Cukish language

Cukish (Livaléns in Cukish) is a Carjado-Matrélikish language that originated in the Oblivion Islands at some point between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD, after which it was spread to the New Leganés archipelago approximately at 6th century AD. It is one of the three official languages of the Cooperative Commonwealth of New Leganés, the Oblivion Islands and Shoneria along with Impelanzan and Staynish, and it's also a notable language in other countries and territories such as Valerijk (Vistaraland) and South Peragen.

Phonology

Phonemes

Consonant phonemes

Manner/Place	Bilabial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Palato-alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal	m		n			ŋ
Stop	p b		t d			k g	q
Affricate				tʃ
Fricative		f v	s	ʒ	ʝ			h
Tap			ɾ
Trill			r
Lateral approximant			l

Co-articulated phonemes

Manner/Place	Labial-velar
Approximant	w

Vowel phonemes

	Front	Back
High	i	u
High-mid	e	o
Low	a

Diphtongs: aɪ, eɪ, eo

Stress

Seems more than possible that Old Cukish described a musical accent, but by the first times of the Commonwealth Empire the accent turned tonal, as in Staynish and Impelanzan. This tonal accent is marked by an acute over the vowel it stresses, thus being á, é, í, ó, ú, ý, and, in the case of diphthongs, ái, éi, éo. Cukish avoids as much as possible paroxytone words, this meaning words stressed on the third-to-last syllable. The only case when this can be found is in roots that are undoubtedly paroxytone, or in words marked by multiple suffixes. The most usual is, hence, words stressed on the last or second-to-last syllables.

Grammar

Cukish is a flexive language, and hence verbs have conjugation, and nouns, adjectives and pronouns are marked with grammatical number and case. There may be occasional gender marks in words taken from Impelanzan or Staynish.

Nouns and adjectives

Nouns and adjectives in Cukish have two grammatical numbers: singular and plural, as well as four different cases in its declension: pure (nominative-accusative), genitive, dative and accompanying. Adjectives share case and number with the noun they go along with, while they always go before the noun.

Case is marked by case suffixes, these being "-le" for genitive, "-de" for dative and "-ne" for accompanying. Pure case is not marked by any suffix, hence the distinction between subject and direct object is made with a strict organization of nominative being placed before accusative in all sentences. If a word's root has the same letter at the end as the following case suffix, both will merge into a single letter (the word "nafión", "nation", in accompanying case is "nafióne" instead of *nafiónne), while if both letters are phonologically similar, the final letter of the root will get neutralized by the first letter of the suffix ("nafión" in genitive case is "nafiólle" instead of *nafiónle). Number is indicated by adding the suffix "-r" in plural nouns and adjectives, after the case suffix if there is such.

The following will be the full declension of the word "çéqi" ("island"), a usually paradigmatic word in Cukish linguistics:

Çéqi

Case	Singular	Plural
Pure	Çéqi	Çéqir
Genitive	Çeqíle	Çeqíler
Dative	Çeqíde	Çeqíder
Accompanying	Çeqíne	Çeqíner

Personal suffixes

Unlike other languages as Impelanzan and Staynish, Cukish does not use pronouns to mark possession or relation to a person. The genitive case exists in personal pronouns, but it is not usual and it is rather used with an emphatic purpose. Instead, Cukish adds personal suffixes at the end of nouns. When the non-suffixed noun ends in a consonant and the following personal suffix uses a consonant at the beginning of the morpheme, an additional "-e-" must be added between the consonant and the vowel. For instance, while "your family" would be translated to "istáremak" (istárema-k, -k being the 2nd person singular suffix), "your heart" would be translated into "tondének" (tondén-e-k). The list of suffixes is the following:

• 1st sing: -i
• 2nd sing: -(e)k
• 3rd sing: -o
• 1st plur: -(e)ri
• 2nd plur: -(e)rek
• 3 plur: -(e)reo

Pronouns

Pure case (nominative-accusative):

• 1st sing: Yó
• 2nd sing: Tú
• 3rd sing: Véo
• 1st plur: Véri
• 2nd plur: Vérek
• 3rd plur: Véreo

Genitive case:

• 1st sing: Véli
• 2nd sing: Vélek
• 3rd sing: Vélo
• 1st plur: Véleri
• 2nd plur: Vélerek
• 3rd plur: Veléreo

Dative case:

• 1st sing: Védi
• 2nd sing: Védek
• 3rd sing: Védo
• 1st plur: Véderi
• 2nd plur: Vedérek
• 3rd plur: Vedéreo

Accompanying case:

• 1st sing: Véni
• 2nd sing: Vének
• 3rd sing: Véno
• 1st plur: Venéri
• 2nd plur: Venérek
• 3rd plur: Venéreo

Verbs

There is no verb "to be" in Cukish. For describing states, location in space or time or conditions, Cukish verbs use the stative mode, which is the main verb mode and is not marked by any suffix aside from the proper personal suffixes ("námi", nám-i, "I salute", "námek", "you salute", etc.).

Syntax

Cukish follows a SOV (subject-object-verb) syntax. That way, with time, Cukish got rid of the nominative-accusative case, which left the original roots without suffix when accomplishing the function of subject or direct object, hence receiving the name of "pure case". The Cukish syntax is very regular regarding its word order, as sentences must be ordered in the right way to be properly understood. Aside from the SOV order, genitive must go before the complement they are refering to, and adjectives must go in the same way with their noun correlatives.

Vocabulary

Common expressions

Hello: Námi (I salute)

Good morning: Ryés háni védek/vedérek ("good morning to you", singular/plural)

Good afternoon: Ryés gafé védek/vedérek ("good afternoon/evening to you", singular /plural)

Good night: Ryés nátu védek/vedérek ("good night to you", singular/plural)

Thanks: Dáni ("I am thankful")

Thank you: Danídek/danidérek ("I am thankful to you", singular/plural)

Thank you so much: Káler danídek/danidérek ("I am very thankful to you", singular/plural)

Please: Si rádek/radérek ("if it's possible for you" singular/plural)