Enkidukai Language/Grammar

Basic Structure

Word Order varies between the verb 'to be', 'se', and all other verbs. Sometimes an awkward word order is used for emphasis or poetic measures.

For the verb to be, words follow as so: Subject, Subject Modifiers, Object, Object Modifiers, Verb, Adverb, Other Verb Modifiers

For other verbs, the word order is: Subject, Subject Modifiers, Verb, Object, Object Modifiers, Adverb, Other Verb Modifiers

A verb's infinitive ends in 'e', as in bufte, which means to feel. Most other parts of speech are ambiguous to their endings. One notable thing about Enkien is the tone carried through a vowel sound; rr generally means good, love, or lust, whereas a 'aa' means bad, or hated. This can also be shown in respect - an 'y' is high respect generally, and any hard, slightly fricated consonant like 'gh' would be lowly, despised, or inimical.

Verb Conjugation

Verb conjugation is in the most basic sense making a verb agree with a subject. This can be seen in English by discerning 'he likes' and 'you like'; note the 's' on the verb in the former and the lack thereof in the latter.

There are five basic parts to any Enkien verb:

Root-System Suffix-Tense Suffix-Personal Suffix-Passive Indicator

The Root would be any verb infinitive, like 'bufte', without its final 'e' - so the root for 'bufte' would be 'buft-'

A System Suffix determines the relative point in time that an event occurs, here limited to the Perfect or Present, and the method it occurs, as in Indicative, Subjunctive, Conditional, and Imperative.

Indicative means that something absolutely happens. Subjunctive means that there is a possibility of it happening, but there is no certainty of its happening. Conditional means that something happens if something else takes place. Imperative is the general commanding tone.

An Indicative phrase - "She left the city"
A Conditional phrase - "I would like to feed my pet"
A Subjunctive phrase - "If I were you, I would not touch the fire."
An Imperative phrase - "Go away"

A Tense Suffix describes the time relative to the System Suffix that an event happened - here there are three, the Past, Present, and Future.

Present

• Past - This is the imperfect tense, meaning that this refers to something that happened repeatedly or continuously in the past.
• Present - This is the general Present tense - e.g. "I walk to Hydlaa."
• Future - This is the general Future tense - e.g. "I will jump off of the roof."

Perfect

• Past - This is the Pluperfect tense, referring to something that already had happened in the past - "I had injured my leg"
• Present - This is the general Present Perfect tense, referring to something that happened in the past - "I drew my swords"
• Future - This it the Future Perfect tense, meaning that something happens after a point in the past - "I will have loved my family"

A Personal Suffix refers to the person the action is done by or to - there being three persons, the First, Second, and Third - both in the singular and plural, making for six endings.

A Passive Indicator indicated whether or not an action is performed by or on a person. An Active phrase would be: "I kill", and a Passive phrase would be: "I am killed". A question that can be asked about a passive phrase is "By whom?"

And so, here are the Enkien counterparts to all this:

System Suffices

	Present	Perfect
Indicative	[none]	arra
Conditional	obu	oburra
Subjunctive	ebi	ebirra

Imperative
-Singular: aln
-Plural: alnes
[Note that no Perfect imperative exists in Enkien]

Tense Suffices

Past	th
Present	d (none if no system suffix is used)
Future	car

Personal Suffices

	Singular	Plural
1st Person	o	ose
2nd Person	a	anse
3rd Person	i	itse

Passive Indicator Active - [none] Passive - 'pe

The verb 'se', meaning 'to be' has irregular personal suffices; they are as follow:

Se = to be
	Singular	Plural
1st Person	o	y
2nd Person	a	awi
3rd Person	i	ii*

*Note that this is pronounced at length or doubled and not with a hiss or emphasis.

Verb Object Pronouns

Verbs can have object pronouns attached to the very end of them, like so: 'Lurro'olo', which means 'I love you'

	Singular	Plural
1st Person	-eti	-etisa
2nd Person	-olo	-olosa
3rd Person	-oji	-ojisa

Noun Declension

Noun Declension in Enkien is mostly consisting of 'Honorifics', meaning different endings for a person of different social level than you. Someone or something you respect would obtain a 'high' ending. Something you despise of think lowly of would get a 'low' ending. Anything else fits into the 'normal' category.

A 'Calling' ending refers to the speaker directly 'calling' out a particular person, e.g. "Go away, Martia"

So these endings are as follows:
For vowel-ending nouns:

	Singular	Plural
Normal	[none]	has*
Normal Calling	ph	phas
High	dy'a	dys
High Calling	dyn	dynas
Low	jho	jhos
Low Calling	jho	jhos

For consonant-ending nouns and those ending in 'y':

	Singular	Plural
Normal	[none]	as*
Normal Calling	aph	aphas
High	y'a	ys
High Calling	yn	ynas
Low	ijho	ijhos
Low Calling	igho	ighos

Emphasis

Emphasis can be applied to an honorific noun form by applying a niche ['] between the root noun and its ending, dropping any ending vowel on the root noun, e.g. "Thilop'y'a" meaning "Very respected man" or "Very beloved man".

Another method of emphasis is doubling or tripling an accented vowel in the root noun - this generally leads to a very vulgar disrespectful tone. Example: "Diiiraph da Ulbreti!", or a very vulgar idiom "Son of an Ulbernaut". This method is used on all vowels except w, rr, and y. Doubling 'a', 'e', 'o', or 'u' leads to a roaring sounding whil doubling an 'i' leads to a hiss.

Possessive

There are two ways to display a possessive form of a noun in Enkien. The first is to simply use "inu", which means "of" or "for."
Example:
"The fur of an Ulbernaut"
Which translates to:
"Wrra inu Ulbreti"

The other way is to add the suffix 'oji' to what is possessed, dropping any vowel ending on the noun possessed
Example:
"Ulbernaut's fur"
Which translates to:
"Wrroji Ulbreti"

Also, pronouns have their own possessive forms, which follow:

	Singular			Plural
1st Person	mo	my		monso	our
2nd Person	tolo	your		tolso	your
3rd Person	siji	his, her, its		sijhiso	their

Verb's Noun Form, Gerund

This simply means using a verb as a noun.
For example,
"He places the mug on the table" Where the verb is emboldened
"The placing of the mug is awkward" Where the Verbal noun is emboldened

To accomplish this in Enkien, simply add the suffix "ol" to a verb root.
Example:
"Gajho etha Ojaveda" - I work in Ojaveda
"Gajhol inu Ojaveda" - The work of Ojaveda

Verbs to People

This here means making a noun from a verb by making the noun the person or thing that does the action of said verb. An example in English would be from compute to computer, or announce to announcer.

To do this in Enkien, taker your verb root, as in zhal-, to break. Attach a suffix '-or' to this root.

Example: zhale -> zhalor In English: to break -> breaker

Plural nouns

A noun may be made plural by adding the -kai suffix.

Thilha = person, thilhakai = people
Siksi = fish, siksikai = fish
Zhalor = breaker, zhalorkai = breakers

Feminine/Masculine Suffices

Used only when absolutely needed, these suffices can indicate whether a noun refers to a man or a woman. These suffices are:
feminine - -yba
masculine - -ol

If there is a vowel at the end of a word, detach that vowel before adding the suffix.

Example:

A female leader (e.g. a queen) would be yl- + -yba = ylyba (because ylol is already a masculine form).

Participles

Any participle is formed by taking the verb infinitive, adding the tense suffix (only remove the 'e' of the infinitive if the participle is of the present tense), and adding "ada" for the active, and "epi" for the passive.

Also, there are some participles where the consonant before the final 'e' of the infinitive is changed; they are as follows:

s → sh ('st' if participle is perfect)
r → d
d → th ('t' if participle is perfect)

Thus,

gane → ganata - tainting
gane → - (there is no perfect active participle in Enkien)
gane → ganecarata - going to be tainted
gane → ganepi - being tainted
gane → ganethepi - having been tainted
gane → ganecarepi - going to be tainted

An Enkien participle basically acts as an adjective, one that can replace a long verb phrase, e.g:

He describes me as a working person.
It is harmful to be tainted by magic.

Links

• Grammar
• Vocabulary
• English-Enkien table
• Enkien-English table
• Examples
• Numbers
• Useful Phrases