Caseic language

Caseic is the most common language of the Caseic Archipelago, and is the official language in most states therein. It is subdivided into three dialects: the Southern Dialect, which is considered standard in the Caseic Federation; the Northern Dialect, which is considered standard in the Greater Nayela Union and Prefichi; and the Esiga Dialect, which is considered standard in Esiga.

History

During the 600s TT, a pidgin trade language used in Ibe-Jibin, Ibe-Nacha, and Framaja-Nayela began to form, and slowly become more common. In the 500s TT, it was standardised into a form known as Standard Weatherplague Caseic. This standard form began to be used as an official language of the Nacha Republic and Chacya Kingdom, especially for the purpose of trade. As travel throughout the Caseic Archipelago became easier with the development of new technology, the language spread to the Cajia Kingdom.

With the rise of the Caseic Federation, the Caseic language became the official language of the whole archipelago, with other languages diminishing.

Phonology

Consonants
	Labial	Coronal	Dorsal
Nasal stop	m	n
Plosive	p b	t	k g
Affricate		t͡ʃ d͡ʒ
Fricative	f	s
Approximant	w~ɥ	ɹ	j (w~ɥ)

Vowels
	Front	Central
Close	i	ʉ
Mid	e~ɛ	ɞ~ə ɝ
Open	a
Diphthongs	ae, œy, ei

/ɝ/ may be realised as [ɛɹ] by some speakers

Orthography

Caseic script

Caseic is commonly written in the Caseic script, which is written from right-to-left in blocks. The script is similar to an abugida, where the most dominant shape in each block represents the consonant starting a syllable, and smaller markings represent the vowel that follows that consonant. Where a consonant is not followed by a vowel, it is marked with the null-vowel marker. In some cases, a block may include a consonant in the coda (this is most often the case with /m/ or /n/).

The Caseic script does not typically place spaces between words. Some particularly common words are written with logographs rather than spelled using syllable blocks, such as Ibe ("city") or Fiwa ("across"). Logographs take up the same amount of space as a syllable block. Some words are marked with determinatives. Determinatives are purely orthographic, not corresponding to sound. They are used as a disambiguator, or to classify the type of word. For example, human names have a human name determinative written after them, which can be useful to clarify that a word is a name, rather than a common noun. Like logographs, determinatives take the same amount of space as a syllable block.

It is common for long Caseic texts to keep lines of syllable blocks aligned, so that there are the same amount of blocks in each line. This gives the text a uniform appearance.

In some cases, such as for signage or to save space, Caseic can be written vertically, from top to bottom. Here, syllable blocks look the same as they would in horizontal text, but blocks are placed on top of one another, rather than next to one another.

Punctuation

Punctuation marks in the Caseic script

Although the Caseic script does not typically put space between words, there are some cases where marking word boundaries is critical for reducing ambiguity, such as in legal text or where the word boundaries cannot be determined by context. The most common way to separate words in these cases is to use an appropriate determinative after the first word. A less common method is to use a small break, which is placed between the words. This indicates that the words are separate, and also saves space.

The Caseic script also includes punctuation marks. The oldest of these is the full break, a horizontal line which indicates a break between sections of a text. Later, the first break was developed to represent a break within a section, as a kind of breathing mark. The second break was developed more recently, to indicate a longer breath than the first break. As paper is becoming a less scarce resource, the full break is falling out of use in favour of splitting text into paragraphs.

The second break is most commonly used in newspaper headlines, as a way of intentionally emphasising specific parts of the headline. As a result of this use of the second break, the first break has been used in newspapers to represent a shorter breathing mark, with the full break being repurposed to separate sentences. It is also used in the scripts of theatrical plays to separate the name of a character from the lines they speak.

Romanisation

This is the orthography used to represent Caseic on this wiki.

Romanisation
Letter	Sound	Notes
a	a
ae	ae~aj
ai	øy
b	b
br	bɹ
bw	bˠw
c	k
ch	t͡ʃ
cr	kɹ
cy	kj
e	ɛ
ei	ei~ej
er	ɝ~ɛɹ
f	f
g	g
gr	gɹ
gy	gj
h	h	Only used in transcriptions of Esiga Caseic
i	i~y
j	d͡ʒ
l	l	Only appears in Northern and Esiga dialects
m	m
n	n
o	ɞ~ə
p	p
pr	pɹ
r	ɹ
s	s
sw	sw
t	t
u	ʉ
w	w~ɥ
y	j

With respect to sounds, tildes indicate phonetic variation, e.g. ⟨w⟩ is realised as /w/ before ⟨a⟩ or ⟨o⟩ but as /ɥ/ before ⟨i⟩.

Hyphens are used to indicate separate components in compound nouns, e.g. Ibe-Jibin ("Jibin city"), or to indicate broken diphthongs, e.g. naje-in ("eatery"). Apostrophes indicate clitic forms of pronouns.

Grammar

Nouns

Nouns have case and number indicated by particles. Different particles are used for common and proper nouns.

Common nouns
Case	Singular	Plural	Mass
Ergative	framoc	framoc cya	framoc am
Absolutive	ac framoc	ac framoc cya	ac framoc acha
Genitive	sa framoc	sa framoc am	sa framoc am
Dative	cri framoc	cri framoc acha	cri framoc acha

Proper nouns
Case	Singular/Mass	Plural
Ergative	Casi	Casi am
Absolutive	cai Casi	uc Casi acha
Genitive	sa Casi	sa Casi am
Dative	cra Casi	cori Casi cya

Particle combination

Where two particles would be adjacent, they are typically combined.

*Churog cya ac sweri acha panameri.

→ Churog cyac sweri acha panameri.

"The churgs eat some mushrooms"

Pronouns

Caseic has the following pronouns:

Pronouns
Person	Ergative	Absolutive	Genitive	Dative
First person singular	jari	jae	jawe	jai
First person plural/mass excluding listener	jafo	jac	jafu	japa
First person plural/mass including listener	jari	jaec	jawu	jabri
Second person singular	bric	brec	bruc	prac
Second person plural	amai	amec	amu	ama
Third person singular	gra	grac	gruj	graj
Third person plural	fo	fec	fuj	faj
Third person mass	po	pec	puj	paj

Unlike genitive nouns, genitive pronouns appear before the noun they modify.

Necsa sa nagraj am

"The horses' struggle"

Jafu necsa

"Our struggle [not including you]"

Some pronouns have clitic forms: absolutive clitics attach to verbs, genitive clitics attach to nouns.

Clitic pronouns
Person	Absolutive	Genitive
First person singular	ji'	ja'
Second person singular		pra'
Second person plural/mass		a'
Third person singular	gra'	gru'
Third person plural	fe'	fu'
Third person mass	pe'	pu'

These clitic forms are used when there is no word between the pronoun and the word it would attach to.

*Nerjai sa jawe nagraj ac yibuwec gefroc ipen it eyana.

→ Nerjai sa ja'nagraj ac yibuwec gefroc ipen it eyana.

"My horse's goose had an excuse to leave the building."

Verbs

Verbs in Caseic are inflected for tense and aspect. Caseic has four tenses: distant past, near past, present, and future. Caseic has two aspects: gnomic and episodic. The gnomic aspect is used for general statements that things happen, whereas the episodic aspect is used for specific instances of things happening. Caseic has two sets of verb conjugations: -am verbs and -en verbs. In the indicative mood, their conjugations are thus:

Conjugation of -am verbs (e.g.: *panam*, "eat, consume")
	Distant past	Near past	Present	Future
Gnomic	panamte	panom	panam	panamche
Episodic	panamte	panomeri	panameri	pan

Conjugation of -en verbs (e.g.: *conen*, "wash")
	Distant past	Near past	Present	Future
Gnomic	conante	conun	conen	panenche
Episodic	conante	conana	conanec	con

The particle it is used with the gnomic present form of a verb to form an infinitive (e.g. panam it "to consume"). The particle aiya is used for the imperative mood:

Jari ac fratoc acha biren "I write books" (Connotatively, "I am an author")

→ Ac fratoc acha biren aiya "Write books!" (Connotatively, "Become an author!")

In the imperative mood, -am verbs conjugate slightly differently:

Conjugation of -am verbs in imperative mood
	Present	Future
Gnomic	panamaf aiya	panamchef aiya
Episodic	panameri aiya	pan aiya

Episodic future

Some verbs have irregular conjugations in the episodic-aspect future-tense due to phonetics. For example, verbs whose root ends with an r-cluster (i.e. br, cr, gr, or pr) will have their future form end with the vowel er.

Conjugation of *bagram*
	Distant Past	Near Past	Present	Future
Gnomic	bagramte	bagrom	bagram	bagramche
Episodic	bagramte	bagromeri	bagrameri	bager

Negation

Caseic has two particles which can be used for negating verbs. cei is the more commonly-used particle, placed before the verb.

Jari ac fratoc acha cei biren

"I do not write books"

gyei is another particle used to negate verbs, which is placed after the verb. gyei is most-commonly used when a clitic is attached to the verb.

Jari fe'gabana gyei

"I did not shoot them"

Syntax

The default word order in Caseic is Ergative-Absolutive-Verb. Most adjectives follow the nouns they modify. Here is an example of a simple sentence:

Nerjai ac pechec gojana.

"The goose watched the sea."

This sentence consists of an ergative phrase Nerjai "the goose", an absolutive phrase ac pechec "the sea", and a verb gojana "watched".

Sometimes verbs take only one argument, in which case there is no ergative phrase and only an absolutive phrase:

Ac nerjai crachameri.

"The goose stayed put."

Ac ciret oren.

"Death is near." (connotatively: death is inevitable and omnipresent)

Some verbs, known as ditransitive verbs, take three arguments, such as pujam "to give". Here, the order is Ergative-Absolutive-Dative-Verb:

Nerjai ac awec cri nagraj pujameri.

"The goose gives rice to the horse."

Prepositional phrases

Prepositional phrases attach to noun phrases to provide location-related information.

Jari ac nerjai fiwa pechec gojana

"I watched the goose across the sea"

Here fiwa pechec attached to the noun nerjai to indicate that the goose in question was on the other side of the sea. Multiple prepositional phrases can be used in the same sentence, attaching to different noun phrases:

Nerjai fiwa pechec ac nagraj yemerec efe ibe gojana

"The goose across the sea watched the light-blue horse in the city."

Relative clauses

Relative clauses act as modifiers to noun phrases. Relative clauses are indicated with the particle yai

Nerjai yai ac pechec gojana ac awec acha eyanec

"The goose that watched the sea has rice."

Conjunctions

Caseic has many conjunctions, used to join clauses or join multiple noun phrases.

Conjunctions in Caseic
Conjunction	Meaning	Example	Translation
acrai	Relative and: Used to indicate a second relative clause for the same noun phrase as the previous relative clause	Nerjai yai ac pechec gojana acrai ac gru'naje fijana igrachaic panomeri	The goose, which watched the sea and split its food, ate a berry.
acrom	Narrative unshared and: Connects two related clauses that do not share an agent or patient	Nerjai ac pechec gojana acrom jari ac nerjai gojana	The goose watched the sea and I watched the goose.
checrei	Narrative unshared exclusive or: Connects two clauses such that only one of them is true	Nerjai ac nagraj gojana checrei ac nerjai crachameri	Either the goose watched the horse or the goose stayed put.
ec	Ergative and: Indicates multiple agents of the same transitive or ditransitive verb	Nerjai ec nagraj ac pechec gojana	The goose and the horse watched the sea.
jom	Narrative unshared but: Connects two contrasting clauses that do not share an agent or patient	Jari ac awec eyana jom nerjai crachameri	I had rice, but the goose stayed put.
pi	Absolutive and: Indicates multiple patients of the same verb (replaces ac)	Jari ac nerjai pi nagraj gojana	I watched the goose and the horse.
sai	Genitive and: Indicates multiple genitive phrases pertaining to the same noun (replaces sa)	Nerjai sa nagraj jerecyu sai negraj brecaye ac pechec gojana	The grey horse and red horse's goose watched the sea.
swei	Narrative absolutive and: Connects two clauses with the same patient	Jae crachameri swei grichana	I stayed put and had fun
tum	Narrative ergative and: Connects two clauses with the same agent	Jari ac nerjai gojana tum sweri caicrirana	I watched the goose and picked up a mushroom
yerc	Prepositional and: Indicates multiple subjects of a preposition	Jari efe bati yerc sweriaste ac nerjai gojana	I watched the goose at the fort and mushroom grove