Corrádi

Introduction

It has long been assumed that Minhay had been settled during nomadic tribes during the Ice Ages, part of the general migrations that eventually peopled Siberia, the Americas, and Ainushir. Traditional accounts claim that three ethnic groups, the Golahats, the Peshpegs, and the Minhast came to Minhay at around the same time, but eventually the Minhast eventually dominated the island. During the mid 1950's, foreign archaeologists from the West were finally allowed to enter Minhay, and their preliminary excavations came up with puzzling results. The closest relatives of the Minhast are believed to be the Ainu of neighboring Kar-put-ya-Moshir (Sakhalin), Hokkay and Honesh-Pet (formerly known as Honshu before the partition of the Japanese Empire by the Kingdom of Koguryeo and the Ainu Federation). But the Ainu, or their putative ancestors, the Jōmon, are known to have occupied the region as early 14,500 BCE. The earliest artifacts found in Minhay that could be definitively attributed to the Minhast are flint arrows and iron swords dated as recent as 300 CE. Golahat and Peshpeg artifacts are far rarer, but the earliest of those artifacts date to circa 130 CE. This indicates that the Minhast, Golahats, and Peshpegs came much later, several millenia after the great Paleosiberian migrations that led to the peopling of northeast Siberia and the Americas.

So it was a groundbreaking discovery, and shock to many, when in the late 70's the Kūtan excavations in south-central Minhay uncovered artifacts from an unknown civilization that dated around 1500 BCE. These artifacts included bronze tools and weapons, glazed pottery, lifelike statues and figurines, and the remnants of large stone buildings suggestive of palaces or temples. Moreover, the remnants of several parchment scrolls written in an unknown script and language were found. Less than a decade later, in March 12, 1985, several scrolls, in the same script as the ones found in Kūtan, were discovered in an inconspicuous cave in Mt. Irraħma. Unlike the scrolls discovered in Kūtan, the ones found in Mt. Irraħma were dated as late as the 1700's. These scrolls were written in the same language as Kūtan , but also included transcripts in the Minhast script, along with a dictionary and grammar, providing the Rosetta Stone to the Corrádi language.

The texts mentioned a city called Vórina which lay 50km south of the capital, Aškuan. In fact, the author had written precise directions where to find the lost city. Archaeologists went to where the purported Vórina was located, in an extensive hardwood forest that reached the edge of Minhay's southern coast. A few days before the archaeologists arrived, lidar imagery was taken of the area and revealed several large mounds underneath the canopy. Excavations began, and soon a treasure trove of artifacts were unearthed. Pillars and the remnants of buildings were found bearing a script very similar to the Irraħma scrolls engraved into the stone. Another surprise: in the lower strata were sedimentary deposits clearly indicating the city at one time was on the coastline. It was in this same strata that there were indications that a major earthquake had struck the area, and a thin layer of what could only be marine sediment - which could have been deposited there by a tsunami. And one more disturbing discovery. Flint arrowheads and signs of fire damage abound in this layer. The flint arrowheads were the hattīya, bearing the same design used by the Horse Speakers of the Central Plateau.

The scrolls reveal that the Corrádi language is unrelated to any northeastern Asian language. Possible relationships with Austronesian and other southeast Asian languages have been conclusively ruled out. Other hypotheses have been presented, but none have succeeded in establishing a relationship with other language families. Therefore, Corrádi has been classified as a language isolate.

Toponyms

Corradi Place Names

Corradi	Meaning	Minhast (Wolf Speaker Dialect)
Kanzorél	Fresh Water	Kuznur
Azator	Orchard	Kaykarayumbāt "A Great Stand of Trees"
Aeredon	Overlook	Siħy
Nemkil	Corner	Hunnaš "Rough Ground"
Ketra	Split	Kirāt
Karhō	Crossroads	Karħ
Nargoi	Rivers Bend	Narrūy
Verhális	West Wind	Waħlā
Anthō/Aenthō	Fortress	Nināha
Kalrō	Skull	Karrū
Íkava	Narrow River	Zeydik "Little River"

Morphology

Nouns

Nouns are divided into two categories, based on whether the stem ends in a consonant or vowel.

Case

	Consonant-Final Stems		Vowel-Final Stems
	Sg	Pl	Sg	Pl
Direct	-∅	-en	-∅	-ren
Construct	-on		-n	-ion
Benefactive
Instrumental
Comitative

It looks simple, but the rules for its usage is complicated when it's integrated into a long NP chain. Here's a quote of some of the rules of its usage: -- "Varsoncáris" ("In the village") --> "Varso-n=cár-(i)s" --> village-OBL=LOC-GEN

At one time the LOC "=car=" was once a relational noun, "*ocarei" (cf "ocairth" = "place"), which degraded to a clitic (so it was originally something like this: "*varso-n ocarei-s" i.e. "the place's village"). Heads are followed by their modifiers in Old and Late Corradi, so "=car=" followed the NP it modified. Modifiers typically take the GEN, which is why you see the "-(i)s" form as seen in the previous two examples ("riélinacár-is" and "varsoncár-is"). Moreover, it is the Genitive of the **head** noun's declension class that is attached to the final element. The Oblique case is descended from the Construct State affix, which explains the reconstruction, "*varso-n ocarei-s". The reconstructed relational nouns acted as attributes (i.e. adjectively), so their case inflections mirrored that of the declension class its noun head belonged to, c.f. "varsoncáris" vs "thaenroncáros" (in the hero's person/hand/possession/etc). The clitics retained the GEN affix, a historical reminder that the clitics were once full-fledged nouns. Note that the noun head must be in the Oblique case before the adpositional clitics can be added. Things can get complicated if the head is followed by several adjectives, e.g. "varson novroth revu nistralcárins" < "varso-n novroth revu nistral-car-n-s" = "village busy beautiful large-in.the-of"("in the large, beautiful, bustling village"). Notice that the Suffixaufnahme-like process occurs only in the last element of the NP. I.e. it is the last element of the NP that receives adpositional and genitive case marking. Each element in the NP typically has scope over all elements to its left, up to the head noun. However, if an adjective or other modifier in the NP (e.g. adverbs, comparison particles, etc) has narrow scope (i.e. governs only the element to its immediate left), both elements receive Oblique marking (e.g. "varso-n revu caenridae-an thenoloc-on nistral-car-n-s" = "in the large, dark green, beautiful village" (village beautiful green dark large-in.the-of). To confuse things further, the Oblique endings are the ones that belong to the base form's declension - they do NOT take the Oblique endings of the head noun (varso-n), which is also inflected in the Oblique case. Here, the elements "caenridae-an thenoloc-on" are two adjectives, with "thenoloc-on" (dark-OBL.5DECL) having narrow scope over "caenridae-an" (green-OBL.1DECL); note that "caenridae-an" has scope over all the other elements to its left in the NP; had the element to its immediate left, "revu", been in the OBL.2DECL case, "caenridae-an" would have scope only over "revu".

Verbs

Types

Motion Verbs

Corrádi indicates directionality via satellite verbs; Corradi uses neither nominal morphology, such as case markers, nor verbal inflections, such as applicative affixes. Instead, directionality is embedded within the semantics of the verb. For example the verb narin means "to go to/towards", whereas andrin means "to go away".

Depending on the semantics of a motion verb, the argument structure of its clause may manifest either as transitive, or intransitive:

1) Transitive Marking

Maia ron dorati!
mai-a ron dora-ti
come-PRS 2S 1P.EXC
You come to us!

2) Intransitive Marking

Maza tirena ron!
maz-a tiren-a ron
come-PRS be.fast-PRS 2S
Come quickly!

Syntax

Constituent order

Corradi is a VSO language, although the position of the verb can vary, yielding SVO and SOV orders. The relative position of the subject to the object is stricter: the object may precede the subject only if topicalized by the particle ken. Possessums precede their possessor, and adjectives their noun heads. Prepositions, or more accurately, locative nouns, occur as possessums of their head nouns and so must be inflected in the construct case.

Example texts

Doranz Amzig Miyoren danta konzi Regumon Perda nami
dor-nz-a amzig miyoren danta ko-nz-i regum-on perda mos.
flee-PST-1P place.name place.name after destroy-PST-3PL people-CNSTR spear
We fled to Amzig from Miyoren after the People of the Spear sacked the city.

"Yel nevratavi intuora, cintra ae”. Nothing is forever, all things end.