Old Sumrë

Old Sumrë is a conlang set in the continent of Malomanan. It is the ancester of the entire Sumric language. The language split into a family of languages after Olñam Yaron devastated Malomanan. This page will showcase the grammar, vocabulary and other details concerning the language.

Consonants
Homosyllabic consonant clusters are relatively rare in Old Sumrë, having only three which are rn, rm and lm, but even these have a short schwa inserted between the two consonants in speech.

e.g

ern /ɛrə̆n/ ‘big’

-ërm /erə̆m/ ‘hearsay suffix’

ralm /ralə̆m/ ‘long’

heterosyllabic consonants on the other hand are perfectly legal and do often occur though there are certain clusters which can’t occur anywhere which are:

nd mb ng rd nc rt

If these occur in a foreign name or place name then Old Sumrë inserts an interruptive -o- between the two consonants.

Homosyllabic consonant clusters are relatively rare in Old Sumrë, having only three which are rn, rm and lm, but even these have a short schwa inserted between the two consonants in speech.

Stress
Stress in Old Sumrë is un marked due to it’s fixed penultimate syllable stress e.g

fo ría ‘plain’

dë nut ‘soon’

hô car  ‘cold’

le rñolomenna ‘wise’

= =

Noun Suffix Hierarchy
Being a highly inflecting language, nouns very often do take on several suffixes so there is a specific order in which these suffixes attach to the noun which is as follows. The brackets denote a suffix may or may not be included, depending on context.

noun + (case) + (conjunction)

yaron > yaron = wolf

yaron + es > yarones = with the wolf

yaron + es + ac > yaronesac = and with the wolf

Noun Gender
There are two genders which are Buzzard and Deer. The noun genders have nothing to do with their namesakes as evidenced by the fact the noun loman ‘deer’ is buzzard gender. The way to tell which gender a noun belongs to is very simple. If the nouns ends in a vowel then it is in the deer gender, if it ends in a consonant then it is on the buzzard gender. e.g.

Buzzard: ends in a consonant

yaron ‘wolf’

ron ‘dog’

arbat ‘coat’

hôcar ‘the cold’

Deer: ends in a vowel

nimga ‘daughter’

onta ‘day’

yamsa ‘fire’

nonna ‘tribe’

Old Sumrë has 16 noun cases which inflect for gender and number. the 16 cases are:

 * 1) Nominative: marks the subject
 * 2) Accusative:  marks the direct object
 * 3) Genitive: marks possession
 * 4) Dative: marks the indirect object
 * 5) Superessive: ‘on’ the surface
 * 6) Subessive: ‘under’ something
 * 7) Illative: movement into something
 * 8) Perlative: movement through or along
 * 9) Allative: movement to something
 * 10) Comitative: in company of something, with
 * 11) Apudessive: beside something
 * 12) Delative: movement from the surface, from
 * 13) Supressive: above something
 * 14) Paressive: beside something
 * 15) Prolative:throug something, by way of, by means of,
 * 16) Inessive: inside something