§1. “Classical Jesab” refers to itself simply as Jesab, a contraction of the prehistoric jes uab. Literally, this means “sound from throat.” This name is extremely ancient, and goes to a time when the Deiruk did not properly distinguish between speech acts and nonspeech sounds.
N.B. The word Diruk, pl. Deiruk, refers to Jesab speakers and their ancestors. It is not enough simply to speak Jesab to be part of the Deiruk, however; one must have a tribal or ancestral affiliation in addition to competence in the language.
§2. The following short vowels occur in Jesab:
a—as in English hat
e—as in English pet
i—clipped version of the vowel sound in “beat”
ï—as in French u or German ü
o—as in English awe
u—like sound in English fool, but shorter.
A long vowel is indicated by a circumflex accent over the letter. This approximately doubles the vowel length.
The following diphthongs occur:
ai—as in English I
ei—as in English day
oi—as in English oil
eu—as in Latin heu
To prevent confusion, when two vowels are meant to be pronounced separately rather than as a diphthong, an accent appears on the second vowel. Thus, noì has two syllables: NO-ee.
N.B. The y in Jesab is never a vowel sound.
§3. The following consonants exist in much as in English:
Stops: t, d, k, g, p, b
Fricatives: f, h, ĵ (second g sound of "garage"), s, sh (initial sound in "shop"), v, z
Nasals: m, n
Liquids: l, r
Affricates: j (as in English j)
Approxomants/Glides: w, y
Consonants not found in English are as follows:
ĝ—uvular sound, much as in French r (some dialects substitute a hard g instead)
ĥ—as in the Arabic H
kh—as in German Nacht or Bach (NEVER pronounced as k)
When a syllable ends with a nasal (m or n), the preceding vowel is nasalized. So the nim in nimnoì somewhat resembles the sound in a nasal “hmmm.” An n coming immediately before another n is written as an m in Jesab characters, but will here be simply represented as two ns.
Also, certain prefixes, such as the genitive and ablative particles, transform the sounds of immediately subsequent consonants. These prefixes are the case markers a, e, i, and u, which affect pronunciation as follows:
g-->ĝ
j-->ĵ
k-->kh
p-->f
s-->sh
§4. Pronunciation is very regular in Jesab. If a word has only short vowels, then the stress falls on the first syllable. Otherwise, it falls on the syllable with a long vowel or diphthong. In the event of more than one such syllable, they each receive equal stress.
A prefix or suffix never receives stress, however, even with a long vowel or diphthong. The suffix -ba is the only exception to this rule. It must always be stressed.
§5. Jesab does not distinguish between definite and indefinite nouns. No equivalent of English “a/an” or “the” occurs in Jesab. Context is the only clue to the definiteness of a noun.
§6. Two basic sentence structures exist, the equational (or verbless) sentence and the verb sentence. Here we will examine the equational sentence.
Jesab relies heavily on nouns and adjectives, which themselves are often hard to distinguish from nouns. While verbs certainly exist, many sentences simply do not require them. For predicate-copula sentences, no verb can be used as Jesab does not have any verb meaning “to be.” Instead, one says the noun and then the other noun or adjective.
For instance, the word for “axe” in Jesab is vesh and the word for “big” is kai. To say “The axe is big,” one simply says vesh kai. Note the difference between saying “the axe is big” and saying “the big axe,” which would be vesh ukhai. (The particle u is prefixed to the descriptor kai, giving us ukhai, accented on the khai.)
For a negative sentence, the second term receives the affixes ro-/-ona if feminine. But if the word ends in a vowel, the -ona becomes -na. If masculine, the second term takes the prefix -ro and lengthens the first vowel if short.
Here are two examples, using the feminine word ĥarn and masculine word hagresh:
ĥarn rohâgresh.but with the word order reversed:
hagresh roĥarnona.§7. Verbs are divided broadly into several classes: verbs of motion; verbs of being; verbs of action. Each is conjugated somewhat differently. In addition, different markers indicate whether the subject of the verb is Diruk, a sentient non-Diruk, or nonsentient creature or thing. A class of “divine verbs” also exists, but will not be covered in this text.
§8. Jesab verbs in their base form tend to express a perfect or completed action, and thus the past and present of a Jesab verb is really closer to a past and future perfect. The present tense often refers to an action just completed, or just about to be performed, as well as an action currently being performed.
The base form is actually a sort of verbal noun. In general, motion verbs take the -on/-yon suffix, verbs of being the –od/do suffix, and action verbs the –(e)dor suffix. Dropping the suffix gives us the root verb.
Discussion of voice, mood, and other complex concepts will arise in a later section. Also, we will look here only at the conjugation for Deiruk. Remember, however, that non-Deiruk people have their own special form of conjugation, as do animals and inanimate objects. These forms are easy once the student has mastered the Deiruk conjugations. We will take them up in the appendix.
§9. Any verb pertaining to motion from one place or position to another falls under the first verb class in Jesab, the motion verb. Motion verbs take an -on suffix when the root stem ends in a consonant and a -yon when it ends in a vowel.
Base noì
Remember that roots ending in a vowel slip a y before the suffix -on.
Present (more or less)
nînoì-I stand/have just now stood
nônoì-you sg. stand/just now stood
nûmosoì-he stands/has just now stood
naidanoì-she stands/has just now stood
nîmnoì-we stand/have just now stood
nômnoì-you pl. have stood/just now stood
nûmmossonoì-they (of same gender) stand/etc.
naidamonoì-they (different gender) stand/etc.
Distant Past
ninoìta-I had stood
nonoìta-you sg. had stood
nunoìta-he had stood
nainoìta-she had stood
nîmnoìta-we had stood
nômnoìta-you pl. had stood
nûmnoìta-they (of same gender) had stood
naimnoìta-they (different gender) had stood
Near Past
Conjugate same as present except add suffix –tarn. E.g., ninoìtarn, “I stood a short while ago.” (-Taren or -tarenu are sometimes used, but this is archaic even in Classical Jesab.) Note that ninoì would mean either “I am standing now” or “I just now stood up,” whereas the near past refers to an act not just finished, but not completed long ago. Generally, if something was done within the past few hours, the near past is appropriate.
Distant Future
As distant past save with suffix -vo.
Near Future
As distant future save with suffix -vorn. (As with the near past, there is an archaic -voren/vorenu alternate suffix.) Note that it is almost always acceptable to substitute the so-called distant future form for the near future. While considered imprecise, this is a not uncommon practice in the spoken language. Here the near future is sometimes indicated by the word vhod (indicating incompleteness or uncertainty. E.g., the phrase ninoìvo vhod properly means “I may or may not in the future stand.” But colloquial usage here makes vhod refer to the tense rather than the act, so translated it is “I will stand and possibly soon.”
Base esk
Note that a verbal base beginning in a vowel slips a y between a prefix ending in a vowel and the root.
niyesk-I rise/have just risen
noyesk-you sg. rise/etc.
nomesk-you pl.rise/etc.
nuyesk-he rises/etc.
naiyesk-she rises/etc.
nîmesk-we rise/have just risen
nômesk-you pl.rise/etc.
nûmesk-they (same gender) rise/etc.
naimesk-they (different genders) rise/etc.
Much more forthcoming....
§10. Nouns in Jesab have two layers of grammatical gender. Primary is whether the noun is masculine or feminine, and secondary whether the noun is a Diruk, a person who is not Diruk, or non-sentient/inanimate. Please note that grammatical gender is not the same as actual gender: a female stranger is just as much hagresh as a male (though the adjective/verb agreement would match the actual gender).
§11. Determining gender is fairly regular. Feminine nouns are characterized by a terminal n, s, or vowel. Any other ending usually denotes a masculine noun. But exceptions do exist, and must be memorized when encounteredd.
§12. Plurals for masculine nouns are formed as follows:
Monosyllabic words: lengthen first vowel if a short vowel, make into diphthong if long; put a y after the mutated vowel; follow y with a vowel harmonized with initial vowelPolysyllabic words: make first vowel diphthong
N.B. A masculine noun with an initial diphtong is rare. They have unique plural forms, which must be memorized.
§13. Plurals for feminine nouns are formed as follows:
Terminal -ln,-mn, or -rn: double the consonant before the n and place an o before the final n (e.g., tern becomes terron)
Terminal vowel and n or s: double consonant and add either the -ir or -on suffix (generally, -ir denotes a living or animate thing and -on an inanimate or lifeless thing)
Terminal vowel:: add either -ri or -no suffix (correspond respectively to -ir and -on above)