Menāe

Nusfom! Menāe is an a priori constructed language inspired by Coptic, Finnish, and a variety of other languages. Its writing system is best described as a syllabic alphabet. Menāe has 27 consonants; 5 vowels, with short and long forms; and 8 diphthongs.

Menāe is generally agglutinative with sporadic particle formation. Nouns and verbs receive affixes, which are consistent regardless of the root word. Menāe does not exhibit gender or animacy marking on nouns or pronouns, but does make use of inclusive and exclusive we. Plurality is optional in Menāe and is marked by a particle preceding the noun, which signals either the plural or the collective plural. Verbs have two grades, differing in use syntactically. These grades may be equivalent or differ slightly from one another. Verbal Grade 1 is typical use case. Verbal Grade 2 is used for zero-object or pronomial-object sentences.

The basic word order in Menāe is SVO. This becomes SOV for polar questions. Menāe does not require a subject in all sentences. Adjectives precede the nouns they modify. Adverbs attach to the head of their verb; only one adverb may be used in a sentence at a time. The negative marker attaches to Grade 1 verbs and is an auxiliary verb if a Grade 2 verb is needed.