Mifkonian

Mifkonian is the language spoken by the people of Mifkotunaal.

## Phonology

The following is the IPA chart of all sounds in Mifkonian. In the parentheses after each sounds is the romanization, or how it will be typed out using the english alphabet, and in this wiki. For example, the word cot, if spelled using Mifkonian romanization, would look like kaat. For information on how to pronounce each sound, check https://ipachart.com. Note: The chart shows ŋ as being romanized as "ing." This is wrong, it is romanized "ng." It also shows i being romanized as "i" when it is actually romanized as "i".

### Phonotactics

Mifoknian allows for two different syllable shapes, C(C)V, and C(C)VC, meaning syllables always start with up to two consonants, which is followed by a vowel, which can be followed by another consonant, but isn't always. (A syllable cannot end with two consonants). The language allows for multiple consonants to occur in a row, to a max of two, unless one of the consonants is a glottal stop, in which case the max is one. If a word would have 3 or more consonants in a row, only the ones in the second syllable are included(For example, a word with the syllables [Kaap] and [tchki] would become Kaatchki). If a word would have a glottal stop next to a consonant, the other consonants are removed or ignored (a word with the syllables [Kaapk] and [-i] would become Kaa-i). Note: The words kaatchki and kaa-i are not real words in Mifkonian, but simply groups of syllables used to show examples). Words cannot start with multiple consonants in a row, and cannot end with a consonant. In addition, the glottal stop can only occur at the beginning of a syllable, and cannot be at the beginning of a word, and the velar nasal (ng) cannot be at the beginning of a word or a syllable.

In Mifkonian the stressed syllable is always the third syllable, unless the word contains a glottal stop, in which case the syllable containing the glottal stop is stressed. If the word has less than three syllables, the first one is stressed.

## Syntax

Mifkonian has an SVO word order, meaning that sentences follow the order Subject, verb, object. (To describe a person siing an animal, it would be "tsong thhonu thaag," ignoring verb tense). Mifkonion adjectives are tied strongly to nouns, and instead of appearing as separate words before or after the noun, are attached the nouns as suffixes. So the sentence "The person sees the big animal" would become "Tsong thhonu thaagfed." Prepositions, (or rather, postpositions) are given a similar treatment, being suffixed onto the end of the nouns they modify. The postposition is always after the other adjectives suffixing the noun. The sentence "the man is on the rock" would become Tsongnek tsu vaak. (Literally: man on is rock). Possession is also treated as an adjective, and similarly suffixed onto other words. Possession always happens after adjectives but before postpositions, and the possessor can have its own adjectives also attached. For example, the man's animal would become "thaagtsong", the man's big animal would become "thaagfedtsong", and the big man's big animal would become "thaagfedtsongfed." The sentence "the big man's big animal sat on the rock" would be "Thaagfedtsongfednek dangu vaak."

## Dictionary

To prevent this wiki from becoming overly long, I have decided to keep the dictionary in this document instead - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1\_13ehPy1wIevf0KteaT\_onvOKfrR8iCD8R0UVX1y9c4/edit?usp=sharing