Dundulanyä

Dundulanyä [dundulɐnjɛ], natively known as dundulanyä ḫamofa [dundulɐnjɛ ħɐmoɸɐ], is the most spoken language on the planet Eventoa (Dun.: Lelḫajāṃrya). It is the official language of the Confederation of the United Dundulanyä Republics, which makes it the main lingua franca across the two southern hemisphere continents, Lusaṃrīte - where it originated - and Jūhma.

Dundulanyä itself has a long history, being first attested about 2400 years before the present in the areas of Central Lusaṃrīte, where the Dundulanyä civilization first developed; through successive empires and religious proselytism, people and language spread across many areas of the continent - most notably Dundulanyä-ifying the north shore of the Inland Seas by the end of Classical Lusaṃrītene Antiquity. As the dominant civilization of Lusaṃrīte, the Dundulanyä spread their language to become the main lingua franca of trade and culture in most of the continent and in eastern Jūhma; the massive demographical changes brought by the epidemics that were the result of increased contact with the civilizations of the northern hemisphere effectively enabled the Dundulanyä culture to spread in areas where formerly other civilizations were dominant. By the modern and contemporary eras, a more standardized version of classical Dundulanyä remained the lingua franca among multiple peoples across Lusaṃrīte and Jūhma, and the situation remained more or less the same after the collapse of the Fifth Dundulanyä Empire and through the Three Leagues Period.

Today, Dundulanyä is the official language of the Confederation of the United Dundulanyä Republics (laḫlurayäh dundulanyäɂi lilēṣkorukṣartē śūsmurdibēṣarān), the multicultural political entity that is dominant throughout Lusaṃrīte and Jūhma; the standard language is a heavily standardized and version of the classical language, with many of the less regular forms having fallen out of use after one millennium of being essentially a L2 for the totality of its speakers; high style language and creative usage, however, still uses forms that have fallen out of use in the everyday language. Dundulanyä, along with any of the regional languages of the Confederation, is the main language for its 1,9 billion inhabitants, a number to which should be added a substantial amount of foreign users in virtually all other countries in Lusaṃrīte and Jūhma.

Both the language and the setting are still under construction: see the External history section on this page for more.

Phonology

Dundulanyä has a moderately large, but asymmetrical, vowel inventory with six short and four long vowels, along with three diphthongs and two consonants (short and long versions of the same one) that can fill the syllable nucleus.

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i iː		u uː
Close-mid	e eː		o~ɔ
Open-mid	ɛ ɛː
Open		ɐ äː
Diphthongs	aɪ̯ eɪ̯		aʊ̯
Syllabic consonants	ʀ̩ ʀ̩ː

The consonant inventory is more complex, with a pattern of “soft” and “hard” consonants traditionally recognized by classical Dundulanyä grammarians, not on a phonetic basis but starting from their relationship inside Dundulanyä morphology. In most cases, the difference is based on aspiration.

→ PoA ↓ Manner		Labials		Dentals		Retroflexes		Palatals		Velars		Laryngeals
		Soft	Hard	Soft	Hard	Soft	Hard	Soft	Hard	Soft	Hard	Soft	Hard
Nasals		m		n		ɳ		ɲ		ŋ
Stops	Unvoiced	p	pʰ	t̪	t̪ʰ	ʈ	ʈʰ	c͡ɕ	c͡ɕʰ	k	kʰ	ʔ
	Voiced	b	bʱ	d̪	d̪ʱ	ɖ	ɖʱ	ɟ͡ʑ	ɟ͡ʑʱ	ɡ~ɣ	ɡʱ
Fricatives		ɸ~f		s		ʂ		ɕ				ɦ	ħ
Approximants		ʋ		l				j					ʀ

The /pʰ/ phoneme is mostly a invention of Dundulanyä grammarians to preserve symmetry in stops; it has a separate letter in the script, but as a phoneme it is only found in the name of the letter itself and in a few words of onomatopoeic origin; the vast majority of contemporary speakers merge it with /ɸ~f/.

With the partial exception of /ħ/ and /ʀ/, words may only end in soft consonants and/or clusters of an approximant followed by a single soft stop or fricative.

Morphology

Ablaut

Dundulanyä is characterized by a complex system of vowel alternations that was inherited from its proto-language. There are, depending on definition, either nine or twelve ablaut patterns, which Dundulanyä verbal roots may belong to, in addition to those that do not undergo ablaut. The overwhelming majority of Dundulanyä verbal roots are monosyllabic, and the few bi- or polysyllabic ones are all non-ablauting.

Nominal examples:

• a/zero root: bhaṭuṣa (bhaṭ-uṣ-) "expansion": ABS bhaṭuṣa, ERG bhaṭuṣis, DAT abḍhoṣak, LOC abḍhoṣā, LOC.PL abḍhauṣēn
• e/i root: dehuṣa (deh-uṣ-) "usage": ABS dehuṣa, ERG dehuṣis, DAT dihoṣak, LOC dihoṣā, LOC.PL dihauṣēn
• a/zero root, synchronically irregular: hāṅka (haf-n-ka- < *śǝ́f-ṇ-ko-) "socket": ABS hāṅka, ERG hāṅkis, DAT iṣfaṅkak, LOC iṣfaṅkā, LOC.PL iṣfāṅkēn

A substantial part of nouns in Dundulanyä is derived from verbal roots, and these may have ablaut patterns throughout their declension as in the examples above, or the derivational suffix may require the root to be in a certain ablaut grade (which is then a fixed stem throughout the declension). However, as a general rule, the majority of nouns relating to flora, fauna, and many elements of the natural world are not formed from verbal roots and do not show ablaut.

Nouns

(TBA: introduction, declension)

The consensus among linguists is that Dundulanyä does not have grammatical gender or noun classes; however, it should be noted that natural gender is shown on some nouns referring to humans, and furthermore there are some verbs that have a complementary distribution - most notably the existential "to be" - where one verb can only be used for inanimate subjects and another only for animate ones; in a few cases, the animate "class" is also split between humans and non-humans. None of this, however, is reflected in morphology.

Dundulanyä declensions are primarily categorized by whether they refer to nouns that undergo ablaut or not; secondarily, they are categorized by their stem type.

Ablauting declensions are all unproductive (although some of the derivational suffixes that form ablauting nouns are still productive) and include the following ones:

• Root nouns
• -e declension
• -a declension
• Zero-ending nouns with vowel suffixes (-u, -i, -ṛ).

Non-ablauting declensions are the following ones:

• -e declension (first consonant stem declension)
• Zero-ending nouns with stems ending in liquids (-l or -r), nasals (-m or -n) or the glottal stop (-h) (second consonant stem declension)
• Nouns with vowel-final stems.
  • The extremely common -a declension is a particular case, as it behaves in some forms like a consonant stem declension, and like a vowel stem in others. Both for ablauting and non-ablauting declensions, -a and -e declensions most likely marked some kind of noun class distinction in the proto-language, which has been lost in the evolution of what became Dundulanyä.

Bound forms

Dundulanyä nouns have a further, non-case form, which is called the bound form by native grammarians. For nouns whose stems end in vowels, it is usually identical to the absolutive; for other nouns, it is usually the endingless stem (with some exceptions). It is used when the noun is the predicate of a copular verb; when the noun is the possessor (a form syntactically reminescent of the Afroasiatic construct state); and when governed by many adpositions.

In the name of the language, dundulanyä ḫamofa, for example, dundulanyä is a bound form that however has the same form as the absolutive, due to the noun having a stem ending in a vowel. Some more examples of bound forms:

• imut naviṣyaɂe "the teacher's book", imut being the bound form of imute "teacher", and naviṣya "book" being marked with the 3SG possessive ɂe.
• nūrei dvārmaɂe "the child's room", nūrei being the bound form of nūrya "child".
• tätebu ū līv "my home is a flat", where līv, bound form of līve "apartment", is part of a copular structure.
• dhomiyān surē "without hope", where the postposition surē "without" forces the noun dhomiyāna to assume its bound form dhomiyān.

Declension tables

1st ablauting declension (-e)

	helk-iḫ- "hue, shade"
	Singular	Dual	Plural
Absolutive	helkiḫe	helkiḫive	hailkiḫi
Vocative	hailkiḫ
Ergative	helkiḫis	helkiḫīyat	hilkeḫaih
Dative	hilkeḫak	helkiḫīma	hilkaiḫumi
Ablative	hilkeḫū	helkiḫeṣu	hilkaiḫenī
Locative	hilkeḫē	helkiḫehe	hilkaiḫēn
Instrumental	hilkeḫī	hilkeḫeiś	hilkaiḫenīka
Translative	hilkeḫein	helkiḫīma	hilkaiḫīt
Exessive	hilkeḫoś	helkiḫeṣu	hilkaiḫau
Essive	hilkeḫeṃs	helkiḫehe	hilkaiḫeyäh
Bound form	helkiḫ	helkiḫiv	hailkiḫ

Non-ablauting consonant stem 1st declension

	imut- "teacher"
	Singular	Dual	Plural
Absolutive	imute	imutive	imuti
Vocative	imut
Ergative	imutis	imutīyat	imutaih
Dative	imutak	imutīma	imutumi
Ablative	imutū	imuteṣu	imutenī
Locative	imutē	imutehe	imutēn
Instrumental	imutī	imuteiś	imutenīka
Translative	imutein	imutīma	imutīt
Exessive	imutoś	imuteṣu	imutau
Essive	imuteṃs	imutehe	imuteyäh
Bound form	imut	imutiv	imutī

Verbs

Dundulanyä has generally a split-S morphosyntactic alignment, however allowing fluid-S marking for multiple verbs. There are two different sets of verbal terminations, one for patient agreement and another for agent agreement.

Agent-agreement terminations

		1SG	2SG	3SG	1DU	2DU	3DU	1PL	2PL	3PL
Indicative	Present	-if		-ad				-ēm	-īvi	-āhai
	Perfect	-am	-es	-a			-a			-a
	Past
	Frequentative	-ū		-ī		-ī			-ī
Subjunctive

Numerals

Dundulanyä has a duodecimal numeral system.

Digit12	Base 10	Cardinal	Ordinal	Collective	Distributive	Adv./Multiplicative	Fractionary
0	0	'		—			—
1	1	emibe emi	rählälu
2	2	irau	hälinaike
3	3	ḍola	ḍolesi
4	4	nälte	nältaisi
5	5	śulka	śulkesi
6	6	ūṃse	ūṃsaisi
7	7	chīka	chīcesi
8	8	mbula	mbulesi
9	9	kuñje	kuñjaisi
ᘔ	10	tālda	tāldesi
Ɛ	11	ṣūḍen	ṣūṇḍisi
10	12	mūmai	mūmaisi

External history

Dundulanyä is a conlang project that I “officially” started in early December 2021 (coincidentally around the fifth anniversary since I started Chlouvānem), although it and its goals are, to a large extent, the conflation of multiple projects that I sporadically worked on for most of 2021:

• A long process of “refinement” of Chlouvānem – that happened offline, so it was never reflected in any edit on the wiki pages here – by eliminating or changing some quirks that had formed over time and that had brought me to a standstill in working on that conlang by late 2020. Ideas for the refinement started from nominal morphology but then they eventually snowballed to the point it was impossible to implement them without basically starting the conlang anew;
• A radical reboot of Tameï that was meant to give it an a priori language family in a slightly changed conworld setting (although still on an alternative Earth); this was the language I originally created the glottonym Dundulanyä for;
• Various unnamed sketchlangs, mostly attempts at Hurro-Urartian diachronic conlanging, that were the results of a general interest in Ancient Near Eastern languages as a side-effect of my work on Lifashian (my “conlang of choice” for most of 2021).

Dundulanyä is meant to be the first conlang for a sort of reboot of Calémere – Eventoa – as, much like in Chlouvānem itself, there had come to be quite a few things in and about Calémere that I wasn’t that sure of keeping, but changing them would have meant to change so many things about the conworld that depended on them. Eventoa, as of now (March 28, 2022) is a WIP conworld about which I'm still adding and discarding ideas nearly every time I work on it, so there’s little to be written about it – but it eventually will incorporate a few elements of Calémere. Dundulanyä will play a role in Eventoa vaguely similar to the one Chlouvānem had in Calémere, although unlike earlier conworld reboots I have decided not to trash everything away (hence why I chose a different name for Eventoa), keeping eight years’ worth of documentation about Calémere and five years’ worth about Chlouvānem intact.

Compared to Chlouvānem, Dundulanyä is going to tone down somewhat the Sanskrit and particularly the Lithuanian and Japanese influences, while being more influenced by PIE itself, Hurrian, Urartian, Elamite, Anatolian languages, and the Semitic and Turkic languages as a whole.