Dundulanyä

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Dundulanyä [dundulɐnjɛ], natively known as dundulanyä ḫamofa[1], is a conlang of the Eventoa conworld. Both the language and the setting are still under construction: see the External history section on this page for more.

Phonology

Dundulanyä has a moderately large, but asymmetrical, vowel inventory with six short and four long vowels, along with three diphthongs and two consonants (short and long versions of the same one) that can fill the syllable nucleus.

Front Central Back
Close i iː u uː
Close-mid e eː o~ɔ
Open-mid ɛ ɛː
Open ɐ äː
Diphthongs aɪ̯ eɪ̯ aʊ̯
Syllabic consonants ʀ̩ ʀ̩ː

The consonant inventory is more complex, with a pattern of “soft” and “hard” consonants traditionally recognized by classical Dundulanyä grammarians, not on a phonetic basis but starting from their relationship inside Dundulanyä morphology. In most cases, the difference is based on aspiration.

→ PoA
↓ Manner
Labials Dentals Retroflexes Palatals Velars Laryngeals
Soft Hard Soft Hard Soft Hard Soft Hard Soft Hard Soft Hard
Nasals m n ɳ ɲ ŋ
Stops Unvoiced p t̪ʰ ʈ ʈʰ c͡ɕ c͡ɕʰ k ʔ
Voiced b d̪ʱ ɖ ɖʱ ɟ͡ʑ ɟ͡ʑʱ ɡ~ɣ ɡʱ
Fricatives ɸ~f s ʂ ɕ ɦ ħ
Approximants ʋ l j ʀ

The /pʰ/ phoneme is mostly a invention of Dundulanyä grammarians to preserve symmetry in stops; it has a separate letter in the script, but as a phoneme it is only found in the name of the letter itself and in a few words of onomatopoeic origin; the vast majority of contemporary speakers merge it with /ɸ~f/.

Morphology

Ablaut

Dundulanyä is characterized by a complex system of vowel alternations that was inherited from its proto-language.

Nominal examples:

  • a/zero root: bhaṭuṣa (bhaṭ-uṣ-) "expansion": ABS bhaṭuṣa, ERG bhaṭuṣis, DAT abḍhoṣak, LOC abḍhoṣā, LOC.PL abḍhauṣēn
  • e/i root: dehuṣa (deh-uṣ-) "usage": ABS dehuṣa, ERG dehuṣis, DAT dihoṣak, LOC dihoṣā, LOC.PL dihauṣēn
  • a/zero root, synchronically irregular: hāṅka (haf-n-ka- < *śǝ́f-ṇ-ko-) "socket": ABS hāṅka, ERG hāṅkis, DAT iṣfaṅkak, LOC iṣfaṅkā, LOC.PL iṣfāṅkēn

Nouns

(TBA: introduction, declension)

Dundulanyä declensions are primarily categorized by whether they refer to nouns that undergo ablaut or not; secondarily, they are categorized by their stem type.

Ablauting declensions are all unproductive (although some of the derivational suffixes that form ablauting nouns are still productive) and include the following ones:

  • Root nouns
  • -e declension
  • -a declension
  • Zero-ending nouns with vowel suffixes (-u, -i, -ṛ).

Non-ablauting declensions are the following ones:

  • -e declension (first consonant stem declension)
  • Zero-ending nouns with stems ending in liquids (-l or -r), nasals (-m or -n) or the glottal stop (-h) (second consonant stem declension)
  • Nouns with vowel-final stems.

Bound forms

Dundulanyä nouns have a further, non-case form, which is called the bound form by native grammarians. For nouns whose stems end in vowels, it is usually identical to the absolutive; for other nouns, it is usually the endingless stem (with some exceptions). It is used when the noun is the predicate of a copular verb; when the noun is the possessor (a form syntactically reminescent of the Afroasiatic construct state); and when governed by many adpositions.

In the name of the language, dundulanyä ḫamofa, for example, dundulanyä is a bound form that however has the same form as the absolutive, due to the noun having a stem ending in a vowel. Some more examples of bound forms:

  • imut naviṣyaɂe "the teacher's book", imut being the bound form of imute "teacher", and naviṣya "book" being marked with the 3SG possessive ɂe.
  • nūrei dvārmaɂe "the child's room", nūrei being the bound form of nūrya "child".
  • tätebu ū līv "my home is a flat", where līv, bound form of līve "apartment", is part of a copular structure.
  • dhomiyān surē "without hope", where the postposition surē "without" forces the noun dhomiyāna to assume its bound form dhomiyān.

Declension tables

1st ablauting declension (-e)
helk-iḫ-
"hue, shade"
Singular Dual Plural
Absolutive helkiḫe helkiḫive hailkiḫi
Vocative hailkiḫ
Ergative helkiḫis helkiḫīyat hilkeḫaih
Dative hilkeḫak helkiḫīma hilkaiḫumi
Ablative hilkeḫū helkiḫeṣu hilkaiḫenī
Locative hilkeḫē helkiḫehe hilkaiḫēn
Instrumental hilkeḫī hilkeḫeiś hilkaiḫenīka
Translative hilkeḫein helkiḫīma hilkaiḫīt
Exessive hilkeḫoś helkiḫeṣu hilkaiḫau
Essive hilkeḫeṃs helkiḫehe hilkaiḫeyäh
Bound form helkiḫ helkiḫiv hailkiḫ
Non-ablauting consonant stem 1st declension
imut-
"teacher"
Singular Dual Plural
Absolutive imute
"teacher"
imutive imuti
Vocative imut
Ergative imutis imutīyat imutaih
Dative imutak imutīma imutumi
Ablative imutū imuteṣu imutenī
Locative imutē imutehe imutēn
Instrumental imutī imuteiś imutenīka
Translative imutein imutīma imutīt
Exessive imutoś imuteṣu imutau
Essive imuteṃs imutehe imuteyäh
Bound form imut imutiv imutī

Verbs

Dundulanyä has generally a split-S morphosyntactic alignment, however allowing fluid-S marking for multiple verbs. There are two different sets of verbal terminations, one for patient agreement and another for agent agreement.

Agent-agreement terminations
1SG 2SG 3SG 1DU 2DU 3DU 1PL 2PL 3PL
Indicative Present -if -ad -ēm -īvi -āhai
Perfect -am -es -a -a -a
Past
Frequentative -ī |
Subjunctive

Numerals

Dundulanyä has a duodecimal numeral system.

Digit12 Base 10 Cardinal Ordinal Collective Distributive Adv./Multiplicative Fractionary
0 0 '
1 1 emibe
emi
rählälu
2 2 irau hälinaike
3 3 ḍola ḍolesi
4 4 nälte nältaisi
5 5 śulka śulkesi
6 6 ūṃse ūṃsaisi
7 7 chīka chīcesi
8 8 mbula mbulesi
9 9 kuñje kuñjaisi
10 tālda tāldesi
Ɛ 11 ṣūḍen ṣūṇḍisi
10 12 mūmai mūmaisi

External history

Dundulanyä is a conlang project that I “officially” started in early December 2021 (coincidentally around the fifth anniversary since I started Chlouvānem), although it and its goals are, to a large extent, the conflation of multiple projects that I sporadically worked on for most of 2021:

  • A long process of “refinement” of Chlouvānem – that happened offline, so it was never reflected in any edit on the wiki pages here – by eliminating or changing some quirks that had formed over time and that had brought me to a standstill in working on that conlang by late 2020. Ideas for the refinement started from nominal morphology but then they eventually snowballed to the point it was impossible to implement them without basically starting the conlang anew;
  • A radical reboot of Tameï that was meant to give it an a priori language family in a slightly changed conworld setting (although still on an alternative Earth); this was the language I originally created the glottonym Dundulanyä for;
  • Various unnamed sketchlangs, mostly attempts at Hurro-Urartian diachronic conlanging, that were the results of a general interest in Ancient Near Eastern languages as a side-effect of my work on Lifashian (my “conlang of choice” for most of 2021).

Dundulanyä is meant to be the first conlang for a sort of reboot of CalémereEventoa – as, much like in Chlouvānem itself, there had come to be quite a few things in and about Calémere that I wasn’t that sure of keeping, but changing them would have meant to change so many things about the conworld that depended on them. Eventoa, as of now (December 5, 2021) is just a vague and unwritten collection of ideas, so there’s nothing to write about it – but it eventually will incorporate a few elements of Calémere. Dundulanyä will play a role in Eventoa vaguely similar to the one Chlouvānem had in Calémere, although unlike earlier conworld reboots I have decided not to trash everything away (hence why I chose a different name for Eventoa), keeping eight years’ worth of documentation about Calémere and five years’ worth about Chlouvānem intact.

Compared to Chlouvānem, Dundulanyä is going to tone down somewhat the Sanskrit and particularly the Lithuanian and Japanese influences, while being more influenced by PIE itself, Hurrian, Urartian, Elamite, Anatolian languages, and the Semitic and Turkic languages as a whole.

Notes

  1. ^ Literally "Dundulanyä our-language", with a 1PL possessive; the stylistic variant dundulanyä ḫamoyūt (lit. "Dundulanyä their-language") is sometimes found in neutral contexts.