The Omaya Language So Far

The Omaia are a tribal people who live in the forests of the Northern Mountains which form the northern border of Virestia. They have their own language, unrelated to the High Speech or any other known languages of the former empire. Below I have copied and pasted my notes of what is known about their language so far.

Pronouns

There are two sets of pronouns in omaya.

1. Subject, object pronouns, possessives

ay I, me, my

ow you, you, your

iy, y' he, she, it; him, her, it; his, her, its

There are no plural forms. To express the plural, if necessary, the prefix h' can be attached before the second pronoun, thus: ay'h'ow 'you and I (we)', ay'h'iy 'he and I (we)' and so on. But usually omaya speakers rely solely on context for plural meaning.

2. Subject pronouns of “suffix verbs”

he I

yi you

There is no third person pronoun. Instead, the suffixes applied to these verbs would simply be applied directly to the noun or adjective desired.

Ex: alya he't I am tall.

m'owehu yi'p You're going home.

inyawu'k He has a friend.

Perfective Tense pronouns

Unlike English, or Paiodd, for that matter, the Omaya language indicates tense in subject pronouns. The perfective pronouns are as follows:

(u)w' I

ah you

(e)r he, she, it

Examples: w'ow'ayihe. I saw you.

ah'ay'ayihe. You saw me.

ateli w'ayihe. I saw the warrior.

ateli ayu r'ayihe ta. The warrior saw me.

ayu r'ayihe. He saw me.

Note that we must use the pronoun (e)r even when the subject is expressed. This is the most common way to indicate the past tense.

The other way is only possible when the direct object is a pronoun. The object pronoun is formed from the perfective pronoun in the same way that one makes object pronouns out of the regular pronouns, that is, add the suffix -u and place it in the normal direct object position.

Examples: ateli wu ayihe. The warrior saw me.

ichiwu ru alhe. The chief called him.

olwu ah wune. The wolf bit you.

Suffix Verbs

As the examples above show, there are three so-called "suffix verbs", which can attach to the special pronouns he I, and yi you, or directly to a noun that they describe, or to an adjective that describes a third person pronoun. These suffixes are:

-'t to be

-'p to go

-'k to have

Examples:

he't I am he'p I go he'k I have

yi't you are yi'p you go yi'k you have

atelu't it is a war atelu'p he goes to war atelu'k he/they has/have a war

As you can see, the third person meaning requires another word to attach to.

Syntax

The most important thing to note about omaya syntax is that many stems have a basic meaning to which any of three suffixes can be attached to indicate whether the word is to be used as a noun, verb, or adjective.

-u indicates nouns.

-e indicates verbs.

-a indicates adjectives.

Thus, we can take the stem ruy and add each of these endings to get

ruyu truth

ruye be true, act truly, tell the truth

ruya true

Here are some other examples:

atelu battle, war inyawu friend wihu fish

atele do battle, make war inyawe make friends wihe to fish

atela warlike inyawa friendly wiha fishy (fish-like)

There is one more suffix, -i which indicates that the attached stem modifies a person, group, or thing, hence it shows up often in the name of tribes, or the most common word for the omaya themselves: omayi 'the people of the mountains'

Some other examples: ateli warrior, warriors wihi fisherman, fishermen

Word Order

The basic word order in an omaya sentence is subject-object-verb. This is the order, for instance, in sentences where the subject and object are both pronouns:

ay'ow'owe I love you.

y'ay'ayihe OR iy'ay'ayihe He sees me.

ay'iy'nohe I know him.

When the direct object is a noun, however, the fact that subject pronouns must be prefixed to the verb makes this order impossible. Thus, such a sentence would be:

umyu ay'ayihe I see the woman.

olwu y'ohunye He is hunting a wolf.

inu ow'owe You love the man.

In the opposite case, where the subject is a noun and the direct object is a pronoun, we run into trouble. We can't attach the pronoun without getting it confused with the subject. That is, if we simply attached the pronoun, we wouldn't know if

olwu y'ohunye means 'He is hunting a wolf.' or 'A wolf is hunting him'! Quite a difference, as you can see!

Instead, then, we separate the pronoun from the verb and attach the noun ending -u, and we use the normal subject-object-verb order, with just one catch. See if you can spot it below.

olwu iyu ohunye ta The wolf is hunting him.

Well, the meaning is much clearer now! But there is this strange word ta at the end of the sentence, isn't there? What do we make of that?

As it turns out, omaya uses a system of particles, usually coming at the end of a clause, to tell us what kind of sentence it is. The particle ta simply tells us that this is a normal omaya sentence, with the subject first, followed by the direct object, followed by the verb. There are several more particles, each defining different kinds of sentences or clauses, but we will get to them in due time.

For now, you need to know that ta is necessary at the end of a sentence where both the subject and the direct object are full nouns (or, like in the example above, where the subject is a noun and the direct object is a pronoun).

Notice, of course, that we didn't use it in such sentences as ay'ow'ayihe 'I see you'. Can you guess why? The answer is simple: The subject ay and the direct object ow are both pronouns. The first one is the subject, the second one is the object.

Similary in the sentence olwu y'ohunye 'He is hunting a wolf', we have no need of ta, because here the subject is a pronoun.

We only need ta when:

1. both subject and direct object are nouns, or
2. when the subject is a noun and the direct object is a pronoun.

How about some more examples?

inu umyu owe ta The man loves the woman.

umyu ayu owe ta The woman loves me.

Now that you've got that under wraps, let's introduce a few more particles.

pa is one you'll see a lot. It means that the sentence is a regular omaya sentence, but it's negative. In other words, it's kind of like the word not in English, with the added stipulation that the sentence is in subject-object-verb order. Let's look at this with some of our previous examples:

inu umyu owe pa The man does not love the woman.

umyu ayu owe pa The woman doesn't love me.

Easy, right? Unfortunately, there is a catch, but it's not too hard! Take a look at the following examples:

ay'ow'ayihe pa I don't see you.

y'ay'owe pa She doesn't love me.

Unlike ta, we can use pa with sentences that have all pronouns for subject and object. This is simply because there is no other way to make the negative in omaya, at least not in main clauses. But this actually makes things easier on you, since it means there's only one word to learn: pa.

The third basic particle is ka. This also means that the sentence is normal subject-object-verb order, but with an added element. ka tells us that the very first word (or phrase!) is used adverbially. Examples, please!

im onyuhi li ayihe ka The hunter sees the elk now.

w'eyu umyu oyu ohe ka The woman is cooking food today.

owar ay'iy'owe ka I loved her once.

Notice that in the last example, ka is used with a pronominal sentence (where the subject and direct object are both pronouns).

ti is the next particle. It makes the clause before it relative to the clause before it. It's very similar to the relative pronoun that in English.

ohunyi riya'li rihe ti ay'ayihe I see that the hunters bring fine elk.

ateli iyu nore ti ichiwu sihe The chief asks that the warriors salute him.

omaya prefers to have a stated subject and object wherever possible, and although the examples just given are perfectly correct, you will often hear sentences like the following:

riya'li iy'rihe ti ohunyi ay'ayihe I see the hunters, that they bring fine elk.

y'iy'nore ti ichiwu ateli sihe The chief asks the warriors that they salute him.

The important thing in these sentences, which are the preferred versions of the examples from the previous point, is that both clauses have subject and object.

What happens, though, if you have an intransitive verb (that is, one with no direct object)? If the intransitive sentence is all there is, then it's easy: simply write the subject followed by the verb, as in:

umyu ohe The woman cooks.

idreyu liwe The children are playing.

However, if there is another clause to be added, there's a particle for that:

ay'nohe ki idreyu liwe I know that the children are playing.

ichiwu nohe ki y'ateli riy'ola't The chief knows that his warriors are the best.

pi: negative subordinate

to: object phrase marker

ko: temporal or locative marker for nouns or noun phrases (i.e. the day when, the mountain where)

po: negative object phrase marker (not the day when, not the mountain where)

tu: object changes state, possession, or ownership to modifier (-a word), in other words, marks theme/ditransitive sentences

ku: instrumental

ki: intransitive subordinate clause marker

pu: negative of either of the above

[ni: imperfective (durative, progressive)]

[ŋi: imperfective with modifier]

[mi: negative imperfective]

[no: interrogative]

[ŋo: interrogative with modifier]

[mo: negative interrogative]

[ne: imperative]

[ŋe: imperative with modifier]

[me: negative imperative]

Note: The particles in brackets are not established yet, merely the result of some brainstorming. I considered a corresponding set of particles to indicate the perfective tense (na, ŋa, ma) but decided on pronouns instead, so many of these are likely to change as well.

You can find the dictionary of approximately 250 words so far here:
http://cd.langwiki.info/search/OM