Rinap

Background

Rinap (Kni Nape Rinhikhyr) was created for the fantasy world of Grundet in the beginning of 2013, and it was intended to be the main language of the seventh era Eastern Empire with over 10 million native speakers. This a priori language belongs to Herookian language family, but at the moment, it is the only one completed. The language itself suffered a decline during fifth and sixth era, but was soon revived and partly reconstructed based on ancient texts. The old Doslox writing system was also returned into use. Since the new language is a bit clumsy and spoken over a wide region, many different dialects appeared.

Phonology

Consonants

	Bilabial	Labio-dental	Dental	Alveolar	Post-alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal	m			n		ɲ
Plosive	p b			t d			k g
Fricative		f v	θ ð	z s	ʃ ʒ		x	χ	h
Affricate				ts			kx
Approximant						j
Trill				r
Lateral app.				l

Phoneme /ɲ/ appears in the beginning of past participles such as 'nabeat' meaning 'gone', and 'ng' is pronounced as /ɲ/ in words such as kang /kɑɲ/ meaning time. 'Z' is often /ʒ/ in the beginning of words, but also if preceeded by /ɲɑ/. 'S' preceeding a consonant is often pronounced as /ʃ/. 'J' used at the end of a word is pronounced as /i/.

'H' is most often pronounced as /χ/, but also appears /x/ at the end of words, and sometimes /h/ before vowels in the beginning of words. 'H' is also pronounced as /f/ when preceeded by a non-sibilant frigative (such as /χ/ and /θ/) plus vowel: 'dohuho' becomes /doχu:fo/ (meaning 'many sheep').

Vowels

	Front	Back
Close	i y	u
Open-mid	ɛ œ	ɔ
Near-open	æ
Open		ɑ

Before vowels in the beginning of words, /y/ and /i/ become /jʷ/ and /j/.

Phonotactics

Most common syllable structure is CV, and the other possible ones are (C)(C)V(C)(C) where C is for consonants and V for vowels and diphthongs.

Diphthongs

Diphthongs are very common in short words and come in great variety. Their pronunciation doesn't much differ from the combined vowel sounds, but the component sounds do come closer to each other, for example the most common 'ao' is /ao/ instead of /ɑɔ/ and ea /ea/ rather than /ɛɑ/. However, word forming and declension can produce stranger vowel combinations which are pronounced more easily by lengthening and/or modifying vowel sounds: thöa /θɜ:ɐ/ (Though the author is not sure about this)

Orthography

Writing system of Doslox has graphemes derived from pictograms, and their order is based on an old story ('Halox Dozkepyr' or Hunter's Day' which is where the name originates): [1]. Later, Wadoslox was developed to simplify the script and make it easier to read: [2]. Each grapheme represents a singe phoneme or syllable, but the words for original pictograms didn't sometimes even include the actual letter - rather the sound was thought to be essential to the word: for example, symbol for 'j' comes from 'nanyalt' /nɑnjɑlt/ meaning 'loved'. With Doslox, every word can be written without raising your pen of the paper.

Special marks in the beginning and at the end of sentences are used to separate them from another |sentence| or to indicate whether they are an interrogative (zo-question) or an imperative <sentence>: |Neym pa| or (Zoneyh phe). With Latin script of course, these marks aren't used to avoid misunderstandings.

Romanized versions and their pronunciation:

• A - /ɑ/ Symbol 'o' also used for their sun, Halla, as originally.
• K - /k/
• P - /p/
• D - /d/
• E - /ɛ/
• B - /b/
• H - /χ/, /x/ or /h/
• NI - /ni/ 'called'-symbol in names, e.g. 'Hithul ni-Xathen' means 'Hithul called-bear'
• KH - /kχ/
• NA - /ɲa/ Past participle prefix
• V - /v/
• F - /f/
• D - /d/
• M - /m/
• Ö - /œ/
• O - /ɔ/
• HO - /χɔ/
• L - /l/
• I - /i/
• W - /w/
• Y - /y/
• ZO - /ʒɔ/ Question-prefix
• R - /r/
• T - /t/
• TH - /θ/
• X - /ks/
• G - /g/
• Z - /z/ or /ʒ/
• S - /s/ or /ʃ/
• PH - /ph/
• Ä - /æ/
• J - /j/
• N - /n/
• HI - /hi/ Rarely used, most often for 'as'
• U - /u/

Grammar and Syntax

Rinap is a nominative-accusative language so the subjects of transitive and agents of intransitive verbs are treated as the same. Transitive verb objects are declined into the objective case: 'Zodoih phe nik pemoztek doileke knoik?' (¿See you the bird beautiful that?) 'Do you see those beautiful birds?' This 'naphuk' or 'k-language' is the formal way of speaking so in casual situations and dialects the postfixes are often omitted.

Primary word order is VSO, and since verbs conjugate, the pronouns can be dropped off in simple sentences: 'Neym geva.' 'I'm here.' Interrogative sentences always begin with interrogative 'zo'-words or verbs formed with 'zo'-prefix such as in the first example above. If interrogative word is at the beginning, verb comes the second: 'Zowa neo do?' or simply 'Zowa neo?' meaning 'Where is it?'

Relative clauses are being avoided although relative pronouns exist and are recommended for use. They can be used similarly to question words altering the word order: 'Zoze nei Narok sohi zuo si Laha?' translated to 'Where is Narek who comes from Laha?' If the relative pronoun is left out, spoken sentence can be shortly paused or in written language marked with comma: 'Zoze nei Narok, zuo si Laha?' In this specific example, past participle can be used: 'Zoze nei Narok, si Laha nazut.' but this almost means 'To where has Narok from Laha come?'

Rinap is quite head-initial so that all determiners except articles are placed after the noun: 'kni gekhu okku pär knoi' 'the house small my that'. The order for those is article-noun-adjective-possessive-demonstrative as in the example. It should be noted that articles are used even if there is a demonstrative pronoun.