Ancient Rikutsaren

Ancient Rikutsaren (Ricutsaren, ) was the constructed language spoken in Rikutsar, an island nation in the southeastern Indian Ocean, from the late 5th century to the 9th century CE. It is the earliest member of Rikutsaren, now a language family in its own right, and the earliest known constructed language. Elder Rikutsaren was crafted from the years 427 to 440 by the Nuverceisirchugh, a committee of 10-20 members convened and chaired by the Empress Farogúr. Records were thorough, the population of Rikutsar was small and, as such, Elder Rikutsaren is remarkably well-preserved and attested for a language of the era. It is still understood by speakers of Rikutsaren today. The language remained throughout the period highly-inflected and agglutinative, as it mostly still is today. Due to the low population, high loyalty to the monarchy, good education and efficient long-distance communication, the language remained nearly unchanged through almost the entire period, and more pronounced changes to grammar and pronunciations would not arrive until Old Rikutsaren.

Classification
Elder Rikutsaren, being a constructed language, is a language isolate. Its vocabulary borrows often from Latin, as well as the extinct Gallaecian language, various Pama-Nyungan languages of the Australian west coast, and Lithon. Its grammar is also influenced heavily by Latin, as well as Aquitanian to a lesser extent. These correlate with languages that Farogúr and Nyrgraorur had contact with in their great quest through Europe and the voyage to Rikutsar.

Distribution
Ancient Rikutsaren was spoken exclusively in the Archipelago, and by the end of the period speakers were living across the entirety of its land. For a long time there were no discernable dialects, but by the end of the period there were three major dialects: Ancient High Ancient Rikutsaren, the formal and literary dialect; Vulgar Ancient Rikutsaren, a dialect group with each sub-dialect or "accent" roughly corresponding to a large city or region; and Old Swoorlac (known contemporarily as Sweorlac Rikutsaren) which became notably distinct from the varieties of Vulgar Rikutsaren due to the relative isolation from the main island. Old Swoorlac would evolve later into the Swoorlac language.

Vowels
Vowels are quite common in the language. As with Modern Rikutsaren, the nucleus of a syllable can theoretically contain an unlimited number of vowels unless /i/ or /u/ occurs intervocalically. The language had many diphthongs using all the vowels except /y/. Vowels in Ancient Rikutsaren could be classified into two categories: Strong and Weak. Strong vowels were /a/, /e/, and /o/, while weak vowels were /i/, /u/, and /y/. This system emerged due to the high prevalence of diphthongs ending in /i/ and /u/. In grammatical affixes that agree with vowels in the root, they would agree with the stronger vowel in a diphthong, even if the weak vowel is the most recent vowel.

Consonants
(WIP)

Stress
Penultimate syllables are always stressed, and both vowels in a diphthong were stressed if both were strong or weak vowels. In diphthongs consisting of a strong and a weak vowel, the strong vowel was always stressed, causing the weak vowel to be shortened in many cases.

Writing System
Modern Rikutsaren is written by its native speakers and the government of Rikutsar using the Rikutsaren Script, an evolved version of the original script created for use in Ancient Rikutsar. Transcriptions of Rikutsaren into languages that use the Latin alphabet are almost always made using the Rikutsaren Orthography. In an OOC context, there is also an orthography I use for transcribing old or outdated iterations of the language.

Gender
Rikutsaren has three grammatical genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. Nouns do not have inherent gender, and it is used almost entirely in reference to people or animals. Gender affixes come immediately after the root in nouns and pronouns, but in verbs gender affixes come after mood affixes (see [mood]).

Masculine nouns have the affix -on, derived from the word miedon "man". Feminine nouns have the affix -ur, derived from the word alur "woman". Neuter nouns are unmarked.

Number
Singular nouns are unmarked. In the plural, nouns ending in vowels take the affix -c. For nouns ending in a consonant the rule is slightly more complicated. The most recent vowel in a root, the most recent strong vowel if part of a diphthong, (see Vowels) is repeated and then followed by -c in the plural; raol "monkey", raoloc "monkeys"; gwir "person", gwiric "people"

Any noun that refers to a group of multiple things will necessarily be plural, unless the noun refers to the group as a single unified whole (see [collective nouns] for details).

Definiteness
Definiteness of a noun is denoted by the affix, -e. Indefinite nouns are unmarked. The affix occurs after the noun it modifies and also after any gender affixes.

This affix was originally used as a general "catch-all" affix for words meaning "this", as well as "it", 3rd person singular pronouns, and a variety of other grammatical constructions.

Collective Nouns
Nouns that refer to a group of multiple things that are counted as a single unified whole are marked with the collective suffix -ao; rons "tree", ronsao forest; niadz "wolf", niadzao "pack of wolves"

Some nouns are collective by default, such as bituf "snow" or chugh "group". Referring to individual instances of these things is done by adding the count noun affix ([derivational morphology#count nouns]); bituf "snow", bitufut "snowflake"; chugh "group", chughut "element/member of a group"

Case
Nouns are inflected by 8 grammatical cases. These can be grouped into 3 categories depending on how the marked noun functions in the noun phrase: Morphosyntactic cases, Relative cases, and Spatial cases. Pronouns can also be inflected by case, but for the sake of brevity they will be included under the term "noun" for this section.

Morphosyntactic cases are used to modify a noun with any one of a specific set of thematic roles within a noun phrase. Specifically they are used to mark whether a noun is an agent/experiencer (transitive/intransitive subject) or a patient/theme (direct object). There are 2 cases in this category: Nominative and Accusative.

Relative cases are used to denote nouns with other types of thematic role, specifically those of instrument and recipient/beneficiary. It also denotes noun adjuncts, or nouns that modify other nouns, among other things. This category overlaps with the other two often. The three cases in this category are Genitive, Instrumental, and Dative.

Spatial cases are used to denote nouns that have a spatial relation within the noun phrase, such as location, direction, or origin. The three cases in this category are Locative, Lative, and Ablative.

Adpositions
Adpositions come after the noun, but also after any adjective that may modify it. Adpositions cannot exist in phrases that do not have nouns, and are instead represented as adverbs in such environments.

[need example]

Pronouns
Pronouns in Rikutsaren precede their complement.

Personal Pronouns
Personal pronouns are listed in the table below. There are unique singular and plural forms, and gendered personal pronouns are created by adding -on- (masculine) or -ur- (feminine) to the end (or in the case of 3rd person singular pronouns, the beginning). As Rikutsaren has an affix-based verbal conjugation system, there are no subject pronouns, and these pronouns do not occur on their own.

Possessive Pronouns
Possession is marked by the Genitive case. Possessive pronouns are personal pronouns marked with the 2nd declension genitive case ending -i.

Correlative Pronouns
The correlative pronouns of Rikutsaren are remarkably orderly and consistent. They are constructed using two affixes for each axis of the table. Notably, some correlatives draw from more than two affixes depending on whether they act as a determiner, a pronoun, or an adverb. For example, for "where" words, the interrogatives use -gai, as do the adverbs, but the pronoun forms use -id instead.

Adjectives and Adverbs
Adjectives are formed by adding the suffix -u to the end of a noun.Adverbs are formed by adding the suffix -ai to the end of a noun. In a noun-phrase the adjective always come after the noun they modify, but in a verb-phrase the adverb always comes before the verb (preserving the rule that verbs come last). For multiple adverbs or adjectives, the word o "and" splits them.

Degrees of Comparison
(WIP)

The Rikutsaren language uses 2 Degrees of Comparison, "veth" and "sech" are used as Adverbs of Comparison, corresponding to "so" and "not so [much]" or "very" and "not as." When referring to an amount of something, the comparative affixes become standalone in verbal environments. (ex. "I have more." "Veth nemei.").

Verbs
Since Rikutsaren exhibits SOV alignment, verbs occur at the end of the sentence. Within a verb phrase, non-finite verbs appear last.

Verbs can be conjugated by person, tense, aspect, modality, and gender in Elder Rikutsaren. There are distinct markings for person in the singular vs. the plural, and verbs can be in the past, present, or future tense. Additionally, infinitive verb forms can be inflected for tense. Verbs typically have 438 possible forms as a result.

Person and Number
Rikutsaren has three tenses: past, present, and future. They occur consistently across all moods and aspects, and are represented by prefix immediately before the verb root.

Aspect
Rikutsaren has four aspects represented by suffixes on the verb:
 * The Perfective aspect (which is unmarked) represents an action that was, is, or will be complete, no matter the tense, and also a non-habitual (generic) action. Thus it is called complete and generic.
 * The Frequentative aspect (marked by -tsa) represents a complete action that is habitual.
 * The Imperfective aspect (marked by -wa) represents an incomplete action that is generic, analogous to the continuous aspect in English.
 * The Habitual aspect (marked by -si) represents an incomplete and habitual action. In the early notes while developing this aspect system, this was code named the "pledged" aspect because it is analogous to English phrases where someone has pledged to do something, regardless of whether or not they've begun yet.
 * For example "I have been walking", "I am walking", and "I will be walking", where "walking" refers to a habitual exercise, would all fall under the habitual aspect.

Modality
Rikutsaren represents modality, as it does many grammatical concepts, with a suffix. There are 6 moods:
 * The Indicative mood (which is unmarked) is the sole realis mood in Rikutsaren. It represents a verb that is a statement of fact.
 * The Conditional mood (marked by -nor-) is similar to the English conditional, and represents a verb whose validity is dependent on some condition.
 * The Subjunctive mood (marked by -sol-) represents a verb which the speaker is encouraging or discouraging. Can be used as a softer form of the Imperative. Can also serve to affirm or emphasize a verb ("Did you eat?" "I did eat"; "Dapas?" "Napassol")
 * The Imperative mood (marked by -sur-) represents a command or request. In Ancient Rikutsar, as is the case in modern times, the Imperative was not normally used colloquially or informally and was generally seen as authoritative, harsh, and formal.
 * The Permissive mood (marked by -us-) represents a verb that is allowed or permitted by the speaker.
 * The Potential mood (marked by -tse-) represents a verb that is speculated to be possible or not possible, or a verb that the subject speculates they are capable or not capable of doing. Equivalent to English "could."
 * The Epistemic mood (marked by -eru-) represents a verb which is definitely possible or not possible, or a verb that the subject is definitely capable or not capable of doing. Equivalent to English "can." Generally thought to imply an intended action and can be taken as a promise.