Nevotak

Nevotak language Nefotak Nuzh
Progress: 96%
Type
isolating
Alignment
Nominative-accusative
Head direction
Initial	Mixed		Final
Primary word order
Subject-verb-object
Tonal
No
Declensions
No
Conjugations
No
Genders
None

The Nevotak language, also called The Koine Nevotak or simply Nevotak, is the language of the Nevotak nation of Nevotacum beings in "The 8th World", and is the lingua franca of all nations of the iintellectual specie Lonnum nevotacum(L. nevotacum/Nevotacum beings).

Like human beings, Nevotacum beings are divided into ethnic groups based on cultures, thus Nevotacum beings have many aspects comparable to human beings(Homo sapiens); however, unlike human beings, all species belonging to the genus Lonnum, including L. nevotacum, don't have sexual dimorphism and are strictly monogamous(in contrast, human beings not really monogamous and most of the nations and cultures of human bengs are at least historically polygynous), thus individuals of Nevotacum beings, no matter what ethnic groups they belong to, don't perform polygamy, however, individuals of Nevotacum beings can change their sex throughout their lifetimes and can even perform parthenogenesis, thus the gender of an individual is much less important and is not prominent.

After L. nevotacum had become extinct, The Nevotak language, along with other languages of L. nevotacum and yiqa' yiywos, which is the language of Lonnum lonnum subsp. squamae, became a classical language of the Long-longs(Lonnum lonnum subsp. pilii).

The Nevotak language is developed from Old Nevotak. Old Nevotak is used by Nevotaks only in some religious books and rituals, and has many inflections in its grammar, thus it is said that the Nevotak language is developed from a pidginized and widely used form of Old Nevotak due to the result of a meteor impact event.

Background

I(k1234567890y) created this language for group of Intellectual beings in one of my conworlds.

Phonology

Consonants

	Labial	Dental-Alveolar	Post-alveolar/Palatal	Velar/Glottal
Nasal	m	n
Plosive	b	t d		k
Fricative	f	s z		h
Affricate		ts	tʃ ʤ~ʒ
Sonorant	w	r	j

The pronunciation of /r/ is similar to that of japanese, it is not normally a trill.

Vowels

	Front	Back
Close	i	u
Mid	e	o
Open	a

Phonotactics

Syllable Structure:(C)V(V)(C)

/f/, /d/ and /h/ don't end a syllable.

Romanization

The romanization of the Nevotak language is shown below:

• A - /a/
• B - /b/
• CH - /tʃ/
• D - /d/
• E - /e/
• F - /f/
• H - /h/
• I - /i/
• K - /k/
• M - /m/
• N - /n/
• O - /o/
• R - /r/
• S - /s/
• T - /t/
• TZ - /ts/
• U - /u/
• W - /w/
• Y - /j/
• Z - /z/
• ZH - /ʤ~ʒ/

Basic grammar

The basic word order of the Nevotak language is SVO, however, OSV and VOS are acceptable; Adjectives, Genitives, Demonstratives and Numerals are placed before the noun they modify; Adverbs modifying adjectives are normally placed before the adjective they modify, and adverbials modifying verbs are placed before or after the verb they modify, however, adverbs derivated from adjectives are normally placed before the verb they modify. Negation words are placed before the word they negate.

The Nevotak language has no inflections, and it has only a few derivations. Besides, actual meanings of sentences frequently depend on the context they appear.

Words

Verbs

Verbs don't conjugate, the time of a proposition is indicated by the context or by using adverbial phrases.

There are no copulae in Nevotak.

Nouns, Pronouns and Demonstratives

Nouns don't have cases, numbers, genders, etc, they don't even exist in pronouns, however, in the formal register of Nevotak, pronouns and demonstratives have the distinction between singular, dual and plural numbers.

There are no articles, demonstratives and numerals come before the noun they modify, demonstratives are deictically non-contrastive, however, speakers may use adjectives to express deictic contrasts.

Cardinal numbers can be used with "chi", and can also be used without "chi".

Adjectives

Adjectives are not distinguish from adverbs.

Comparatives came be formed with the verb "tar" by the structure S+Adj+"tar"+O, "tar" is a verb which means "to go through; to exceed; to undergo". For example:

• wa ke tar res - "you are taller than him." At here, ke means "tall"

Superlatives can be formed by using the phrase hi-has("first"). For example:

• wa hi has ke - "you are the tallest."

Adpositional Phrases

The Nevotak language don't have adpositions, but uses serial verb constructions, verbs and nouns might be used as adpositions, adpositional verbs are similar to "prepositions", phrases containing adpositional verbs are considered as "prepositional" phrases; while adpositional nouns are similar to "postpositions", phrases containing adpositional nouns are considered as "postpositional" phrases. Adpositional nouns and verbs can be used togather, when a phrase containing both adpositional verbs and nouns, it is considered as a "prepositional" phrase, not a "postpostional" phrase.

"prepositional" phrases are normally placed after the main verb of a sentence, while "postpositional" phrases are normally placed between the subject and the main verb of a sentence. for example:

• res hoz zibre en zuh - he/she/it/they watch(es)/watched birds by the lake
• res zuh kin hoz zibre - he/she/it/they watch(es)/watched birds by the lake
• res hoz zibre en zuh kin - he/she/it/they watch(es)/watched birds by the lake
• ur hoz res bek tifer - I/we watch him/her/it/them eating fruit(s)
• ur zuz bek tifer - I/we want to eat fruit(s)

"res" means "he/she/it/they"; "zibre" means "bird"; "hoz" means "to watch"; "zuh" means "lake"; "kin" means "surrounding"; "en" means "to be at (somewhere)"; "ur" means "I/we"; "bek" means "to eat"; and "tifer" means "fruit".

Possessive

Possessors come before the noun they modify, one may simply place the possessor before the possessed noun, or put the word "re" between the possessor and the possessed noun.

Relative and Nominal Clauses

The Nevotak language has prenominal and postnominal relative clauses, postnominal relative clauses are normally started with the word "res" or "hat", or ended with the word "tak" or "zak"; prenominal relative clauses are ended with the word "bi" or "re" or nothing at all(nothing at all is more common), however, a prenominal relative clause without any ending word are frequently seen as a modifying component of a compound word. For example, all the phrases below can mean "the meat the king had eaten":

• riba kezh bek tak
• riba res kezh bek
• riba hat kezh bek
• kezh bek riba
• kezh bek re riba
• kezh bek bi riba

"kezh" means "king"; "bek" means "to eat"; "riba" means "meat"

As for nominal clauses, one may simply use the whole sentence as a noun, without using any complementizers. For example, "res no kezh bek riba" means "he/she/it/they saw the king eating meat"(the sentence given here may also be interpreted as "he/she/it/they saw the meat that the king had eaten").

Passive voice

The verb "ez" ("to get") is used to form passives without expressing the agent, or is used when the agent is inanimate, and one simply uses the OSV order to form passives when the agent is animate. For example:

• ire ez bek - the fish is eaten (by someone).
• ire kezh bek - the fish is eaten by the king.
• hat tak res keb - the person was attacked by him/them
• hat tak ez keb - the person was attacked/hit

when the agent of a passive sentence is inanimate, the agent is marked with "bar"("to hold"). For example:

• hat tak ez keb bar hi tom - the person was hit by a rock.

Word formation

Nevotak don't use derivations frequently(although there are relics of older derivative methods), so conversion is frequently used to form a new word. For example:

• The word "kezh" means "respected one" or "king", and one may say "ur kezh res"(lit: I/we "king" him/her/it/them) to mean "we make him be the king".
• The word "zhuk" means "important", and one may say "res zhuk hat" to mean "he/she/it/they make(s) that important" or "he/she/it/they emphasize(s) that"

The word "tak" is placed after verbs and adjectives to mean "one that ......" or "a/the ... one". For example:

• uis tak - "a sad one" / "one that is sad"
• zik tak - "a red/injured one" / "one that is injured" / "one that hurts"
• bek riba tak - "one that eats meat"

One may put two adjectives with opposite meanings togather to indicate the characteristics of them. For example: "hosbi"(from hos "good" + bi "bad") and "bihos" mean "quality" or "morality", "marnis"(from mar "big" + nis "small" ) means "size", keim(from ke "high" + im "low, keep a low profile, not to show off" ) means "height", "haztok"(from haz "far" + tok "near, to come, to serve" ) means "distance", and both of the word "abdet"(from ab "old" + det "young") and the word "detab"(from det+ab) mean "age".

Sample Texts

The Tower of Babel

1. hu toizat re hi nuzh-rira es hi nuz-ub-rira.
2. en hat chin res muz bi kezhar, res en Shinar wai no hi koria es ya hatwai.
3. res muis nuz "tok, hatiz ur es wa teuz duzmeh hu enu res", es res nom duzmeh nai tom, nom duzhiru nai rairu.
4. res muis nuz "tok, hatiz ur teuz hi kinizh es hi hozreh, hat hozreh we tok toi, es hatiz ur kium to hi men, baar ur muis haz ez fohiz en hu toizat.
5. Adim dik tok no hat itak dazro teuz hat kinizh es hat hozreh.
6. Adim nuz "hoz! hat itak hito, zab itak nom hi nuzh; es res hi muz hat rih, un nure has hum res muz res esu muz zak tak."
7. Tok! hatiz ur dik, es hatwai madoz res nuzh, en hat bak res nu ubnez muis nuzh.
8. Ta hat, Adim fohiz res bi hatwai en toizat zab zat, es res haz nu teuz hat kinizh
9. Ta hat bi, hat hozreh re men ez bez Babel; Ta Adim hatwai madoz toizat itak re nuzh fohiz res bi hatwai en toizat zab zat.

Some Sayings

There are sayings and idioms in Nevotak, some of them are listed below:

• zhitzzarkiz hichi tom zarkiz. - Daily routine is the most difficult job.(meaning: Don't look down on anything, even the easiest one.)
• zhitzzarkiz hichi hos rab noi ub. - Daily routine is the best way to train oneself.(used especially with a moral sense, but can be used in any sense. The literal meaning of "rab noi" is "to drill heart", it is used to mean "to improve one's morality" or "to train oneself")
• zabtak nez anzho wez bi kezhar. - Everyone knows that the sun rises from the east(when someone says something trivial, other people will reply this to tell him/her to say something else.)
• anzho nu wez bi kezhar hai? - doesn't the sun rise from the east?(the usage of this is basically the same to "zabtak nez anzho wez bi kezhar")
• zabontak raz res fib zak. - everyone gets what he/she have planted(meaning: You reap what you sow)
• atz hi nu hat daz teu mar reh enri hi zhitz - A new bud can't grow into a big tree within one day(meaning: Rome wasn't built in a day)
• kema zin am hiartak zin. - a nobleperson's crime is equal to a beggar's crime.(meaning: All are equal before the law)
• kok kok faiz tak - money attracts anyone/money motivates anyone(meaning: Money talks./Pecunia non olet. the word "kok" means "money", "benefit", "revenue", "interest(financial sense)" when used as a noun; it means "to interest", "to motivate", "be profitable for" when used as a verb)