Niruken

Natively known as: niruke /niˈɾuke/

...and he stood holding his hat and turned his wet face to the wind... wa ra dansen nongo nen tebyu wa an nen sahyun wapya bi kure[alt] Pronunciation: /wa ɾa ˈdansen ˈnoŋgo men ˈtebju wa an men ˈsahjun ˈwapja bi ˈkuɾe/ Niruken word order: and he stood holding his hat and turned his wet face to the wind[/alt]

Spelling & Phonology

Consonant inventory: b d g h j k m n p s t w z ŋ ɾ
[font]Click IPA symbols for audio [img]

↓Manner/Place→	Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m	n		ŋ
Stop	p b	t d		k g
Fricative		s z			h
Approximant			j
Tap		ɾ

Co-articulated phonemes

↓Manner/Place→	Labial-velar
Approximant	w

Vowel inventory: a e i o u

	Front	Back
High	i	u
High-mid	e	o
Low	a

Syllable structure: Custom defined Stress pattern: Penultimate — stress is on the second last syllable Word initial consonants: b d g h j k m n p s t w z ɾ Mid-word consonants: b bj d g gj h hj j k kj m mb mj mp n nj ns nt nw nɾ p pj s t w z ŋg ɾ ɾj Word final consonants: n
Spelling rules:

Pronunciation	Spelling
ŋ	n
m	n
j	y
ɾ	r

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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 before the noun. Adposition: prepositions

Nouns

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

	Definite	Indefinite
Singular	If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -on ninponon /mimˈponon/ the dog	If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -en ninponen /mimˈponen/ a dog
Plural	If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -un ninponun /mimˈponun/ the dogs	If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -an ninponan /mimˈponan/ some dogs
Dual	Prefix a- aninpon /aˈmimpon/	Suffix -un ninponun /mimˈponun/

Articles

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

Pronouns

1st singular	gen /gen/ I, me, mine
2nd singular	se /se/ you, yours
3rd singular masc	ra /ɾa/ he, him, his, it, its
3rd singular fem	tan /tan/ she, her, hers, it, its
1st plural	ni /ni/ we, us, ours
2nd plural	no /mo/ you all, yours (pl)
3rd plural	za /za/ they, them, theirs

Possessive determiners

1st singular	ten /ten/ my
2nd singular	nu /nu/ your
3rd singular masc	nen /men/ his
3rd singular fem	tan /tan/ her
1st plural	wan /wan/ our
2nd plural	gen /gen/ your (pl)
3rd plural	pa /pa/ their

Verbs

	Singular	Plural
Present	If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -en kogenen /koˈgenen/ (I/you/he/she) learns	If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -an kogenan /koˈgenan/ (we/they) learn
Past	Suffix -i kogeni /koˈgeni/ (I/you/he/she) learned	If starts with vowel: Prefix k- Else: Prefix ke- kekogen /keˈkogen/ (we/they) learned
Remote past	If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -in kogenin /koˈgenin/ (I/you/he/she) learned (long ago)	Suffix -un kogenun /koˈgenun/ (we/they) learned (long ago)
Future	If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -un kogenun /koˈgenun/ (I/you/he/she) will learn	Suffix -en kogenen /koˈgenen/ (we/they) will learn

Imperfective aspect

The ‘imperfective’ aspect refers to ongoing actions, such as I am learning and habitual actions, such as I learn (something new every day).
Niruken uses a standalone particle word for imperfective:

Imperfective

Particle before the verb: man - nan kogen /man ˈkogen/ learns/is learning

Numbers

Niruken has a base-10 number system:
1 - e 2 - ken 3 - hen 4 - da 5 - gon 6 - ne 7 - pan 8 - kuzu 9 - a 10 - su 11 - sue “ten-one” 100 - runsun “hundred” 101 - runsun wa e “hundred and one” 200 - ken runsun 1000 - zenyun “thousand”

Derivational morphology

Adjective → adverb = Suffix -o Adjective → noun (the quality of being [adj]) = If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -in Adjective → verb (to make something [adj]) = If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -in Noun → adjective (having the quality of [noun]) = Prefix na- Noun → adjective relating to noun (e.g. economy → economic) = If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -un Noun to verb = Suffix -o Verb → adjective (result of doing [verb]) = If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -on Tending to = Suffix -i Verb → noun (the act of [verb]) = Suffix -u Verb → noun that verb produces (e.g. know → knowledge) = Suffix -an One who [verb]s (e.g. paint → painter) = Prefix e- Place of (e.g. wine → winery) = If starts with vowel: Prefix k- Else: Prefix ka- Diminutive = Suffix -a Augmentative = If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -un

Dictionary

4540 Words.

Spoken by

• Niruken