Rikutsaren languages

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The **Rikutsaren** languages (*Ricutsaren*, /rikuˈt͡saren/) are the family of languages derived from and including *Ancient Rikutsaren*, a language created by The Empresses and their human compatriots in 440 AD. The languages are spoken primarily in the nation of Rikutsar. Records were thorough, the population of Rikutsar was small and, as such, Ancient Rikutsaren is remarkably well-preserved and attested for a language of the era. It is still understood by speakers of Rikutsaren today. The language remained highly inflected and agglutinative through the 10th century AD. Due to the low population, high loyalty to the monarchy, good education and efficient long-distance communication, the language remained nearly unchanged through almost the entire period, and more pronounced changes to grammar and pronunciations would not arrive until Old Rikutsaren.

## Classification

The Rikutsaren languages are fundamentally members of the far older *Lenidian* language family. Primarily derived from the *Lithic* branch, its grammar has remained largely unchanged from its alien predecessor. However, its vocabulary borrows often from human languages such as Proto-Finnic, Gallaecian, Latin, Aramaic, Sanskrit, and Proto-Nyungan. These correlate with languages encountered by The Empresses during their expedition.

## Distribution

Ancient Rikutsaren was spoken exclusively in the Archipelago, and by the end of the period speakers were living across the entirety of its land. For a long time, there were no discernable dialects, but today there are 3 distinct languages in the family, each with many dialects.

* **Rikutsaren**, the modern-day language of Rikutsar, is spoken by about 8 million people, primarily in the archipelago but also in other places in the world.
* **Swoorlac**, spoken on the island of the same name, split from Ancient Rikutsaren quite early.
* **Sornuver** is spoken on the west coast of Australia. It has only a few thousand speakers and has always been very small.
* **Ancient Rikutsaren** remains in use by the Government of Rikutsar.

In the Future, these languages will evolve into the languages (and later branches) of **Suwnov**, **Ceenuvər**, and **Rrônuəd** respectively.

## Phonology

### Vowels

 Mid
 Low

### Allophones and Diphthongs

#### Vowels

Vowels are quite common in the language. As with Modern Rikutsaren, the nucleus of a syllable can theoretically contain an unlimited number of vowels unless /i/ or /u/ occurs intervocalically. The language had many diphthongs using all the vowels except /y/.
Vowels in Ancient Rikutsaren could be classified into two categories: **Strong** and **Weak**. Strong vowels were /a/, /e/, and /o/, while weak vowels were /i/, /u/, and /y/. This system emerged due to the high prevalence of diphthongs ending in /i/ and /u/. In grammatical affixes that agree with vowels in the root, they would agree with the stronger vowel in a diphthong, even if the weak vowel is the most recent vowel.

### Stress

Penultimate syllables are always stressed, and both vowels in a diphthong were stressed if both were strong or weak vowels. In diphthongs consisting of a strong and a weak vowel, the strong vowel was always stressed, causing the weak vowel to be shortened in many cases.

## Writing System

Modern Rikutsaren is written by its native speakers and the government of Rikutsar using the Rikutsaren Script, an evolved version of the original script created for use in Ancient Rikutsar. Transcriptions of Rikutsaren into languages that use the Latin alphabet are almost always made using the Rikutsaren Orthography.

[this needs to be fleshed out moooore]

## Vocabulary

The vocabulary of Rikutsaren currently consists of nearly 1,900 words. It can be found here.

## Gender

Rikutsaren has three grammatical genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. Nouns do not have inherent gender, and it is used almost entirely in reference to people or animals. Gender affixes come immediately after the root in nouns and pronouns, but in verbs gender affixes come after mood affixes (see [mood]).

Masculine nouns have the affix **-on**, derived from the word *miedon* "man". Feminine nouns have the affix **-ur**, derived from the word *alur* "woman". Neuter nouns are unmarked.

[actually it's been hazy whether or not genders exist in Rikutsar. in Ancient Rikutsaren they may have, but in the modern language it's kind of... formal]

## Nouns and Noun Phrases

### Number

Singular nouns are unmarked. In the plural, nouns ending in vowels take the affix **-c**. For nouns ending in a consonant the rule is slightly more complicated. The most recent vowel in a root, the most recent strong vowel if part of a diphthong, (see *Vowels*) is repeated and then followed by *-c* in the plural; *raol* "monkey", *raoloc* "monkeys"; *gwir* "person", *gwiric* "people"

Any noun that refers to a group of multiple things will necessarily be plural, unless the noun refers to the group as a single unified whole (see [collective nouns] for details).

### Definiteness

Definiteness of a noun is denoted by the affix, **-e**. Indefinite nouns are unmarked. The affix occurs after the noun it modifies and also after any gender affixes.

This affix was originally used as a general "catch-all" affix for words meaning "this", as well as "it", 3rd person singular pronouns, and a variety of other grammatical constructions.

### Collective Nouns

Nouns that refer to a group of multiple things that are counted as a single unified whole are marked with the collective suffix **-ao**; *rons* "tree", *ronsao* *forest*; *niadz* "wolf", *niadzao* "pack of wolves"

Some nouns are collective by default, such as *bituf* "snow" or *chugh* "group". Referring to individual instances of these things is done by adding the count noun affix ([derivational morphology#count nouns]); *bituf* "snow", *bitufut* "snowflake"; *chugh* "group", *chughut* "element/member of a group"

### Case

Main article: Rikutsaren Noun Cases
Nouns are inflected by 8 grammatical cases. These can be grouped into 3 categories depending on how the marked noun functions in the noun phrase: Morphosyntactic cases, Relative cases, and Spatial cases. Pronouns can also be inflected by case, but for the sake of brevity they will be included under the term "noun" for this section.

Morphosyntactic cases are used to modify a noun with any one of a specific set of thematic roles within a noun phrase. Specifically they are used to mark whether a noun is an agent/experiencer (transitive/intransitive subject) or a patient/theme (direct object). There are 2 cases in this category: Nominative and Accusative.

Relative cases are used to denote nouns with other types of thematic role, specifically those of instrument and recipient/beneficiary. It also denotes *noun adjuncts*, or nouns that modify other nouns, among other things. This category overlaps with the other two often. The three cases in this category are Genitive, Instrumental, and Dative.

Spatial cases are used to denote nouns that have a spatial relation within the noun phrase, such as location, direction, or origin. The three cases in this category are Locative, Lative, and Ablative.

### Adpositions

Adpositions come after the noun, but also after any adjective that may modify it. Adpositions cannot exist in phrases that do not have nouns, and are instead represented as adverbs in such environments.

[need example]

## Pronouns

Pronouns in Rikutsaren precede their complement.

### Personal Pronouns

Personal pronouns are listed in the table below. There are unique singular and plural forms, and gendered personal pronouns are created by adding ***-on-*** (masculine) or ***-ur-*** (feminine) to the end (or in the case of 3rd person singular pronouns, the beginning). As Rikutsaren has an affix-based verbal conjugation system, there are no subject pronouns, and these pronouns do not occur on their own.

 2nd person
 3rd person

### Possessive Pronouns

Possession is marked by the Genitive case. Possessive pronouns are personal pronouns marked with the 2nd declension genitive case ending ***-i***.

### Correlative Pronouns

The correlative pronouns of Rikutsaren are remarkably orderly and consistent. They are constructed using two affixes for each axis of the table. Notably, some correlatives draw from more than two affixes depending on whether they act as a determiner, a pronoun, or an adverb. For example, for "where" words, the interrogatives use *-gai*, as do the adverbs, but the pronoun forms use *-id* instead.

## Adjectives and Adverbs

Adjectives are formed by adding the suffix *-u* to the end of a noun.Adverbs are formed by adding the suffix *-ai* to the end of a noun. In a noun-phrase the adjective always come after the noun they modify, but in a verb-phrase the adverb always comes before the verb (preserving the rule that verbs come last). For multiple adverbs or adjectives, the word *o* "and" splits them.

### Degrees of Comparison

(WIP)

The Rikutsaren language uses 2 Degrees of Comparison,

 Equative
 Negative

"veth" and "sech" are used as Adverbs of Comparison, corresponding to "so" and "not so [much]" or "very" and "not as." When referring to an amount of something, the comparative affixes become standalone in verbal environments. (ex. "I have more." *"**Veth** nemei."*).

## Verbs

Since Rikutsaren exhibits SOV alignment, verbs occur at the end of the sentence. Within a verb phrase, non-finite verbs appear last.

Verbs can be conjugated by person, tense, aspect, modality, and gender in Elder Rikutsaren. There are distinct markings for person in the singular vs. the plural, and verbs can be in the past, present, or future tense. Additionally, infinitive verb forms can be inflected for tense. Verbs typically have 438 possible forms as a result.

### Person and Number

Rikutsaren has three tenses: past, present, and future. They occur consistently across all moods and aspects, and are represented by prefix immediately before the verb root.

### Aspect

Rikutsaren has four aspects represented by suffixes on the verb:

* The **Perfective** aspect (which is unmarked) represents an action that was, is, or will be complete, no matter the tense, and also a non-habitual (generic) action. Thus it is called **complete** and **generic**.
* The **Frequentative** aspect (marked by **-tsa**) represents a **complete** action that is **habitual**.
* The **Imperfective** aspect (marked by **-wa**) represents an **incomplete** action that is **generic**, analogous to the continuous aspect in English.
* The **Habitual** aspect (marked by **-si**) represents an **incomplete** and **habitual** action. In the early notes while developing this aspect system, this was code named the "pledged" aspect because it is analogous to English phrases where someone has pledged to do something, regardless of whether or not they've begun yet.
	+ For example "I have been walking", "I am walking", and "I will be walking", where "walking" refers to a habitual exercise, would all fall under the habitual aspect.

### Modality

Rikutsaren represents modality, as it does many grammatical concepts, with a suffix. There are 6 moods:

* The **Indicative** mood (which is unmarked) is the sole realis mood in Rikutsaren. It represents a verb that is a statement of fact.
* The **Conditional** mood (marked by **-nor-**) is similar to the English conditional, and represents a verb whose validity is dependent on some condition.
* The **Subjunctive** mood (marked by **-sol-**) represents a verb which the speaker is encouraging or discouraging. Can be used as a softer form of the Imperative. Can also serve to affirm or emphasize a verb ("Did you eat?" "**I did** eat"; *"Dapas?" "Napas**sol**"*)
* The **Imperative** mood (marked by **-sur-**) represents a command or request. In Ancient Rikutsar, as is the case in modern times, the Imperative was not normally used colloquially or informally and was generally seen as authoritative, harsh, and formal.
* The **Permissive** mood (marked by **-us-**) represents a verb that is allowed or permitted by the speaker.
* The **Potential** mood (marked by **-tse-**) represents a verb that is speculated to be possible or not possible, or a verb that the subject speculates they are capable or not capable of doing. Equivalent to English "could."
* The **Epistemic** mood (marked by **-eru-**) represents a verb which is definitely possible or not possible, or a verb that the subject is definitely capable or not capable of doing. Equivalent to English "can." Generally thought to imply an intended action and can be taken as a promise.