Mermish

Mermish is a language family comprising many of the tongues and dialects of the merfolk and other intelligent aquatic species. It is not a single language; the dictionary included here gives examples of the most well known Mermish language, Kicömish. However, the transcription given here is not a truly accurate and acts as a vulgate form of the language sometimes used by anthropologists and travelers to Kicöshäekä.
Mermish languages are unique in that they are designed to be spoken and heard underwater. This impacts much of the language's phonology as well as its structure. Moreover, most Mermish languages are impossible for mortals like humans or elves to understand or speak. This is because Mermish takes advantage of many unique facets of merfolk physiology to produce sounds, such as rapid glottal clicks.
Many mortals upon first hearing Mermish remark that it sounds like the squeaking of dolphins, the chittering of seabirds, or the echoing of whales.

Writing System

No known Mermish language has a native script and any written forms of Mermish are usually composed by outsiders. This is likely because the means of writing underwater are limited, with things like ink, parchement, or animal hide decaying rapidly. Some limited forms of stone or ivory carving do exist in merfolk societies but they are largely pictographic and do not represent a true written language.

Geographical Distribution

Mermish is spoken throughout the seas and oceans of Holos. As a language family, it has a vast reach with many different languages and dialects. Because few merfolk venture inland or into freshwater, its reach is limited by the marine coastlines. Few non-mer can speak it, though many other aquatic species like the sahuagin can understand it. It is also known in triton enclaves, such as those found in Solstice's Underquay district.

Phonology

Mermish languages have highly unique phonologies that can only have developed in subaquatic environment. While light and therefore visability is greatly reduced underwater, sound can travel much farther and be sustained for longer. However, many phonemes used on the surface are difficult to make out in an aquatic medium. Labial sounds can become distorted while nasal sounds are next to impossible to generate with the merfolk's anatomy. As a result, vowels and clicking sounds are preferred and have become the dominent phonemes in most merfolk languages. Some Mermish languages with extended interactions with surface-dwellers have adopted more natively terrestrial sounds but it is unclear how much those sounds have penetrated those languages as a whole.

Vowels

Mermish utilizes a large number of short and long vowels. Short vowels are often very short, almost clipping or asperated, while long vowels can have varying lengths.
Vowel inventory: e eː i iː oː uː æ ɑː ɪ ɯ ʊ

	Front	Back
High	i iː	ɯ uː
Near-high	ɪ	ʊ
High-mid	e eː	oː
Near-low	æ
Low		ɑː

Syllable structure: Custom defined
Stress pattern: No stress

Consonants

Mermish consonents are focused around the velar-allovelar region, where the loudest sounds can be generated.
Mermish languages also include a vast array of clicks. Merfolk have highly flexable glottises, which function similar to those of cetaceans. By moving them rapidly, merfolk can generate a large variety of clicks, many of which are indistinguishable to other mortals.
Consonant inventory: b d g k l m n p s t v w ǀ ǁ ǃ ɹ ʃ ʔ ʘ ʧ

↓Manner/Place→	Bilabial	Labiodental	Dental	Alveolar	Palato-alveolar	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m			n
Stop	p b			t d		k g	ʔ
Affricate					ʧ
Fricative		v		s	ʃ
Approximant				ɹ
Lateral approximant				l
Click	ʘ		ǀ	ǃ
Lateral click				ǁ

Co-articulated phonemes

↓Manner/Place→	Labial-velar
Approximant	w

Tones

Mermish languages are also highly tonal, with most Mermish languages having very high, high, medium, low, very low, rising, and falling tones. Some mermish languages even have ultra high and ultra low tones. These ultra tones vibrate as such extreme frequencies that other mortals cannot hear them, essentially making these Mermish languages untranslatable.
Some merfolk are able to generate multiple tones at once to create a harmonizing effect. These sounds have rarely been recorded by mortals, but it is believed they may be related to the entrancing songs sung by merfolk to lure sailors in many of the classical nautical stories.

Syntax

Noun case

Nominative	No affix odol /ʊdʊl/ starfish (doing the verb)
Accusative	If starts with vowel: Prefix ek- Else: Prefix eke- ekodol /ekʊdʊl/ (verb done to) starfish
Genitive	Prefix oː- öodol /oːʊdʊl/ starfish's
Dative	Prefix e- eodol /eʊdʊl/ to (the/a) starfish
Locative	If starts with vowel: Prefix ʃ- Else: Prefix ʃɑː- shodol /ʃʊdʊl/ near/at/by (the/a) starfish
Ablative	If starts with vowel: Prefix t- Else: Prefix tʊ- todol /tʊdʊl/ from (the/a) starfish

Noun number

Singular	No affix odol /ʊdʊl/ starfish
Plural	If ends with consonant: Suffix -uː Else: Suffix -ʃuː odolü /ʊdʊluː/ starfish

Pronouns

1st person	chä /ʧɑː/ I, me, mine, we, us, ours
2nd person	shör /ʃoːɹ/ you, yours, you all, yours (pl)
3rd person	xa /ǁæ/ he, she, him, her, his, hers, it, its, they, them, theirs

Tense particles

Past	ü /uː/
Present	ä /ɑː/
Future	sa /sæ/

Tenses

Verb tense

Remote past	If starts with vowel: Prefix g- Else: Prefix gɑː- gäklu /gɑːklɯ/ learned (long ago)
Past	Prefix lɑː- läklu /lɑːklɯ/ learned
Present	No affix klu /klɯ/ learn
Future	If starts with vowel: Prefix kl- Else: Prefix kli- klyklu /kliklɯ/ will learn
Remote future	If starts with vowel: Prefix ɹ- Else: Prefix ɹæ- raklu /ɹæklɯ/ will learn (long way away)

Verb aspect

Perfective	If starts with vowel: Prefix t- Else: Prefix tɑː- täklu /tɑːklɯ/ learn
Habitual	If starts with vowel: Prefix v- Else: Prefix ve- veklu /veklɯ/ learn (often)
Continuous	Reduplicate last part of last syllable kluu /klɯɯ/ learning
Perfect	Reduplicate whole word kluklu /klɯklɯ/ have learned

c

Sentence Structure

...and he stood holding his hat and turned his wet face to the wind...
e 'ë lap lël ë shä xa e sky üwëcho plä ë shä i glöuti
Pronunciation: /e ʔeː læp leːl eː ʃɑː ǁæ e ski uːweːʧʊ plɑː eː ʃɑː ɪ gloːɯtɪ/
Mermish word order: and stood holding his hat he and turned his wet face to the wind
Main word order: Verb Object (Prepositional phrase) Subject. “Mary opened the door with a key” turns into Opened the door with a key Mary.
Adjective order: Adjectives are positioned before the noun.
Adposition: prepositions

Adjective Order

Numbers

Mermish has a base-10 number system:
1 - ü
2 - güxy
3 - yr
4 - ox
5 - chä
6 - plo
7 - mla
8 - al
9 - gydy
10 - mü
Hundred - së
Thousand - sül

Derivational morphology

Adjective → adverb = Prefix ɑː-
Adjective → noun (the quality of being [adj]) = Prefix oː-
Adjective → verb (to make something [adj]) = Prefix æ-
Noun → adjective (having the quality of [noun]) = If starts with vowel: Prefix ʃ-
Else: Prefix ʃɪ-
Noun → adjective relating to noun (e.g. economy → economic) = If starts with vowel: Prefix v-
Else: Prefix vɑː-
Noun to verb = Change all ǁæ- to ǁæt/_V#
Verb → adjective (result of doing [verb]) = If starts with vowel: Prefix ʧ-
Else: Prefix ʧeː-
Tending to = Prefix uː-
Verb → noun (the act of [verb]) = If starts with vowel: Prefix ɹ-
Else: Prefix ɹʊ-
Verb → noun that verb produces (e.g. know → knowledge) = If starts with vowel: Prefix tɹ-
Else: Prefix tɹæ-
One who [verb]s (e.g. paint → painter) = Suffix -ʔiː
Place of (e.g. wine → winery) = If starts with vowel: Prefix ɹ-
Else: Prefix ɹɑː-
Diminutive = If ends with vowel: Suffix -ʧoː
ELSE -ɯʧoː OR If ends with vowel: Suffix -ʧoː ELSE -ʊʧoː
Augmentative = If ends with vowel: Suffix -ɹʊɑː
ELSE -ʊɑː OR If ends with vowel: Suffix -ɹɯɑː ELSE -ɯɑː
Child = Suffix -nliː
Fish = Prefix tliː-
Leg = Suffix -toːɹ
Bornwith = Prefix tɹi-
False = Prefix mæ-
City = Suffix -ekɑː
Shark = Prefix seːlɑː-
Rdolphin = Suffix -iːʔeː

Dictionary

3189 Words.