Eerothi

Overview

Eerothi /iiroði/ is the language spoken by ancient Selvakir and later studied by the Arkafelari. It is a simple yet poetic language used for everyday life and communication.

Phonology:

Sound Inventory

Phonotactics

Any consonant or cluster is permitted in any position, provided it is physically pronounceable.

Physically pronounceable means, in practice, the mouth can transition between the sounds without require an impossible articulation, the main natural limit being things like two sounds that use the same exact mouth position simultaneously.

Diacritics (ā, é) are orthographic conventions, not markers of stress or tone. Each symbol in the phonetic alphabet maps to exactly one sound.

Digraphs (sh, th, ts, dz) are treated as single consonant units. No cluster or combination is forbidden provided it follows the earlier rule. That said, syllable shapes tend to follow natural patterns of ease, the most common forms being:

• CV - ni, mo, ku
• CVC - sol, gor, kit
• CCV - bmi, shi, hlu
• CVCC - born, huzl
• CCVC - vrask, bopt, tsok
  Heavier clusters exist and are valid, but tend to appear in older, religious, or borrowed vocabulary. The further a word strays from these shapes, the more marked or unusual it feels. Vowel sequences and gemination are fully permitted.

Word Formation

Eerothi vocabulary grows organically through three natural mechanisms:

Compounding:
Two words combine to create a new meaning.

• nomu (water) + āi = nomāi (river)
• hél (sun) + sif = hélsif (yellow)
• luxir (home) + no = luxino (village)
• tsā (area) + borā = tsāborā (mountain)

Affixation:
Established affixes extend existing words.
(tā/tān- (plural), -ro (person of), nāv- (negation))

• kānāpu (wander) + -ro = kānāpuro (wanderer)
• luxino (village) + -ro = luxinoro (villager)

Derivation Chains:
Roots evolve outward naturally.

• āpu (stand) -> umāpu (walk) -> zumāpu (run) -> kānāpu (wander) -> kānāpuro (wanderer)
• luxir (home) -> luxino (village) -> luxinoro (villager)

Grammar:

Word Order

Eerothi follows SVO order. All modifiers precede what they modify. Adjectives precede nouns, adverbs precede adjectives and verbs, question words front the sentence, negation precedes the verb, and prepositions precede their noun.

Pronouns

Affixes

Pluralization

Plurality is mandatory. The prefix tā- applies to consonant-initial words, tān- to vowel-initial words, and attaches only to the plural subject, no other words in the sentence are marked. Pronouns have their own plural forms and do not use these affixes.

Negation

Eerothi has four distinct negative words, each occupying different semantic space:

Tense / Aspect

Eerothi marks both tense and aspect as separate systems that stack independently before the verb. Present tense is unmarked, the default state. All markers precede the verb in this order: tense -> aspect -> verb.

While some all markers exist independently as lexical words, context determines whether they function as tense markers or standalone vocabulary.

Eerothi Lexicon

To-Do