Menakan language

Menakan
Menskans
Native to	Menako Islands
Region	Menako Islands
Native speakers	ca. 1 million
Language family	Veterran Vismaric East Vismaric Menako-Feinan Menakan
Official status
Official language in	Menako Islands
Regulated by	Ministry for Cultural Preservation
Language codes
ISO 639-3	mnk

Menakan (Menskans) is an East Vismaric language spoken mainly and orginating from the Menako Islands. Currently there are around 1 million native speakers of Menakan, almost all of them situated on the Menako Islands themselves. It is sometimes spoken as a second language, with currently there being 300.000 second language speakers. It is most closely related to Feinan and Vistrasjorder, spoken in Norsund.

Due to the language being spoken in an important trading hub for the Hellonian Realm, it has adopted elements from both Hellonian and German. Due to its late standardization and status as a relatively simple language for communication, it is one of the least inflective language in the Vismaric languages. Menakan only has one common gender and officially only has two cases - nominative and genitive (expect for pronouns which are also inflected in the object form). Menakan has two grammatical numbers – plural and singular. Adjectives are only inflected when used with a linking verb for number, otherwise all adjectives are standardly inflected with the suffix -na. The definiteness of nouns is marked primarily through suffixes, complemented with separate definite and indefinite articles. Verbs are entirely regular and are only inflected based on tense.

Phonology

Consonant phonemes

		Labial		Dental/ Alveolar		Palatal		Velar		Glottal
Nasal			m		n		ɲ		ŋ
Stop		p	b	t	d			k	ɡ
Continuant	sibilant			s
	non-sibilant	f	v	θ	(ð)		j			h
Lateral					l		ʎ
Trill					r

Short/lax vowels Front unr. Front rnd. Central Back Close ɪ ʏ Mid ɛ ə ɔ Open ɑ

Long/tense vowels Front unr. Front rnd. Back Close i ~ iː y ~ yː u ~ uː Close-mid eː øː oː Open-mid (ɛː) (œː) (ɔː) Open aː

Grammar

Nouns in Menakan are only inflected for in number, as there is only a common gender in Menakan. Nouns are inflected with a suffix if definitive and gain a indefinite article if not. This results in a system where the word fis ("fish") can have the following forms:

	Singular	Plural
Indefinite form	fis	fisar
Definite form	fisen	fisarn

The definite singular form of a noun is created by adding the suffix -en or -n if ending in a vowel. The definite articles den (singular) and de (plural) is used for variations to the definitiveness of a noun. It can double as a demonstrative pronoun or demonstrative determiner when used with adverbs such as här ("here") or där ("there") to form dennär ("this"), dehär ("these"), dendär ("that"), and deddär ("those"). For example, dennär fisen means "that fish" and refers to a specific fish; den fisen is less definite and means "that fish" in a more abstract sense, such as that set of fish; while fisen means "the fish".

Adjectives are inflected in three declensions – indefinite, definite and plural. The indefinite version of the adjective is seen as the base adjective. It can be modified to the definite version by adding the suffix -na or -a if ending on a vowel. This same declension is used for the plural form; en skön stul, sköna stolen, sköna stolar, sköna stolarn.

Singular				Plural
Person	Nominative	Objective	Possessive: com./neut./pl.	Person	Nominative	Objective	Possessive: com./neut./pl.
1st	ek	mi	min	1st	vi	ons	ons
2nd	tu	ti	tin	2nd	je	ji	jens
3rd masculine	han	hunum	hans	3rd	di	dän	din
3rd feminine	su	si	sin

Orthography

Menakan is written using the Hellonian runic alphabet.

Consonants

Grapheme	Phonetic realization (IPA)	Examples
ᛒ/b	[b] unaspirated Voiced bilabial stop	bok [buk] "book"
ᚦ/d	[t] unaspirated voiceless dental stop	duk [duk] "towel"
	at end of a word [ð̠] voiced alveolar non-sibilant fricative	bad [bɑð̠]
ᚦᚦ/dd	[ð̠]	deddär [dɛð̠ɛːr] "those"
ᚦᚾ/dn	[ð̠n]	bidner [biːð̠nər] "invite"
ᚠ/f	[f]	fot [fɔt] "foot"
ᚷ/g	in most cases [g] Voiced velar stop	grot [grɔt] "big"
	before t or s or before a pause: [x] voiceless velar fricative	Magt [mɑxt] "power"
ᚻ/h	[h] voiceless glottal fricative	har [haːr] "hair"
J/j	[j]	ja [jaː] "yes"
ᛕ/k	[k]	ok [ɔk] "and"
ᛚ/l	[l]	län [lɛːn] "land"
ᛗ/m	[m]	mamma [mamːa] "mum"
ᚾ/n	[n]	nam [naːm] "name"
ᛝ/ŋ	[ŋ]	kring [kriŋ] "circle"
ᛝᛕ/ŋk	[ŋk]	drunk [dryːŋk] "drink"
ᛈ/p	[p]	par [paːr] "pair"
ᚱ/r	[r] (voiced alveolar trill or tap)	rik [riːk] "realm"
ᛋ/s	[s]	sos [sɔs] "sauce"
ᛏ/t	in most cases [t]	takk [tɑk] "thanks"
	at end of word [θ̠]	sätt [sɛθ̠] "seated"
ᛏᛏ/tt	[θ̠]	atta [aːθ̠a] "eight"
ᛏᚾ/tn	[θ̠n]	sältna [sɛːlθ̠na] "salted"
U/v	[v]	varer [vaːrər] "to be"