Burumbi

Background

Burumbi is made to sound how Anglophones think "African" languages sound. As I am rather unlearned when it comes to linguistics the result is likely to be sketchy and uninspiring to others, but it is mainly for generating names and short phrases.

Phonology

Consonants

Consonants

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Plosive	p b (p b)	t d (t d)		k g (k g)
Affricate		ts (t͡s)
Fricative		s z (s z)
Nasal	m (m)	n (n)	ny (ɲ)	ng (ŋ)
Approximant		r l (ɹ l)	y (j)	w (w)

Vowels

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i /i/		u /u/
Mid		ə /ə/
Open mid	e /ɛ/
Open			a /ɑ/

In addition to these vowels the diphthong o (oʊ) is used.

Phonotactics

Syllables can take the following forms:

• V(ŋ)
• CV(ŋ)
• NSV(ŋ)
• SwV(ŋ)

where V = vowel, C = consonant, N = the nasal vowels /m n/, and S = a stop or the consonants /s z ts/. Stress always falls on the penultimate syllable except in the case of ə, in which case it falls on the following one.

Grammar

Nouns

Burumbi has four genders: three "animate" genders and one inanimate.

Genders

Gender	Form	Example	Definition
Spiritual	-ə	tsedə	ghost
Animate	-a	daya	midget
Vegetative	-i	burumbi	language
Inanimate	-o	kakumo	fort

The first gender is used for natural phenomena such as lightning and storms in addition to supernatural entities. The vegetative gender is for weakly animate nouns such as plants and things which can move in a metaphorical way, like words and ideas.

Cases

case	prefix
Nominative	Ø
Accusative	tsa-
Locative	ta-
Proximative	ba-

Verbs

Verbs are inflected for gender, tenses, and the indicative, subjunctive, and imperative moods. There are five tenses: the far past, near past, present, near future, and far future. While these are mostly straightforward, it should be noted that the far past and far future tenses are used heavily when mythical or supernatural events are being discussed, even if they happened on a time scale usually reserved for the near past or present.

Gender	Far past	Near past	Present	Near future	Far future
Spiritual
Animate
Vegetative
Inanimate

Indicative

The indicative is used to form simple factual statements.

Gender	Far past	Near past	Present	Near future	Far future
Spiritual	-nyo	-no	-ng	-nga	-nya
Animate	-go	-go	-ge	-geng	-gong
Vegetative	-gola	-la	-lang	-le	-leng
Inanimate	-king	-ki	-kuo	-ko	-keng

Assertive

The assertive is used not just when issuing commands, but also making emphatic statements. It is formed from the present indicative, e.g. daga komege "the dog eats" becomes daga komegele "the dog really eats!" The imperative is used in response to questions and conditional statements, e.g. daga se komegung, nu mpomegelo, "if the dog is eating, it will not be hungry."

Gender	Far past	Near past	Present	Near future	Far future
Spiritual
Animate
Vegetative
Inanimate

Subjunctive

The subjunctive is used when the reality or factuality of something is not known. It is also used when forming questions. Unlike the imperative, the subjunctive is formed from the near future indicative, hence daga komege becomes daga komegung? "is the dog eating?"

Gender	Far past	Near past	Present	Near future	Far future
Spiritual
Animate
Vegetative
Inanimate