Sintsiran

Sintsiran
dánnta sínsireka
Created by	User:RoTM94
Language family	Indo-European Sintsiric Sintsiran

The Sintsiran language (Sintsiran: dánnta sínsireka) is a language spoken by the Sintsiran people, a nationless people living on the Baltics, Eastern and Central Scandinavia, and parts of Central Europe. It is the sole surviving language of the Sintsiric branch of the Indo-European family. The language has a vocabulary that is inherited from Proto-Indo-European, along with words borrowed from Proto-Slavic, Proto-Germanic, Latin, and Koine Greek. This language can be written using the Sintsiran script or the Latin script.

Sintsiran retains many features of Proto-Indo-European, thus there are some similarities between this language and Latin, Ancient Greek, Lithuanian, and Sanskrit. Many have cited Sintsiran as one of, if not, the hardest Indo-European language to learn and be fluent in.

Vocabulary linked here

Etymology

The word "Sintsiran" comes from the name of the lands of the Sintsiran people in Russian, Синцира (Sincira), which comes from the word in Sintsiran, Sínsirā, which in turn is comprised of three words: se (self), ins- (people, tribe), and íra (land).

History

The Sintsiran language evolved from Proto-Indo-European through the Sintsiric branch. Its sister language became extinct from the 16th to the 20th century, making Sintsiran the sole surviving language of this branch. It is a satem language, like the Slavic languages, but the resulting sibilants became palatalized and then approximated: (ǵ, ḱ > /ʒ/, /ʃ/ > /j/) and (ǵʰ > /ʒʰ/ > /hj/). For example, hîdat evolved from P.I.E ǵʰewdeti.

Sintsiran is conservative compared to most other Indo-European languages, retaining more features and having a slower evolution.

Phonology

Consonants

Consonant phonemes

		Labial	Dental	Velar / Palatal
Nasal		m	n	ŋ*
Plosive	voiceless	p	t	k
	voiced	b	d	g
Fricative	voiceless	f	s	ç*, x
	voiced	v	z
Other		w	l, r	j

• /ŋ/ is an allophone of /n/ when followed by a velar consonant.
• /ç/ is an allophone of /x/ when followed by "e" or "i".

Vowels

The Sintsiran language has the basic five vowels: /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, and /u/. There are long and short vowels.

Orthography

Long vowels are marked with a macron (ā). Stressed short vowels are marked with an acute accent (á). Stressed long vowels are marked with a circumflex (â).

The sounds /j/ and /w/ are represented by "i" and "u" respectfully, making both letters semivowels.

Because the sound /ʃ/ is not native to Sintsiran, loanwords originally containing this sound get borrowed as as "si" or "s". For example, German Schärpe became siérpa, and French douche became dúsia.

Like Greek, any word with two or more syllable must indicate stress in the orthography.

Grammar

Nominals

Sintsiran nouns have four cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, and dative. It also retained all three genders from Proto-Indo-European: masculine, feminine, and neuter. Adjectives are declined by case and gender. There are six different declensions, or broad patterns to decline a noun or adjective.

First Declension

The first declension is only applicable to nominals of the feminine gender. This declension has short-stem declension (where the final vowel is short) and long-stem declension (where the final vowel is long). The difference between the two occurs in the singular inflection, and the plural inflection remains the same.

short-stem

Case	singular	plural
nominative	-a, -e	-ēs
accusative	-am, -em	-ēs
genitive	-as, -es	-ēm
dative	-ī	-ōs

Examples:

• úga (river)
• fláne (fur)

long-stem

Case	singular	plural
nominative	-ē, -ō	-ēs, -ōs
accusative	-ām, -uām	-ēs, -ōs
genitive	-ās, -uās	-ēm, -ōs
dative	-ēi, -ōi	-ōs, -ūs

Examples:

• téllē (girl)
• iûnō (cheek)

Second Declension

The second declension is only applicable to nominals of the masculine and neuter genders. This declension is susceptible to root mutations. In the following charts, the asterisk (*) will mark areas where the root mutation happens if it occurs. In adjectives, the feminine counterpart is the first declension's short-stem declension with the root mutation. Root mutations only happens in masculine nouns and adjectives

Masculine nouns and adjectives

Case	singular	plural
nominative	-(s)	*-ūs
accusative	*-u	*-ōs
genitive	-(s)e	*-am
dative	*-i	*-ōs

Examples:

• boks (plural bókūs) (hook)
• īf (plural îfūs) (horse)
• vlōs (plural vlúgūs) (wolf) [has a root mutation]
• nēl (plural nélūs) (cheese) [has a root mutation]

Neutral nouns

Case	singular	plural
nominative	-u	-e
accusative	-u	-e
genitive	-e	-am
dative	-i	-ōs

Example:

• mállu (plural málle) (hammer)

Neutral adjectives

Case	singular	plural
nominative	‡-u	*-e
accusative	*-u	*-e
genitive	-(s)e	*-am
dative	*-i	*-ōs

‡ If the masculine singular inflection ends with an -s:

• If it is after a vowel, replace the -s with a -u.
• If it is after a consonant, insert a -u after the mutated form of the root.

Examples:

• muls (neutral sg. múldu, neutral pl. múlde) (soft)
• vrōs (neutral sg. vrōu, neutral pl. vróve) (heavy)

Other Declensions

The fourth declension is the analog of the first declension's long stem, making it the last "normal" declension. It does not have any mutations like the second declension.

4th declension, masculine

Case	singular	plural
nominative	-ō, -ū	-ēs, -ōs
accusative	-ōm, -ūm	-ōs, -ūs
genitive	-ōi, -ūm	-ām, -uām
dative	-ēi, -ōi	-ōs, -ūs

Examples:

• téllō (boy)
• sûnū (son)

4th declension, neuter

Case	singular	plural
nominative	-ōm, -ūm	-ē, -ō
accusative	-ōm, -ūm	-ē, -ō
genitive	-ōi, -ūm	-ām, -uām
dative	-ēi, -ōi	-ōs, -ūs

• ênōm (grain)
• díllūm (tear)

Verbs

Verb conjugation has a higher degree of complexity than nominal declension. There are many things that influence the conjugation of a verb:

• Voice: active, passive
• Tense: present, perfect, pluperfect (only in passive), imperfect, future
• Mood: indicative, subjunctive, imperative
• Person: I, you (singular), he/she/it, we, you (plural), they

This does not include auxiliary conjugations, with an auxiliary verb. The infinitve form of verbs is -ne. Similarly, vowel mutations exist in almost every verb. There are 10 general vowel mutation patterns called classes, which arise from the different grades of vowels in Proto-Indo-European. There are also subclasses within classes. Like Latin and German, verbs usually come at the end of sentences.

Examples of mutation classes

P.I.E grade	(e)	(ē), (ō)	(o)	(∅)	Example verb
Class 1c	i	ā	e	i	língne
Class 4a	e	ā	o	i	némne
Class 6a	a	ā	o	o	tángne

There are 6 different conjugation patterns based on the thematicity and aspect the Proto-Indo-European root verb the conjugation is based on. The 2nd and 3rd are most common, while the 6th is the least common.

There are also many different consonant changing patterns as shown in the table below. An apostrophe indicates a deletion.

All consonant changes

-	1-sg. pres.	3-sg. pres.	2-sg. perf.	3-sg. perf.	pass. participle	supine
b	límba	limbat	lāmps	lāmpst	lémbzō	lembt
	sómba	sombt	sōm's	sōm'st	sóm'zō	som't
b/f	gâba	gâbat	gāfs	gāfst	gâbzō	gāft
b/v	póba	póbat	pō's	pō'st	póvdō	povt
d	hîda	hîdat	hess	hēzt	hôzdō	hōzt
g	stéga	stégat	stāks	stākst	stózō	stoht
	línga	lingt	lānks	lānkst	língzō	lingt
h	pâha	pā't	pē's	pē'st	pá'tō¹	pa't
p	lîpa	lîpat	lēps	lēpst	lôpsō	lōft
p/f	sîpa	sîpat	siāfs	siāft	siêpsō	siēft
r/z	kêra	kêrat	kess	kēzt	kírdō	kirt

¹ The -dō ending turns into a -tō through the h.

Participles

There are many participles that come from a verb. Using stégne (to cover) as an example, the participles are:

• stégand (covering) (active present participle)
• stâkstaks (having covered) (active perfect participle)
• stózō (covered) (passive perfect participle)
• stégnedru (which is to cover) (active future participle)
• stózien (which is to be covered) (passive future participle)

Prepositions

Prepositions are commonly attached to verbs through corresponding prefixes. Examples include:

• ā (to) + vêtene (glow, shine) → āvêtene (illuminate)
• iom (with) + pêsne (split) → iompêsne (share)
• ān (on) + kénne (precede, prevail) → ānkénne (begin, start)

The prefixes change depending on the starting letter of the root verb:

Changes in prefix depending on start of root.

Preposition	b, p	d, g, k, t	Vowels	f, v	h	l	m	n	r	s, z
ā	ās-	ās-	ād-	ā-	ā-	ā-	ā-	ā-	ā-	ā-
ān	ām-	ān-	ān-	ān-	ān-*	al-	ān-	an-	ar-	ān-
dôpi	dō-	dō-	dōp-	dō-	dōp-*	dōp-	dō-	dō-	dōp-	dōp-
dúka	du-	du-	duk-	du-	du-	du-	du-	du-	du-	du-
fro	fro-	fro-	fr-	fro-	fro-	fro-	fro-	fro-	fro-	fro-
his	his-	his-	his-	hi(s)¹-	his-*	hi-	his-	his-	hi-	hi-
in	im-	in-	in-	in-	ī-	il-	im-	in-	ir-	ī-
iom	iom-	ion-	iom-	iō-	iō-	iō-	iō-	iom-	iō-	iō-
náti	na-	na-	nat-	na-	nat-*	nal-	na-	na-	nar-	na-
pas	pas-	pas-	pas-	pā-	pas-*	pā-	pas-	pas-	pā-	pā-
pári	pri-	pri-	par-	pri-	par-*	pri-	pri-	pri-	pri-	pri-
úpar	ū-	ū-	up-	ū-	up-*	uf-	uf-	uf-	uf-	uf-

* The initial "h" in the root is removed.

¹ The (s) is included if the root word does not start with a consonant cluster.

Syntax

Sintsiran generally has a subject-object-verb word order, although because of its use of cases, this order is not strictly followed. Adjectives also typically come after nouns.

Ī

3SG.MASC

pâliu

book-ACC

giûrōm

green-ACC

lásund

read-ing

et.

be-3SG.PRES.

Ī pâliu giûrōm lásund et.

3SG.MASC book-ACC green-ACC read-ing be-3SG.PRES.

'He is reading a green book.'

When asking questions, speakers will often swap the word order, typically employing verb-subject-object or object-verb-subject word order.

Klāpst

steal-3SG.PERF

to

the-MASC.NOM

klôpi

fox-NOM

te

the-PL.NEUT.ACC

ágnō?

berry-PL.ACC

Klāpst to klôpi te ágnō?

steal-3SG.PERF the-MASC.NOM fox-NOM the-PL.NEUT.ACC berry-PL.ACC

'Did the fox steal the berries?'

Numbers

Based on different numbers to describe a quantity of a noun, different cases of the noun are used. All negative numbers use the genitive plural.

Numbers and cases using dru (tree)

Case	Numbers	Examples
Nominative singular	0, 1	1 dru, 0 dru
Nominative plural	2-5, multiples of 10 up to 50, all other numbers	3 drúō, 123 drúō
Genitive singular	6-9, 11-19, 21-29, 31-39, 41-49, 51-99, all other multiples of 10	6 drúes, 120 drúes
Genitive plural	multiples of 100	300 drúām, 10,000 drúām

The numbers themselves also decline for gender and case, but when used as a modifier and not as a noun, the nominative case is always used. The rules in the table above never apply to numbers.

• Gétur nárgūs ga gétir uāns se iâgan fro góio ūtâs náres sténe. Pápir ā tos ūtâuōs smóksot.
  • Four (masc.) men and four (fem.) women meet to make eight (masc.) people. A letter was delivered to the eight. (dative)

Examples

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 1

Sárō hēm in súinota ga déstrake mútōm ga trópōm nīdídē. Iom krâzdim ga iomuísta pāflidídē ga fro inalô in toss frátrentas áinese fīt.

• All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Schleicher's Fable

Uína ōi iom na vlânas îfōs spāst. Uín vróvu uêidru díket, alô mêiu ōns párit, ga alô náram dîok uívit. Ta ōi tos îfōs pēst: "Men iērd se pīt pas gu spéia gu nār îfōs áiat." Âmi, tus îfūs ti ôiēi pânat: "Hiaví. Nōs to iērd se pīt gómi spéios gu to dambóti-nār vlânam uínas ōis frouâzt ā pétēi uóstiēi fro se, ga ta ōi nēm vlânas se īstêt." Ta indôm-hiavêistaka ōi in ântsi âmi pōgt.

• A sheep with no wool saw some horses. One pulled a heavy wagon, another bore a big load, and another carried a man quickly. The sheep said to the horses: "My heart hurts that I see a man driving horses." Then the horses said: "Listen. Our hearts pain hurt when we see a man, the master, turn a sheep's wool into a warm garment for himself, and the sheep is left with no wool. The sheep, having heard that, then fled into the field."

MORE TO COME!