Old Sluyan, Napin

Natively known as: napin /ˈmapin/

...and he stood holding his hat and turned his wet face to the wind... na pe sa pasano kikino kinen na sa bibukin pibi inun wan nitan[alt] Pronunciation: /ma pe sa ˈpasamo ˈkikino ˈkinen ma sa ˈbibukin ˈpibi ˈimun wan ˈmitan/ Napin word order: and he his hat holding stood and his wet face the wind to turned[/alt]

Spelling & Phonology

Consonant inventory: b d g h j k m n p s t w z ŋ ɾ

↓Manner/Place→	Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m	n		ŋ
Stop	p b	t d		k g
Fricative		s z			h
Approximant			j
Tap		ɾ

Co-articulated phonemes

↓Manner/Place→	Labial-velar
Approximant	w

Vowel inventory: a e i o u

	Front	Back
High	i	u
High-mid	e	o
Low	a

Syllable structure: Custom defined Stress pattern: Initial — stress is on the first syllable Word initial consonants: b d g h j k m n p s t w z ɾ Mid-word consonants: b bj d g gj h hj j k kj m mb mj mp n nj ns nt nw nɾ p pj s t w z ŋg ɾ ɾj Word final consonants: n
Spelling rules:

Pronunciation	Spelling
ŋ	n
m	n
j	y
ɾ	r

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Grammar

Main word order: Subject Object (Prepositional phrase) Verb. “Mary opened the door with a key” turns into Mary the door with a key opened. Adjective order: Adjectives are positioned before the noun. Adposition: postpositions

Nouns

Nouns have six cases:

• Nominative is the doer of a verb: dog bites man.
• Accusative is the done-to of a verb: man bites dog.
• Genitive is the possessor of something: dog’s tail hits man.
• Dative is the recipient of something: man gives ball to dog.
• Locative is the location of something: man goes to town.
• Ablative is movement away from something: man walks from town.

Nouns form plural with separate plural word:

Plural

Particle before the noun: mon - non bini /mon ˈbimi/ dogs

Nominative	No affix bini /ˈbimi/ dog (doing the verb)
Accusative	If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -on binin /ˈbimin/ (verb done to) dog
Genitive	If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -en binin /ˈbimin/ dogʼs
Dative	Suffix -a binia /ˈbimia/ to (the/a) dog
Locative	If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -an binin /ˈbimin/ near/at/by (the/a) dog
Ablative	Suffix -an binian /ˈbimian/ from (the/a) dog

	Masculine	Feminine
Definite	If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -en ninenen /ˈmimenen/	If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -on ninon /ˈnimon/
Indefinite	If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -in ninenin /ˈmimenin/	Suffix -a ninoa /ˈnimoa/

Articles

Napin encodes definite article ‘the’, and indefinite article ‘a’ in noun affixes. See Noun section.

Pronouns

	Nominative	Accusative	Genitive	Dative	Locative	Ablative
1st singular	san /san/ I	wan /wan/ me	kon /kon/ mine	ke /ke/ to me	pun /pun/ at me	ni /ni/ from me
2nd singular	yo /jo/ you	non /mon/ you	in /in/ yours	yu /ju/ to you	ya /ja/ at you	gi /gi/ from you
3rd singular masc	pe /pe/ he, it	nan /man/ him, it	rin /ɾin/ his, its	su /su/ to him, at it	nun /mun/ at him, at it	ban /ban/ from him, from it
3rd singular fem	ka /ka/ she, it	wa /wa/ her, it	pen /pen/ hers, its	a /a/ to her, at it	yan /jan/ at her, at it	son /son/ from her, from it
1st plural	nin /min/ we	ki /ki/ us	ten /ten/ ours	na /ma/ to us	ge /ge/ at us	don /don/ from us
2nd plural	ni /mi/ you all	e /e/ you all	no /mo/ yours (pl)	i /i/ to you all	nin /nin/ at you all	kun /kun/ from you all
3rd plural masc	on /on/ they (masc)	bin /bin/ them (masc)	hen /hen/ theirs (masc)	ne /me/ to them (masc)	no /no/ at them (masc)	ku /ku/ from them (masc)
3rd plural fem	kin /kin/ they (fem)	pin /pin/ them (fem)	pi /pi/ theirs (fem)	kan /kan/ to them (fem)	un /un/ at them (fem)	se /se/ from them (fem)

Possessive determiners

1st singular	be /be/ my
2nd singular	ha /ha/ your
3rd singular masc	sa /sa/ his
3rd singular fem	na /ma/ her
1st plural	go /go/ our
2nd plural	gi /gi/ your (pl)
3rd plural masc	pi /pi/ their (masc)
3rd plural fem	ni /mi/ their (fem)

Verbs

	Present	Past	Remote past	Future
1st singular	Suffix -u nonyanu /ˈnomjanu/ (I) learn	If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -an nonyanan /ˈnomjanan/ (I) learned	Suffix -an nonyanan /ˈnomjanan/ (I) learned (long ago)	Suffix -in nonyanin /ˈnomjanin/ (I) will learn
2nd singular	Suffix -o nonyano /ˈnomjano/ (you) learn	Suffix -an nonyanan /ˈnomjanan/ (you) learned	Suffix -an nonyanan /ˈnomjanan/ (you) learned (long ago)	If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -on nonyanon /ˈnomjanon/ (you) will learn
3rd singular masc	If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -in nonyanin /ˈnomjanin/ (he) learns	Suffix -un nonyanun /ˈnomjanun/ (he) learned	If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -an nonyanan /ˈnomjanan/ (he) learned (long ago)	Suffix -in nonyanin /ˈnomjanin/ (he) will learn
3rd singular fem	Suffix -i nonyani /ˈnomjani/ (she) learns	Suffix -a nonyana /ˈnomjana/ (she) learned	If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -un nonyanun /ˈnomjanun/ (she) learned (long ago)	Suffix -u nonyanu /ˈnomjanu/ (she) will learn
1st plural	If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -un nonyanun /ˈnomjanun/ (we) learn	Suffix -en nonyanen /ˈnomjanen/ (we) learned	Suffix -in nonyanin /ˈnomjanin/ (we) learned (long ago)	If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -un nonyanun /ˈnomjanun/ (we) will learn
2nd plural	If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -on nonyanon /ˈnomjanon/ (you all) learn	Suffix -e nonyane /ˈnomjane/ (you all) learned	Suffix -u nonyanu /ˈnomjanu/ (you all) learned (long ago)	Suffix -an nonyanan /ˈnomjanan/ (you all) will learn
3rd plural masc	If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -en nonyanen /ˈnomjanen/ (they) learn	Suffix -on nonyanon /ˈnomjanon/ (they) learned	Suffix -an nonyanan /ˈnomjanan/ (they) learned (long ago)	Suffix -an nonyanan /ˈnomjanan/ (they) will learn
3rd plural fem	Suffix -in nonyanin /ˈnomjanin/ (they) learn	Suffix -e nonyane /ˈnomjane/ (they) learned	If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -in nonyanin /ˈnomjanin/ (they) learned (long ago)	If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -an nonyanan /ˈnomjanan/ (they) will learn

Numbers

Napin has a base-10 number system:
1 - hi 2 - nan 3 - kan 4 - no 5 - yu 6 - yan 7 - yunu 8 - nin 9 - an 10 - sunen 11 - hi na sunen “one and ten” 100 - hi suka “one hundred” 101 - hi suka na hi “one hundred and one” 200 - nan suka 1000 - hi zoni “one thousand”

Derivational morphology

Adjective → adverb = If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -in Adjective → noun (the quality of being [adj]) = If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -in Adjective → verb (to make something [adj]) = If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -an Noun → adjective (having the quality of [noun]) = If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -in Noun → adjective relating to noun (e.g. economy → economic) = Suffix -i Noun to verb = Suffix -en Verb → adjective (result of doing [verb]) = If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -an Tending to = If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -an Verb → noun (the act of [verb]) = If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -un Verb → noun that verb produces (e.g. know → knowledge) = If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -in One who [verb]s (e.g. paint → painter) = If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -in Place of (e.g. wine → winery) = Suffix -un Diminutive = Suffix -a Augmentative = If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -an

Dictionary

4632 Words.