Maltcégj

Introduction

Maltcégj is an a priori, agglutinative, semi-analytic head-initial language created by BenJamin P. Johnson in 2001. It has a strict VSO sentence structure that is modified with large numbers of verbal and nominal particles.

Alphabet and Pronunciation

a	b	c	d	ð	e	f	g	ǧ	h	i
/ɑ/	/b/	/ʃ/	/d/	/ð/	/ɛ/	/f/	/g/	/γ/	/h/	/i/
j	k	l	ɮ	ʌ	m	n	o	ǫ	p	r
/ʒ/	/k/	/l/	/ɮ/	/ɫ̩/	/m/	/n/	/o/	/ɔ/	/p/	/ɾ/
ʀ	s	t	þ	u	v	w	x	y	ẏ	z
/ɹ̩/	/s/	/t/	/θ/	/u/	/v/	/w/	/x/	/ɪ/	/j/	/z/

Orthography

Primary stress is indicated in words of more than one syllable with an acute accent over the primary vowel. In diphthongs, the accent is placed on the first vowel.

Where two vowels appear together but are not a diphthong, the second vowel is marked with a diæresis if it is a front vowel; with a single dot if a back vowel (i.e. ï, ÿ, ë, ȧ, ǫ̇, ȯ, u̇), e.g. oï. Even if this would not result in a standard diphthong, this convention is still followed any time there are two disyllabic pertingent vowels, e.g. kúluï 'all', itáliȧ 'Italy'.

If the second vowel is stressed, however, the first vowel is marked instead, e.g. italiáno → italïáno 'Italian'.

No capital letters are used.

Native Writing System

Maltcégj is also written using a featural alphabet which treats the vowels as diacritics, and also uses diacritics to describe manner of articulation and consonant clusters. In all there are only seven “letters”; all other phonetic functions are filled by diacritics or modifications of these seven characters. (Actually, there are really only four: the labial, dental, palatal, and glottal forms are just directional variations of the same character, and the rhotic is just a turned lambdic.)

Phonology

Stops

Unvoiced			Voiced
p	/p/	as in put pul [pʰul] 'he'	b	/b/	as in bat badj [bʰad͡ʒ] 'to have'
t	/t/	as in top talp [tʰɑlp] 'head'	d	/d/	as in dog dið [dʰið] 'beautiful'
k	/k/	as in keep kat [kʰɑt] 'dry'	g	/g/	as in get gelk [gʰɛlk] 'to give'

Initial stops have a tendency to be aspirated.

Affricates

Unvoiced			Voiced
ts	/ʦ/	as in gets frants [fɾɑnʦ] 'France'	dz	/ʣ/	as in adze xandz [xɑnʣ] 'Chinese character'
tc	/ʧ/	as in church tcitsíc [ʧi'ʦiʃ] 'to sneeze'	dj	/ʤ/	as in judge djáska ['ʤɑskɑ] 'cinnamon'

There are four "pure" affricates in Maltcégj, though no affricates are represented by their own character. For more information, see Consonant Clusters, below.

Fricatives

Unvoiced			Voiced
f	/f/	as in foot faurx [fau̯ɾx] 'heat'	v	/v/	as in very víktro ['vik.tɾo] 'tree'
þ	/θ/	as	in thing þad [θɑd] 'man'	ð	/ð/	as	in then ðak [ðɑk] 'to say'
s	/s/	as in sing salméilo [sɑl'mɛi̯.lo] 'apple'	z	/z/	as in zoo zendj [zɛnʤ] 'paint'
c	/ʃ/	as <sh> in shoe cul [ʃul] 'prophesy'	j	/ʒ/	as in French jamais jadíȯ [ʒɑ'di.o] 'sun'
x	/x/	as <ch> in German Bach xac [xɑc] 'difficult'	ǧ	/γ/	as <g> in Spanish amigo ǧénba ['γɛn.bɑ] 'apricot'
h	/h/	as in hello hanák [hɑ'nɑk] 'person, human'

Nasals

m	/m/	as in man márga ['mɑɾ.ga] 'house'
n	/n/	as in nose nyj [nɪʒ] 'grain'

NB: There is no realization of /ŋ/, even before a velar obstruent. In many cases, an epenthetic <e> may intervene between <n> and a velar, but even when it does not, the letters are pronounced independently. E.g. gýnko /'gɪn.ko/ 'ginko', not **/'gɪŋ.ko/.

Liquids

l	/l/	as in lamb lexét [lɛ'xɛt] 'much, many'
r	/ɾ/	as in Spanish pero ráta ['ɾɑ.tɑ] 'child'
ɮ	/ɮ,ɬ/*	as in Zulu indlala ɮat [ɮɑt] 'tooth'
ʌ	/ɫ̩/**
ʀ	/ɹ̩/**

* <ɮ> becomes devoiced to /ɬ/ when it occurs adjacent to an unvoiced obstruent (most frequently in the clusters <pɮ>, <tɮ>, and <kɮ>), e.g. txatɮ [txɑt͡ɬ] 'slap'.

** While technically liquids, <ʌ> and <ʀ> never occur non-syllabically, and are better treated as vowels.

Glides

w	/w/	as in wood wʌf [wɫ̩f] 'bone'
ẏ	/j/	as <y> in you ẏála ['jɑ.lɑ] 'bird'

Vowels

Front			Back
i	/i/	as <ee> in beet	u	/u/
y	/ɪ/	o	/o/
e	/ɛ/	ǫ	/ɔ/
		a	/ɑ/

Syllabic Liquids

ʌ	/ɫ̩/	as <le> in middle ʌ́nax ['ɫ̩.nɑx] 'shopping'
ʀ	/ɹ̩/	as <er> in better wʀn [wɹ̩n] '(maternal) grandparent'

<ʌ> and <ʀ> are considered vowels in Maltcégj and never occur non-syllabically. However, they are not subject to the same diacritic rules for other non-diphthongs as other vowels (though they are still marked when stressed).

Diphthongs

Front			Back
ai	/ɑi̯/	as in high skwai [skwɑi̯] 'lemon'	au	/au̯/	as in German Haus mlau [mlau̯] 'what'
ei	/ei̯/	as in weigh eict [ei̯ʃt] 'game'	eu	/ɛu̯/	as <ew> in Welsh ewro ðeup [ðɛu̯p] 'foot'
oi	/ɔi̯/	as in oil moin [mɔi̯n] 'warmth'

Pronouns

Person			Notes	Reflexive	Reciprocal
1sg	jǫg	I		jagj	--
2sg	mélem	you		madj	--
2sg	mélminei	you	formal	madj	--
3sg.f.	pel	she	feminine	peibj	--
3sg.m	pul	he	masculine	peibj	--
3sg.n	paj	it	inanimate	peibj	--
3sg	pʌ	“they”	general or non-specific	peibj	--
1pl	jǫ́lmin	we	inclusive	jeltc	játci
1pl	jalk	we	general or exclusive	jeltc	játci
2pl	mélem	you		madj	mládji
2pl	mélminei	you	formal	madj	mládji
3pl	parþ	they	general	pyldj	píkci

Some of the most basic elements of language, pronouns will take the place of the subject in most sentences. Maltcégj pronoun structure does not differentiate much from that of English with the exception of a formal and informal second person, and the formal is very infrequently used, but there are “optional” pronouns which may offer more clarity. Just remember to use mélminei you’re speaking to someone with whom you would use a title in English (e.g. faculty members, judges, business associates, &c). Otherwise, the pronouns above will get you through most situations.

Person			Notes	Reflexive	Reciprocal
2pl	akmélem	you (all)		madj	mládji
2pl	akmélminei	you (all)	formal	madj	mládji
3pl	akpél	they	feminine (=parth)	pyldj	píkci
3pl	akpúl	they	masculine (=parth)	pyldj	píkci
3pl	akpáj	they	inanimate (=parth)	pyldj	píkci
3pl	akpʌ́	they	(=parth, incorrect)	pyldj	píkci

If you want to be more specific, however, you can use the plural particle ak with the singular pronouns (with the exception of jǫg) to make them plural. You can optionally add ak to mélem and mélminei to further explain that you are referring to more than one person. You can also use ak with the third person pronouns if you explicitly want to annotate gender. Note, however, that saying akpʌ́ is technically incorrect: This should more accurately be parþ, but akpʌ́ is common in speech, just as saying they in English is common to refer to a singular person whose gender is unknown or unclear (as in “Someone left their notebook here.”)

In case you are unfamiliar with the idea of inclusive and exclusive we, only use jǫ́lmin when the person you are addressing is part of the “we” in question, i.e. if you can replace it with “you and I”, or “you and the rest of us”; otherwise, always use jalk.

In fact, pronouns in Maltcégj are even a little simpler than those in English, because there are no cases to decline. Possessives (my, your, his, our, &c.) are formed by adding the preposition u- to the word being possessed, and the accusative case (me, him, her, them, &c.) by adding the postposition -a to the pronoun.

Numbers

0	zo	zero
1	am	one
2	dai	two
3	tran	three
4	jamp	four
5	frem	five
6	cei	six
7	dan	seven
8	relk	eight
9	nein	nine
10	seþ	ten
20	daiséþ	twenty
30	transéþ	thirty
40	jampséþ	forty
50	fremséþ	fifty
60	ceiséþ	sixty
70	danséþ	seventy
80	relkséþ	eighty
90	neinséþ	ninety
100	sam	hundred
1,000	seþ sam	thousand (=ten hundreds)
10,000	cep	ten thousand
100,000	seþ cep	hundred thousand (=ten ten-thousands)
1,000,000	sam cep	million (=hundred ten-thousands)
10,000,000	seþ sam cep	ten million (=ten hundred ten-thousands)
100,000,000	jak	hundred million
1,000,000,000	seþ jak	milliard/billion (=ten hundred-millions)
10,000,000,000	sam jak	ten milliard/billion (=hundred hundred-millions)
100,000,000,000	seþ sam jak	hundred milliard/billion (=ten hundred hundred-millions)
1,000,000,000,000	cep jak	billion/trillion (=ten thousand hundred-millions)
10,000,000,000,000	seþ cep jak	ten billion/trillion (=ten ten-thousand hundred-millions)
100,000,000,000,000	sam cep jak	hundred billion/trillion (=hundred ten-thousand hundred-millions)
1,000,000,000,000,000	seþ sam cep jak	billiard/quadrillion (=ten hundred ten-thousand hundred-millions)
10,000,000,000,000,000	gwil	ten billiard/quadrillion

Maltcégj numbers are base-10 (decimal), but they increase incrementally instead of in the more regular groups of three or six. Therefore, numbers through 999 are enumerated just as they are in English, but the number 1,000 is considered “ten hundred,” or seþ sam. Thereafter, 10,000 is cep, 100,000 seþ cep ‘ten ten-thousands’, 1,000,000 is sam cep ‘one hundred ten-thousands’, 10,000,000 is seþ sam cep ‘ten hundred ten-thousands’, and 100,000,000 is jak. The next increment after jak is gwil, which has a value of ten quadrillion (or ten billiard if you’re from some parts of Europe), followed by ǧan, which is a number large enough that you shouldn’t ever need it unless you’re counting individual atoms, but it’s something like one hundred nonillion (10³²).

Compound numbers are spoken as they are written in English, from left to right, (optionally) inserting indicators for tens, hundreds, thousands, &c., so “twenty-nine” is daiséþ nein ‘two tens nine’, while 3,587 is transéþ fremsám relkséþ dan ‘three tens five hundreds eight tens seven, or thirty-five hundred eighty-seven’. Easier still, and less subject to misinterpretation, the numbers can simply be read from right to left, as in tran frem relk dan ‘three five eight seven’. These are all correct, just as it’s correct in English to say “three thousand five hundred eighty-seven,” “thirty-five hundred and eighty-seven,” “thirty-five eighty-seven,” or even (somewhat less correctly) “three five eight seven.”

The number “zero” should always be read as zo, not bleg, though the two words are interchangeable in some circumstances. When the last digit is zero, however, it should be read as “seþ,” or “sam” if two zeros… It may sound a little strange, but we do the same thing in English. For example, 780 should be read dan relk seþ ‘seven eighty’; 7,800, dan relk sam ‘seventy-eight hundred’; 78,000, dan relk seþ sam, ‘seventy-eight thousand, &c.

With the exception of the number ‘one’, the particle gji indicates ordinality, much like the suffix -th for numbers 4 – 10 in English. Any number ending in ‘one’ takes the ordinal adám, just as we say first and second in English rather than **oneth or **twoth.

Maltcégj uses the particle ak before a noun to indicate that it is plural, but this particle is not used when a number is present. For example, ‘book’ is klag, ‘books’ is aklág, but ‘two books’ is klag dai (no ak). (See Maltcégj#Nouns for more on the use of the plural.)

If using decimals in numbers, the word dat is used to mean ‘point’ or ‘dot’, though it literally means ‘seed’ or ‘egg’.