Harākti

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Harākti
Harākti
Pronunciation[[Help:IPA|xaˈɾaːkti]]
Created by–
Native speakers- (2013)
Early form
Old Harākti (?)
Language codes
ISO 639-1-
ISO 639-2-
ISO 639-3-

Harākti (harākti, IPA: [xaˈɾaːkti]) is an Indo-European language. It is part of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European languages, although it differs extensivly from the rest of the Anatolian languages, which is the reason for some speculation regarding its place within the Indo-European family. The strongest argument placed forward in favour of Harākti being an Anatolian language is the fact that, like Hittite, it is a language that reflected some of the laryngeal sounds as consonants. Its verbal system likewise resembles that of Hittite, and the general symplicity of the declensional and conjugational systems is again a characteristic shared with the Anatolian languages.


Background

Phonology

The phonology of Harākti is a direct result of phonological changes or sound shifts from Proto-Indo-European. The majority of the changes are regular and can be tracked down to Proto-Indo-European and they have frequent cognates in modern Indo-European languages. In general, the phonology of the language is fairly simple, resembling the Hittite phonology system in terms of consonants and the Latin phonology system in terms of vowels.

Consonants

Harākti has a simple system of consonants - a total of 16 (or 18) consonants.

Harākti consonants
Bilabial Labio-dental Alveolar Palatal Velar
plain labialised
Nasal m n
Plosive p b t d k g kʷ gʷ
Fricative [f] s x ɣ
Approximant ʋ (j) (w)
Flap or tap ɾ
Lateral app. l

Note:

  • the consonants /j/ and /w/ are usually analyzed as non-vocalic vowels /i̯/ and /u̯/.
  • the labio-dental approximant /ʋ/ has [f] as an allophone in certain environments (when followed by a voiceless consonant only, it does not occur elsewhere)

Vowels

Harākti has a simple system of the basic 5 (cardinal) vowels. However, they can be either short or long, which brings the total number of vowels to 10.

Front Central Back
short long short long short long
Close i iː u uː
Close-mid e eː o oː
Open a aː

Note:

  • the near-mid short vowels [e o] may be lowered to mid [e̞ o̞] or open-mid vowels [ɛ ɔ] when in unstressed possitions.

Phonotactics

Phonetic changes

The following two tables sum up (most of) the regular changes from Proto-Indo-European to Harākti.


Orthography

The letter-to-sound ratio is virtually 1:1, with the exception of a digraph - see below:

Letter A B D E G GH H I K L M N O P R S T U V
Sound a b d e g ɣ x i k l m n o p ɾ s t u ʋ
Letter Ā Ē GU Ī KU Ō Ū
Sound aː eː gʷ iː kʷ oː uː
Letter I U
Sound i̯ u̯

Grammar

The grammar of Harākti is essentially a reflex of Proto-Indo-European grammar. It's an inflectional language with well developed declentional and conjugational patters. Especially the verbal morphology is closer to Hittite verbal morphology than to Latin or Sanskrit. Unlike Hittite, however, Harākti has three genders, even though the declensions often overlap. The main declensions can mostly be traced to PIE declensions.

Nouns

Nouns belong to one of the three genders: masculine, feminine or neuter. Apart from that, mouns are inflected for three numbers: singular, dual and plural; as well as for eight cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, allative, ablative, and locative. The three genders also correspond to three main declenions, but there are several other minor delcensions, and many nouns of different genders are declined the same - the declension is decided based on the gender of a noun and the final sound(s).

First declension

The first declension is typically considered a masculine declension but many feminine nouns belong to this declension as well. The common endings are constonants and vowels -e and -a.

Second declension

The second declension is traditionally seen a feminine declension but some masculine nouns belong to this declension as well. The common endings are -ti, -e and -i.

Third declension

The third declension is typically considered a neuter declension. The third declension is used almost exclusively by neuter nouns, only a few masculine and feminine nouns belong to this declension. The common endings are vowels -ā, -o and -u.

Fourth declension

The fourth declension consists of nouns that end in -ah, regardless of the gender (however, the majority of nouns are feminine). There is a variant of this declension for nouns ending in -āh.


Fifth declension

The fifth declension is rather limited and it consits of words that end in -ēr (or -ōr). The nouns can be either masculine or feminine - and they are mostly nouns denoting family members. There is a subtype of this declension for nouns ending in -ēn, which is pretty much the same as the main declension, but with a n instead of the r.


Sixth declension

The sixth declension is used for masculine and feminine nouns ending in -u.

Seventh declension

The seventh declension is used by noun that end in -ar. However, not every such noun belongs to this declension - only a handful of nouns belong to the seventh declension.

Eighth declension

The eighth declension is often called the irregular declension. Only a few nouns belong to this declension. They mostly follow the same pattern but usually each noun is specific. The typical ending is -Vr/vV or -VVr.

Stem modification

Stem modifications are quite common and they occur in every declension. There are several types of stem modification, and they usually apply to the rest of the paradigm. Some of the changes have already been covered in the above declensions and those are not included in the list below.

An overview of such modifications is as follows:

  • loss of the syllable-final vowel
    • name: neman → nemnō
    • head: kaput → kaptī
  • addition of -r and vowel shortening:
    • ear: ēu → eurī
    • hand: gē → gerī
  • addition of -r, vowel loss and vowel shortening:
    • metal: hāie → hairō
  • addition of -s and vowel shortening:
    • louse: lēu → leusī
  • addition of -h- and vowel shortening:
    • nose: nās → nahsī
  • reduction of a diphthong:
    • dog: kuōn → kūnī

Adjectives

Most adjectives can be recognised by their ending; they usually end in -it or -id, and sometimes -id. The vowel -i is a fleeting vowel and is lost when declining (except in accusative singular masculine). Adjectives agree with the headword in number, case and gender. The declensions are fixed and they mainy correspond to the main three nominal declensions.

Verbs

Verbs in Harākti are, as expected, inflected, or conjugated, for three persons and three numbers. There are two main tenses, present and preterite, with future as a derivative of the present tense. The majority of verbs are usually either perfective or imperfective by default, although the differences are minimal and many verbs can be both, but there is a very productive way of forming progressive-iterative verbs, habitual-durative and causative verbs. There are a few moods, namely indicative, conditional, optative, conditional-optative (the latter is sometimes called subjunctive), and imperative. There are also three voices in Harākti: active, mediopassive and passive. Passive is a derivative of the mediopassive, and mediopassive is a voice that is very similar to mediopassive in Hittite. It usually corresponds to reflexive verbs in Slavic and Romance languages, and to passive in English.


Other tenses, aspects and moods:

  • future: -as- + present forms
  • progressive-iterative: -re-
  • habitual-durative: -sk-
  • causative: -nen- ( -> -ne-/-nu-/-neu-)
  • conditional: -oh-
  • optative: -ī-
  • conditional-optative: -ih/ah-

Impersonal forms:

  • present gerund active: -(a)uente
  • present participle passive: -mano (-> -man-)
  • past gerund active: -vese/uese
  • past participle passive: -(n)on/ot
  • supine: -(a)uan
  • infinitive: -ā/ī (active), -hī (mediopassive), -lā (passive)
  • nominalised verb: -o (neuter gender)

Syntax

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