Originally posted on Wordpress on 10 May 2021

Introduction

The first time I tried to create a personal conlang was in 2016. It went through a few changes and was, at one point, named läin höuror. Sänirtäm is the (hopefully) final version of this personal conlang.

When I first started working on Sänirtäm, I was fairly interested in creating a language with the aesthetics of Sanskrit. I was also interested in Finnish, and toyed with the idea of having vowel harmony. This idea was scrapped when I decided that I also wanted to be able to pronounce this language.

Sänirtäm is nominative-accusative and agglutinative, because I really like agglutination. It also has a lot of "paired" verbs, where changing the final vowel from /a/ to /u/ changes the meaning from passive to active.

Consonants

Sänirtäm's consonants are fairly "normal" by European standards:

Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m n (ɲ) (ŋ)
Stop p b t d (c) (ɟ) k g
Affricate (tɕ) (dʑ)
Fricative s (ɕ) (ç) (x) h
Approximant (ʋ) r l j w

Certain consonants are palatalized before (and sometimes after) front vowels:

The /w/ shifting to [ʋ] was a result of me wanting both sounds in the language, but not wanting them to be represented by separate letters. I don't actually know if this happens in any natlang.

Vowels

Vowels are not particularly unusual. The only allophone is [ə], which is what /ɑ/ becomes in unstressed syllables.

Front Central Back
Close i u
Mid e (ə) o
Open æ ɑ

/ɑ/ and /o/ followed by syllable-final /w/ become diphthongs:

Diphthongs do not exist otherwise.

Syllable Structure & Stress

Syllable structure is (C)V(F):

Primary stress falls on the initial syllable, and secondary stress falls on every other syllable.

Orthography

Consonants
Letter b d g h k l m
Sound /b/ /d/ /g/ /h/ /k/ /l/ /m/
Letter n p r s t v y
Sound /n/ /p/ /r/ /s/ /t/ /w/ /j/

Vowels
Letter a ä e i o u
Sound /ɑ/ /æ/ /e/ /i/ /o/ /u/

With the exception of <ä>, zero letters use diacritics. This was a deliberate decision, as the US-International keyboard doesn't allow you to type every diacritic on every letter. I did not want to continually have to copy/paste letters.

/w/ is represented by specifically because I wanted Sänirtäm to look more like Sanskrit. I don't particularly think I succeeded in that endeavor.

Demonstrative Articles

Sänirtäm has four demonstrative articles: proximal, distal, medial, and one that means "on/at":

Pronouns

Sänirtäm doesn't have any pronouns, because I wanted to see if I could make a language without them.

In place of first-person pronouns (I, me, we, us), Sänirtäm uses the demonstrative tokairo "this, at/on me" + tären "person". Names are used instead of second-person pronouns.

Proximal/media/distal demonstratives are used in place of third-person pronouns:

Nouns & Adjectives

Nouns are either animate or inanimate, and inflected for case, number, and gender.

Animate nouns end in consonants in the nominative singular and are declined as such:

Singular Dual Plural
Nominative - -aye -a
Accusative -os -osaye -osa
Genitive -un -unaye -una
Dative -am -amaye -ama
Ablative -ir -iraye -ira
Allative -es -esaye -esa

Inanimate nouns end in vowels in the nominative singular and follow this declension:

Singular Dual Plural
Nominative - -mun -m
Accusative -su -sumun -sum
Genitive -nu -numun -num
Dative -ya -yamun -yam
Ablative -tu -tumun -tum
Allative -va -vamun -vam

Adjectives come in front of nouns and agree in case, number, and gender:

Verbs

Verbs are conjugated for tense and mood, and are grouped into two categories: active and passive.

Passive verbs are primarily verbs that the agent has little or no control over:

Indicative Subjunctive Conditional Optative Imperative
Present -a -n -vä -te -yu
Recent past -dem -denne -devvä -dette -deyyu
Far past -ni -nin -nivä -nite -niyu
Near future -tur -turne -turvä -turte -turyu
Far future -sos -sosen -sosvä -soste -sosyu

Examples of passive verbs:

Active verbs are verbs that the agent has full control over:

Indicative Subjunctive Conditional Optative Imperative
Present -u -iru -esu -emu -ara
Recent past -dem -deru -desu -demu -dara
Far past -ni -niru -nesu -nemu -nara
Near future -tur -turu -tussu -turmu -tura
Far future -sos -sorru -sosu -somu -sora

Examples of active verbs:

Example Sentences

Baruh tevna maunos.

Sur maun tevnudem kelos baruhos.

Tokairo tären litaradem es Sänirtamos savniyunesu.