Fiit

LANGUAGE FAMILY: QILDABIC
# SPEAKERS / WORLD RANKING: 5K / #84
SPOKEN IN: Dragonshead (Effeti) - 5K
PERIOD OF USE:
SCRIPT USED:
PARENT LANGUAGE:

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"...and he stood holding his hat and turned his wet face to the wind..."
Translation: tanl a ngeaha a ingōlo ngingaha tanl a linl fad͡ʒ loaha kub at͡sh
Pronunciation: /tanl a ngeˈaha a inˈgōlo nginˈgaha tanl a linl fad͡ʒ loˈaha kub at͡ʃ

Fiit word order: and he stood his hat holding and his wet face turned the wind to

Spelling & Phonology

Consonant inventory: /b c d d͡ʒ f g h k l m n p r s t t͡ʃ w ŋ ɲ ʃ ʔ/

↓Manner/Place→	Bilabial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Palato-alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m		n		ɲ	ŋ
Stop	p b		t d		c	k g	ʔ
Fricative		f	s	ʃ			h
Trill			r
Lateral approximant			l

Co-articulated phonemes

↓Manner/Place→	Labial-velar
Approximant	w

Vowel inventory: /a aː ā e eː ē i iː ī o oː ō u uː ū ə ɪ ʊ/

	Front	Central	Back
High	i iː ī		u uː ū
Near-high	ɪ		ʊ
High-mid	e eː ē		o ō oː
Mid		ə
Low	a ā aː

Syllable structure: Custom defined
Stress pattern: Penultimate — stress is on the second last syllable
Word initial consonants: f, h, k, l, m, ng, t, ŋ
Mid-word consonants: h, k, l, ng, t
Word final consonants: b, ch, d, d͡ʒ, g, gh, h, k, l, m, n, ng, nl, p, r, s, t, t͡ʃ, w, ŋ, ɲ, ʃ, ʔ
Phonological changes (in order of application):

• i → j / V_V
• d → l / _#
• n → m / #_
• e → i / _(C)i
• a → ∅ / _i

Spelling rules:

Pronunciation	Spelling
ʔ	ʻ
ə	á
ʊ	ú
ɪ	í
ŋ	ng
ɲ	ny
c	chy
ʃ	sh
V₁ː	V₁V₁

Grammar

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

Nouns

Nouns have two cases:

• Ergative is the doer of a verb, when the verb is done to something: dog bites man.
• Absolutive is used in two scenarios: the doer of a verb when not done to something (dog bites), and the done-to of a verb (man bites dog).

Nouns have both a plural affix and dual affix for precisely two things.

Ergative	Prefix ē- ēmūla /ēˈmūla/ dog (doing the verb to something)
Absolutive	No affix mūla /ˈmūla/ dog (doing the verb, but not to something)

Singular	No affix mūla /ˈmūla/ dog
Plural	If ends with vowel: Suffix -h Else: Suffix -oh mūlah /ˈmūlah/ dogs
Dual	Prefix a- amūla /aˈmūla/

Articles

	Definite	Indefinite
Singular	hem /hem/ the	a /a/ a
Plural	om /om/ the	ma /ma/ some

Pronouns

	Ergative	Absolutive
1st singular	ngo /ŋo/ I	i /i/ me, I
2nd singular	eg /eg/ you	la /la/ you
3rd singular masc	a /a/ he, it	hi /hi/ him, it
3rd singular fem	lo /lo/ she, it	keegh /keːgh/ her, it
1st plural inclusive	ta /ta/ we (including you)	ngom /ngom/ us, we (including you)
1st plural exclusive	tang /tang/ we (excluding you)	o /o/ us, we (excluding you)
2nd plural	lu /lu/ you all	let͡sh /let͡ʃ/ you all
3rd plural	ka /ka/ they	ā /ā/ them, they

Possessive determiners

1st singular	ngo /ŋo/ my
2nd singular	eg /eg/ your
3rd singular masc	a /a/ his
3rd singular fem	lo /lo/ her
1st plural inclusive	ta /ta/ our (including you)
1st plural exclusive	tang /tang/ our (excluding you)
2nd plural	lu /lu/ your (pl)
3rd plural	ka /ka/ their

Verbs

Present	No affix hōʻaha /hōˈʔaha/ learn
Past	If ends with vowel: Suffix -h Else: Suffix -oh hōʻahah /hōˈʔahah/ learned
Remote past	Prefix ɪ- íhōʻaha /ˌɪhōˈʔaha/ learned (long ago)
Future	If ends with vowel: Suffix -w Else: Suffix -iw hōʻahaw /hōˈʔahaw/ will learn

Numbers

Fiit has a base-10 number system:
1 - lon
2 - mu
3 - kā
4 - tu
5 - fal
6 - tam
7 - lo
8 - ngaʻ
9 - fab
10 - liiny
11 - liinylon “ten-one”
100 - lon ngad “one hundred”
101 - lon ngad tanl lon “one hundred and one”
200 - mu ngad
1000 - lon ekachyh “one thousand”

Derivational morphology

Adjective → adverb = Prefix fa-
Adjective → noun (the quality of being [adj]) = If starts with vowel: Prefix l- Else: Prefix lo-
Adjective → verb (to make something [adj]) = Prefix la-
Noun → adjective (having the quality of [noun]) = Prefix ka-
Noun → adjective relating to noun (e.g. economy → economic) = If starts with vowel: Prefix k- Else: Prefix ka-
Noun to verb = Prefix fi-
Verb → adjective (result of doing [verb]) = If starts with vowel: Prefix t- Else: Prefix ta-
Tending to = Prefix fi-
Verb → noun (the act of [ve
rb]) = If starts with vowel: Prefix h- Else: Prefix he- Verb → noun that verb produces (e.g. know → knowledge) = Prefix ē-
One who [verb]s (e.g. paint → painter) = If starts with vowel: Prefix t- Else: Prefix tō-
Place of (e.g. wine → winery) = If starts with vowel: Prefix k- Else: Prefix ko-
Diminutive = Prefix ngo-
Augmentative = If starts with vowel: Prefix m- Else: Prefix mī-

Dictionary

4422 Words.