Originally posted on Wordpress in August 2021

Introduction

Rennukat, meaning "moon language", is the majority language spoken in Tsurennupaiva, "The land of two moons". There is one major divergent dialect, Aven ferkat "Aven dialect", spoken by people from the area in and around the town of The Avens in the Western District. The difference is roughly the same as the differences between Scots & English. This is the dialect that Kallinu Jurne speaks.

I started working on Rennukat in June 2018 - the same time I started working on The Land of Two Moons. There are some minor influences from Japanese & Finnish, primarily in the phonology, grammar, and pronouns.

Phonology

Consonants

The consonants /b/, /g/, /z/, and /θ/ only occur in old loanwords from other languages. I spent a very long time thinking if I wanted to include those consonants at all, since they really didn't fit with the feel that I was going for.

But Rennukat is supposed to be a naturalistic language, and natlangs adopt consonants and vowels (and word spellings) from other languages all the time, so I kept them in.

Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m n
Stop p (b) t d k (g)
Fricative f v s (z) ʃ (θ) h
Affricate tʃ ts
Approximant r l j

Vowels

Rennukat's vowels system is (with the addition of a few vowels) the standard vowel system I had in most of my earlier conlangs: a short/long distinction for the front and back vowels, and two central vowels: /ə/ and /a/. Short vowels occur when there is a consonant in the coda, and long vowels occur when there is no following consonant in the coda.

[æ], [ɑ], and [ə] are all allophones of /a/, because Rennukat absorbed a lot of words and pronunciations from other languages and it seemed more natural to have some random variations.

Front Central Back
Short Long Short Long
Close ɪ ʏ i y (ə) ʊ u
Close-Mid ɛ e ɔ o
Open (æ) a (ɑ)

Rennukat has a couple of diphthongs: /aɪ/, /aʊ/, /eɪ/, /oɪ/, /oʊ/. Like with the monophthong vowels, they're also part of my standard phonology from my early conlanging years.

Syllable Structure & Consonant Clusters

Rennukat's syllable strucure is CVF, where C is any consonant, V is any vowel or diphthong, and F is any alveolar EXCEPT affricates and /ʃ/.

Consonant clusters only occur mid-word. Any loanword that appears to have a consonant cluster at the end of a word is not pronounced that way. I don't actually have any examples of this.

All alveolars can technically be geminated, but in practice, only /n/, /s/, /r/, and /l/ are geminated. In a couple of dialects, /ss/ becomes /ʃ/, /ʃʃ/, or /sʃ/.

Orthography

Letter a b ch, tj d e f g h
Sound /a/ /b/ /tʃ/ /d/ /e/ /f/ /g/ /h/
Letter i j k l m n o p
Sound /i/ /j/ /k/ /l/ /m/ /n/ /o/ /p/
Letter r s sh t u v y z
Sound /r/ /s/ /ʃ/ /t/ /u/ /v/ /y/ /z/

Sentence Structure

Rennukat's word order is Subject-Object-Verb. Pronouns (often the subject of the sentence) are dropped unless absolutely necessary. The subject of the sentence is dropped in subordinate clauses.

Examples of simple sentences:

Hallion tyvosa.

Joilla mei iro.

Rennukaticha mousso.

Rennukat has no dummy pronouns; there's no equivalent of "it" in sentences like "it's raining" or "it's sunny outside":

Henosa.

Questions

The verb in a question takes the subjunctive mood.

"What" questions are formulated in the same way as a normal sentence, just with the question word at the beginning.

Meaning Rennukat Translation
What kehtu What
Where ke'givvra What location
How ke'vemy What manner
Who k'ollin What person
Why ke'jyhteit What reason
When k'otinne What time

Kehtu maita kehtosatur?

Ke'givrra kala irosatur?

Ke'vemy toricha nirairuur?

K'ollin de toricha nirairutur?

Ke'jyhteit juechat kivrasatur?

K'otinne vuhtacha akoisatur?

Yes/No questions must start with the question particle larai. As there are no words for "yes" and "no", the verb must be repeated with negation or affirmation if necessary.

Larai henosatur?

Henosa tou.

Henosa nas.

Nouns & Adjectives

Nouns are marked for six cases and two numbers. Adjectives precede nouns, and must agree in case and number.

Rennukat has fewer locative cases than a few of my other conlangs. I didn't want it to have too many, since that would make it a little too similar to Finnish.

Case Singular Plural
Nominative - -(i)t
Accusative -(i)cha -(i)chat
Genitive -o -ot
Dative -(i)lla -(i)llat
Ablative -(i)hty -(i)htyt
Allative -(i)nne -(i)nnet

Pronouns

Rennukat has a lot of pronouns. There are five 1st-person pronouns, three 2nd-person pronouns, and three 3rd-person pronouns. I didn't want to put gender on the 3rd-person pronouns, so decided that some of the 1st-person pronouns would be gendered instead - much like what Japanese does.

All pronouns have rather irregular declensions when compared to other nouns.

1st Person Pronouns

There are two sets of 1st-person pronouns: casual and formal. Casual pronouns are used in casual and informal settings, and formal pronouns are used in formal settings and by professionals such as teachers, civil servants, & people in the military.

The most commonly used casual pronouns are the gendered ones. The plural forms of gendered pronouns mean "we men", "we women", "we agender people" rather than referring to a group that one is part of - the general casual plural is used for that.

The male casual pronoun is ohu, which is a contraction of de bohku "this man". It is often shortened even further into o'u /oʊ/ in the nominative.

Singular Plural
Nominative ohu ohut
Accusative ocha ochat
Genitive oho ohot
Dative olla ollat
Ablative ohty ohtyt
Allative onne onnet

The female casual pronoun is ein, a contraction of de eillin or d'eillin "this woman". An earlier form was d'ein.

Singular Plural
Nominative ein einit
Accusative eicha eichat
Genitive eino einot
Dative eilla eillat
Ablative eihty eihtyt
Allative einne einnet

The agender casual pronoun is dyrru, which is a contraction of de kyrru "this agender person".

Singular Plural
Nominative dyrru dyrrut
Accusative dycha dychat
Genitive dyrro dyrrot
Dative dylla dyllat
Ablative dyhty dyhtyt
Allative dynne dynnet

The general casual pronoun is minno. It is less informal than the gendered pronouns, but less formal than the 1st-person formal pronoun.

Singular Plural
Nominative minno minnot
Accusative minnocha minnochat
Genitive minnou minnout
Dative minnolla minnollat
Ablative minnohty minnohtyt
Allative minne minnet

The one formal 1st-person pronoun is arre.

Singular Plural
Nominative arre arret
Accusative arrecha arrechat
Genitive arrot
Dative arrella arrellat
Ablative arrehty arrehtyt
Allative arrenne arrennet

Minno and arre are the original 1st-person pronouns. The gendered ones came later.

2nd Person Pronouns

There are three distinct 2nd-person pronouns: informal/subordinate, formal/superior, and general/peer.

The informal/subordinate pronoun is used when addressing subordinates and people younger than the speaker. It is used by teachers speaking to their students, professionals speaking to their clients, parents speaking to their children, people in the military speaking to civilians, and the Avatar when addressing anyone.

Singular Plural
Nominative jassu jassut
Accusative jacha jachat
Genitive jasso jassot
Dative jalla jallat
Ablative jahty jahtyt
Allative janne jannet

The formal pronoun is used when addressing superiors and people older than the speaker. It is used by students addressing teachers, people speaking to hired professionals (doctors, lawyers, plumbers, etc), children speaking to their parents, civilians speaking to people in the military, and anyone speaking to the Avatar.

Singular Plural
Nominative fynne fynnet
Accusative fycha fychat
Genitive fynno fynnot
Dative fylla fyllat
Ablative fyhty fyhtyt
Allative fynne fynnet

The general/peer pronoun is used when addressing people equal in status or age to the speaker. It is used among friends, siblings, people in relationships, and civil servants speaking to civilians & vice versa.

Singular Plural
Nominative kevai kevait
Accusative kaicha kaichat
Genitive kevo kevot
Dative kailla kaillat
Ablative kaihty kaihtyt
Allative kainne kainnet

3rd Person Pronouns

Third person "pronouns" consist of a demonstrative followed by ollin "person". It is possible to use gendered words such as bohku, eillin, and kyrru, but the use is discouraged as it is considered rude. The contracted forms of the demonstratives de, no, and tau, (d', n', and t') are used unless the speaker wants to be exceptionally formal.

D'ollin, meaning "this person, close to me", is used when the speaker is talking about a person close to them.

N'ollin, meaning "that person, close to you", is used when the speaker is talking about a person close by to the person they are speaking to.

T'ollin, meaning "yonder person, far away from both of us", is used when the speaker is talking about a person that is far away from everyone involved in the conversation.

Demonstratives

Rennukat has three demonstratives: a proximal, medial, and distal.

Demonstrative Meaning
Proximal de This
Medial no That
Distal tau Yonder

Verbs

Verbs are marked for tense, mood, voice, and affirmation/negation. Since Rennukat is primarily an agglutinative language, this happens in the form STEM-TENSE-MOOD-VOICE.

All verb stems end in -a, -o, -ai, or -oi. I considered removing those endings when adding on the tense/mood/voice suffixes, but then decided against it for a reason I genuinely can't remember.

Tense

Verbs have three tenses: past, present, and future. The past tense ending is -ru, which comes from the noun runo meaning "(the) past". The present tense ending is -sa, from the noun sain meaning "(the) present (day)", and the future tense ending is -yt, from the noun yhtor meaning "(the) future".

I'm not 100% certain on this, but I don't think most languages take their verb tenses from temporal nouns - those things seem to be separate. The way I constructed things here would seem to insinuate that those things were deliberately created at some time in the past.

Since Tsurennupaiva's culture was deliberately crafted in the past, it wouldn't be too difficult to imagine that this also happened with some aspects of Rennukat.

Mood

There are five moods: indicative, subjunctive, conditional, optative, and imperative.

The indicative is used to express factual statements. It's the "default" mood, and so has no suffix.

The subjunctive is used to express theoretical and unconfirmed statements, as well as ask questions. The suffix is -(t)ur. It was originally just -ur, but that created some words that looked too weird for my liking.

The conditional is used to express than an action is dependent on some kind of condition. The suffix is -mel.

The optative is used to express hopes, wishes, and prayers. The suffix is -ty, from tyle "wish".

The imperative is used to express orders. The suffix is -ko.

Voice

Rennukat's verbs have two voices: active and passive. The active voice is the default, and is unmarked. The passive ending is -(e)s. I originally thought this resembled English verbs a little too much, but in practice, they don't look English at all:

Affirmation & Negation

As mentioned in the previous section about sentence structure, Rennukat has no words for "yes" or "no". There are, instead, particles for negation (nas) or affirmation (tou) that follow the verb. Nas is used to answer a question or form a statement in the negative. Tou is used more rarely, since the existence or occurrence of things is assumed by default.

Henosa.

Henosa tou.

Henosa nas.

Numbers

Rennukat has a rather boring decimal number system. There are unique numbers for 0, 1-10, 100, and 1000.

Numeral Word
0 il
1 yhdi
2 tsu
3 lare
4 ehta
5 keir
6 omet
7 mortu
8 sahtai
9 shin
10 nyt
100 rassein
1000 yrtenys

Multiples of ten are formed by a numeral from 2-9 followed by nyt. Multiples of 100 and 1000 are formed in a similar way:

Numeral Word Numeral Word Numral Word
20 tsu nyt 200 tsu rassein 2000 tsu yrtenys
30 lare nyt 300 lare rassein 3000 lare yrtenys
40 ehta nyt 400 ehta rassein 4000 ehta yrtenys
50 keir nyt 500 keir rassein 5000 keir yrtenys
60 omet nyt 600 omet rassein 6000 omet yrtenys
70 mortu nyt 700 mortu rassein 7000 mortu yrtenys
80 sahtai nyt 800 sahtai rassein 8000 sahtai yrtenys
90 shin nyt 900 shin rassein 9000 shin yrtenys

Here are some random numbers: