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. 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
Open	a
Diphthongs	ae, œy, ei

Orthography

Caseic script

A summary of the 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.

This map of the Caseic Archipelago demonstrates vertical writing in the labels of Utlian provinces as a means of saving space.

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.

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
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	o
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 ji'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

Syntax

The default word order in Caseic is Ergative-Absolutive-Verb. Most adjectives follow the nouns they modify.