Dundulanyä

Dundulanyä
dundulanyä ḫamfafa
Pronunciation	[dundulɐnjɛ ħɐmɸɐɸɐ]
Created by	Lili21
Date	Dec 2021
Setting	Eventoa
Ethnicity	Dundulanyä; Neo-Dundulanyä
Native speakers	1,946,000,000 (4140)
Language family	East Mandabudi (areal) Dundulanyä
Early form	Pre-Dundulanyä
Standard form	Modern Standard Dundulanyä
Official status
Official language in	Confederation of the United Dundulanyä Republics

Dundulanyä [dundulɐnjɛ], natively known as dundulanyä ḫamfafa [dundulɐnjɛ ħɐmɸɐɸɐ], is the most spoken language on the planet Eventoa (Dun.: Lelḫajāṃrya). It is the official language of the Confederation of the United Dundulanyä Republics, which makes it the main lingua franca across the two southern hemisphere continents, Lusaṃrīte - where it originated - and Jūhma.

Dundulanyä itself has a long history, being first attested about 2400 years before the present in the areas of Central Lusaṃrīte, where the Dundulanyä civilization first developed; through successive empires and religious proselytism, people and language spread across many areas of the continent - most notably Dundulanyä-ifying the north shore of the Inland Seas by the end of Classical Lusaṃrītene Antiquity. As the dominant civilization of Lusaṃrīte, the Dundulanyä spread their language to become the main lingua franca of trade and culture in most of the continent and in eastern Jūhma; the massive demographical changes brought by the epidemics that were the result of increased contact with the civilizations of the northern hemisphere effectively enabled the Dundulanyä culture to spread in areas where formerly other civilizations were dominant. By the modern and contemporary eras, a more standardized version of classical Dundulanyä remained the lingua franca among multiple peoples across Lusaṃrīte and Jūhma, and the situation remained more or less the same after the collapse of the Fifth Dundulanyä Empire and through the Three Leagues Period.

Today, Dundulanyä is the official language of the Confederation of the United Dundulanyä Republics (laḫlurayäh dundulanyäɂi lilēṣkorukṣartē śūsmurdibēṣarān), the multicultural political entity that is dominant throughout Lusaṃrīte and Jūhma; the standard language is a heavily standardized version of the classical language, with many of the less regular forms having fallen out of use after one millennium of being essentially a L2 for the totality of its speakers; high style language and creative usage, however, still uses forms that have fallen out of use in the everyday language. Dundulanyä, along with any of the regional languages of the Confederation, is the main language for its 1,9 billion inhabitants, a number to which should be added a substantial amount of foreign users in virtually all other countries in Lusaṃrīte and Jūhma.

Both the language and the setting are still under construction: see the External history section on this page for more.

Internal history

The relationship of Dundulanyä to other languages is poorly understood, given the limited attestations of neighboring languages contemporary to archaic Dundulanyä. It is classified as an East Mandabudi language, an areal grouping that includes Dundulanyä and some ancient - and scarcely attested - languages of that area based on some criteria that have been found, such as active-stative alignment, a Dundulanyä-like possessive system, a duodecimal number system, and heavily inflected nouns, that are not found in the most thoroughly attested languages of that era, the neighboring West Mandabudi and Dailishi languages.

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		ŋ1
Stops	Unvoiced	p	pʰ2	t̪	t̪ʰ	ʈ	ʈʰ	c͡ɕ	c͡ɕʰ	k	kʰ	ʔ
	Voiced	b	bʱ	d̪	d̪ʱ	ɖ3	ɖʱ3	ɟ͡ʑ	ɟ͡ʑʱ	ɡ~ɣ	ɡʱ
Fricatives		ɸ~f		s		ʂ		ɕ				ɦ	ħ
Approximants		ʋ		l				j					ʀ

Table notes:

1. /ŋ/ is phonemic only in the name of the corresponding letter and, through saṃdhi, in simplifications of /N/ + velar stop clusters.
2. 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/.
3. /ɖ/ and /ɖʱ/ are generally represented by the stop realizations, however, in the contemporary spoken language, except when adjacent to another consonant they are most commonly realized as any of [ɽ(ʱ) ɭ(ʱ) ɻ(ʱ)] depending on the geographical origin of the speaker, realizations which are influenced by the historical development of Classical Dundulanyä /ɖ ɖʱ/ in the modern vernaculars.

With the partial exception of /ħ/ and /ʀ/, words may only end in soft consonants and/or clusters of an approximant followed by a single soft stop or fricative.

Morphology

Ablaut

Dundulanyä is characterized by a complex system of vowel alternations that was inherited from its proto-language. There are, depending on definition, either nine or twelve ablaut patterns, which Dundulanyä verbal roots may belong to, in addition to those that do not undergo ablaut. The overwhelming majority of Dundulanyä verbal roots are monosyllabic, and the few bi- or polysyllabic ones are all non-ablauting.

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

A substantial part of nouns in Dundulanyä is derived from verbal roots, and these may have ablaut patterns throughout their declension as in the examples above, or the derivational suffix may require the root to be in a certain ablaut grade (which is then a fixed stem throughout the declension). However, as a general rule, the majority of nouns relating to flora, fauna, and many elements of the natural world are not formed from verbal roots and do not show ablaut.

Nouns

(TBA: introduction, declension)

The consensus among linguists is that Dundulanyä does not have grammatical gender or noun classes; however, it should be noted that natural gender is shown on some nouns referring to humans, and furthermore there are some verbs that have a complementary distribution - most notably the existential "to be" - where one verb can only be used for inanimate subjects and another only for animate ones; in a few cases, the animate "class" is also split between humans and non-humans. None of this, however, is reflected in morphology.

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 belonging to this declension have a prop vowel -a- in their citation form; nouns with other vowels belong to the first consonant stem declension (and end in -e in their citation form), cf. second declension glūḫam (glūḫ-(a)m-) vs. first declension kämbune "berry" (kämbun-). This is because liquids and nasals could be syllabic in Dundulanyä's ancestor language, but among them only r/ṛ remains as a consonant/vowel pair in Dundulanyä itself.
• Nouns with vowel-final stems.
  • The extremely common -a declension is a particular case, as it behaves in some forms like a consonant stem declension, and like a vowel stem in others. Both for ablauting and non-ablauting declensions, -a and -e declensions most likely marked some kind of noun class distinction in the proto-language, which has been lost in the evolution of what became Dundulanyä.

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 direct case; 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); to mark the argument governed by a positional verb; and when governed by many adpositions.

In the name of the language, dundulanyä ḫamfafa, for example, dundulanyä is a bound form that however has the same form as the direct, 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.
• līv yudaya "3SG stands in the flat", where the positional verb yu-de- "to stand inside" requires its argument līve to be in the bound form līv.
• tūrgib surē "without fear", where the postposition surē "without" forces the noun tūrgibe to assume its bound form tūrgib.

Declension tables

The first and second ablauting declensions have the same ablaut patterns, but slightly different endings; the first ablauting declension has the same endings as the (non-ablauting) first consonant stem declension, while the second the same endings as non-ablauting -a nouns (with the exception of locative singular and the singular and plural bound forms).

1st ablauting declension (-e)

	helk-iḫ- "hue, shade"
	Singular	Dual	Plural
Direct	helkiḫe	helkiḫive	hailkiḫi
Vocative	hailkiḫ
Ergative	helkiḫis	helkiḫīyat	hilkeḫām
Accusative	helkiḫat	helkiḫītha	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	hilkeḫaun	helkiḫehe	hilkaiḫeyäh
Bound form	helkiḫ	helkiḫiv	hailkiḫ

2nd ablauting declension (-a)

	kor-uṣ- "vote"
	Singular	Dual	Plural
Direct	koruṣa	koruṣeve	kauruṣai
Vocative	kauruṣ
Ergative	koruṣis	koruṣīyat	kuroṣām
Accusative	koruṣat	koruṣītha	kuroṣaih
Dative	kuroṣak	koruṣāma	kurauṣumi
Ablative	kuroṣū	koruṣeṣu	kurauṣenī
Locative	kuroṣā	koruṣehe	kurauṣēn
Instrumental	kuroṣī	kuroṣaiś	kurauṣenīka
Translative	kuroṣain	koruṣāma	kurauṣait
Exessive	kuroṣāś	koruṣeṣu	kurauṣau
Essive	kuroṣaun	koruṣehe	kurauṣayäh
Bound form	koruṣ	koruṣev	kauruṣa

Non-ablauting consonant stem 1st declension

	imut- "teacher"
	Singular	Dual	Plural
Direct	imute	imutive	imuti
Vocative	imut
Ergative	imutis	imutīyat	imutām
Accusative	imutat	imutītha	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	imutaun	imutehe	imuteyäh
Bound form	imut	imutiv	imutī

Non-ablauting consonant stem 2nd decl. (glottal)

	nād-(a)ɂ- "leg"
	Singular	Dual	Plural
Direct	nādah	nādēve	nādai
Vocative
Ergative	nādēs	nādeɂat	nādaɂām
Accusative	nādāt	nādētha	nādaih
Dative	nādā	nādaima	nādūmi
Ablative	nādū	nādēṣu	nādēnī
Locative	nādē	nādēhe	nādēn
Instrumental	nādī	nādeiś	nādānīka
Translative	nādein	nādaima	nādīt
Exessive	nādāś	nādēṣu	nādau
Essive	nādaun	nādēhe	nādaɂäh
Bound form	nādah	nādēv	nādē

Non-ablauting -a stems

	buney-a "(female's) older sister"
	Singular	Dual	Plural
Direct	buneya	buneyeve	buneyai
Vocative	bunei
Ergative	buneyes	buneyīyat	buneyām
Accusative	buneyat	buneyītha	buneyaih
Dative	buneyak	buneyāma	buneyumi
Ablative	buneyū	buneyeṣu	buneyenī
Locative	buneyē	buneyehe	buneyēn
Instrumental	buneyī	buneyaiś	buneyanīka
Translative	buneyain	buneyāma	buneyait
Exessive	buneyāś	buneyeṣu	buneyau
Essive	buneyaun	buneyehe	buneyayäh
Bound form	buneya	buneyev	buneyē

The following declensions - -i, -u, -o, -e, -ä have their final vowel as part of the stem, and it is regularly kept throughout the declension. -e stems are therefore different from the consonant stems (which end in -e in their citation form), but are a very small number of nouns, mainly proper nouns (as are, furthermore, nearly all -o stems).

Non-ablauting -i stems

	ilūvi- "girl"
	Singular	Dual	Plural
Direct	ilūvi	ilūvīve	ilūvī
Vocative
Ergative	ilūvis	ilūvīyat	ilūvyām
Accusative	ilūvit	ilūvītha	ilūvyaih
Dative	ilūvik	ilūvīma	ilūvyumi
Ablative	ilūvyū	ilūviṣu	ilūvinī
Locative	ilūvyē	ilūvihe	ilūvyēn
Instrumental	ilūvī	ilūvyeiś	ilūvinīka
Translative	ilūvyein	ilūvīma	ilūvīt
Exessive	ilūvyoś	ilūviṣu	ilūvyau
Essive	ilūvyaun	ilūvihe	ilūviyäh
Bound form	ilūvi	ilūvīv	ilūvī

Non-ablauting -u stems

	kulāru- "frog"
	Singular	Dual	Plural
Direct	kulāru	kulārūve	kulārū
Vocative
Ergative	kulārus	kulārūyat	kulārvām
Accusative	kulārut	kulārūtha	kulārvaih
Dative	kulāruk	kulārūma	kulārūmi
Ablative	kulārū	kulāruṣu	kulārunī
Locative	kulāruvē	kulāruhe	kulārvēn
Instrumental	kulāruvī	kulārveiś	kulārunīka
Translative	kulārvein	kulārūma	kulārvīt
Exessive	kulārvoś	kulāruṣu	kulārvau
Essive	kulārvaun	kulāruhe	kulāruväh
Bound form	kulāru	kulārūv	kulārū

Non-ablauting -e stems

	Kālomīye- (given name)
	Singular	Dual	Plural
Direct	Kālomīye	Kālomīyeve	Kālomīyayi
Vocative
Ergative	Kālomīyes	Kālomīyeyat	Kālomīyayām
Accusative	Kālomīyet	Kālomīyetha	Kālomīyayaih
Dative	Kālomīyek	Kālomīyema	Kālomīyayumi
Ablative	Kālomīyayū	Kālomīyeṣu	Kālomīyenī
Locative	Kālomīyayē	Kālomīyehe	Kālomīyayēn
Instrumental	Kālomīyayī	Kālomīyayeiś	Kālomīyenīka
Translative	Kālomīyayein	Kālomīyema	Kālomīyayīt
Exessive	Kālomīyayoś	Kālomīyeṣu	Kālomīyayau
Essive	Kālomīyayaun	Kālomīyehe	Kālomīyayäh
Bound form	Kālomīye	Kālomīyev	Kālomīyayi

Non-ablauting -ä stems

	śośä- (hare- or rabbit-like animal)
	Singular	Dual	Plural
Direct	śośä	śośäve	śośä1
Vocative
Ergative	śośäs	śośäyat	śośām
Accusative	śośät	śośätha	śośaih
Dative	śośäk	śośäma	śośumi
Ablative	śośä	śośäṣu	śośänī
Locative	śośä	śośähe	śośän
Instrumental	śośä	śośäś	śośänīka
Translative	śośän	śośäma	śośäyīt
Exessive	śośäś	śośäṣu	śośävau
Essive	śośaun	śośähe	śośäyäh
Bound form	śośä	śośäv	śośä1

Table notes:

1. -ä stem nouns have, in colloquial language, a plural direct/vocative and bound form -äe (long version of the stem vowel) by analogy with -i and -u stems, but this form is proscribed even in semi-formal usage.

Verbs

Dundulanyä verbs are quite complex and generally formed in an agglutinative manner - even if there are fusional elements for what concerns tense, aspect, and subject agreement. The language has an Austronesian-type morphosyntactic alignment, and the argument the verb agrees with is controlled by a particular morpheme inside the verb complex.

The morpheme order of Dundulanyä verbs is the following; elements in bold are required, even if some of them may be zero morphemes:

(still unfinished)

Dundulanyä verb structure

Prefix

Stem

Trigger/voice

Evidential marker

Personal agreement

Dative agreement

Verbs have four stems: present, past, perfect and frequentative; the latter two are always distinct, while non-ablauting roots have the same stems for the present and the past. These stems are used with different sets of personal agreement endings; different combinations of stems and endings are used to form a variety of tense-aspect combinations.
A few irregular verbs have suppletive stems, and a smaller number of verbs is defective, lacking one or more stems.

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
ᘔ	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 Calémere – Eventoa – 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 (March 28, 2022) is a WIP conworld about which I'm still adding and discarding ideas nearly every time I work on it, so there’s little to be written 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.