Racao language

Orthography

A a	/a/	M m	/m/
B b	/b/	N n	/n/
C c	/ɕ/	O o	/ɔ/
Ç ç	/t͡ɕ/	P p	/p/
D d	/d/	Q q	/ʁ/
E e	/ɛ/	R r	/r/
F f	/f/	S s	/s/
G g	/g/	T t	/t/
H h*	/ɦ/	Tl tl	/t͡ɬ/
I i	/i/	U u	/u/
J j	/ʑ/	V v	/v/
K k	/k/	Y y	/j/
L l	/l/	Z z	/z/

When vowels are in sequence, they are not made into diphthongs, but pronounced separately.

*Makes preceding consonant aspirated in most cases.

Nouns

Nouns are subject to a number of inflections – firstly, the penultimate vowel is changed to “-he-” (when “a”, “u”, “o”) or “-ha-” (when “i” or “e”) to form the plural, for example “nar” becomes “nher” (duck – ducks). In several nouns, such as “zur” (tears), the singular is a sort of paucal (few) plural, e.g. “zher” means “many tears” rather than just “tears”.

Nouns are also suffixed for their “condition” – generally this refers to the subject noun, although it can also refer to certain moods. Primarily there are four of these conditions:

-          Standard – acts as itself in the subject, the unsuffixed form of the noun.

-          Primary - “I” as the subject. The suffix is “-e” for nouns ending in soft (unvoiced) consonants, but “-i” for those ending in vowels and hard (voiced) consonants.

-          Comitative – multiple subjects. These are usually listed after the verb, and can refer to either “we” or “they” – of course, it is heavily reliant on context. Ends in “-ut” with soft consonants, or “-et” with hard consonants and vowels. When distinguishing “me and you” from “me and him” or “you and him”, the noun “tluk” (“other”) is used for “him”.

-          Direct – refers to someone other than “I” being directly referred to, most often “you” or “it”. “-oy” with soft consonants and vowels, and “-ay” with hard consonants.

-          Indirect – “he”/”she”. “-i” with all consonants and vowels.

Verbs

Verbs take six tenses, denoted by suffixes and sentence order on the verbs. Sentence order 1 consists of placing the conditioned noun before the verb, while sentence order 2 consists of placing the relative article “at” before the verb, and the conditioned noun after.

	Sentence order 1	Sentence order 2
Suffix a	Hodiernal (past action that occurred “today”)	Present continuous
Suffix b	Hesternal (past action that occurred “yesterday”)	Future generic
Suffix c	Past generic	Aorist

The present continuous refers to an action that occurs once in the present, whilst the aorist takes on a more general tone (although it can be used for any tense).

Verbs take “-o” as their primary suffix (suffix a), usually after another vowel e.g. “vao” (“to give” or “to do”), “too” (“to see”, “to encounter (in a distant or stiff manner)”). Suffix b is produced by taking both vowels and changing the ending to “-ovo” e.g. “vovo”, “tovo”, and suffix c is produced by changing “-o” to “-h” (or “-l” when preceded by “-i” or “-e”).

The suffix a form is considered the same as the present participle when used in that context, and suffix b is considered the same as a past participle. Adjectives and prepositions are generally treated as subordinate verbs (explained in the “relators” section).

Irregular sentences

Of course, not all sentences can be constructed through conditioning – for example, when there is an object pronoun or no pronoun at all. Sentences without pronouns are constructed by:

-          (SO1) Subject.indirect-verb-“at”-object.standard

-          (SO2) Verb-subject.indirect-“at”-object.standard*

Sentences with only object pronouns are formed by putting the conditioned noun in the appropriate form, and then placing the particle “a” after the verb (regardless of sentence order).

Sentences with two or more pronouns require nouns to substitute the object, such as “her” being replaced with “fon” (“girl”), or “him” with “atay” (“boy”) or “tluk” (“other”).

Sentences with indirect objects are treated in many ways – most often with relators to mark the indirect object, but some common phrases may use the comitative. For example, “I give her the gift” may be rendered as “give gift I and her”, or “at vao varet fon”.

*See the relator section on “at” for more details.

Relators & numeral adjectives

Relators, or relative particles, are the third main word class, and exist to connect parts of the sentence that otherwise would fail to make sense. Often, they are used as modifiers to adjectives, marking their status as such, or linking relative articles to the main sentence.

Here is a summary list of the more important ones:

-          “ta” produces a participle from suffixes a and b (see above), by being placed between the verb and the conditioned noun

-          “at” produces a conditional form of SO1 structures when coming before the verb, but must come after the verb and nouns for this same meaning in SO2 structures.

-          “ça” comes after verbs to put them into prepositional phrases, that are subordinate to the relevant noun

-          “qa” is more comparable to “which” in English, relating to nouns

-          “ar” means “more than” with verbs, nouns and adjectives when coming before, but after means “less than” or “part of”

-          “in” comes after verbal adjectives to link them to the preceding noun

Adverbs such as “slowly” are incorporated in the comitative, where the noun “slowness” is encompassed by the conditioned noun.

Numerals from 1-5 are considered relators, but those above are verbs.

1: say
2: la
3: u
4: koy
5: am
6: hasao
7: luo
8: yeo
9: goo
10: anao