Rrōn-onāqu

Language of the Cave Stalkers

Rrōn-onāqu is a language spoken by the Cave Stalkers, the only mortal species capable of developing language in the Nightlight Zone. This overview will only consist of a human approximation of this language, as it is naturally difficult for humans to speak in its original form. This is due to the Cave Stalkers' inability to produce nasal or uvular sounds, and instead have several unique sounds that humans cannot produce.

Geographical Distribution

This language is distributed in the same areas that Cave Stalkers live, which is mostly centered around the Halocline Pits. Because of their low population, this language has little variation over its geographical range.

Phonology

Consonants

[Manner↓]	Labial	Central-Alveolar	Lateral-Alveolar	Post-Alveolar	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Stop	p	t, d			k	q
Fricitive		s		ʃ			h
Affricate			ts, dz
Nasal	m	n
Liquid		l	ɹ	ɹ̠	cʎ̝̊

Spelling:

/ʃ/ -> /sh/

/cʎ̝̊/ -> /kl/

/ɹ̠/ -> /r/

/ɹ/ -> /rr/

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i, ī		u, ū
Mid	e, ē		o, ō
Low		a, ā

Vocabulary

This collection of words consists of basic meanings that relate to both the Cave Stalkers' environment, and their fundamental perception of life itself.

Tsāmo = world
Purākil = individual
Kāp = male
Iluka = female
Onalīqā = animal
Kōli = fear
Tunīqi = water
Lanil = halocline
Muneme = arm
Ilōkō = swim
Non = big
Uqanū = small
Dzumu = plant

Pronouns
Klo = I/me
Uq = You(singular)
Uqan = You(plural)
Mol = He/it
Nul = She
Tsin = We/us
Onāma = They/them

Tenses

	Perfective	Imperfective
Present	-	-
Habitual ("To regularly do")	Rin	Rin
Past	Sāna	Err
Perfect ("To have finished")	Ran	Ran
Future	Loi	Loi
Pluperfect ("He had drawn")	Qa	Qa

The basic copula in Rrōn-onāqu is Rin, which was derived from the word meaning "to lie." It has been used to form the Habitual, Perfect, and Plurperfect tenses, and a new copula "Oq" has taken its place. The only tense that has distinctions between aspects is the past, as this tense is arguably the only one that requires it.

Sentence Structure

This language's default word order is Verb-Subject-Object, and it is very strict about how these words are ordered. In the majority of the time, a subject word placed right before an object word is interpreted as the subject performing an action on the object, which governs how most sentences are perceived. There will commonly be a pronoun placed at the beginning of a sentence, to infer if the subject is a single individual or a group, or if there is a need to specify if they are male or female. Both adjectives and prepositions in this language precede nouns, and in the instance when a subject possesses an object, the possessor always comes before the possessee.

There aren't many known rules about which sounds can be put where in a sentence, besides the fact that short vowels cannot start or finish a word, with a notable exception being /u/. Another rule is that stops are always voiced in between vowels, and vowels will usually lengthen before a voiced stop. Not much is known about the evolution of these sentence structures, as living Cave Stalkers do not know about them either.

Lexicon

This language's lexicon revolves around ideas of survival and cave art, which are two major aspects of Cave Stalker culture. A popular metaphor in the Cave Stalkers' speech is "Crushed by the halocline," which means "they are doomed," due to most species tendencies to die almost immediately upon entering underwater rivers. Various other sayings combine terminology between hunting and art. "Picking up the club," is used to refer to a Cave Stalker just beginning to create artwork, "Executing it," is used to refer to an individual finishing what is considered a masterpiece, and so on.

On top of common sayings, Cave Stalkers associate certain environmental features with numerous different emotions or states of being, such as halocline with danger, dense foliage with safety, arthropods as evil, and eels as being mysterious. Cave Stalkers appear to commonly become prey to arthropods and eels alike due to their tendency to demonize them in their lexicon.

Rrōn-onāqu also has five known derivational affixes:
"Ru-"; prefix for a verb happening
"Rrak-"; prefix for an individual performing a verb
"Sul-"; prefix for an object of a verb
"Ni-"; prefix for a tool used for a verb
"Ona-"; prefix for the smallest unit of something

Role-Marking

One of Rrōn-onāqu's main imperfections is that it uses both noun cases and verb agreement to mark roles, which adds a bit of redundancy to the language. Only noun cases are prefixes, as they were derived from prepositions. The verb role markers act as suffixes.

Noun Cases
Our/my Possession prefix: Rro
Dative Case ("to"): Ul
Locative Case ("at"): Ol
Accusative Case ("for"): Kin
Instrumental Case ("using X to do X"): Unul
Ablative Case ("away from"): Tul
Pertigent Case ("in contact with"): Pol
Genitive Case ("her mother"): Kli

Verb Agreement
For context, this language has a Plural suffix "Su," and a Collective suffix "To."

	Singular	Plural	Collective
1st Person	Klo	Klos	Klot
2nd Person	Uq	Uq	Uq
3rd Person	Onāma	Onāsu	Onāto

Dictionary

35 Words.

Spoken by
Cave Stalkers

Common Female Names

Hono, Dzu, Mūne, Iluk, Sāti, Eruli, Kadapi, Lolin

Common Male Names

Uqa, Analu, Klām, Kap, Nonil, Lanīlim, Tsuni, Anādza, Anāk

Common Unisex Names

Kōli, Su, Kaqu, Quli, Marr