Chlouvānem: Difference between revisions

|nativname       = Chlouvānumi dældā

|pronunciation = [c͡ɕʰɴ̆ɔʊ̯ˈʋaːnumʲi dɛɴ̆ˈdaː], also [c͡ɕʰɴ̆oː-]

|states (state) = lands of the [[Verse:Chlouvānem Inquisition|Inquisition]] (Murkadhāni bhælā)

|region        = Eastern third and most of the South of the continent of Greater Evandor

|speakers      = {{formatnum:1450000000}}

|date          = 4E Ɛ1

|familycolor  = #D4AEFA

|fam1          = [[Lahob languages|Lahob]]

|creator      = [[User:Lili21|Lili21]]

|script        = Chlouvānumi jīmalāṇa

|nation        = [[Verse:Chlouvānem Inquisition|lands of the Inquisition]], Brono, Fathan, Ikalurilut, <small>Gorjan (regional)</small>

|agency        = Inquisitorial Office of the Language (dældi flušamila)

'''Chlouvānem''', natively '''chlouvānumi dældā''' ("language of the Chlouvānem people"), is the most spoken language on the planet of [[Verse:Calémere|Calémere]] (Chl.: ''Liloejāṃrya''). It is the official language of the Inquisition (''murkadhāna'') and its country, the [[Verse:Chlouvānem Inquisition|Chlouvānem lands]] (''chlouvānumi bhælā''<ref>Commonly ''murkadhāni bhælā'' “Land of the Inquisition”, officially referred to as ''chlouvānumi murkadhāni bhælā'' “Land(s) of the Chlouvānem Inquisition”) </ref>), the main lingua franca across vast areas of Márusúturon - most importantly Brono, Fathan, iKalurilut, and all other countries of the former Kaiṣamā, and, due to cultural exchanges and influences in the last seven hundred years, also a well known language in Greater Skyrdagor.<br/>It is the Yunyalīlti religion's liturgical language.

The language currently known as Chlouvānem was first attested about 2400 years ago in Ancient Kūṣṛmāṭhi documents, as the language of a [[Lahob languages|Lahob-speaking]] people that settled in the southern part of the Lāmiejāya-Lāmberah plain, particularly near Lūlunīkam Lake. Near the end of the First Era of the Chlouvānem calendar (itself an adaptation of the Ancient Kūṣṛmāṭhi one), the ''Chlamiṣvatrā'', the great Prophet of the Yunyalīlta, lived and taught her doctrine in the Chlouvānem language, paving the way for it to gain the role of most important language and lingua franca in the at the time massively linguistically fragmented lower Plain. While the Chlamiṣvatrā's language is what we now call "Archaic Chlouvānem", most of the Yunyalīlti doctrine as we now know it is in the later stage of Classical Chlouvānem, a koiné developed in the third to fifth centuries of the Second Era. Since then, for nearly two millennia, this classical language has been kept alive as the lingua franca in the Yunyalīlti world, resulting in the state of diglossia that persists today.

Despite the fact that local vernaculars in most of the Inquisition are in fact daughter languages of Chlouvānem or creoles based on it, the ''chlouvānumi dældā'' is a fully living language as every Chlouvānem person is bilingual in it and in the local vernacular; in the last half century there have been instances where the classical language itself has been replacing some vernaculars due to internal migrations, both forced and voluntary ones. About 1,4 billion people on the planet define themselves as native Chlouvānem speakers, more than for any other Calémerian language.

Chlouvānem (not counting separately its own daughter languages) is by far the most spoken of the [[Lahob languages]] (more than 99.98% of Lahob speakers), and the only one of the family to have been written before the contemporary era. It is, however, the geographical outlier of the family, due to the almost 10,000 km long migration of the Ur-Chlouvānem from the Proto-Lahob homeland at the northern tip of Evandor. Chlouvānem, due to its ancientness, still retains much of the complex morphology of Proto-Lahob, but its vocabulary has been vastly changed by language contact, especially after the Chlouvānem settled in the Plain, where they effectively became a métis ethnicity by intermixing with neighboring peoples. Still, it is possible to find lots of cognates between it and its distant relatives, even with the same meanings, like the words for "lake" (''gėrisa'', cf. Łaȟoḇszer ''hetłi'', < PLB *gegriso) or "worm" (''tūlum'', exactly the same as PLB *tūlum, cf. Łaȟ. and Łokow ''toł'') - or even how one of the Tundra Pwaɬasd-speaking tribes is known as ''gěɬowupěn'', which has exactly the same origin (and meaning - "golden clan") as the word ''chlouvānem''.

→ ''See [[Chlouvānem/Lexicon|Chlouvānem lexicon]] for a list of common words.''

''Chlouvānem'' is the ninth radically restructured version of [[Laceyiam]]; ''[[User:Lili21|I]]'' started creating it in late November 2016 as I found some parts of my conworld which were too unrealistic to work - and as such by changing the whole conworld I had to change the language. I took that opportunity to change some things in the grammar that, while I liked them and they worked well, I wanted to do in some different way — mainly this arises from my love of more complex inflection patterns. As such, compared to Laceyiam, Chlouvānem has much more influences from ''Sanskrit'' and ''Lithuanian'' (which always were my main influences anyway); other natlangs that influenced me a lot are ''Russian'', ''Adyghe'', ''Latvian'', ''Old Norse'' (and to a lesser extent also ''Danish'' and ''Icelandic''), ''Proto-Indo-European'', ''(Biblical) Hebrew'', ''Latin'', and ''Japanese'', while its actual in-world use is inspired by ''Arabic''. Still it is an a priori language and, despite having much in common with all of these (particularly with the IE ones), is also strikingly different (the Austronesian morphosyntactic alignment, morphological expression of evidentiality and more broadly the particular emphasis on moods probably being the most noticeable things). Moreover, I tried to create a language very different from my native language (Italian) while keeping many - not so apparent - similarities.<br />

The morphology of Chlouvānem is very different from Laceyiam, though many words are still the same (like ''smrāṇa'' (spring), ''junai'' (foot), ''jāyim'' (girl), ''saṃhāram'' (boy)).

As I mentioned before, Chlouvānem is the latest version of the conlang for my main conculture. I started sketching conlangs back when I was 9 or 10 but only started interesting myself into linguistics seven years later - in 2014 - and since then I started doing more "serious" conlangs (the earlier ones were little more than relexified Italian). Ideally, Chlouvānem is the refined version of all of these languages, but except for a few recurring words (like ''maila'' (water) or ''hulin'' (woman)) it is only comparable to those languages I have been creating since July 2015.

Chlouvānem is mainly thought for my conworld, but more than any other conlang of mine it is quite on the border between an art- and a heartlang.

Chlouvānem as spoken today is the standardized version of the literary language of the early-mid Second Era ''Lāmiejāya'' plain, the one in which most sacred texts of the Yunyalīlta are written. Since then, the language has been kept alive for more than 1500 years and counting in a diglossic state with many descendant and creole languages developing in the areas that gradually came under Chlouvānem control, and Classical Chlouvānem is in fact [[Verse:Chlouvānem Inquisition#Chlouvānem ethnicity|a major defining factor of Chlouvānem ethnicity]], enabling the existence of a single cultural area spread across half a continent despite the individual areas each having their own vernaculars.

[[File:Lahob languages.png|thumb|Spread of the [[Lahob languages]] in Evandor and Márusúturon. Areas speaking Chlouvānem languages are lilac.]]

It’s not easy to define “dialects” for Chlouvānem, due to this history: all true dialects of Chlouvānem eventually developed into distinct vernaculars, and today’s regional variations are as such defined as “pronunciations” of Chlouvānem, in some cases moderately divergent from the standard one. Chlouvānem sources refer to them as ''bhælāyāṃsai'' “land-sounds”, but they do not only vary in pronunciation. Each major geographic area of the [[Verse:Chlouvānem Inquisition|Inquisition]] has its own pronunciation; present-day standard Chlouvānem is based on the pronunciation in the city of Līlasuṃghāṇa around 4E 60, but the local pronunciation has somewhat diverged, so that the city where the traditional pronunciation is closest to the standard is Galiākina, some 300 km further west.

Local pronunciations are typically divided in six major groups by geographic areas:

* Jade Coast, Rainforest, and Eastern Plain (''lūṇḍhyalėnei nanayi no naleidhoyi no''), including pronunciations of the eastern part of the Lāmiejāya plain, the Jade Coast, and its interior (the main Chlouvānem heartlands and the northern parts of the rainforest). Standard Chlouvānem is one of these.

* Western Plain and Sand Coast (''samvāldhoyi chleblėnei no''), including the whole western part of the Lāmiejāya plain and the Sand Coast in the central-western Inquisition.

* Far Eastern (''lallanaleiyutei''), including the Far Eastern part of the Inquisition (both mainland and insular); the dioceses of the so-called Near East are frequently considered a transitional zone between this and the Eastern Plain pronunciation group.

* Eastern (''naleiyutei''), in the Chlouvānem East (the former Kans-Tsan area).

* Northeastern (''kehamnaleiyutei''), in the Northeast of the Inquisition; note that the most remote areas (the far northern taiga and the insular part), due to continuous and relatively recent immigration, have a pronunciation still closer to Standard Chlouvānem.

* Western (''samvālyutei''), in the Western dioceses and in the coasts of the desert. As these were formerly Dabuke areas, they use distinctly more Dabuke terms than all other speakers.

Areas that do not fit in any of these groupings are often recent colonizations (or “Chlouvānemizations”), like e.g. the northern coast on the Skyrdegan Inner Sea, that do not have a truly distinct pronunciation, being a mix of speakers from different areas and tending to be very close to Standard Chlouvānem.

Local vernaculars of the Inquisition (''bhælāmaivai'', sg. ''bhælāmaiva'', literally “land word(s)”) are, linguistically, the daughter languages of Classical Chlouvānem. They are the result of normal language evolution with, in most areas, enormous influences by substrata.

Actually, only a bit more than half of the Inquisition has a vernacular that is a true daughter language - most areas conquered in the last 600 years, thus since the sixth or seventh century of the Third Era, speak a creole language, where lexicon is almost completely Chlouvānem but grammar still shows huge semplifications and analytic constructions and some traits odd for Chlouvānem and those languages that developed in the heartlands. Most of the Eastern languages, however, are thought to have origined as creoles.

The main division for local vernaculars - or Chlouvānem languages - is the one in groups, as few of them are standardized and large areas are dialect continua where it is extremely difficult to determine which dialects belong to a particular language and which ones do not. Furthermore, most people speak of their vernacular as “the word of [village name]”, and always refer to them as local variants of the same Chlouvānem language, without major distinctions from the national language which is always Classical Chlouvānem<ref>It's just as if speakers of Parisian French, Florentine Tuscan and Carioca Brazilian would still say they spoke dialects of (Classical) Latin.</ref>. Individual “languages” are thus simply defined starting from the diocese they’re spoken in, so for example the Nanašīrami language includes all dialects spoken in the diocese of Nanašīrama, despite those spoken in the eastern parts of the diocese being closer to those spoken in Takaiyanta than to the Nanašīrami dialect of Līlasuṃghāṇa - which has, however, lots of common points with the Lanamilūki Valley dialects of Talæñoya to the south.<br/> Note that the word ''maiva'', in Chlouvānem, only identifies a language spoken in a certain area which is typically considered to belong to a wider language community, independent of its origin. It does not have any pejorative meaning, unlike examples like e.g. ''lingua'' vs. ''dialetto'' in Italian.

The main divisions are:

* Eastern Plain/Jade Coast (''naleidhoyi lūṇḍhyalėnei no maivai'') — spoken in most of the Lāmiejāya Plain, in the Jade Coast and its interior, and the northern part of the southern rainforest;

* Western Plain (''samvāldhoyi maivai'') — spoken in the westermost parts of the Lāmiejāya Plain;

* Jungle Language (''nanaimaiva'') — spoken throughout the southern rainforest;

* Northern Plain (''kehaṃdhoyi maivai'') — spoken in the northern part of the Lāmiejāya Plain (the upper basin of the Lāmberah river);

* Near Eastern (''mūtiānaleiyutei maivai'') — spoken in the Near East, or the parts of the Central East west of the Kārmādhona mountains;

* Far Eastern (''lallanaleiyutei maivai'') — spoken in the Far East (east of the Kārmādhona mountains) and in the eastern islands;

* Kaṃsatsāni (''kaṃsatsāni maivai'') — spoken in the historic region of Kaṃsatsāna (the Eastern Tribunal);

* Sand Coast (''chleblėnei maivai'') — spoken on the Sand Coast (west of the Lāmiejāya plain) and by communities in the southern Salt Desert;

* Ajāṣṭri-Mbusakitvi (''ajāṣṭri-mbusakitvi maivai'') — spoken in the dioceses of Ajāṣṭra and Mbusakitva, west of the Salt Desert. They are often grouped (especially in common speech) with the other Western languages, but those have a clear creole origin not recognizable in Ajāṣṭri and Mbusakitvi.

* Northeastern (''kehamnaleyutei maivai'') — various creoles spoken in the Near Northeast;

* Western (''samvālyutei maivai'') — creoles spoken in the West, with extensive Dabuke influence;

* Najlājātei (''najlājātei maiva'') — creole spoken in the diocese of Najlājātia, an endorheic basin nestled between the mountains and the desert in the northwestern Inquisition;

Many other areas, most notably the North and the far Northeast, do not have a local vernacular, due to Chlouvānem presence there being recent and those areas being either previously almost uninhabited (the far Northeast) or with lots of different ethnicities (the North). The main vernaculars that are actually languages that do not have Chlouvānem origin (and are commonly referred to as ''dældā'' instead of ''maiva'') are:

* Basaumi (''Bazá''), the most spoken, in the ethnic diocese of Tūnambasā, the westernmost on the mainland, where it is the native language of 78% of all inhabitants;

* Hūnakañumi (''Huwən-aganь-sisaat''), in the mountainous areas of Hūnakañjātia ethnic diocese in the Near East (note that most of the diocese, including the city of Līlekhaitė, 10th largest in the Inquisition, mostly speaks the local Near Eastern language, derived from Chlouvānem)

* Tumidumi (''sokaw y ee-tumið''), in the ethnic diocese of Tumidajātia in the Near East - mostly spoken in the hills and mountains;

* Kotayumi (''kotaii šɔt''), in a few mountain villages in Kotaijātia ethnic diocese, Near East;

* Tendukumi (''tənduk sisod'') in Tendukijātia ethnic diocese, Near East — by percentage of people in its native area, it is the second most spoken, being the native language of 29% of people there, though it is the least populated diocese in that area.

* Tanomali (''nzɛk pɔb'') on Tanomaliė island, the southernmost of the Eastern Islands.

Chlouvānem has a large consonant inventory, with 47 different consonants, divided into seven categories: labials, dentals, palatalized dentals, retroflexes, palatals, velars, and laryngeals. The Chlouvānem term for "consonant" is ''hīmbeyāṃsa'', a compound of ''hīmba'' (colour) and ''yāṃsa'' (sound).

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;" |

! rowspan=2 colspan=2 | → PoA <br/> ↓ Manner !! rowspan=2 | Labials<br/><small>hærṣoke</small> !! colspan=2 | Dentals<br/><small>aṣṭrūke</small> !! rowspan=2 | Retroflexes<br/><small>āḍhyāsūke</small> !! rowspan=2 | Palatals<br/><small>dehāṃlūdvyūke</small> !! rowspan=2 | Velars<br/><small>bhyodilūdvyūke</small> !! rowspan=2 | Laryngeals<br/><small>diṇḍhūke</small>

! <small>Plain<br/>''pūdre''</small> !! <small>Palatalized<br/>''pindehāṃlūdvyūke''</small>

There are only a few instances of consonant allophony, mostly due to the large number of phonemic consonants. The following ones apply to standard Chlouvānem:

* All dentals are allophonically palatalized before /i iː i̤/, thus the palatalized/plain contrast is neutralized there.

* /ɴ/ has two different realizations depending on context: [ɴ] before other laryngeals, and nasalization of the preceding vowel anywhere else.

* Word-final /n/ is realized as [ŋ] after high vowels, and as vowel nasalization after the other ones.

* Nasals, except /ɴ/ before non-laryngeals, assimilate to the PoA of the following consonant, except for /j/ (note that /ɴj/ does not exist).

Not proper of standard Chlouvānem but so widespread it is now by far the most common pronunciation is also the fall of /j/ and /ʋ/ before /i iː i̤/ or /u uː ṳ/ respectively, e.g. in ''yinām'' /jinaːm/ [iˈnaːm] (protection, refuge) or ''vurāṇa'' /ʋuʀaːɳa/ [uˈʀaːɳa] (a kind of small-sized reptile)<ref>Many pronunciations, including the common Līlasuṃghāṇi and Galiākñi ones, keep /ʋ/ word-initially in words like ''vurāṇa''. It does however fall in other widespread pronunciations like in most of the Far East, including Cami, as well as parts of the Jade Coast like in Līlta and Ilėnimarta.</ref>. This also leads to phonetic hiatuses, like in ''Kāyīchah'' /kaːjiːc͡ɕʰaɦ/ [kaːˈiːc͡ɕʰaɦ] (an insular diocese between Mārṣūtram and Vedren) or the common given name ''Martayinām'' /maʀtajinaːm/ [maɐ̯ta.iˈnaːm].<br/>A similarly widespread but not standard allophony is the use of either [ɻ] or [ɽ] for /ʀ/ before /ɖ ɖʱ/, as in ''larḍhīka'' (girl, maid) /ɴ̆aʀɖʱiːka/ [ɴ̆aɻˈɖʱiːka].<br/>

Pronouncing /ʀʲ/ as [ʐ] or [ʑ] is also a fairly common thing across the East and Northeast; it is nearly universal among young people and in certain areas (most notably the area of the Padeikoli Gulf, including most of the diocese of Padeikola, coastal areas of Lågnemba, and the northern third of Hachitama) it is the norm, with [ʀʲ] being found only as a gerontolectal feature. The palatalized stops are also often pronounced with a noticeable sibilant release, especially in the eastern part of the Jade Coast among younger speakers.

There are also lots of regional variations for /ɦ/ at the end of a word, with a particularly common realization being [χ] (as in e.g. Līlasuṃghāṇa and Galiākina), like ''lilah'' /ɴ̆ʲiɴ̆aɦ/ [ˈɴ̆ʲiɴ̆aχ] (I/(s)he/it/they live(s)).

The vowel inventory of Chlouvānem is fairly large too, consisting of 25 phonemes: 14 monophthongs, 9 diphthongs, and 2 syllabic consonants.<br/>

Phonetically, there are also nasal vowels, but they are phonemically /Vɴ/ or (word-finally) /Vn/ sequences. On the contrary, breathy-voiced vowels may phonetically surface as [Vh] or [Vχ] in some contexts (most notably before stops) in some pronunciations — e.g. ''tąkis'' /tɑ̤kis/ (a kind of herb) pronounced in Cami as [ˈtaxkʲis].

The term for vowel is ''camiyāṃsa'', from ''cami'' (great, large, important) and ''yāṃsa'' (sound), as these sounds are necessary in building syllables.

 

Allophones of vowels in standard Chlouvānem rarely diverge much from their IPA representation; as Chlouvānem (and most of its descendants, which are the true native languages for the majority of Chlouvānem speakers) are syllable-timed languages, vowels are barely (if at all) reduced in unstressed syllables. The most notable differences are:

* /ɛ/ lowers to [æ] before /ʀ/;

* /ɔ/ is realized as [oː] word-finally (though very rare);

* /u/ is moderately fronted - usually to [ʉ] - after palatalized consonants and /j/ (explaining why /y/ or similar vowels are usually borrowed as /ju/).

Stress in Chlouvānem is not phonemic and usually predictable, determined by long vowels and verbal roots:

* The last long vowel in a word is stressed, unless it is word-final '''ė''';

* ''dilṭha'' "desert" [ˈdʲiɴ̆ʈʰa]

* ''ñogė'' "(s)he/it crawls" [ˈɲogeː]

* ''sågnstrausis'' "tunnel" [sɔgnˈstʀaʊ̯sʲis]

* ''sågnstraustammikeika'' "tunnel railway station" [ˌsɔgnstʀaʊ̯sˌtammʲiˈkeɪ̯ka]

Words with unpredictable stress often have regional variations. For example, ''tandayena'' "spring (season)" is stressed as [tandaˈjena] in most of the East and Northeast but as regular [tanˈdajena] almost anywhere else (in this particular case, the irregular stress is actually closer to the etymology, as it is a borrowing from a Kans-Tsan compound word).

====Intonation====

===Phonotactics===

The maximum possible syllable structure is ｢[((C1)C2)C3]｣(j)V｢(C4(C5))｣.

 

The nucleus is formed by '''V''' - which can be any vowel, diphthong, or syllabic consonant - and an optional preceding /j/.<br/>

The onset may contain up to three consonants: '''C3''' is notated differently because phonetically there always is one, as phonemically vowel-initial syllables are always pronounced with a preceding [ʔ]. Any consonant bar /N/ can appear in this position; '''C2''' can be any other consonant except aspirated or breathy-voiced stops (with a single exception) or /ʔ/, but, if C3 is a stop, no stop can be in this position. If C3 is /ɴ̆/ , then C2 may be /c͡ɕʰ/. C1 may be a sibilant, /ʋ/, or a nasal agreeing in PoA with the following consonant. Note that '''ss-''', '''vv-''', '''ll-''' and '''lьl-''' are all valid onsets under these rules.

 

In codas, '''C4''' may be may be any consonant except /ʔ c͡ɕ ɟ͡ʑ/ or all aspirated or breathy-voiced stops. '''C5''' may be /n m s/, or also one of /t d k g/ if C4 is one of /ɴ̆ ʀ/.

 

In absolute word-final position, only C4 is possible, and the only possible consonants are /m n nʲ p t tʲ k s sʲ ɦ ɴ̆ ɴ̆ʲ/. Interjections are an exception, as some other consonants are found there, e.g. ''hār!'' "ouch!" [ˈɦaːɐ̯], ''hųf!'' "phew!" [ˈɦṳf].

 

Chlouvānem morphology uses a system of ablaut alternations in its vowels, most notably for some verbs, for the ablauting declension of nouns (5h), and for many derivations. Every normal ablaut pattern has a base grade (the one given in citation forms), a middle grade, and a strong grade.<br/>

* ''u-ablaut'': '''u'''/'''ū''' — '''o''' ('''ą''') — '''au'''

 

A few roots have the so-called ''inverse ablaut'', where the vowels get simplified in the middle grade, and there is no strong grade:

* ''i-type inverse ablaut'': base '''ya''' (or '''ьa''') — middle '''i'''

 

Lengthening alternations, which originate in Proto-Lahob, substitute a vowel with its lengthened form. There are many apparently irregular cases, due to the huge vowel shifts that happened between Proto-Lahob (PLB) and Chlouvānem. Note that PLB *î represents /ɨ/ or /ɨ̯/.<br/>Lengthening as a type of vowel alternation is the so-called ''diachronic lengthening'', as the results are largely determined by what those vowels were in PLB:

** '''o''' → '''ei''', but → '''ou''' after '''l''' (PLB *ow → *ōw)

 

Another, different type of lengthening, is ''synchronic lengthening'', which is a saṃdhi change; it only applies to '''a''', '''i''', '''u''', '''ṛ''', and '''e''', turning them into '''ā''', '''ī''', '''ū''', '''ṝ''', and '''ė''' respectively.

 

Vowel saṃdhi in Chlouvānem is often fairly logical, though sometimes the results are influenced by Proto-Lahob phonology.<br/>

Similar vowels (thus /a i e u ʀ̩/ only diverging in quantity or phonation) merge in these ways:

* breathy-voiced + oral = /VɦV/, written with the breathy-voiced character followed by the oral one (e.g. ''ą'' + ''a'' → ''ąa'')

The only exception to this pattern is the sequence '''ė''' + '''e''' which becomes '''ege'''.

 

Dissimilar vowels merge in these ways. '''ṛ''' and '''ṝ''' become semivowels wherever needed, and '''i''' and '''u''' become '''y''' and '''v''' before other vowels; '''ī''' and '''ū''' turn to ''iy'' and ''uv'' respectively.<br/>Other changes are:

* '''e''' and '''o''' always continue PLB *aj and *aw regardless of etymology, so when followed by vowels the results are ''ayV'' and ''avV'' respectively. Similarly, with '''ai''' and '''au''' the results are ''āyV'' and ''āvV'';

* '''æ''' and '''ea''' both become '''ev''' and '''oe''' becomes '''en''' when followed by another vowel;

* All other ones simply turn their second element into the corresponding semivowel (e.g. '''ei''' → '''ey''', but '''ov''' → '''av''').

* '''ā''': ''ā-i'' and ''ā-e'' → '''ai''' ; ''ā-u'' and ''ā-o'' → '''au'''

* '''a''' or '''ā''' and a following long vowel (or '''æ''' or '''å''') get an epenthetic '''y''' (before ''ī'', ''ė'', ''æ'') or '''v''' (before ''ū'', ''å'').

 

With present singular exterior verbal terminations, the first person '''-u''' gets an epenthetic '''-v-''' after vowel-final roots, while second person '''-i''' and third person '''-ė''' get an epenthetic '''-y-'''.

 

Palatalization in morphemes (noted as '''ь''') produces different results depending on the preceding consonant:

* If the preceding consonant has a phonemic palatalized counterpart, the result is the palatalized consonant (e.g. /t/ + ''ь'' → /tʲ/)

 

''Note:'' for simplicity, '''ь''' will be treated as a stand-alone consonant in all the following examples.

 

Saṃdhi assimilations are fairly straightforward, and usually it’s the second consonant in a row the one that matters. The most basic rules are:

* All stops assimilate in voicing to a following stop; if the first one is aspirated, then aspiration shifts to the second one. Dentals also assimilate to adjacent (preceding or following) retroflexes.

 

 

 

 

 

''-d(h)n-'' and ''-ḍ(h)ṇ-'' from any origin further assimilate to '''-nn-''' and '''-rṇ-''' respectively.

 

'''h''', wherever it is followed by a consonant (apart from '''ь'''), disappears, leaving its trace as breathy-voiced phonation on the preceding vowel (e.g. ''maih-leilė'' → ''mąileilė''). Vowels change as such:

 

* Dental stops followed  by '''ṣ''' or '''š''' result in a palatal affricate (e.g. ''prāt-ṣveya'' → ''prācveya'').

Note that the two roots ''lih-'' and ''muh-'' behave, before consonants (with a few exceptions, e.g. the verbal infinitive), as if they were *lis- and *mus-.

If the first sound which undergoes saṃdhi is already part of a cluster, a few more assimilations may occur. In a nasal-stop + stop sequence, usually the first stop gets cancelled, but nasals do not assimilate entirely to the stop:

* '''m''' becomes '''ṃ''';

* Other nasals do not assimilate at all.

Note that the combinations -'''mpt'''-, -'''mpk'''-, -'''lkt'''-, -'''lkṭ'''-, -'''mbd'''-, -'''lgd'''-, and -'''lgḍ'''- all remain unchanged; doubled stops are degeminated (like -''mpp''- > -''mp''-).

If the sound before the stop sequence is '''l''' or '''r''', nothing happens and assimilations are normal. If the  sound is a sibilant (note that they cannot precede voiced stops), assimilations are as usual.

More complex clusters are avoided by means of epenthetic vowels; still, Chlouvānem does feature some long clusters like e.g. /gnstʀ/ in the word ''sågnstrausis'' (tunnel)

 

In a few cases of consonant doubling due to saṃdhi, there are irregular results:

 

 

==Writing system - Jīmalāṇa==

[[File:Chlouvānem-script-parts.png|thumbnail|The word "Chlouvānem" in the native script, with the parts colour-coded according to function.]]

Chlouvānem has been written since the late First Era in an abugida called ''chlouvānumi jīmalāṇa'' ("Chlouvānem script", the noun ''jīmalāṇa'' is actually a collective derivation from ''jīma'' "character"), developed with influence of the script used for the ancient Kūṣṛmāthi language. The orthography for Chlouvānem represents how it was pronounced in Classical times, but it's completely regular to read in all present-day local pronunciations.

The Chlouvānem alphabet is distinguished by a large number of curved letter forms, arising from the need of limiting vertical lines as much as possible in order to avoid tearing the leaves on which early writers wrote. Straight vertical or horizontal lines are in fact present in a few letters (mostly the rarer ones, such as independent vowels) but they have been written as straight lines only since typewriting was invented. Being an abugida, vowels (including diphthongs) are mainly represented by diacritics written by the consonant they come after (some vowel diacritics are actually written before the consonant they are tied to, however); '''a''' is however inherent in any consonant and therefore does not need a diacritic sign. Consonant clusters are usually representing by stacking the consonants on one another (with those that appear under the main consonant sometimes being simplified), but a few consonants such as '''r''' and '''l''' have simplified combining forms. The two consonants '''ṃ''' and '''ь''' are written with diacritics, as they can't appear alone. There are also special forms for final '''-m''', '''-s''', and '''-h''' due to their commonness; other consonants without inherent vowels have to be written with a diacritic sign called ''priligis'' (deleter), which has the form of a dot above the letter.

 

The romanization used for Chlouvānem avoids this problem by giving each phoneme a single character or digraph, but it stays as close as possible to the native script. Aspirated stops and diphthongs are romanized as digraphs and not by single letters; geminate letters, which are represented with a diacritic in the native script, are romanized by writing the consonant twice - in the aspirated stops, only the first letter is written twice, so /ppʰ/ is <pph> and not *<phph>. The following table contains the whole Chlouvānem alphabet as it is romanized, following the native alphabetical order:

{| class="wikitable"

| '''Sound'''  || /c͡ɕ/ || /c͡ɕʰ/ || /ɟ͡ʑ/ || /ɟ͡ʑʱ/ || /ɕ/ || /j/ || /k/ || /kʰ/ || /g/ || /gʱ/

| '''Letter''' || '''ṃ''' || '''ɂ''' || '''h''' || '''r''' || '''l''' || '''ь<ref>Romanized as '''i''' before vowels</ref>''' || '''i''' || '''ī''' || '''į''' || '''u'''

| '''Sound'''  || /ɴ/ || /ʔ/ || /ɦ/ || /ʀ/ || /ɴ̆/, [ŋ] || /ʲ/ || /i/ || /iː/ || /i̤/ || /u/

| '''Letter''' || '''ū''' || '''ų''' || '''e''' || '''ė''' || '''ę''' || '''o''' || '''æ''' || '''a''' || '''ā''' || '''ą'''

| '''Sound'''  || /uː/ || /ṳ/ || /e/ || /eː/ || /e̤/ || /ɔ/ || /ɛ/ || /a/ || /aː/ || /ɑ̤/

| '''Letter''' || '''ai''' || '''ąi''' || '''ei''' || '''ęi''' || '''ea''' || '''oe''' || '''au''' || '''ąu''' || '''å''' || '''ou'''

| '''Sound'''  || /aɪ̯/ || /a̤ɪ̯/ || /eɪ̯/ || /e̤ɪ̯/ || /eɐ̯/ || /ɔə̯/ || /aʊ̯/ || /a̤ʊ̯/ || /ɔ/ _{<small>(see below)</small>} || /ɔʊ̯/

| '''Letter''' || '''ṛ''' || '''ṝ''' || || || || || || || ||

| '''Sound'''  || /ʀ̩/ || /ʀ̩ː/ || || || || || || || ||  

* /n/ [ŋ] is written as <l> before <k g kh gh n>. Note that in many local varieties <lk lkh lg lgh> are actually [ɴq ɴqʰ ɴɢ ɴɢʱ], with the stop assimilating to <l> and not vice-versa, and thus analyzed as /ɴ̆k ɴ̆kʰ ɴ̆g ɴ̆gʱ/.

* '''l''' is ''loulas'' and '''r''' is ''rairas''. '''ṃ''' is, uniquely, ''nālkāvi'' and the palatalizing sign is called ''hærūñjīma''.

* Short vowels are VtV*s, where the second V is ''a'' for '''æ''' and '''å''' (''ætas'', ''åtas''), ''i'' for '''e''' (''etis''), and ''u'' for '''o''' (''otus'').

* Long vowels are vowel + ''-nis'' if unrounded (''īnis'', ''ėnis'', ''ānis''), but '''ū''', being rounded, is ''ūmus'' if rounded (ūm). Oral diphthongs all have diphthong + ''-myas'' (''aimyas'', ''eimyas''…).

* Breathy-voiced vowels are vowel + /ɦ/ + vowel + s (''įis'', ''ąas'', ''ųus'', but ''ęas''). Breathy-voiced diphthongs are diphthong + /ɕ/ + ''as'' (''ąišas'', ''ęišas'', ''ąušas'').

In today's standard Chlouvānem, the letters '''o''' and '''å''' are homophones, being both pronounced /ɔ/: their distribution reflects their origin in Proto-Lahob (PLB), with '''o''' deriving from PLB *aw and *ow, and '''å''' from either *a umlauted by a (lost) *o in a following syllable, or, most commonly, from the sequences *o(ː)wa, *o(ː)fa, *o(ː)wo, or *o(ː)fo.

Most Chlouvānem sources, however, classify '''å''' as a ''diphthong'': Classical Era sources nearly accurately describe it as /ao̯̯/, later monophthongized to /ʌ/ or /ɒ/ and merged with /ɔ/ - in fact, most daughter languages have the same reflex for both '''o''' and '''å'''. Some kind of distinction in the pronunciations of Classical Chlouvānem must have been preserved until early modern times, as both are found in adapting foreign words - usually '''å''' transcribes more open vowels than '''o''' - cf. the two [[Holenagic]] loanwords ''Hålinaika'' (Holenagica) - with '''å''' for [ɔ] - and ''lofyun'' (ṅoifṅ, a vodka-like Holenagic spirit) - with '''o''' for [o].

* Even if the Chlouvānem script uses scriptio continua and marks minor pauses (e.g. comma and semicolon) with a space between the sentences and a punctuation mark with following space, every word is divided when romanized, including particles. The only eẋceptions to this are compound verbs, which are written as a single word nevertheless (e.g. ''yųlakemaitiāke'' "to be about to eat" '''not''' *yųlake maitiāke). English punctuation marks are used in basic sentences, including a distinction between comma and semicolon. In longer texts, particularly in the "examples" section, ''':''' will be used to mark a comma-like pause (a space in the native script) and '''।।''' will be used for a full-stop-like pause (written very similarly to ।। in the native script).

* As the Chlouvānem script does not have lettercase, no uppercase letters are used in the romanization, except to disambiguate cases like ''lairė'' (noun: sky, air) and ''Lairė'' (female given name), and for proper nouns written in isolation.

The Chlouvānem script is almost entirely composed of curved lines as, initially, it was written on leaves with reeds (''fålka'', pl. ''fålkai'') or brushes (''lattah'', pl. ''lattai''). With the invention, in the mid-Second Era, of paper (traditional Chlouvānem paper or ''mirtah'' is handmade by fibres from various types of wooden bushes; traditional papermaking is still important today as formal handwritten documents are usually written on traditional paper), the use of reeds or brushes often became region-dependant; the reeds of the ''ñagala'' plant became the dominant writing tool in most of the plains, as this plant abundantly grows by the river shores; in the Jade Coast, brushes (whose "hair" are actually fibres of wetland plants such as the ''jalihā'') were preferred.<br/>

Today, pens (''titė'', pl. ''titiai'') are the main writing tool together with graphite pencils (''baute'', pl. ''bautiai''). Non-refillable dip pens were the first to be introduced - an Evandorian invention that was "seized" by the Chlouvānem during the late Third Era occupation of Kátra, a Nordûlaki colony on Ogúviutón - and with the advent of industrial papermaking they became more and more popular; fountain pens were evolved from them first in Nivaren, and in 4E 2 the first fountain pen manufacturer in the Inquisition opened. Ballpoint pens are, on Calémere, a much recent invention, and first appeared in the Inquisition about forty years ago. They are still not used as much as fountain pens when writing on normal paper.<br/>

The traditional ''fålkai'' and ''lattai'' have not disappeared, as both are still found and used - even if only with traditional handmade paper. Both are commonly used for calligraphy as well as in various other uses: for example, [[w:Banzuke|banzuke]] papers for tournaments of most traditional sports are carefully handwritten with reed pens, as are many announcements by local temples (written with either reed pens or brushes); a newer type of brush pen (much like Japanese [[w:Fudepen|fudepen]]s) has proven to be particularly popular even in everyday use (both with traditional and modern industrial paper) in the Jade Coast area - many Great Inquisitors from there, including incumbent Hæliyoušavi Dhīvajhūyai ''Lairė'', have been seen writing official document with such kind of pens.

''→ Main article: [[Chlouvānem/Morphology|Chlouvānem morphology]]''

Chlouvānem morphology (''maivāndarāmita'') is complex and synthetic, with a large number of inflections. Five parts of speech are traditionally distinguished: nouns, verbs, pronouns, numerals, and particles.

Like most other Lahob languages, the preferred word order in Chlouvānem is SOV, and the language is almost completely head-final. The word order could however be better defined as ''topic-comment'', but in less common styles it is perfectly possible, thanks to case inflections, to greatly deviate from this standard order.

 

 

====Use of the topic====

The '''topic''' is explicitely marked with ''mæn'' if it does not coincide with the subject and does not have any syntactical role in the sentence. Some common structures where explicit topics are always used rank among the most basic sentences:

* ''lili mæn māmimojendeh fliven'' "I am 21 (19₁₂, Chlouvānem age)/20 years old (English age)"<ref>Chlouvānem age reckoning counts the number of the ongoing year, not how many years have passed - thus a newborn is in its first year, and a 20-years-old is in its twenty-first year.</ref>, glossed: <small>1SG.DIR</small>. <small>TOPIC</small>. nineteenth₁₂.<small>DIR.SG</small>. go.<small>MONODIR-IND.PRES.3S.EXTERIOR.PATIENT</small>.

 

** ''rūdakis mæn tęi tadadrā lili mæn yąlė'' - main interpretation: "as for the husband, he [=someone else, could be the husband's husband] has cooked for him, but it is me who eats" // other possible interpretation: "as for the husband, he [=as before] has cooked him, but it is me who eats / and I eat him [=either of them]".

** ''rūdakis mæn tadadrā sama lili yąlute'' "[my] husband has cooked, and I eat" - unlike in the sentence where "lili" is the topic, here it's explicit that the husband cooked for the speaker. The sentence ''lili mæn rūdakei tadadrā sama yąlute'' may be interpreted with the same meaning, but the topics are different: with the previous one, the conversation is supposed to continue about the husband; in the second one, it's all about the speaker. Note that the agent-trigger voice in the second verb is of vital importance: the sentence ''lili mæn rūdakei tadadrā sama yąlu'' means "it is me my husband has cooked, and [now] he eats me".

*** Another possible interpretation of ''lili mæn rūdakei tadadrā sama yąlute'' is "[my] husband has cooked for me, and now I eat", which is the same as ''lili rūdakei takædadrā sama yąlute'', but the latter is a plain neutral statement.

 

Topics also mark context: as a good example, the Chlouvānem translation of Schleicher's fable begins as: ''yanekai mæn bhadvęs udvī leila voltām mišekte, ūtarnire cūllu khuliu, spragnyire ūtrau dumbhivu no, lilu kimęe dumbhivu no''. Here "horses" is the topic and has no syntactical role in the sentence, as the subject is the agent ''voltām'' (sheep) and the three objects are the patients ''khulias'' (the pulling one) and two different ''dumbhivas'' (the carrying one). The topic makes it clear that these latter are nouns referring to horses - it would still be grammatical to use [...] ''khuliu yaneku, spragnyire ūtrau dumbhivu yaneku no, lilu kimęe dumbhivu yaneku no'', but the sentence would sound strange to Chlouvānem ears - compare the possible English translation "[...] a sheep saw one horse that was pulling a heavy wagon, one horse that was carrying a big load, and one horse that was carrying a man quickly".

 

As such, topics usually avoid repetition and anaphora, acting much like folders where different paper sheets (= the sentences) are contained, e.g. ''nāmñė mæn švai chlouvānumi maichleyutei, jariāmaile lilah, soramiya mušigėrisilīm tora bu sama ñikumi viṣam haloe līlas væl. nenėhu līlasuṃghāṇa ga camimarti haloe gṇyāvire'' - "talking about nāmñai<ref>A kind of tropical seal, iconic and sacred in Chlouvānem culture.</ref>, [they're] animals of the Southern [part of the] Chlouvānem lands, [they] live in seawater but sometimes [they can be found] in tidal lakes too, and another name for [their] cubs is "līlas". From this [name] comes the name of the capital, Līlasuṃghāṇa."

 

* ''lili mæn lunai tadarė'' "I'm preparing tea", topicalized, clearly answers a question like ''yananū ejulā darire?'' "what's going on here?".

 

====Stative cases as nominal tense====

The three stative cases of Chlouvānem (translative, exessive, essive) express nominal tense in certain situations, most notably in copulative sentence, where the translative case conveys a future meaning and the exessive a past one:

* ''lili rahėllilan'' — I am a will-be-doctor = I am studying in order to become a doctor

* ''liliā kaleya mæn gu ninejñairau ša nanū aveṣyotārire lallāmahan camimurkadhānan gīti'' — as for my best friend<ref>''kaleya'' actually is a "spiritual friend", which has a religiously charged meaning</ref>, I could not believe it, that she was the Great Inquisitor-elect <small>(note the use of the highly respectful (not translated) formula "Her Most Excellent Highness, the Great Inquisitor")</small>.

* ''tami tamiāt šulañšenat'' — he is her former husband.

The expression of tense is also notable when the expression of state refers to a cause; this is particularly common with the exessive and essive cases:

* ''saminat tamiā ḍhuvah'' — having been a child <small>(lit. "as a former child", "from being a child")</small>, (s)he remembers that.

* ''lūlunimartyęs nunūt dældāt tarliru'' — being from Lūlunimarta, I understand that language. Note that ''nunūt dældāt'' here is exessive case but only because it's an argument of the verb ''tṛlake'', without implying tense.

* ''bunān samin pa maišildente'' — as he's going to be a father <small>(lit. "as a will-be-father")</small>, he's learning about children.

Note that, tense is relative to the main verb.

====Miscellaneous uses of cases====

'''Purpose''' may be expressed not only with a subjunctive verb, but also with either a translative or a dative noun.<br/>
Translative case is used generally with a purpose directly affecting the trigger:

: '''''murkadhānan''' kaminairīveyu.'' "I am studying [in order to become] an Inquisitor."

: ''tąsь lā '''nadaidanan''' peithegde.'' "(s)he is going out with him/her to get to know him/her."

Dative case is used generally when the purpose is something else, or is the result of a subsequent (unstated) action:

: ''maivnaviṣye '''maivauti''' khloute.'' "I am searching in the dictionary [in order to find] the words."

: ''lgrån '''mayābyom''' rāmīran.'' "Grapes are harvested for wine." (Wine is not the direct result of harvesting, thus dative is used instead of translative).

'''Ablative case''' is used in order to state comparisons:

: ''dāneh '''dulmaidanų''' nanū lalla.'' "Dāneh is taller than Dulmaidana."

: ''faliā ñæltah '''tąu''' chloucæm pūnė.'' "Your sister works better than him/her."

: ''nenė naviṣya '''yaivų''' nanū ñæñuchlire.'' "This book is the most beautiful." (literally "more beautiful than all")

 

: '''''pogi''' gu cūllanagdha'' "My village does not have a velodrome." (literally "of my village is no velodrome")

 

====Use of tenses: Past vs. Perfect====

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

: ''tainā mæn yanelīsa pārṇami nacu ilakakte nainęs lā fuldek'' - "Tainā came out_PERF [of the washing room], got dressed_PERF for the day, [and] played_PAST with Naina"

Compare this other example from the same text where the last two verbs are both in the past because they're ''contemporaneous actions'':

: ''nilāmulka mæn maildomanom nañelīsa tainā lili no ṣveye primirtaram ñumirlam'' - "Nilāmulka entered_PERF the washing room [and] me and Tainā sit_PAST behind the wall [and] waited_PAST"

 

The Chlouvānem optative has two main uses: as an expression for wishes (in exclamations), and as a form roughly corresponding to the English verbs "should" and "ought to". Due to these meanings, it is also a common form of polite imperative.

 

The use of optative forms, given this explanation, is fairly clear; some examples follow.

: ''tami paṣalīleinė!'' "may (s)he survive!"

: ''yąlenų ānat kārvātiu valtfårsadreinite.'' "after a meal you ought to burn <small>(lit. "to turn on")</small> incense<ref>Burning incense after meals is a common tradition across most of the Chlouvānem world.</ref>."

 

 

Verbs like ''lelke'' (to choose <small>(stem: ''len-'')</small>), its synonym ''vāgdulke'' <small>(''vād-kul-'')</small>, or ''mulke'' (to know how to <small>(stem: ''mun-'', highest grade ablaut in the present)</small> can use invariably the subjunctive or the infinitive; usually, the subjunctive is used when there is a stated subject that is different from an impersonal phrase:

 

Positional verbs are among the most complex features of Chlouvānem grammar. In order to build verbs such as "to stay", "to be seated", and "to lie", Chlouvānem uses a base which is then prefixed with a locative particle, building verbs meaning "to stay on", "to stay under", "to stay in", and so on. There are 26 prefixes for each of the three verbs:

| Generic position ('''ta-''') || tatiāke<br/><small>(''tatimu''; ''tatimau''; ''taʔatimum'')</small> || tamirte<br/><small>(''tamertu''; ''tamirtau''; ''temirtim'')</small> || tokte<br/><small>(''tautu''; ''totau''; ''toʔutim'')</small>

| Hanging from; upside down ('''įs-''') || įstiāke || įsmirte || įsukte

| In(to), inside ('''na(ñ)-''') || natiāke || namirte || nañukte

| Outside, outwards ('''kau-''') || kautiāke || kaumirte || kavukte

| Opposite to; somewhere else ('''viṣ-''') || viṣṭyāke || viṣmirte || viṣukte

| Around ('''kami-''') || kamitiāke || kamimirte || kamyukte

| Behind ('''prь-''') || pritiāke || primirte || priukte

| In front of ('''mai-''') || maitiāke || maimirte || mayukte

| In a corner; on a border; at the limits of ('''vai-''') || vaitiāke || vaimirte || vayukte

| Next to; alongside ('''ėle-''') || ėletiāke || ėlemirte || ėlayukte

| In the center of ('''lā(d)-''') || lātiāke || lāmirte || lādukte

| On the left ('''vyā-''') || vyātiāke || vyāmirte || vyokte

| On the right ('''māha-''') || māhatiāke || māhamirte || māhokte

| Facing; towards ('''pid-''') || pindiāke || pidmirte || pidukte

| Facing inside; near the center; <small>''mot.:'' convergent</small> ('''nalь-''') || nalьtiāke || nalьmirte || naliukte

| Facing outside; far from the center; <small>''mot.:'' divergent</small> ('''vād-''') || vāndiāke || vādmirte || vādukte

|}

 

 

 

 

 

 

=====Positions without positional verbs=====

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

{| class="wikitable"

! Meaning !! Monodirectional verb (root) !! Multidirectional verb (root)

| to go, to walk || ''flulke'' (flun-) || ''peithake''

| to go with a vehicle<small> (trans.)<br/>(except small boats, bikes, and airplanes)</small> || ''vaske'' || ''pūrṣake''

| to ride, to mount <small>(trans.)</small> || ''nūkkhe'' (nūkh-) || ''nærkhake''

| to go towards, to be directed to <small>(monodir.)</small><br/>to move <small>(multidir.)</small><ref>Causative forms of both verbs are "to move" (transitive) with the mono/multidirectional distinction kept.</ref> || ''girake'' || ''dulde'' (duld-)

| to run || ''mṛcce'' || ''mālchake''

| to swim || ''lįke'' || ''lærṣake''

| to fly || ''mugdhe'' (mudh-) || ''mordhake''

| to float in the air<br/>to go with a balloon or zeppelin || ''yaṃške'' (yaṃš-/iṃš-) || ''īraške''

| to float on water<br/>to go with a small boat, to row || ''uṭake'' || ''arṭake''

| to run <small>(trans.)<br/>(e.g. river, water)</small><ref>In Chlouvānem, rivers run ''a territory'', not ''in'' nor ''through a territory''.</ref> || ''buñjñake'' || —

|-

| to pull <small>(trans.)</small> || ''khulike'' || ''kharliake''

Monodirectional verbs are used when there's movement in a single direction, or when the destination is the focus of the verb:

: ''jāyim tarlāmahom fliven'' - the girl walks to school.

This last example shows all three cases used for location complements: dative (in lative use) for directions (= ''tarlāmahom'', ''keikom'', ''kitom''), locative for where the action takes place (''jaje''), and ablative for origins (''janāyų'').

 

:: ''saminą liliā ñæltai jaje lærṣayivė'' - when they were children, my sisters regularly swam in the igarapé.

* Movement inside a specific location (in locative case, or expressed through locative trigger voice), without any specified direction:

:: ''marte peithalieh'' - we walk around the city.

:: ''jaja lærṣėrā'' - as for the igarapé, someone is swimming in there.

:: ''liliā buneya galiākinom mudhek'' - my older sister went to Galiākina by plane [but she's still there {or at least she was at the time relevant to the topic}].

 

In auxiliary constructions, monodirectional verbs are never used as habituals (infinitive + ''ñeaʔake''), while multidirectional ones are never used as progressives (impf.subj. + ''lā'' + ''gyake''):

 

Positional prefixes are used with motion verbs in order to more specifically state direction; as they get a directional meaning, most of these prefixes also have a corresponding origin prefix:

! "Lative" prefix !! "Ablative" prefix !! Meaning

| ū(b)- || yom- || Near, close

| tad- || tasi- || Attached to; on an animal

| na(ñ)- || neni- || Inside