Note:

Jeddu is a Bantu a posteriori conlang spoken in an alternate Ethiopia by about ten thousand people and written in a variant of the real-life Ge’ez script.

For pronunciation, <ä> is /ǝ/, <ë> is /ɨ/, and a dot underneath a consonant indicates that it’s ejective. A ˇ above a consonant makes it palatal, or an alveolo-palatal fricative. Everything else is pretty much as you’d imagine (Spanish/Slovenian/IPA values).

Morphology:

Nouns and adverbs:

(gender) - possessive - augment - gender - root - conjunction

The initial gender prefix can be considered a part of the possessive prefix and indicates the gender of the possessed item. This is the same as the other gender prefix (note: bë- for gender 8 if it is preceding a consonant).

The possessive prefix indicates the gender or person/number of the possessor. Note that this and the possessed gender prefix can be chained to indicate multiple possession (‘our cat’s fur’, for example). Forms in the text include -atu- for 1P, which can acquire epenthetic h before or after, if there is a vowel before or after, and -tu- for gender 13.

The augment is mainly for indicating definiteness: any noun phrase that refers to a specific, known referent (with the exception of proper nouns, adverbials, and nouns in prepositional phrases) takes the augment on the head noun. The augments have special forms for each gender and often cause irregular changes in the root. In this text, the augment takes the form ë- every time, and causes a following ë to become either i or u, a process which is irregular.

I included the gender prefixes on the root in the dictionary since they have to be learned with the word, are obligatory, and are often very irregular. They also carry a meaning of singular/plural number.

Conjunctions include -na ‘and’, and -gënë ‘but’. -gënë tends to be used on the thing that is being contrasted, while -na tends to be on the last main verb before the next clause if clauses are being joined, and the second-to-last noun if nouns are being joined.

Note: adverbs can’t actually take conjunction affixes or the augment, but they do have gender prefixes attached and are often treated like nouns grammatically. Some can even take possessive prefixes.

Verbs:

subject.relative - (root) - subject.gender.tense - negative - object.gender - indirect.object.gender - root - focus/applicative - mood - (subject.gender) - negative - conjunction

There are no relative prefixes in the text.

The (root) is for the first part of a compound verb, none of which occur in the text.

All the subject.gender.tense prefixes in this text are in the present/habitual tense. There is actually only one in the text, bä- (3P or equivalently gender 2, indicating a human group as the subject). It becomes b- before the reflexive object prefix.

The negative prefix is të-, or ṭë- before a voiceless sound. It obligatorily co-occurs with the negative suffix and the second subject.gender affix.

Object.gender markers work identically for both direct and indirect objects, since Jeddu treats the two the same way. Note that often the identity of the possessor is marked on the verb, rather than that of the possessed. The 1P form is të-, or tu- after ë. The gender 15 form is kë-. The reflexive form is e-. The verb č-it-ä has irregular forms of the object prefixes, such that ṭët is 1P.OBJ.call.

The root part is for the second part of a compound verb, or for the only part of a simple verb. Note that the vowel of the root becomes ë if it is u in the infinitive, except following a syllable with another ë, and that roots with a often have the a become ä under complex conditions.

The focus/applicative suffix takes the form -ir. In sentences containing a question word or directly answering the question, it is always placed on the verb. Otherwise, it promotes an oblique noun phrase to indirect object position.

Mood suffixes in this sentence are limited to -ä ‘habitual’.

The second subject.gender affix is found only in negative verbs. In this text, the forms are identical to those of the first subject.gender affix.

The negative suffix is -tëri and obligatorily co-occurs with the negative prefix.

Conjunctions include -na ‘and’, and -gën ‘but’, just like with nouns and adverbs. Again, -gën tends to be used on the thing that is being contrasted, while -na tends to be on the last main verb before the next clause if clauses are being joined, and the second-to-last noun if nouns are being joined.

Syntax:

SOV and head-final generally, possessor-possessed, adverbs before the verb, auxiliary verbs are last, etc. Note that kë-fuḳ-ä - ‘say’ is used as a speech marker immediately after the thing quoted, but conjugated for the appropriate person/gender and tense/aspect/mood form. Jeddu is a pro-drop language, so the subject and/or object might only be indicated in the verb and not explicitly stated.