Ataši

Disclaimer! This language is still under construction and as such is not yet complete.

Introduction

Marèngil is a constructed language inspired by both Elvish and Dwarvish, languages spoken by the elves and dwarves respectively in the fictional world of Middle Earth, invented by J. R. R. Tolkien. Thus, the language is spoken by an elf-like people, but of a more hardy stock, akin to the dwarves. These elves are known as the Marên, and live in a mountainous, dry, jungle-like continent on the planet Tárìk. The continent is not much bigger than Greenland in square mileage, but is home to some 450 million people. It is very mountainous and has a large collection of waterways and cave systems. The planet could be likened to Caladan, from Frank Herbert's Dune, with very little deserts or arid, inhospitable biomes.

Phonology

IPA Consonants

	Labial	Alveolar		Post-Alveolar	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
		central	lateral
Plosive	p   b	t   d				k   g	q
Fricative	f   v	s   z	ɬ	ʃ   ʒ	x	ʁ	h
Affricate		t͡s	tɬ	t͡ʃ   d͡ʒ
Nasal	m	n		ɲ	ŋ
Tap/Flap		r
Approximant			l	j

IPA Vowels

	Front	Middle	Back
Close	i   i:		u   u:
Near-close	ɪ		ʊ
Close-mid	e   e:	ə	o   o:
Open-Mid	ɛ		ʌ
Open		a   a:

Romanization

	Labial	Alveolar		Post-Alveolar	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
		central	lateral
Plosive	p   b	t   d			k   g	q	'
Fricative	f   v	s   z	lh	sh   zh	x	rh	h
Affricate		c	tl	ch   jh
Nasal	m	n		nn	ng
Tap/Flap		r
Approximant			l	j

IPA Romanized Vowels

	Front	Middle	Back
Close	i   ï		u   ü
Near-close	ì		ù
Close-mid	e   ë	è	o   ö
Open-Mid	à		ò
Open		a   ä

Orthography

Alphabet

(In Progress)

Stress and Vowel Length

Stress in Marêngil is indicated by diacritics above the vowel of the stressed syllable. The stress is most often on the penultimate syllable, but can also occur elsewhere. Likewise, length is also denoted by diacritics. The letter "a" will be used as the placeholder letter for any of the vowels.

• a (no stress, short)
• ä (no stress, long)
• á (stressed, short)
• â (stressed, long)
• à (secondary vowel)

This last diacritic shows that the modified vowel takes on a different sound. It is never long, nor is it stressed, and appears infrequently.

Phonotactics

(In Progress)

There are many syllable structures in Marêngil, but with that comes a number of rules.

• V
• VC
• CV
• CVC
• CCV
• CCVC

Rules

• No more than two vowels can occur next to each other in a single world. (e.g.: CV+V+VCC)
• If two vowels occur next to each other, then a y sound will separate them.
• Under no circumstances should two sounds of the same manner of articulation appear adjacent to each other.
• No consonants of the same place of articulation should appear adjacent to each other, excepting central alveolar consonants.
• A fricative cannot be in the same consonant cluster an affricate or vise versa.

Morphology

Nouns

Nouns are considered to fall under the categories Concrete and Abstract, to which there are a number of subcategories. Note that there is no grammatical gender preassigned to a given noun. Certain things will take on a gender based on certain implications and information given, such as a dog known to be biologically female. But simply a dog in general will have no gender. Gender neutrality is denoted by noun ending in "-è", where a male noun will end in "-ù" and a female noun will end in "-ì." Nouns with an inherently genderless nature, such as a rock, simply end in any voiced fricative.

Concrete

• Animate (Animals, humanoids, etc.)
• Semianimate (Plants, microorganisms, bacteria, etc.)
• Inanimate (Rocks, wood, utensils, etc.)

Abstract

• Constructs of the Psyche (Emotions, morals, etc.)
• Concepts (Happiness, ideas, etc.)

The type of noun is shown in

Possession of Nouns

Possession of a thing is viewed in three ways. I thing can be entirely possessable, semi-possessable or unpossessable. An entirely possessable noun is something like a rock, or body part, anything non-sentient and with no potential of self-possession. A semi-possessable noun would be a person or other sentient being which has relation to the subject, like a family member or partner. An unpossessable noun would be something beyond possession, like a planet or force of nature. One would never say "our planet", but would instead say "the planet we live on".

Case

There are five main noun cases in Marêngil; Nominative, Accusative, Dative, Genitive and Possessed. All the cases come from pronouns; I, you, it, mine and yours respectively. At one point there were separate prepositions, but since then they have lost their individuality. All cases are based around these prepositions.

Noun Case

Case	Concrete Noun			Abstract Noun
	Animate	Semi-Animate	Inanimate	Construct	Concept
Nom.	ba(d)-	bà(d)-	b(u)-	aba(c)-	ab(l)-
Acc.	mla(d)-	mle(sh)-	ml(u)-	ama(c)-	am(l)-
Dat.	xa(d)-	xe(sh)-	x(u)-	axa(c)-	ax(tu)-
Gen.
Pos.

Locative Case

	Suffix
	N.	M.	F.
Just inside	qep-
Far inside	qëp-
Just outside	alat-
Far outside	älet-
Just above	orja-
Far above	borä-
Just below
Far below
In front of
Just behind
Far behind
Just before
Far before
Soon after
Long after
Near
Far
Facing away
Facing towards
Near adjacent
Far adjacent

Adjectives, Adverbs and Prepositions

• No distinction is made between adjectives and adverbs as they both are modifiers.
• Adjectives almost always end in a sonorant, but are not required to.
• Prepositions are always suffixed to the noun they modify via a hyphen (-).

Verbs

Tense

• An infinitive verb will always end with a voiceless stop (p, t, k).
• Verbs generally do not have any long vowels in them because of the following reason.
• The past tense is shown by a lengthening of the final syllable.
• The future tense is shown by a suffixation of -lèsh, which comes directly from the word lesh meaning "up (and out)" since the concept of time is an movement upwards.

Tense System

	INF	IMPF	PRFV
Present
Past
Future
Hypothetical
Necessitive

Syntax

Marêngil is a strictly head-initial language that acquired no changes to this structure. The word order strictly follows order of case; Nom., Acc., Dat., Loc., Gen.