Hansu

Sturnan's little sister, and a bugger of a language

The consonants

As in English unless otherwise marked
p
b
t
d
k
g
ph (f without your teeth)
bh (v without your teeth)
th (as in "think")
h (it's actually the same sound as Spanish j)
sh (as in English)
m
n
l
r
w
y
j (the soft version, or the z in azure)
rr (it's a tap. If you've seen Fellowship of the Ring, it's like how they pronounce "Mordor".)

The vowels

a as in "awful" (make sure you don't include the w)
e like the a in "shame"
u as in "ugly"
í (or ee) like the ea in "lean"
i as in "pin"
o as in "opal" (but keep it short; the English version is ow)
ú or ou like the oo in "coon"

Hansu uses tonal stress. That is, certain syllables are higher than others. There are four tones: high, low, rising, and falling. Disyllables have the pattern HF (or HL in certain dialects), and trisyllables have HHF if the final syllable has a fricative or at least three consonants before it (otherwise HHL). Four-syllable words have a pattern of LRHx, with the same rule for the last syllable as with trisyllables. If there are any more syllables, it's a combination of disyllable and whatever else. However, it's odd to have so many syllables.

Hansu is ergative, which means that the object of a sentence is the same case (patient case) as the subject of a sentence without an object. The sentence word order is Patient Verb Agent, which means that it's OVS and SV. Noun phrases have the noun first, followed by quantifiers, then by adjectives.

Nouns end in -u, verbs in -i, and adjectives in -a. Nouns inflect for a whole bunch of cases, and adjectives do for three. There is no gender.

Dem Scary Noun Cases (an dem adjective cases)

Patient -í (direct object)
Genitive -e ("of" whatever)
Allative -ush ("to" whatever)
Ablative -ah ("from" whatever)
Dative -o (indirect objects; "for" or "to" whatever)
Locative -arr ("in" whatever)
Atquetive -in ("and")
Infrative -ith ("below" whatever)
Suprative -oj ("above" whatever)
Vocative -út (for nouns of direct address, as in "Chris, it's time for dinner")
Reflexive -am (it replaces "to be" for most nouns and adjectives)
Propetive -oph ("near" whatever)
Instrumental -rrd ("with" or "using" whatever)
Adj. inst. -alph
Adj. dat. -om
Adj. gen. -ebh

Verbs!

Verbs have tense prefixes and person/number suffixes.
Past na[th]-
Present uninflected
Future a[b]-
Aorist* kre[j]-

I -ik
We -[h]am
You (s), he -ish
You (pl) -omp
They -ús
He (4) -urr
They (4) -íph
A fourth-person pronoun refers to a second "they" or "he".

Hansu has a definite article ("the" in English), but it's a prefix. If possible, use l-; otherwise, use a-.