Galactic Common

A universal lingual Franca throughout the galaxy. On many worlds, not just in the Coalition, it’s become the native tongue, that is used in everyday life and the first language human babies learn.

Dialects have occurred, so pronunciation can differ between star systems, The Tantalusians have several idiomatic expressions that only they understand, and take perverse pleasure in using them in front of other Coalition Citizens, just to see the confusion on their faces.

Natively known as: Unsetoe Yengo /ˌunseˈtoe ˈjeŋgo/

...and he stood holding his hat and turned his wet face to the wind... ri ye ton gunpan puko puwo ri kaku na ton kukeka noa kahon Pronunciation: /ri je ton ˈgumpan ˈpuko ˈpuwo ri ˈkaku ma ton kuˈkeka ˈnoa ˈkahon/ Galactic Common word order: and he his hat holding stood and the wind to his wet face turned

Spelling & Phonology

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

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

Co-articulated phonemes

↓Manner/Place→	Labio-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: Penultimate — stress is on the second last syllable Word initial consonants: b, d, g, h, j, k, m, n, p, r, s, t, w, z Mid-word consonants: b, d, g, h, j, k, m, mb, mp, n, ns, nt, p, r, s, t, w, z, ŋg Word final consonants: n
Phonological changes (in order of application):

• d → Ø / _N
• S → F / _S
• S → Ø / #_F
• S → S[-voice] / _#
• ja → e / r_#

Spelling rules:

Pronunciation	Spelling
j	y
m	n
ŋ	n

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Grammar

Main word order: Subject-Oblique-Object-Verb. "Mary opened the door with a key" turns into Mary with a key the door opened. Adjective order: Adjectives are positioned before the noun. Adposition: postpositions

Nouns

Nouns have three 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.

Nominative	No affix nipi /ˈmipi/ dog (doing the verb)
Accusative	Suffix -un nipiun /miˈpiun/ (verb done to) dog
Genitive	Suffix -en nipien /miˈpien/ dogʼs

Singular	No affix nipi /ˈmipi/ dog
Plural	Suffix -en nipien /miˈpien/ dogs

Articles

Definite	yen /jen/ the
Indefinite	u /u/ a, some

Pronouns

	Nominative	Accusative	Genitive
1st singular	sen /sen/ I	sun /sun/ me	gun /gun/ mine
2nd singular	hu /hu/ you	ze /ze/ you	na /ma/ yours
3rd singular masc	ye /je/ he	ku /ku/ him	pen /pen/ his
3rd singular fem	no /no/ she	pun /pun/ her	da /da/ hers
1st plural	a /a/ we	rin /rin/ us	su /su/ ours
2nd plural	kun /kun/ you (all)	ti /ti/ you (all)	hun /hun/ yours
3rd plural	ton /ton/ they	ki /ki/ them	an /an/ theirs

Possessive determiners

1st singular	sen /sen/ my
2nd singular	du /du/ your
3rd singular masc	ton /ton/ his
3rd singular fem	ba /ba/ her
1st plural	kon /kon/ our
2nd plural	ku /ku/ your
3rd plural	nan /man/ their

Verbs

Present	Suffix -in nakunein /ˌmakuˈnein/ study
Past	No affix nakune /maˈkune/ studied
Future	If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -un nakunen /maˈkunen/ will study

Perfect aspect

The perfect aspect in English is exemplified in ‘I have read this book’, which expresses an event that took place before the time spoken but which has an effect on or is in some way still relevant to the present. Galactic Common uses an affix for the perfect aspect:

Perfect

If ends with vowel: Suffix -mpi Else: Suffix -ampi nakunenpi /ˌmakuˈnempi/

Numbers

Galactic Common has a base-10 number system:
1 - yu 2 - hu 3 - ye 4 - dan 5 - ni 6 - zen 7 - su 8 - nin 9 - ku 10 - bansun 11 - bansun ri yu “ten and one” 100 - yu zekun “one hundred” 101 - yu zekun ri yu “one hundred and one” 200 - hu zekun 1000 - yu sadu “one thousand”

Derivational morphology

Adjective → adverb = If ends with vowel: Suffix -so Else: Suffix -uso Adjective → noun (the quality of being [adj]) = If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -un Adjective → verb (to make something [adj]) = If ends with vowel: Suffix -mpo Else: Suffix -ompo Noun → adjective (having the quality of [noun]) = Suffix -en Noun → adjective relating to noun (e.g. economy → economic) = Suffix -e Noun → verb (to create [noun]) = Suffix -on Verb → adjective (result of doing [verb]) = If ends with vowel: Suffix -tu Else: Suffix -atu Verb → adjective (likely to do [verb]) = Suffix -en Verb → noun (the act of [verb]) = Suffix -e Verb → noun that verb physically produces (e.g. build → building) = Suffix -u One who [verb]s (e.g. paint → painter) = Suffix -in Place of (e.g. wine → winery) = If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -an Diminutive = If ends with vowel: Suffix -he Else: Suffix -ihe Augmentative = Suffix -o

Writing System

Galactic Common uses a syllabary based writing system.

Geographical Distribution

Across the galaxy, except for Planet Earth, where the language is unknown.

Dictionary

4404 Words.

Successor Languages

• Secret Sign Language of the MGS
• Tantalusian Dialect.

Spoken by

• Sisyphean