Naibas

Naibas
Naibas Naibas kaulas
Pronunciation	[[nɑɪˈbas̺] [nɑɪˈbas̺ kɑʊˈlas̺]]
Created by	puyongechi
Date	2020
Setting	Naiaba
Ethnicity	White, Naiabian
Native speakers	90,000,000 (1910)
Language family	Argo-Kigodic Argurian Niztanian South-Ilakian West-Nanaric Naibas

Naibas (IPA: /nɑɪˈbas̺/ or, less frequently, /ˈnai.bɑs̺/. Also Naibas kaulas (IPA: /nɑɪˈbas̺ kɑʊˈlas̺/)) is a Niztanian con-language and the official language of Naiaba, a con-country in West Arguria. It is spoken by approximately 50 million native speakers (1910) and 40 million L2 speakers around the world, being the most spoken Niztanian language, and the second most spoken Argurian language. It is an agglutinative language with an ergative-absolutive alignment and a SOV order. It was created by Reddit user puyongechi in late 2020.

Phonology

Consonants

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	/m/		/n/	/ɲ/	/ŋ/
Plosive	/p/ /b/	/t/ /d/		/c/ /ɟ/	/k/ /g/	/ʔ/
Affricate				/tʃ/
Fricative	/f/	/s̻/	/s̺/	/ʃ/
Approximant	/β/			/ʝ/
Lateral			/l/
Rhotic			/r/ /ɾ/

• /ɲ/ occurs when n- is followed by -i- and another vowel (nia, nie, nio, niu)
• The glottal stop /ʔ/ occurs when a stressed diphthong precedes a stop or when a stressed syllable precedes a palatal plosive (eitto /ˈeiʔ.co/; koddi /ˈkɔʔ.ɟɪ/)
• There is distinction between the three sibilants /s̻/, /s̺/ and /ʃ/.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	/i/ [ɪ]		/u/ /ɔ/
Mid	/e/	[ə]	[o]
Open		/a/	[ɑ]

• [ɪ], [o] and [ɑ] only occur when i, o and a are unstressed respectively. In some dialects of Naibas, [ʊ] occurs when u is unstressed.
• When e is unstressed and right before a stress, some speakers pronounce [ɪ] and some [ə].

Orthography

M m	N n	NiV niV	P p	B b	T t	D d	Tt tt	Dd dd	K k	G g
/m/	/n/	/ɲ/	/p/	/b/	/t/	/d/	/c/	/ɟ/	/k/	/g/
Kx kx	F f	S s	Z z	X x	I i	V v	L l	R- r-	-r- -r
/t͡ʃ/	/f/	/s̺/	/s̻/	/ʃ/	/ʝ/	/β/	/l/	/r/	/ɾ/

Prosody

Stress

Stress in Naibas follows some logical rules only broken in a few cases, reason why it is very easy to read. Naibas is a stem-stressed language when it comes to adding affixes to a word, that is, case, tense and aspect markers. Most words with more than two syllables place a secondary stress in the syllable that is two places away from the stressed one. In words like aniraz /ˌa.nɪˈɾas̻/ (woman), the last syllable is stressed, so the first syllable receives the secondary stress. Case markers and definite suffixes receive secondary stress too if the last syllable of the word is not stressed, so the word ixtoe /ˈiʃ.toˌe/ (the boy) places the secondary stress in the definite suffix -e.

• Words ending in -n, -l, -r, -s, -z, and -x place the stress in the last syllable (aniraz, ixol, kakun, osor, albes).
• Words ending in vowel, -k, -m or -t place the stress in the penultimate syllable (samak, ixto, inere, gatta, izum).
• Words ending in -u place the stress in the last syllable if they are neuter (kaniu) and in the penultimate if they are masculine (maiddu).

When it comes to adding the definite suffix -e, -i or -a, some words ending in vowel have two possible pronunciations. The word inere (girl), if attached the suffix (inere-i) can be pronounced either /ɪˈne.ɾeɪ/ or /ɪˈne.ɾeˌi/. The same thing happens with masculine words ending in -u (maiddu / maiddu-e: /ˈmaiʔ.ɟwe/ or /ˈmaiʔ.ɟuˌe/ 'beaver') or in -i (koddi / koddi-e: /ˈkɔʔ.ɟje/ or /ˈkɔʔ.ɟiˌe/ 'dog').

Phonotactics

• Onset (can be null): /b/, /d/, /f/, /g/, /k/, /c/, /ɟ/, /ʝ/, /l/, /m/, /n/, /ɲ/, /p/, /r/, /s̺/, /s̻/, /ʃ/, /t͡ʃ/, /t/, /β/ (only after a vowel), /l/, /ɾ/, /s̺/ or /s̻/.
  • Consonant clusters allowed in onset are: /tɾ/, /dɾ/, /kɾ/, /gɾ/, /pɾ/, /bɾ/, /kl/, /gl/, /pl/, /bl/, /fr/, /fl/. /kn/, /tn/ and /pn/ are also possible but some speakers substitute them with /n/ or /m/, and then the following vowel becomes a diphthong (kneta - neita; pnaxko - maixko).
• Nucleus: vowels and diphthongs.
• Coda (can be null): /k/, /t/, /p/, /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, /ʔ/, /f/, /s̺/, /s̻/, /ʃ/, /l/, /ɫ/, /r/, /ɾ/
  • Consonant clusters allowed in coda are: /nk/, /lk/, /rk/, /s̺k/, /s̻k/, /ʃk/, /nt/, /lt/, /rt/, /s̺t/, /s̻t/, /ʃt/

Morphology

Nominal morphology

Nouns in Naibas have a suffix in almost any possible sentence, unless, for instance, there is a numeral. The definite article is realized as an affix that changes depending on the gender of the word. Words can be masculine, feminine or neuter.

	Suffix	Plural	Example	Translation
Masculine	-e	-ie	osore - osorie	the blanket - (the) blankets
Feminine	-i	-o/-ixo	noixi - noixo	the pig - (the) pigs
Neuter	-a	-ia	kaniua - kaniuia	the tavern - (the) taverns

Case marks

Case marks are added always at the end of a word, and they can be attached a definite article before, after or both before and after the word. If we take the word melke (coast), we can form the word melkeitez (melke + -i- (definite article) + -tez (locative case)), which means "from the coast" or "coastal". The definite article -e attached to the whole word would result in melkeiteze (the one (masculine) from the coast). We can keep adding affixes until we get really long but meaningful words

Melkeitezekia
melke	-i	-tez	-e	-k	-ia
coast	-det	-loc	-det	-gen	-pl
'The things (neut.) of the one (masc.) from the coast.'

Cases in Naibas are the following

case	masculine	feminine	neuter
abs	zutta(e/ie) 'cloud'	delas(i/o) 'sea'	nutu(a/ia) 'law'
erg	zutta(e/ie)s	delas(i/o)s	nutu(a/ia)s
dat	zutta(e/ie)ne	delas(i/o)ne	nutu(a/ia)ne
gen	zutta(e/ie)k	delas(i/o)k	nutu(a/ia)k
com	zutta(e/ie)ko	delas(i/o)ko	nutu(a/ia)ko
abess	zutta(e/ie)ta	delas(i/o)ta	nutu(a/ia)ta
caus	zutta(e/ie)kai	delas(i/o)kai	nutu(a/ia)kai
ben	zutta(e/ie)tu	delas(i/o)tu	nutu(a/ia)tu
instr	zutta(e/ie)kes	delas(i/o)kes	nutu(a/ia)kes
ine	zutta(e/ie)na	delas(i/o)na	nutu(a/ia)na
loc	zutta(e/ie)tez	delas(i/o)tez	nutu(a/ia)kez
all	zutta(e/ie)ro	delas(i/o)to	nutu(a/ia)to
term	zutta(e/ie)dan	delas(i/o)dan	nutu(a/ia)dan
abl	zutta(e/ie)to	delas(i/o)to	nutu(a/ia)to
ptv	zutta(-/ie)ku	delas(-/o)ku	nutu(-/ia)ku
prol	zutta(e/ie)tuk	delas(i/o)tuk	nutu(a/ia)tuk