Sahnalal

**Sahnnalal** is the native language of the **Sahnavey** people native to **Gwanoi.** It translates to "The Tongue of the Stars".

## Sayings

*Kani Hakenokeno — "*Kindness of The Alligator-Folk". Being unnecessarily cruel, especially if unremorsefully.

*Þama Embi! —* "Spears low!". Traditional battle cry.

## Additional information

Word order is VSO, and analytic with respect to nouns, but synthetic with respect to verbs. A subject must be followed by an adjective or an object. if a verb refers to the subject as both subject and object, the subject is dropped and only the objective form exists. Plurals are formed by adding a terminal "-a" to a noun, even if it already ends in "a". Objects in a sentence add the suffix "-e", and will drop any terminal "a"'s. If a plural noun is the object in the sentence, it retains its plural "a", thus forming the suffix "ae".

Possessive pronouns are considered adjectives and follow adjective rules. Similarly, adverbs are treated as adjectives for the noun or verb they refer to—and so come immediately after them—but take the suffix "-en". While Sahnalal used to simply demarcate adjectives by position in a sentence, adding a terminal "-i" suffix is now ubiquitous. Multiple adjectives follow a hierarchy similar to English (ie. A "red steel car" is different from a "steel red car").

* There are "present" and "non-present" tenses. The verb prefix "Su" denotes recent non-present, and "Si" denotes non-recent, non-present.
* Past and future are distinguished by the verb prefix "ka" (to go), which denotes future.
* The non-recent future is rare, and is often used only in reading fate in the stars.
* If a verb is continuous (eg. "I am sleeping", or "I was sleeping"), it takes the prefix "a".
* Conditional verbs are prefixed by "Do", negative by "Ga", and imperative by "Na".

Verb prefixes always take this order:

Mood - negative - Tense - recent- Aspect - verb

Thus, "if I will not be sleeping" is "Do-ga-ka-su-a-hon".

Additionally, there exists and sort-of vocative/infinitive prefix used only in poetic situations; "Le".

Nouns can be formed into verbs by adding an "a" suffix where not already present, and if present, changing the "a" to a "u". Similarly, nouns can be formed from verbs by dropping the terminal vowel, or adding an "o" if it ends in a consonant. This can be done to conjugated verbs as well. For example, "to have had kept" — "siÞapen" can become something which had been kept as "Siþapeno". Note that because this is now an adjective/noun, the first letter is capitalized, rather than following verb-rules where prefixes are not capitalized. Adding an "i" to the end of a noun can be used to make an adjective. The superlative is formed by adding "et" as a suffix.

Sahnavey culture rejected gender generations ago, and male and female pronouns are used specifically to refer to male and female bodies when context demands it, and as such are generally considered vulgar. Originally, “Tin” referred to a member of the genderless priestly caste, but as time went on and they became more respected, it became considered vulgar to refer to anyone by their body’s appearance. As such, Sahnalal has lost it’s gendered pronouns, but retains “Xin'' and “Tuf '' for when biology demands it.

## Wordlist

### Pronouns

Sahnala possesses Subject, Object, and Possessive pronouns. Other cases are expressed through word order and prepositions.

 Thou/Thee/Thy
 He or She/Him or Her/His or Her
 We/Us/Our (excl.)
 We/Us/Our (incl.)
 You/You/Your
 They/Them/Their

## Numbers

The Sahnavey counting system is base-12, and uses two rhyming couplets of six to build the base numbers. Ordinals and fractionals are formed by adding the genitive prefix: "ha".