Nethen

The Nethen language was spoken by the Nethen. Not to be confused with Nethen Ciclimancy, the Nethen encrypted written language, Nethen is both a spoken and written tongue. The language has been around in its current iteration for nearly 4000 years with only a small amount of changes. Much of it has to do with the very long lifespans of the Nethen race.   Nethen is a language rich with sounds. It consists of 17 consonants and 15 vowel sounds.

Phonology

b d f ɡ h j k l m n p ɹ s t ʃ ʧ ʤ θ ɑ æ ɛ ɜː iː ɪ ɔː uː ʊ ʌ aɪ aʊ eɪ oʊ ɔɪ

Syntax

Sentance Structure

Nethen is written in a OSV format. For instance: "The store the clerk went" or "The house of white the person of deliveries visited". As you can see in the second example, adjectives follow the noun and connected by the preposition "dE" (phonetic) and spelled "de". In addition, adverbs follow the verb, "The house the person went quickly".

Phonetics

The Consonant Sounds

b as in boy
ch as in church
d as in dog
f as in fact
g as in gave
h as in hat
j as in jingle
k as in cat
l as in late
m as in mask
n as in nap
p as in paul (asperations are not distinguished)
r as in rail
s as in sap
th as in think (not that)
t as in tap
y as in yell
 

Vowel Sounds

A as in cake
E as in feet
I as in like
O as in note
U as in mute
a as in cat
e as in let
i as in lit
o as in lot
u as in sun
oo as in boot
ae as in ash
uu as in put
aw as in dog
ow as in down
oi as in voice

Sentence Structure

Verb Tenses

The infinitive tense of the language does not have a modifier like the word "to" in English. So "to run" in english would simply be "tawr" (phonetic).   The tenses of the language are distant imperfect, imperfect, preterit, present perfect, future perfect, and theoretical.   The theoretical tense refers to "what if" or "perhaps" type situations.   The distant imperfect are for imperfect and preterit happenings more that 100 years earlier, and it was acceptable to use it only for other time frames such as 500 or 1000 years if the reader understands the historical context.   Imperfect refers to something that happened and is still going on, for instance, "The mana began to flow into the object." This assumes it is still flowing.   The preterit tense is something that happened and is over now, "The staff broke in half".   The present perfect is happening now.   The future perfect is something that will happen later than the time it was spoken or written.
Spoken by


Cover image: by Elena Ivashchenko

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