Ard Common

The most common language of the realm of Ardlam, spoken mostly by humans.

Natively known as: ard /ard/

...and he stood holding his hat and turned his wet face to the wind...
khuf lu kī ghi lu aşū khuf thūl lu nuḩ thur qaʻ fāh
Pronunciation: /xuf lu kiː ɣi lu ˈasˤuː xuf θuːl lu nuħ θur qaʕ faːh/
Ard word order: and he stood holding hat his and turned his face wet the wind to

Spelling & Phonology

Consonant inventory: b d dˤ f h j k l m n q r s sˤ t tˤ w x z ð ðˤ ħ ɣ ʃ ʔ ʕ ʤ θ

↓Manner/Place→	Bilabial	Labiodental	Dental	Alveolar	Palato-alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyngeal	Glottal
Nasal	m			n
Stop	b			t tˤ d dˤ			k	q		ʔ
Affricate					ʤ
Fricative		f	θ ð ðˤ	s sˤ z	ʃ		x ɣ		ħ ʕ	h
Approximant						j
Trill				r
Lateral approximant				l

Co-articulated phonemes

↓Manner/Place→	Labial-velar
Approximant	w

Vowel inventory: a aː i iː u uː

	Front	Back
High	i iː	u uː
Low	a aː

Syllable structure: Custom defined
Stress pattern: Initial — stress is on the first syllable
Spelling rules:

Pronunciation	Spelling
ʔ	’
θ	th
j	y
ʤ	j
x	kh
ð	dh
ʃ	sh
sˤ	ş
dˤ	ḑ
tˤ	ţ
ʕ	ʻ
ɣ	gh
ħ	ḩ
aː	ā
iː	ī
uː	ū

---

Grammar

Main word order: Subject Verb Object (Prepositional phrase). “Mary opened the door with a key” turns into Mary opened the door with a key.
Adjective order: Adjectives are positioned after the noun.
Adposition: postpositions

Nouns

	Singular	Plural
Definite	No affix ’it /ʔit/ the dog	If starts with vowel: Prefix q- Else: Prefix qaː- qā’it /ˈqaːʔit/ the dogs
Indefinite	Prefix aː- ā’it /ˈaːʔit/ a dog	Prefix xaː- khā’it /ˈxaːʔit/ some dogs

Articles

Ard encodes definite article ‘the’, and indefinite article ‘a’ in noun affixes. See Noun section.

Pronouns

	Nominative	Accusative
1st singular	zūh /zuːh/ I	thā /θaː/ me
2nd singular	fa /fa/ you	thaʻ /θaʕ/ you
3rd singular masc	lu /lu/ he, it	mā /maː/ him, it
3rd singular fem	bu /bu/ she, it	mi /mi/ her, it
1st plural	ḑīfl /dˤiːfl/ we	nā /naː/ us
2nd plural	saʻ /saʕ/ you all	af /af/ you all
3rd plural	a /a/ they	laz’ /lazʔ/ them

Possessive determiners

1st singular	zūh /zuːh/ my
2nd singular	fa /fa/ your
3rd singular masc	lu /lu/ his
3rd singular fem	bu /bu/ her
1st plural	ḑīfl /dˤiːfl/ our
2nd plural	saʻ /saʕ/ your (pl)
3rd plural	a /a/ their

Verbs

Present	No affix wiz’ /wizʔ/ learn
Past	Prefix aː- āwiz’ /ˈaːwizʔ/ learned
Future	Prefix iː- īwiz’ /ˈiːwizʔ/ will learn

Numbers

Ard has a base-10 number system:
1 - ja
2 - ʻasm
3 - ka
4 - bif
5 - şī
6 - shī
7 - ḩun
8 - ’iddin
9 - uh
10 - qū
Hundred - zu
Thousand - hīḩ

Derivational morphology

Adjective → adverb = If starts with vowel: Prefix m-
Else: Prefix miː-
Adjective → noun (the quality of being [adj]) = If starts with vowel: Prefix ʔ-
Else: Prefix ʔaː-
Adjective → verb (to make something [adj]) = If starts with vowel: Prefix w-
Else: Prefix wa-
Noun → adjective (having the quality of [noun]) = If starts with vowel: Prefix d-
Else: Prefix di-
Noun → adjective relating to noun (e.g. economy → economic) = If starts with vowel: Prefix r-
Else: Prefix riː-
Noun to verb = Prefix aː-
Verb → adjective (result of doing [verb]) = Prefix u-
Tending to = Prefix a-
Verb → noun (the act of [verb]) = Prefix a-
Verb → noun that verb produces (e.g. know → knowledge) = If starts with vowel: Prefix sˤ-
Else: Prefix sˤu-
One who [verb]s (e.g. paint → painter) = If starts with vowel: Prefix q-
Else: Prefix quː-
Place of (e.g. wine → winery) = Prefix na-
Diminutive = If starts with vowel: Prefix k-
Else: Prefix kaː-
Augmentative = If starts with vowel: Prefix m-
Else: Prefix mu-

Dictionary

3041 Words.

Root Languages

• Common

Spoken by

• Alnasi