Dhrinian (Dh’relėm)

Introduction

Dh’rinian (Native dh’relėm) is a language isolate spoken in Tuysáfan mountains. The word for Akana is khenhâ-rč (among Dhr’inian speakers) or akhenhâ (used in contact with the outside world.) Dh’rinian is somewhat highly inflected with 8 cases (although in practice only 5 are used in everyday speech), 4 moods (simple, subjunctive, conditional, and imperative), and 6 tenses (present, present progressive, preterite, imperfect, future, and anterior future). Dh’rinian makes heavy use of particles and many diacritics are used- however, the diacritics do not necessarily represent different or challenging sounds, but many help to differentiate similar words, as in Spanish. Dh’rinian word order varies, with OVS, SOV and SVO being the only three used but in different contexts. The colloquial language is gradually diverging, replacing tenses and cases with particles. Dh’rinian is sometimes written in helar, a ceremonial script.

Example texts

[On a hill,] a sheep that had no wool saw horses, one of them pulling a heavy wagon, one carrying a big load, and one carrying a man quickly.

L-ah’enâr, čaheto’ dér g’e-g’hainh’ sy’ meirno,

ON.HILL.loc SEE.3pp.inanimate.pret. SHEEP NONE-NO-WOOL.acc part. HORSE.pl.dat

t’og dh’-marno hadhyo’ trama mejâ,

ONE (partitive particle) HORSE PULL.3ps.inanimate.pret HEAVY WAGON

t’og hena dh’marno hadhyo’ dham’ŋu pune,

ONE OTHER (partitive particle) HORSE PULL.3ps.inam.pret FULL LOAD

t’og hena dh’marno hadhyo’ rudhâ sme’myhü.

ONE OTHER (partitive particle) HORSE PULL QUICKLY.adv(prolat.) MAN.dat