imply, as it may appear at first glance, that ECN truly has multiple vowel phonemes (not yet, at least). Nevertheless, in broad phonetic transcription, we will use /a e i o ɯ/ since they are roughly representative of the average sound without affecting legibility too negatively.

Nasalisation and R-Colouring

Vowels can become nasal before one of the prenasalised consonants %nt%, %nts%, %nch%. For example, {bǎntoe} (people) %Dbantoe% is pronounced %%[bʌ̃˦.ⁿtʊ˨˧]%%.

Before a retroflex sound %ṇ%, %ṣh%, %ċh%, %ċċh%, vowels become R-coloured or rhotacised. For example, {àṣho} (3rd person singular masculine absolutive pronoun) is pronounced [a˞˦.ʂʊ˨].

Double Tone (and its controversy)

It would be irresponsible not to comment on this topic, as heated as it might have become in recent times. Many scholars centered about the Psi Ophiuchi school argue that modern variants of Naderian have a very clear phonemic distinction of high, mid and low pitch consonants, roughly corresponding to laminal vs apical, or palatal vs retroflex, and that these along with the tone patterns determine vowel qualities in a very specific way. This position is known as Double Tone Theory, as it posits the existence of an independent consonantal tone along with the already explained segmental tone. It is useful in any case as a mnemonic for Naderian pronunciation.

The most common version of the three-way distinguished consonant phonemes are:

with others being considered ``neutral'' or ''always middle'' depending on the version.

In this scheme, all are considered to be in principle phonemically distinguished, though some not lexically (i.e., roots do not distinguish %ʈ% from %t%) but certainly grammatically, as these pairs can (arguably) be affected by segmental tone. For example, {kóteba} is [kòtebá], but {kǎtobe} is reported to have a retroflex [káʈòbe] (though this is not true in all dialects). In the Double Tone theory, each syllable carries up to three separate phonetic elements: the consonantal class (i.e., voicing, mode of articulation and rough point of articulation), a timbre (consonantal tone), and finally a pitch (vowel or syllabic tone).

As we just saw, the timbre is only really phonemic for some consonantal classes, and for those who are not, the timbre is assimilated from the pitch, so that a low pitch can change the timbre of a %%[t]%% to a %%[ʈ]%%, but it will not turn %%[sh]%% to %%[ṣh]%%.

Then, the timbre and pitch combine together to determine the final vowel quality somewhat deterministically:

	Hi Timbre	Mid Timbre	Lo Timbre
Low Pitch	%%ɨ%%	%%o%%	%%ɯ%%
Mid Pitch	%%i%%	%%ə%%	%%o~ɤ%%
Hi Pitch	%%e%%	a	%%ɑ%%

In other words, pitch moves on the diagonal axis in vowel space from %%[ɯ]%% to %%[a]%%, and timbre from %%[o]%% to %%[i]%%, which grants Double Tone theory the secondary name of Diagonal Vowel System.

While flawed (it cannot account, for example, for the switch to final %%[ɯ]%% after %r% that happens indipendently of any pitch information), this system is behind the claim that Naderian does have multiple phonemic vowel qualities, and the phonemic distinction is inclusive of both timbre and pitch information. If this is true in any meaningful way, it must be a recent development. The Psi Ophiuchi school in fact argues that this is an intermediate step in a process of tonoexodus, continuing the original process that siphoned distinctions from the tonal system to the creation of consonantal distinction - now younger generations of Naderians are paying increasingly less attention to tone and thus possibly beginning to emphasise quality distinction in vowels, and refining subtler articulatory features in consonants.

In our opinion the language is still very far from this stage, and it might end up manifesting in a more complex scenario than Double Tone theory predicts.

Grammar

Syntax

All Naderian languages display a specific flavor of strong ergativity that is comparatively rare in other natural languages, and is known historically as aquatic ergativity. This means in practice that the usual distinction between Subjects (S) and Direct Objects (O) of phrases does not really exist, and rather one distinguishes Agents (A) and Patients (P). Agents correspond to the subject of transitive clauses, while patients are either objects of transitive clauses or subject of intransitive ones. For example, in

example[kǎṇote bónte-wa tsóna|apples, person, eat||The person ate the apples]

(where we have omitted all extra grammatical information for simplicity), "the person" is the Agent, and "the apples" are the patient. But in an intransitive clause like

example[fôntae tsôttaṇe|sun,shines||The sun shiness]

"the sun" is the Patient. This reflects in the whole language in the relationship the agents and patients have to the verbs. The general tendency to keep in mind is that clauses are generally thought of as having two essential components in a patient and a verb (so, PV structure), with the verb being by default the most important component (head), and that agents are considered to be optional markings or properties of the verb itself. In fact, verbs themselves agree in gender with the patient, but are also inflected optionally for the person of the agent.

One of the consequence of this philosophy is that the presence of a Patient is strongly required (similarly to the Subject in normal nominative-accusative alignment), and in case of its absence one employs structures that can fill that void (see later on voice shifting).

Aquatic ergativity involves also the extremely bizarre default word order of {Object-Subject-Verb} (that is, Patient-Agent-Verb) for transitive clauses, which is somewhat rigid. The complete structure of the default order is as follows:

However, since, as we will see, nouns will be marked for their role in a sentence, the order can often be rearranged without risk of ambiguity. One simple motivation for rearrangement is emphasis. Colonial Nederian emphasises elements by placing them in final position. Note the following examples:

example[bónte-wa tsóna kǎṇote|person,eat,apples||the person ate the apples] example[kǎṇote tsóna bónte-wa|apples,eat,person,||the person ate the apples]

By placing the Patient and Agent respectively in final position, one brings emphasis. The meaning is roughly ``it is specifically the apples that the person ate'' and ``it was the person specifically that ate the apples''. For placing emphasis on the verb which is usually already final there's a weirder setup:

example[kṇ̀te-zo bǎnto-we tsóne-na| apples, person, eat||The person ate the apples]

This introduces a confusing construct that we will see later, known as the antipassive. This essentially shifts the agent into a patient and the patient into an indirect. Performing this maneuver where it is not strictly necessary constitutes in itself emphasis for the verb.

The marking of roles of nouns is through the use of case, which itself is determined through tones, as explained later. By default, Patients will be marked in the Absolutive case, while Agents will take on the Dominant case (which encompasses both the usual Ergative and Genitive cases). Reprising the first examples:

example[kǎṇote bónte-wa tsóna|ABS.F.apples(COLL) , ERG.F.person.SING , F.3.PERF.eat|| The person ate the apples] example[hôanto tsôttaṇe|ABS.M.sun , M.3.PERF.shines ||The sun shines]

Ditransitive verbs and the complexities of giving

The possibility exists in all natural languages for clauses that really involve three entities rather than one or two (ditransitives). An example is all verbs relating to giving, providing, taking from, performing actions on others, etc. These involve first of all a Donor (D), then an object, entity or action that is ``given'', the Theme (T), and finally a Recipient (R), which receives the Theme from the Donor. In aquatic ergativity, the Donor is treated as an Agent, the Recipient is treated as a Patient, and the Theme takes on a new role marked by the Instrumental case. Namely, a sentence like

would be formulated as or, much more simply, the Reticulan verb ``to provide'' already has this kind of properties. ECN applies the ``provide'' construction to all ditransitive verbs. The above sentence becomes: example[gȯċċhepo gǎrottoche póneċha tóteyaru|INSTR.M.bread , ABS.F.woman , ERG.M.man, PERF.3.F.(give/provide)|| ``The man provided the woman with bread'']

Note that the verb agrees in gender with neither the man nor the bread, but the woman!

The general pattern, in comparison with a very typical system in natural languages, can be given schematically (S marks the subject of intransitive clauses):

Naderian has thus no use for an oblique / dative case or role separate from the absolutive / patient.

There also exist verbs which require a Patient and a Theme, but no Agent, called Shift-Transitive. These usually involve some kind of reasonably transitive action where the P is clearly superior in agency to T in relative terms, but the action itself is stative instead of dynamic in nature. For example, the verb {nyagga} ``to like'' takes the liker as Patient and the liked object/person as Theme. A Reticulan equivalent could be ``partake'', as in ``he partook of the buffet''.

One last possibility for transitivity of a verb are intransitive verbs whose subject takes the form of an Agent, called Nominative-Intransitive. These originate from mutated passives and will be explained more in detail in the section on voice-shifting.

To resume, the following categories of verb transitivity exist:

Nouns

Nouns are declensed by gender and case through tonal inflection. In addition, grammatical number is specified by postpositions.

There are four ``main'' or {Inflected Cases}:

However, each of these inflected cases can stand in for several meanings, especially when combined with some postpositions. It is convenient to speak of a larger set of {Meta Cases} which each corresponding to a different role of the noun, marked by an inflected case + postposition and / or determined from context. Usually it's more convenient when studying the grammar to label the meta case instead of the inflected case.

The table of relationships is as follows:

Ultimately, it's hard to argue that all these meanings are proper cases of modern Naderian, being barely inflectional and very regular. Naderian has a mixed, transitional case system which is inflectional for the generic, and agglutinative for the specific. The only element that is important to emphasize is that once the postposition agglutinates with the base form, it must be included as part of the word, and so the tone pattern corresponding to the inflectional case is spread over the particle as well. For example, {ntôrache} ``house'' in the absolutive, has three syllables (proper) where to spread its P tone, so it goes low, high, low. But the locative {ntàreche-zo} ``in the house'', which has the inflected case ABL, must spread its F tone over four syllables, as a constantly decreasing transition from high to low, with the final {-zo} lower than penultimate {che}.

Ergative-genitive ambiguity

Because the Dominant case encompasses both the Ergative (Agent) and Genitive (Possessor), there is a risk of confusion in clauses with transitive verbs. Namely, a transitive sentence like

takes the same form as the following one with a possessor and with the same verb used intransitively:

So that something like ``The child's ball was kicked'' sounds the same as ``The child kicked a ball''. By default, and in absence of other information, the Ergative interpretation takes precedence. The genitive interpretation is, if necessary, distinguished by inserting a dummy Agent in the form of a pronoun. Whether it is deemed necessary is dependent on contextual clues and possible relation of the noun in the Dominant with the verb (for example, it's unlikely to be necessary with an inanimate object and a verb assuming animacy).

Transitional cases

The transitional case is an unusual beast. Naderian tends to employ it often to replace predicates. Consider translating ``she became my friend''. This is reworded with the verb as ``she went (friend).TRANS'', or

example[bõkkashencha hóna àsru wáteru| TRANS.F.friend (TRANSL), GEN.1s, ABS.F.3s, PERF.F.go||She became my friend]

We marked the Transitional here as Translational to clarify that this is the intended reading given that the verb is in the Perfect aspect. To communicate the Essive meaning despite this - to say, for example ``she went as my friend'', we add {-tara}:

example[bõkkeshincha-tera hóna àsru wáteru| TRANS.F.friend-as (ESS), GEN.1s, ABS.F.3s, PERF.F.go||She went as my friend]

But if the verb is imperfective, then the postposition is not required:

example[bõkkeshincha hóna àsru wātaru| TRANS.F.friend (ESS), GEN.1s, ABS.F.3s, IMPERF.F.go||She is going as my friend]

Number

It's important to understand that the base form of a noun already carries an inherent number. This can be as follows

• Singular, which is the case for proper nouns and some common nouns. For example {kônyatse} ``arm'', can be pluralised as {kônyatsa-shi} ``arms''.
• Collective, which is the case for {most} common nouns. For example {bǎntoe} ``persons'' is inherently plural, referring to some unspecified amount of people or to people in general, and by modifying with a singulative postposition we have {bǎnto-wa} ``person''.
• Mass nouns, like {gǎhoe} ``water''.
• Set nouns are an endless source of confusion. These refer to a set of objects that usually come in a predetermined number, almost always a pair. The set noun is typically the simplest form, and it itself can be singular or collective, with a preference for the latter. For example, {tsôdaru} ``pairs of eyes'' is a Collective Pair noun. It can be singularised as {tsôdara-wa} ``pair of eyes'' in which case it refers to a single pair, or it can be split as {tsôdr-nte} ``eye'' which then becomes a singular noun for the single element, which in turn we can pluralise as {tsôdr-nta-she} ``eyes''.

In addition, one can employ other number specifiers to singular or collective nouns.

Collective nouns can have irregular singularisations, usually involving reduplication. For example {dǎkowase} ``coins'' singularises as {dǎkowaso-se} ``coin'' instead of the ungrammatical {dǎkowaso-wa}. These irregular forms are specified in the lexicon.

Set nouns are always masculine, and the split forms are always feminine. Non-set nouns can be masculine or feminine, and all other number postpositions do not affect gender.

Gender Classes

ECN has two grammatical genders called {Masculine} and {Feminine}, as they match with biological gender for (individual) persons or animals. All other nouns, including nouns referring to categories or groups of persons or animals, are assigned a grammatical gender in a way that may appear quite arbitrary. In addition, some nouns may have both genders and have two different (related) meanings depending on the gender they are inflected for, something that will be explained better later as part of Morphological Derivation.

The following ``soft'' rules for gender assignment tend to cover most of the lemmas in the language, though many exceptions are featured:

• Proper nouns and nouns referring to persons or animals of specific gender always have the matching gender.
• The following are usually {Feminine}
  • Inanimate objects that are not parts or components of others
  • Natural objects, plants, fruits
  • Members of categories of people, like nouns for members of a specific profession
  • Collective parts or components (like body parts) that are not set nouns
  • Split form of set nouns
  • Mass nouns for liquids
  • Valuable objects, currency
  • Appliances, vehicles, establishments
• The following are usually {Masculine}
  • Places, abstract concepts, feelings
  • Objects that are usually unique, like celestial bodies
  • Professions, groups of people, relationships
  • Mass nouns for solids, like soils, minerals, metals
  • Food and drinks
  • Tools
  • Singular parts or components (like body parts) that are not set nouns
  • Set nouns in unsplit form

The feminine gender is also used as epicene, for situations where the gender is unknown or when one refers to a group of people or things of mixed grammatical gender.

Adjectives and determiners

ECN makes a strong distinction between adjectives used as Attributes or as Determiners, and the same distinction applies to adjective phrases and possessives. Attributive adjective, which are comparatively rarer, express a quality of the noun that is inessential to determining it, and in themselves constitute an additional piece of information to the main clause. These will be placed before the noun. For example in:

example[chǎtsoru bǎnto-wa yáreda| ABS.F.tall, ABS.F.person-SING, F.3.PERF.smile||The tall person smiled]

{chatsara} is employed as attribute, and is an optional component of the sentence, which could be more poignantly translated as ``The person smiled, and that person was tall''.

Most commonly, adjectives are used determinatively, so that they help specify better the identity of the corresponding noun. These will be placed {after} the noun. See for example:

example[bǎntoe chǎtsore-wa yáreda| ABS.F.person, ABS.F.tall-SING, F.3.PERF.smile||The tall person smiled]

with the distinct meaning of ``It was specifically the tall person that smiled''. Note that the determiner has taken the singulative affix instead of the noun. Generally, determiners become the heads of their own phrases and thus number affixes shift to the end of the phrase itself.

One can define a larger class of attributes and determiners that include non-adjectival ones. This includes genitives, i.e. possessors. With genitives and number affixes in particular there is a risk of ambiguity. See for example

example[môttano óċhekerene-shi|ABS.M.friend, GEN.F.girl-PLUR||The friends of the girl / The friend of the girls]

Whenever it is important to specify and it is not clear from context, the affixes move back to the noun:

example[môttn-she óċhekrna|ABS.M.friend-PLUR, GEN.F.girl||The friends of the girl]

Verbs

Verbs are conjugated for aspect, mood, and the gender of the patient, but not for tense. This conjugation is effected through tone. In addition, verbs can be marked by person of the agent through prepositions. The latter are essentially fossilised pronouns that have been absorbed by the verb in the standard OSV position, but in the current form of ECN they have to be considered as part of the verb for all intents and purposes, and can result in some irregularities due to phonetic shifts.

Mood and patient gender

The tonal conjugation is as follows:

This bizarre system originated in the old Aquatic verb conjugation system based on triconsonantal roots and per-syllable tone/length markings. In its current version it has become remarkably regular.

The Indicative mood is simply for factual statements or positive beliefs. The Subjunctive is for hypothetical statements, desires, conditional sentences (in particular, ECN does not distinguish a Conditional mood). The Negative is employed for negation, questions, and a few other uses that will be clarified subsequently.

Person

The unmarked form of a transitive verb is automatically assumed to be in the 3rd person of the agent. Naderian has no real standard 2nd person to speak of, having replaced it entirely with a system of honorifics. The 1st person (again, of the agent) form of a verb is formed generically with a {ka-} prefix, but with some irregularities:

Without a pronoun, the first person marker usually refers to singular. The plural 1st persons employ a pronoun, but do keep the marker. Complete conjugation of 1st persons...

Voice: Passive, Antipassive

Naderian has a very regular, comparatively uncomplicated system of voice shifting through the use of the passive and antipassive constructions. Recall that there are three types of verb:

• Intransitive, with a single patient P. (e.g. ``I (P) sleep'')
• Transitive, with an agent A acting on a patient P. (e.g. ``I (A) see you (P)'')
• Ditransitive, with an agent A acting on a patient P through the means of a theme T (e.g. ``I (A) give you (P) bread (T)'')

The passive construct can move a verb one rung up this ladder, promoting the entities involved in the order T → P → A. It can only be applied if the original A is not present. For example, in ``(someone) sees you (P)'' the A is missing, so it can be passivised as ``you (A) are seen.'' There is no equivalent in Naderian of passive voice for clauses with an explicit agent, so ``You (A) are seen by me (?)'' doesn't exist.

The antipassive construct shifts a verb one rung down the ladder, demoting in the order A → P → T. It is usually be applied if a T is not present, though see below on gapped ditransitives. Therefore ``I (A) see you (P)'' can be antipassivised as ``I (P) see.ANTIP INSTR.you'', which you could read very crudely as ``I experience seeing of you''.

As for when to voice-shift, the antipassive is employed for when a patient is omitted. Naderian abhors a vacuum in the place of the patient, and while patient-less phrases are not ungrammatical, the natural tendency is to always fill that void with antipassives. An antipassive used when there is no P-vacuum, instead, with the P shifting to T, is mainly employed for emphasis. The passive instead is overall less frequent, but it can be occasionally useful for formulating more complex sentences.

The passive is formed through the postposition {-kama}, the antipassive through {-na}:

also, the 1st person marker is omitted, and explicit pronouns must be used. Note that passivised / antipassivised verbs agree in gender with the new patient.

Some passives are irregular; these are usually born through assimilation of the {-kama} particle, and might have some inconsistencies in the perceived meaning. In particular it can often happen that some specific passives acquire an independent role of their original active voice - these become de facto patient-less intransitive verbs, only exceptions to the rule. These are called Nominative Intransitive verbs, since the Ergative case is here really employed as a nominative. Here are some examples:

Gapped Ditransitives

It can happen that some ditransitive phrases have an Agent and Theme but no Patient, like ``I brought a casserole'' (to nobody specific) or ``She stole a car'' (from nobody specific) (gapped ditransitives). To translate these, it is allowed to use an antipassive, with A demoted to P but T remaining as it is in the Instrumental. This construction is potentially ambiguous and it is really sensible only when the Theme is an inanimate object that cannot be mistaken as an antipassivised Recipient.

Copula (to be)

The verb {-ma} (to be) is highly irregular in conjugation, is independent of gender, and also in the third person indicative imperfect acts as a suffix to the subject instead of forming an independent word:

Bizarrely, in a sentence with {-ma}, the subject (the one being) is marked with the absolutive and the predicate (what they are) is in the transitional case. The usual order is Predicate - Subject - Copula, as in

example[chȯtsoro pônaċha-me|TRN.M.tall , ABS.M.man-(3.IMPERF.IND.be)||The man is / was tall]

Auxiliary Verbs

Subtler nuances can be communicated through the use of auxiliary verbs that are placed after the main verb. Naderian lacks the notion of an infinitive; the main verb and the auxiliary are instead both conjugated for Patient gender and marked for 1st person. As for aspect and mood, some combinations are employed to realise specific meanings. For the sake of syntax, the main verb is treated vaguely like the patient of the auxiliary, so possible additional agents are inserted, by logic, between the main and auxiliary verb.

The auxiliary verb {t.t.y.r.} ``to give'' is used on an agent-less verb to form the causative, with a new agent being the person who causes, orders, or allows the action to happen. The order is Patient - Main Verb - Causer - Give. For example

example[pônaċho yàredo óċhekerena tàteyaru| ABS.M.man, PERF.M.smile, ERG.F.girl, PERF.M.give||The girl made the man smile.]

To express a causative starting from a transitive verb, it has to be antipassivised first. For example

example[gȯċċhupo pônaċho tàtekeṇu-no óċhekerena tàteyaru| INSTR.M.bread, ABS.M.man, PERF.M.bake-ANTIP, ERG.F.girl, PERF.M.give||The girl made the man bake bread.]

Tense

ECN does not mark for tense explicitly, resorting more to adverbs of time or auxiliary verbs and to the subtleties of the perfect/imperfect distinction, rendering it essentially a tenseless language.

By default, the Perfect mood automatically refers to recent past and the Imperfect the present; the latter might have a continuous, progressive, or habitual meaning.

Whenever it's not clear from context, the adverb {góẓhe} (rougly ``now'') is commonly employed. {góẓhe} + Perfect implies an action that gets completed or effected now, or much more commonly, it means the action is imminent (called proximal future). Example:

example[gǎho-za kà-weteru|ABS.water-in , 1-PERF.M.go||I went to bed (lit. I went into the water) ] example[gǎho-za góẓhe kà-weteru|ABS.water-in , now , 1-PERF.M.go||I'm going to bed now ]

Pronouns

Pronouns are treated and inflected like nouns, though their inflection is highly irregular. The personal pronouns and their inflections are given as follows: Important comments:

• Naderian languages distinguish, quite unusually, gendered version of the 1st person singular pronouns, with the feminine form being considered also valid as neutral. This feature is of course very difficult for children to understand. Young boys learn only later in life to use the male pronouns, from which comes the expression example[hātta kȯtto yátrtta|ABL.F.(letter h) , TRN.F.(letter k) , PERF.3.F.cause|Hhatta Lkatta Ryataratta|To make the "h"s turn into "k"s] that is to say, to change your {hàno}'s into {kônao}'s, with the meaning of ``reaching manhood''.
• The dominant form of the 1st person singular pronouns cannot obviously be used as a vocative, and it's unnecessary as an ergative because of the 1st person markings in verbs. So usually {hóna} and {tóna} are just called the Genitives. We object to this view, as vernacular Naderian does use these pronouns ergatively as agents, for the purpose of emphasis: example[gôċċhapa-beko ka-ttàtakaṇe hóna!|ABS.M.bread-all , PERF.1.M.bake , ERG.1.SING.F|Pgaċċhapabaka Fkattatakarna Rhana|_I_ (woman) baked all the bread!] Note that in this case the verb is still marked, redundantly, and that the pronoun is placed in final position instead of inbetween patient and verb.
• 1st person plural pronouns have an exclusive-inclusive distinction. Exclusive is used to refer the speaker and other people but excluding the adressee, and inclusive whenever the adressee is included. In case one wants to emphasise specifically ``me and you and noone else'', the dual suffix {-shara} is appended.
• As suggested by the 3rd person plural forms, one can in fact form several non-singular forms of the 3rd person pronouns (dual, trial, collective...) by appending the relevant number postposition in place of {-sha} and mantaining the tonal declension, which is in this case the default one for nouns.

Honorifics

Spacebound Naderian has forgone completely a construction of 2nd person for a complex system of honorifics that substitute it. The addressee is referred by an honorific noun which acts as a pronoun, and is declensed for both gender and case like a noun. The most basic honorific is {ċhôntsae} (this is masculine absolutive), which is almost completely neutral in register and can be used as a default in most situations - for example, in talking to a stranger or new acquaintance, in a written text when addressing a reader, in a professional situation where there is no strong hierarchical disparity, etc. It also comes in a vocative form, which is simply in the dominant case:

which is by far the word you will be hearing the most when speaking to a squid person. {ċhóntsa} is an almost iconic expression that is constantly used as an interjections and which means not much more than ``I'm talking to you''.

A bizarre situation exists for honorifics used in familial relations. In essence, children address a parent of each gender in the same way that parent addresses them. Specifically, a child can address their mother as {mówema}, but so will the mother address their children as {mówema}. A father calls his children {ótsereba}, or affectionally {ótseru}, but so will his children when talking to him. This interesting feature is most likely is a byproduct of the inconvenience for infants to learn to handle the honorifics system. The terminology for familiar relations has been confused as a consequence, for example the masculine {môwame}, literally ``male mother'', means (a woman's) son; the entire system will be explained later.

We list here some common honorifics:

• {ċhóntsa} - fully generic and neutral. Acts as an interjection. Can be perceived as informal.
• {kórentsa} - a more polite, less imposing version. Essentially substitute for the word ``please''.
• {mówema} - used to refer to one's mother, or for a mother to refer to her children.
• {ótsru} - used to refer to one's father, or for a father to refer to his children.
• {tónewa} - from adjective {tǎnowe} ``gracefully strong'', with a meaning of a ``refined'' or adult woman. Can be translated as ``ma'am'', or ``lady''. Used generically to formally address all adult women.
• {hókona} - for respectfully addressing elderly people (of either gender) and / or a more knowledgeable or experienced superior, teacher or master.
• {zhńru} - from truncation of {nǎzhnru} ``engineer'' (loan from Reticulan), used to address professionals with technical knowledge, mechanics, engineers, medical doctors, scientists, scholars... Can be used ironically to insult the speaker's intelligence.
• {pópeka} - used with the rough meaning of ``my dear''/``my small''/``baby''. It can be employed both within an affectionate relationship, but also less seriously between friends.

Relative Clauses

Relative or adjectival clauses specify information about a noun, like in ``I brought the book that I was reading with me'', ``that I was reading'' is a relative clause acting as a determining adjective for ``book''. In Naderian, relative clauses are always formed ``naked'', without any marking conjunction, simply by juxtaposing another verb. For example:

example[ǎċhokrne chr̀settso kr̄ṣhe yáreda|ABS.F.girl, INSTR.F.dress, IMPERF.F.wear, PERF.F.smile||The girl wearing the dress smiled.]

Note that the verb {karaṣhe}, to wear, takes the wearer as the patient and the clothing as theme. Thus {ǎċhokorone} is shared as Patient over the main clause and the relative clause. It's fundamental that the relative clause has the noun in the same inflected case it has in the main clause, and one should go to the necessary lengths to ensure this. Let us be more precise.

Consider translating ``the girl wearing the dress looked at him''. The girl is agent for the main clause and patient for the relative clause. In this case, the roles are aligned by passivising the relative clause:

example[àṣho óċhekrna chřsottse kr̄ṣhe-kama bàhetso|ABS.3M, ERG.F.girl, ABS.F.dress, IMPERF.F.wear.PASS, PERF.M.(look at)||The girl wearing the dress looked at him]

In this case, ``the dress'' has happened to fill the patient vacuum in the relative clause, but in any other case one admits a patient vacancy in the relative clause for the sake of aligning the roles. Note that the main clause has the default PAV word order, but the relative clause is APV, since all the clause but the noun ``the girl'' itself is considered a determiner, and so goes after.

Naked relative clauses can apply to Agent, Patient, and Theme. For other types of complements (e.g. ``The restaurant where they made that dish has closed'' has a Locative in the relative clause) the construction is slightly different.

Conjunctions

Conjunctions join entire verb phrases, nouns, adjectives, and basically every part of speech pretty much in the same way. They however use a slightly different syntax depending on the size of the conjoined phrases.

For conjoining with a small phrase, one appends the conjunction as a postposition. For example:

example[pônaċhe gřttoche-ra yôrade| ABS.M.man , ABS.F.woman-and , 3.F.IMPERF.IND.smile |Ppônaċhe Dgǎrottoche-ra Pyôrade| The man and the woman are smiling.]

where the conjunction {rā} ``and'' is used as a postposition. It could have been equally grammatical, though unnecessarily verbose, to place it as a standalone word inbetween:

example[pônaċhe rā gřttoche yôrade| ABS.M.man , and , ABS.F.woman , 3.F.IMPERF.IND.smile |Ppônaċhe Hra Dgǎrottoche-ra Pyôrade| The man and the woman are smiling.]

Ergativity and conjunction

Take note of the following two Reticulan examples.

In example 1), the man is in both clauses in the same role of the subject. It is therefore possible to omit it in the second one (deletion). In example 2), however, the man is first the subject and then the object. It is therefore necessary to refer to the man through a pronoun marking it as an object.

In Naderian, the logic works identically, but because of the different alignment system, the two outcomes are reversed. Deletion in conjoined sentences can only occur with a deleted agent referring to a previous agent, or patient referring to a patient, or any other case only if it remains identical. So the two sentences above translate to the following:

example[pônaċhe tàttezho rā gřttoche óru tsóda | ABS.M.man , PERF.3.M.return , and , ABS.F.woman , 3.SING.M.ERG.he , PERF.3.F.see ||1) the man returned and he saw the woman] example[pônaċhe tàttezho rā gŕttecha tsàdo | ABS.M.man , PERF.3.M.return , and , ERG.F.woman , PERF.3.M.see ||2) the man returned and the woman saw (him) ]

In alternative, one can also formulate difficult conjunctions like 1) without inserting pronouns through the use of a voice shift. Specifically, we can antipassivise like this:

example[pônaċhe tàttezho rā gŕttecho tsàde-no | ABS.M.man , PERF.3.M.return , and , INSTR.F.woman , PERF.3.M.see.ANTIP ||1) the man returned and saw the woman]

which is hard to translate literally, but it could be worded something like ``the man returned and experienced seeing the woman''. The verb is masculine as the man is now the patient.

A third alternative in principle would be to passivize the first phrase ``the man returned'', but it would create a patient-less phrase, which is always discouraged.

Negation

The negative ``mood'' is called as such because by default a verb in NEG with no additional morphology is interpreted as a negative (realis) clause. For example

example[gřttoche kǎt-tsode| ABS.F.woman ,1.PERF.NEG.see|| I didn't see the woman.]

Interrogation

Questions in Naderian are marked by the use of the Negative mood for the main verb. There is no change in intonation, nor in word order. One then distinguished wh-questions and yes/no questions.

wh-questions

These are marked by the appearance of the interrogative pronouns {kǎshoru} (for things) or {gǎṣhotze} (for people), whose declensions are fully regular and allow both genders. These pronouns are used only in questions. To form a wh-question, one places the interrogative pronoun in the correct role/meta-case, the verb in negative mood, and leaves the word order intact as for a positive sentence. This allows for a large range of possible types of questions, including location, time... examples:

example[gôċċhape góṣhetza tȯtokoṇo?| ABS.M.bread, ERG.who , NEG.PERF.3.M.bake | | Who baked the bread? ]

Yes/no questions

A yes/no question is produced by presenting the phrase normally, in the Negative mood, and then following it with {, mǎtoze?}, which is the Negative form of the verb ``to be'', so as to roughly mean ``isn't it so?''. Here is an example:

example[hàno tàttezho | ABS.3SF, PERF.F.IND.return||she returned ] example[hàno tǎttozhe, mǎtoze? | ABS.3SF, PERF.F.NEG.return||Has she returned? ]

Yes/no questions are answered very simply in Naderian with the words {yȧ} ``yes'', and {kào}, ``no''.

Derivation

We list some interesting patterns of morphological derivation.

With ``come''

A phrase of type X comes, with the verb {tatazha}, ``to come / to arrive / to happen'' can be compressed into a derived noun:

Subject Incorporation

Because of the unusual OSV (PAV) word order, Naderian routinely allows for an otherwise very rare construction in which the agent is compounded with the intransitive verb, called Subject (or Agent) Incorporation, typically with some shift in meaning. The subject noun and the verb are just strung together in a single word, with a single long tone pattern. As for the meaning shift, the incorporated subject acquires a generic or universal connotation, and/or the now intransitive verb acquires a more habitual-like aspect.

For example

example[kônao bónta kôkkaru|1S.M.ABS, ERG.F.people.(COLL), love.F.IMPERF || People love me.]

could be transformed by noun-incorporation into

example[kônao bônte-kakkaru|1S.M.ABS, people-love.F.IMPERF || I am "people-loved".]

The first sentence can span more specific meanings in which one is referring to a certain crowd of people, or all people, and most likely refers to a current situation. The second one is a more general statement about the Patient being lovable by people in general, or that typically people tend to love him. The incorporation tends to shift the focus of the statement on the Patient and reduce specificity of the Agent.

By contrast, Naderian does not allow object incorporation, so it cannot say ``wood-chopping'', but a SI like ``man-made'' is possible and even encouraged.

Lexicon

Proper Nouns

Numerals

Spacebound Naderians use exclusively the Reticulan base-10 positional number system, and write numbers with the 0123456789 digits in standard fashion. Nevertheless, the traces of the original older system remain in the words for smaller numbers and in the treatment of fractions.

The old number system was uniquely based on the number 7 ({tàtseho}) and 14 ({tàtseṣha}). This unusual occurrence is probably due to their use of the set of distal suckers of tentacles for counting, instead of hands. The distal suckers are visually distinct from the others and come in seven pairs. In fact, the word {tôtsahe} itself means tentacle. Effectively, the way Naderian used to count originally was a base-14 positional system, with staggered subdivisions of 2 and 7. In the table below, number names that hark back to the original system are in shaded rows, and the rest have been supplanted by base-10 forms.

We list the base cardinal forms, used for counting (e.g. ``five apples''), the ordinals, used for position in an ordered sequence (e.g. ``the fifth apple'') and reciprocals meaning unit fractions (e.g. ``a fifth of an apple'').

Note that the ``cardinals'' for 1, 2, 3 only exist as counting numbers and are not used as number adjectives; for these situation the relevant number suffix should be used. The other cardinals and all of the ordinals can be used as regular adjectives with the exceptional condition that they are not inflected, and mantain their tone. Numerals used as adjective cannot be nominalized, i.e. ``the three went along their way'' or ``we saw the second one'' cannot be translated directly and require some periphrasis.

The last ``irregular'' number is {tȁtsohsatso}, 21. The convention with Naderian numbers is that a bigger number before a smaller one are multiplied, and a smaller before a larger are summed. To spell any regular number from 1 to a 100, you write it as (number below ten) + (multiple of ten), in that order. For example

finish

Dictionary

Several variants of spacebound Naderian employ their own writing system, called the {pǎhcheta Ṣhógeru} (``written symbols of Ṣhogaru''), which is actually a relatively recent (about 700 years old) invention by the semi-mythological space monk Ṣhogaru. We focus here on the Earthan version. It is an abjad, that is to say the writing system only marks consonants. It also allows for slightly impure usage through a marker placed on the first letter to specify the word tone.

Here are the letters of the Ṣhógeru

And they are complemented by eight optional tone markers to be placed over the first letter in a word:

Almost always Naderians do not use tone markings and rely on context. When they are marked, usually the D tone is not. In this document we mark all tones for the sake clarity.

Many letters actually connect with adjacent ones or form completely distinct ligatures:

• £r£ and £n.£ change form depending on previous letter: £Sr£, £hn.£, £zr£, £zn.£, £br£, £yn.£, etc.
• £'£ connects to some following letters, like £'y£
• £k£, £g£, £k.£, £x£, £X£, £x.£, £N£ connect to some preceding letters, like £wk£, £bg£, £Ex£ etc.

In addition, word-initial £tt£ {t.t.-} is written as £t.£ with the symbol for {tt.-}, with no risk of ambiguity since geminated consonants cannot occur word-initially.

Useful Phrases

Some of the phrases below have gendered variation. The basic form is for female speaker and female/epicene adressee and the variant for male speaker is in (round brackets), and for male addressee in [square brackets].

Just used 5 minutes of your day

``1221 - And so, because she ate a human hand, consequently a burden comes [to him].'' example[tsókke-ru, fôntawaru bónte-nta óseru tsóna tàgo, bȯkkoro tsȯntowaru àṣho tàteyaru|therefore-and , ABS.M.(pairs of hands), GEN.F.people-SPLIT-SING , ERG.3F , PERF.M.3.eat , because, INSTR.reason , INSTR.(interior struggle) , ABS.3M , PERF.M.3.provide||and so, because she ate a hand of people, by reason he is given a burden.] ``1222 - Don’t take the key with youǃ You will lose itǃ'' example[sā shȯntsoya ċhôntsae wȧncheko-no! ċhóntsa óru tȁkonedo!|IMPERATIVE, INSTR.M.key, ABS.M.you, NEG.M.take-ANTIP, ERG.you, ABS.M.3P, PERF.SUBJ.M.lose||Don't take the key! You would lose it!] example[sā shȯntsoya ċhǎntsoe wǎncheko-ne! ċhóntsa óru tȁkonedo!|IMPERATIVE, INSTR.M.key, ABS.F.you, NEG.F.take-ANTIP, ERG.you, ABS.M.3P, PERF.SUBJ.M.lose||Don't take the key! You would lose it!] ``1223 - And one day, all of a sudden, well, without there being any (reason), the sun did not rise.'' example[rā bȯrohonto-towa-zo, ṇóṇecchi, tātta... bȯyaru-sono fôntae tȯtozhe|and, ABL.M.day-some-in, very-suddenly, INTERJECTION, ABL.motivation-none , ABS.M.sun, NEG.M.come||and, some day, very suddenly, how to say... without a reason the sun did not come.]