Jese'dar or Nukan

Natively known as: nukan /ˈnukan/

  ...and he stood holding his hat and turned his wet face to the wind...
un yun ruto hon kudo seto un hon nube agyuko hito uhen bin
Pronunciation: /un jun ˈɾuto hon ˈkudo ˈseto un hon ˈnube aˈgjuko ˈhito ˈuhen bin/
Jese'dar word order: and he stood hat his holding and his face wet turned the wind to  

Spelling & Phonology

  Consonant inventory: b d g h j k m n p s t w z ŋ ɾ

↓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   Spelling rules:

Pronunciation	Spelling
j	y
ŋ	ng
ɾ	r

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Grammar

  Main word order: Subject Object Verb (Prepositional phrase). “Mary opened the door with a key” turns into Mary the door opened with a key.
Adjective order: Adjectives are positioned after the noun.
Adposition: postpositions  

Nouns

  Nouns have three cases:

• Nominative is the doer of a verb: dog bites man.
• Accusative is the done-to of a verb: man bites dog.
• Genitive is the possessor of something: dog’s tail hits man.

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	No affix dahyupu /daˈhjupu/ dog (when doing the verb)	Suffix -o dahyupuo /ˌdahjuˈpuo/ dogs (when doing the verb)
Accusative	Suffix -un dahyupuun /ˌdahjuˈpuun/ (verb done to) dog	If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -un dahyupun /daˈhjupun/ (verb done to) dogs
Genitive	If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -en dahyupun /daˈhjupun/ dogʼs	Suffix -on dahyupuon /ˌdahjuˈpuon/ dogsʼ

Articles

	Definite	Indefinite
Singular	ro /ɾo/ the	bun /bun/ a
Plural	su /su/ the	pun /pun/ some

Uses of definite article that differ from English:

• Used to talk about countable nouns in general: English’s ‘I like cats’ would translate to ‘I like the cats’

  Uses of indefinite article that differ from English:

• Not used for non-specific countable nouns: non-specific means ‘I am looking for a (any) girl in a red dress’, whereas specific means ‘I am looking for a (particular) girl in a red dress’

 

Pronouns

	Nominative	Accusative	Genitive
1st singular	un /un/ I	su /su/ me	ne /ne/ mine
2nd singular	en /en/ you	pu /pu/ you	min /min/ yours
3rd singular masc	yun /jun/ he, it	sun /sun/ him, it	hon /hon/ his, its
3rd singular fem	ki /ki/ she, it	gon /gon/ her, it	so /so/ hers, its
1st plural	yo /jo/ we	ye /je/ us	o /o/ ours
2nd plural	a /a/ you all	ka /ka/ you all	na /na/ yours (pl)
3rd plural	ba /ba/ they	do /do/ them	bun /bun/ theirs

Possessive determiners

1st singular	ne /ne/ my
2nd singular	min /min/ your
3rd singular masc	hon /hon/ his
3rd singular fem	so /so/ her
1st plural	o /o/ our
2nd plural	na /na/ your (pl)
3rd plural	bun /bun/ their

Verbs

Present	No affix kiryento /kiˈɾjento/ learn
Past	Suffix -o kiryentoo /ˌkiɾjenˈtoo/ learned

Jese'dar uses a standalone particle word for future tense:

Future

Particle before the verb: a - a kiryento /a kiˈɾjento/ 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).
Jese'dar uses an affix for imperfective:

Imperfective

Suffix -in kiryentoin /ˌkiɾjenˈtoin/ learns/is learning

Numbers

  Jese'dar has a base-10 number system:   1 - ze
2 - wahyun
3 - pu
4 - ke
5 - gen
6 - nu
7 - run
8 - anso
9 - pin
10 - bo
11 - bo un ze “ten and one”
100 - moryeba “hundred”
101 - moryeba ze “hundred one”
200 - wahyun moryeba
1000 - makun “thousand”  

Derivational morphology

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