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#3Xinoli alepale by Klaus
Xinoli alepaleEnglish

Si jenjen ʔa:
Xinoli jenjen kuna.
Si xinotan xellenu si xejettan kufiblenu.
Si tu xemfimnu kuna xinoxen xemfimnu tu xinoli ʔalepaletan ʔa kuna ʔa.
Pulle tan nin. Si xinoli jenjen pullefe fiblefiblenu xinoli ʔalepale xellepun punu.
Xinoli jenjessi xinoli jenjen.

This is what people say:
Our people aren't real.
They don't honour those who govern us.
They speak and speak our language which they learn and they teach to us.
Metal they need. Our language comes from writing which our people trade for metal.
Our people are our people.

LEXICON

  • fiblefiblenu
  • 1. to trade
  • 2. to buy from someone
  • 3. to sell to someone
  • fiblenu
  • 1. to pay honour to someone
  • 2. to respect, to value
  • jen
  • 1. person
  • ku
  • 1. bad
  • 2. negative particle
  • 3. negative prefix
  • kuna
  • 1. and
  • na
  • 1. good
  • 2. pretty, beautiful
  • 3. true, real
  • 4. yes
  • nin
  • 1. to love, enjoy, need
  • no
  • 1. first person pronoun
  • pulle
  • 1. rock, stone, metal
  • punu
  • 1. to run, to flow
  • si
  • 1. proximal demonstrative pronoun
  • tan
  • 1. medial demonstrative pronoun
  • tu
  • 1. distal demonstrative pronoun
  • xe
  • 1. other, different
  • xi
  • 1. all
  • xelle
  • 1. rule, law
  • 2. government
  • 3. carving
  • 4. writing
  • xellenu
  • 1. to rule, govern
  • 2. to carve
  • 3. to write
  • xemfimnu
  • 1. to follow
  • 1. to learn from someone
  • 1. to teach to someone
  • ʔalepale
  • 1. language

GRAMMAR

Xinoli ʔalepale is a nominative-accusative language with an unmarked nominative. Word order is generally SOV, with the verb being strictly clause-final and topic being strictly clause-initial. Everything else is head-final, like adjective-noun direction, genitive-noun direction, etc.

  • -tan accusative
  • -li genitive
  • -si topic marker
  • -xen allative

Relative clauses are placed before the main clause and have as the topic the cataphoric pronoun refering to the relativised element, which has to appear always in accusative.

  • -fe benefactive

Benefactive can only be used in relative clauses.

Si, tan, and tu are also used for pronouns.

There are several strategies for indicating plurality: adding an adjective, such as xi "all", reduplication, or zero marking. Some usages are grammaticalised, others ungrammatical, all depending on each word.