Ataši

Marèngil is a constructed language inspired by both Elvish and Dwarvish, languages spoken by the elves and dwarves respectively in the fictional world of Middle Earth, invented by J. R. R. Tolkien. Thus, the language is spoken by an elf-like people, but of a more hardy stock, akin to the dwarves. The language is highly agglutinative in most modern forms and branches, though there are certain dialects which do not follow such rules. These are heavily influenced by other languages, however, and some state that they are not directly associated with Marêngil. Older root languages have little to no agglutination, with its two main root languages having no agglutination whatsoever.

Phonology

The phonetic inventory of Marêngil has stayed relatively small in its evolution, Relying more on vowels to show phonetic distinctions. While most of the phonetic inventory comes from Akaadi, a few were adopted from other languages, such as the lateral approximant /l/.

Consonants

Consonants
	Labial	Alveolar	Alveolopalatal	Velar
Plosive	p /p/ b /b/	t /t/ d /d/		k /k/ g /g/
Fricative	f /f/ v /v/	s /s/ z /z/	š /ɕ/ ž /ʑ/	x /x/ ŕ /ɣ/
Affricate		ś /t͡s/ ź /d͡z/	č /t͡ɕ/ ř /d͡ʑ/
Nasal	m /m/	n /n/	ń /ɲ/
Liquid		r /r/	j /j/
Lateral Approximant		l /l/

Vowels

There are two vowel tones, low and high. Low is represented by a grave (`) over the vowel, and high is represented by an acute (´).

Vowels
	Front	Middle	Back
			unrounded	rounded
Close	i /i/		w /ɯ/	u /u/
Near-close	/ɪ/		û /ʊ/
Close-mid		/ə/		o /o/
Open-mid	e /ɛ/		/ʌ/
Open	â /æ/	a /a/

Morphophonology

• All voiced obstruents become unvoiced at the end of a syllable, with the exception of ZH.
• All consonants can occur as an onset.
• If an obstruent occurs adjacent to another obstruent then both must be either voiced or unvoiced, unless it crosses syllables.
• In a syllable with a nucleus length longer than one mora that is also closed, the coda is silent, unless it is the last syllable of the word.
• If a plosive appears as the final phoneme of a word, it is always aspirated.
• When a nasal is directly proceeded by a palatal, velar, uvular or glottal fricative it becomes silent. In some dialects the vowel is nasalized, but this considered as a sign of poverty and poor education, and as such are frowned upon by the middle and upper class.
• If an H occurs between two vowels it is realized as a J.

Orthography

Alphabet

(In Progress)

Stress and Vowel Length

Stress in Marêngil is indicated by diacritics above the vowel of the stressed syllable. The stress is most often on the penultimate syllable, but can also occur elsewhere. Likewise, length is also denoted by diacritics. The letter "a" will be used as the placeholder letter for any of the vowels.

• a (no stress, short)
• ä (no stress, long)
• á (stressed, short)
• â (stressed, long)
• à (secondary vowel)

This last diacritic shows that the modified vowel takes on a different sound. It is never long, nor is it stressed, and appears infrequently.

Phonotactics

Syllable Structure

(C)(C)V(C)(C)

The end of one syllable and the beginning of another is of some importance, since the adjacency of voiced and unvoiced obstruents are dependent on their placement in a word's syllable structure. In any given word, the partitioning of syllables is as even and symmetrical as possible. For example, anxâlik', meaning "leader/boss", would not be split up as V.CCVC.VC, but would be VC.VC.CVC. With this partitioning, the three syllables are more even in their onset/coda distribution.

Rules

1. No more than two vowels can occur next to each other in a single world. (e.g.: CV+V+VCC)

2. If two vowels occur next to each other, then a y sound will separate them.

3. Under no circumstances should two sounds of the same manner of articulation appear adjacent to each other.

4. No consonants of the same place of articulation should appear adjacent to each other, excepting central alveolar consonants.

5. A fricative cannot be in the same consonant cluster an affricate or vise versa.

6. No syllable with a nucleus longer than one mora can be articulated as closed (See Morphophonology for more information).

Morphology

Nouns

Nouns are generally expected to begin with a consonant, following the form of case, but several nouns loaned from other languages begin with a vowel. When this occurs, the vowel of the case marking a dropped, to avoid unnecessary adjacency of vowels.

There is no grammatical gender preassigned to a given noun. Certain things will take on a gender based on certain implications and information given, such as a dog known to be biologically female. A dog in general will have no gender, but will be marked with "-e" to show that it has gender/sex but that it is unknown. Nouns always end a plosive. When gender is known, a male noun will end in "-o" and a female noun will end in "-i." It is important to note that only Class I can be assigned a gender, and all others are gender neutral. Of course, gender is irrelevant with case markings, since they appear on opposite ends of a noun.

Class

Nouns are considered to fall under the six classes below, which give additional information about what kind of noun it is. They are all shown by a suffix which represents class, number and gender.

• Class I Animate (Mammals, birds, reptiles, etc.)
• Class II Semianimate (Plants, microorganisms, body parts, etc.)
• Class III Inanimate (Rocks, wood, tools, etc.)
• Class IV Products of the Psyche (Emotions, morals, etc.)
• Class V Undeniable Concepts (Happiness, ideas, plans, etc.)
• Class VI Unknowns (Unknown data, meaning of life, etc.)

Noun Class
Class	Number
	Singular	Paucal	Plural
Class I	-t'	-bät'	-at'
Class II	-sh	-bèsh	-esh
Class III	-k'	-bok'	-jog'
Class IV	-m	-vm	-am
Class V	-ng	-kang	-ang
Class VI	-n	-nev	-an

Case

There are eight main noun cases in Marêngil; Nominative, Accusative, Dative, Genitive, Possessed, Causal, Comitative and Possessed.

		Enclitic	Example	Marêngil
Nominative		N/A	The dog went home	bèrât' cadákhaq
Accusative		ca-	I went home	jájaka cadákhaq
Dative		lo-	I went home today	jájäk cadákhad lonukâng
Genitive	Total	shi-	The dog's paw	nadúlzhash shibèrât'
	Semi-	ci-	The person's friend	vàvnukárit' cisharît'
	Non-	zhi-	the person's city	nagèdákhasharîtat zhisharît'
Possessed		na-	The dog's paw	nadúlzhash shibèrât'
Causal		li-	I went shopping for bread	jájaka rûgak liplatáq
Comitative		rha-	I went with the person	jájaka rhasharît'
Instrumental		si-	I cleaned with a rag	jamáka sikangrúdjaq

Possession of Nouns

Possession of a thing is viewed in three ways. I thing can be entirely possessable, semi-possessable or unpossessable. An entirely possessable noun is something like a rock, or body part, anything non-sentient and with no potential of self-possession. A semi-possessable noun would be a person or other sentient being which has relation to the subject, like a family member or partner. An unpossessable noun would be something beyond possession, like a planet or force of nature. One would never say "our planet", but would instead say "the planet we live on".

Adjectives, Adverbs and Postpositions

• No distinction is made between adjectives and adverbs as they both are modifiers.
• Adjectives almost always end in a sonorant, but are not required to.
• Postpositions are always suffixed to the noun they modify via a hyphen (-).

Physical Postpositions
Position	Suffix
	N.	M.	F.
Just inside	-qep'	-qup'	-qib'
Far inside	-qëp'	-qüp'	-qïb'
Just outside	-elet'	-elut'	-elid'
Far outside	-älet	-älut	-älid
Just above	-orje	-oruj	-ori
Far above	-borä	-borü	-borï
Just below	-lhek'	-lhuk'	-lhig'
Far below	-tlek'	-tluk'	-lhïg'
Just in front of	-pùrje	-porju	-parï
Far ahead of	-prië	-proü	-priï
Just behind	-lhe	-lhu	-lhi
Far behind	-lhë	-lhü	-lhï
Just before	-zhlekh	-zhlukh	-zhlikh
Far before	-zhlë	-zhlü	-zhlï
Just after	-për	-pür	-pïr
Far after	-pere	-puru	-piri
Near	-je	-ju	-ji
Far	-jee	-juu	-jï
Facing away	-lhenn	-lhunn	-lhinn
Facing towards	-pe	-pu	-pi
Near adjacent	-taber	-tabur	-tabir
Far adjacent	-bër	-bür	-bïr

Temporal Postpositions
Position	Suffix
	N.	M.	F.
During	-èka	-èku	-èki
Long before	-klà	-akul	-akil
Just before	-aj	-uj	-ij
Long after	-ba	-bu	-bi
Just after	-isha	-ishu	-ishi

Verbs

Tense and Aspect

Tense and aspect are directly reliant on one another in Marêngil, which is why they are combined. The infinitive verb form ends in "-k'", which is used for both the present infinitive and imperfective. The general past tense is usually shown with an ending of "a", while the near and far past are shown with endings of "-aj" and "-ak" respectively.

Tense and Aspect System
	Present	Past			Future
		Gen.	Near	Far	Gen.	Far
Infinitive	-k'	-ka	-kaj	-ka	-sh	-b
Imperfective		-sa	-skaj	-ska	-shi	-ba
Perfective	-ka	-la	-laj	-kla	-shil	-bali
Hypothetical	-ät	-sakä	-likä	-lhä	-ät	-bat
Conditional
Necessitive
Habitual

Conjugation

Conjugation appears on the beginning of a word, like Case, and is more or less simply pronouns, sometimes in an altered form, which have been suffixed on. Standalone pronouns in the nominative case no longer exist in Marêngil, though they do appear for other cases. Note that there is a "Fourth person" conjugation, which is essentially a vague set of pronouns which can refer to anyone without any presuppositions being made as to conditional information. A similar thing in English occurs, though somewhat infrequently, in saying, "one does not usually...". The fourth person is also often used as a demonstrative pronoun, such as "this" or "that", however, no distinction is made between the two. A further complication of the 4th person is that it is used for when the source of the verb is unknown, similar to the passive voice in English, however, valency has fallen out of use in modern Marêngil.

Chart I
NOMINATIVE	Singular	Paucal	Plural
1st Person	j-	bj-	ak-
2nd Person	b-	bv-	av-
3rd Person	l-	br-	al-
4th Person	t-	ft-	at-

Chart II
ACCUSATIVE/DATIVE	Singular	Paucal	Plural
1st Person	ja	baj	ak
2nd Person	ba	bav	av
3rd Person	li	bor	al
4th Person	ti	fat	at

Chart III
GENITIVE	Singular			Paucal			Plural
	Total	Partial	Non	Total	Partial	Non	Total	Partial	Non
1st Person	m-			mik-			mak-
2nd Person	bl-			miv-			mav-
3rd Person	ml-			mil-			mal-
4th Person	tl-			til-			tal-

Irregular Verbs

Irregularity occurs when the spelling of a verb in the infinitive form becomes inconvenient to pronounce the same way when conjugated. This irregularity takes a few different forms which are explained below. It is important to note that verbs that begin with a single phoneme are never under any circumstances irregular. However, verbs that begin with a consonant cluster or a vowel often are changed in conjugation.

Valency

There is no valency markings in Marêngil. There is also no real passive voice, although a certain change does occur in such circumstances. Instead of flipping the object and subject, as in English, instead the verb is marked in the 4th person to demonstrate that the source of the verb is unspecified.

Copulas

There are several copulas in Marêngil. The first two are similar to the verbs "ser" and "estar" in Spanish, one being a permanent state and one being impermanent. The third is a copula which can mean both "to feel" and to "have". Note that you wouldn't say "I am happy", only "I feel happy". You cannot be something unless you are literally that thing. Sometimes "to be" is used with adjectives jokingly, such as "being happy", but in that way it would imply that one is the physical embodiment of happiness, if the person saying it is implying that the subject is bursting with said emotion.

Copula		Function	Example (English)	Example (Marêngil)
to be, impermanent	vek	Denotes a temporary physical state of being	"I am here"	jek da
to be, permanent	sávek	Denotes a permanent physical state of being	"I am short"	jávek krad'
to feel	vílìk	Denotes a temporary non-physical state of being	"I feel happy"	jílìk bláshnad'
to have, total poss.	dâvnèk	Denotes total possession of a Class II, III, IV or VI noun	"I have two arms"	jâvnèk botlháshatesh
to have, semi-poss.	vanâk	Denotes relationship with a Class I noun	"I have a girlfriend"	janâk savânejkaríti
to have, non-poss.	dének	Denotes adpositional relationship with a thing	"I have a meeting"	jének nádanej

Syntax

Suffixes

Similar to English, there a number of suffixes which directly change the meaning and/or part of speech of a word. Take the word "transformation". The "-ation" denotes an occurrence of the verb "to transform". Such is the function of the following suffixes.

Suffix	English Equivalent	Function