Languages of Solentia

The languages of Solentia have been rich and varied, as has the political and cultural history. This account will follow the traditional units of Solentian history and important linguistic events will be shown.

Proto-Agricultural Languages
A number of pastoral semi-nomadic societies appeared throughout Western Solentia from 6,000-3500 BCE. The origin of these languages is unknown, but they are thought to be related from the distant past to the tongue of the Kal’Nai civilization. There are two primary languages in this period:

All three are similar in the use of a mysterious alphabet and set of glyphs that is still being deciphered. The only way that this language has been translated is through Archaic-era interpretation of the writing that only by chance survived the epochs that elapsed until the modern era. Writing was often found on cave walls or on flint tablets.

Paleo-Oramian
This language consists of a bizarre and unique grammatical system rarely seen in any other societies. First, there seem to be no verbs, all verbal usages being produced instead by action-implying nouns activated by causal suffixes attached to the subject of the clause. The object is non-existent as well, instead being an indirect recipient of the action-implying noun. For instance: “the shepherd tends the flock” would be in Paleo-Oramian grammar “the shepherd-causes care for the flock.” The causal suffix identifies the subject alone while the verb-implying noun is identified because it has no prefixes, suffixes, and carries a verbal idea. Adjectives and nouns are not distinguished, but context is used instead. The language is also an ergative-absolutive fusion language.

Clauses and phrases of all kinds are difficult to distinguish. There seem to be no parallels to relative clause constructions. Result, purpose, etc. are indicated by certain adverbial markers that make use of a degenerate qualitative prefix that must have been forgotten centuries before, since many varied forms occur.

Pre-Ulmaic
Similar in many ways to Paleo-Oramian, Pre-Ulmaic utilizes similarly strange syntax, although even less is known about this language. There seem to be a great number of particles and purely grammatical morphemes in use. For instance, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are indicated using varying participles whose use is varied and open to interpretations. The language, like Paleo-Oramian, is an ergative-absolutive fusion language.

Paleo-Oramian
There are nearly 15 identified case endings for P-O nouns, and countless unknown or unique verbal suffixes, endings, and internal insertions. Some examples: Noun Class 1: Absolutive- Ku-le-qw (knowledge [as subject of intrans. verbal noun/object of trans]) Erative- me-Ku-le (knowledge [as agent of a trans. verbal noun]) Genitive- Ku-le-gwu (of knowledge) Possessive Proper- Ku-le-gu(belonging to knowledge) Ablative/Dative- Ku-lemn(for/to/[preposition] knowledge) Instrumental- Ku-le-mon (by knowledge) Vocative- Ku-lek (knowledge!) Locative- Ku-le-n’m(in knowledge) Causative Suffix- Ku-le-qwrr (knowledge-causes)

We will follow this example throughout the history of Solentian language in order to follow its grammatical evolution.

Pre-Ulmaic
Pre-Ulmaic is mostly not deciphered in its morphology, and a number of the case endings are not known from word to word, due to the general lack of evidence. Therefore, several words must be used to demonstrate the morphological changes: Noun Class 3: Absolutive- Pu-rhew-tw (village [as subject of intrans. verb/object of trans]) Ergative- Khuy-rre (knowledge [as agent of a trans. verb]) Objective/Subjective Genitive- Khuy-kha-rre (for knowledge [as in “the love of god”] Partitive Genitive- Pu-rhew-tö- (of a village [as in “many of them”]) Possessive Genititve- adw-Khuy-rr-et (belonging to knowledge) Instrumental/Ablative- Khuy-rre-iw (by/for/to knowledge) Vocative- na-Khuy

Paleo-Oramian
"Kol-re-gu no-biw-lek-qwrr ... ku-le-qw yu-wur-al mi-sa-lw ... m ... uruc-ka ... phe-leh"

“Horses-[poss. gen.] + Men-[voc.]-[causative] … knowledge-[abs.] + great-pasture-[poss. gen.]-[negative suffix] + I-[emphatic suffix]-[dative] + [interjection] + without” "Horse people of Uruc-... known to me, not of wandering pasture but... without..."

Pre-Ulmaic
brrh-u Khwö-rhe-tw mhw-e-iw il wrh … pu-rhew-tö murw il wrut wrh kah

“[instructive tone] + Men-[abs.] + Meyus-[poss. gen] + [?] + [potential mood particle] … village-[part. gen.] + [emphatic particle] + [?] + one(?) + [potential mood particle] + [interrogative tone]”

“Listen, might the men of Meyus … might at least one of the villages?”