Old Uraki

Old Uraki language

Pronunciation	Unknown
Period	ca. 1000 BK - 600 AK(?)
Spoken in	Fish River region, Eastern Amutet
Total speakers	Unknown
Writing system	Uraki logogram
Classification	Ulitan Western Ulitan Fish River South Fish River Uraki
Typology
Basic word order	SVO
Morphology	isolating/aggulating
Alignment	Neutral(Nominative-Accusative marked purely by word order)
Credits
Created by	k1234567890y

Old Uraki was a language spoken in the lower reach region of the Fish River, it is thought to be evolved from some dialects of late Old Fish River language.

Old Uraki was written in a logographic system called the Uraki logogram, but it seemed that Old Uraki was also written in a system derived from that used by some Amutetikam-speaking peoples.

Phonology[]

consonants
	labials	dento-alveolars	palatals	velars/glottal
nasals	m	n		ŋ
plosives	p b	t d		k g*
fricatives		s~h
sonorants	w	r l	j

*/s/ might have been debuccalized to [h], the debuccalization of /s/ was also reflected on foreign-loans.
*/g/ might actually be [ɣ] between vowels in many dialects.

vowels
	front	central	back
high	i		o~ʊ
mid		ə
low		a

/ŋ/ is transcripted as <ng>, /j/ is transcripted as <y>, /s~h/ is transcripted as <h>, /o~ʊ/ is transcripted as <u>.

Grammar[]

word order[]

The word order was SVO, and it used prepositions rather than postpositions.

Noun[]

The old case-number inflection has largely been simplified, nouns only decline according to numbers:

Singular: -Ø
Plural: -i

The old plural system was declining, and a new plural system based on reduplication was rising; moreover, all plural forms were not mandatory, plurals were not used with numbers, and it was common not to use the plural forms at all.

Verb[]

Verbal tense and agreement system appeared in some inscriptions:

present:

1st sg: -im
2nd sg: -it
3rd sg: -i
1st pl: -ik
2nd pl: -ih
3rd pl: -i

past:

1st sg: -u
2nd sg: -at
3rd sg: -a
1st pl: -ak
2nd pl: -ah
3rd pl: -e

subjunctive:

1st sg: -u
2nd sg: -ut
3rd sg: -utə
1st pl: -uk
2nd pl: -uh
3rd pl: -ut

In later Old Uraki, "ma-u", the subjunctive form of ma-i "to do", and its variants are often used as an aux verb for the subjunctive mood instead of the subjunctive agreements.

however, it seemed that in most dialects the tense-agreement system was reduced into a single tense system, the 3rd singular form was used for all persons and numbers:

Present: -i
past: -a
subjunctive: -ut~-u

besides the tense-aspect system, a new voice system was also developed:

Passive: ni-
Applicative(location): -an(placed before tense-agreement inflections)
Applicative(Instrumental): -ik(placed before tense-agreement inflections)
Applicative(Benefactive): ti-

Words[]

Pronouns:

1st sg: ka/yam
2nd sg: ra/yat
3rd sg: a
1st pl: ki
2nd pl: ri
3rd pl: i
reflexive: tu

interrogative:

who/what: ma

demonstratives:

this: mi(pronominal form: ami)
that/the: ya(pronominal form: aya)
here: amim
there: ayam

Numerals:

It seemed that they had a base-10 system:

one: məhu
two: tahu
three: alihu
four: malihu
five: ka-rik(same as the word for "hand")

ten: tarik
twenty: mənah
thirty: tarik alihu
forty: tarik malihu
fifty: tarik karik
sixty: tarik karik məhu
seventy: tarik karik tahu
eighty: tarik karik alihu
ninety: tarik karik malihu
hundred: tagatarik

conjunction:

and: i
or: tah
if: ham

Foreign words[]

The influence of Amutetikam Languages can be seen in lexical level, below are some words that might be borrowed from Amutetikam Languages:

empire: ru-ahiat(cognate with proto-Amutetikam *ʔakʰεjat)
emperor: na-ahiam(cognate with proto-Amutetikam *ʔakʰεjam)
servant/assistant: na-anipah(cognate with proto-Amutetikam *ʔanεpas)
blue: akinal-i(<a-akinal-i)(cognate with proto-Amutetikam *ʔakεnal)
Mainland/the Amutet continent: ru-amitat(cognate with proto-Amutetikam *ʔamεtat)