Hettic language

Hettic ( Hettic: Hettsprach, Heitic) is the official language of Hetland. It is a typical Arganorhan language. It is spoken mainly in Hetland, and by speakers across the Hettic diaspora including in Averra, where it is a recognised minority language. Hettic is the sole descendant of Old Hettic, which descended from Old Arghanorhan. There are two main forms of Hettic, Standard and Southern. The southern variety and the standard variety form a dialect continuum, with the Southern variety being spoken mainly in Myrr and southern Pressia. The southern variety differs from the standard variety in spelling, phonology, and lexicon. This article will focus on the standard variety, and will point out occasions where the southern variety and the standard variety differ.

History
Similar to most other languages in Avanor, Hettic is an Avanorran language, not to be confused with the Avanorric languages, that descends from Proto-Avanorran Hettic is isolated from other Avanorran languages by geographic and linguistic boundaries, being surrounded mostly by Slovecian languages. Hettic scribes were introduced to the Latin alphabet in 600 A.D. through contact with Averran scribes.

Phonology
Main article: Hettic phonology

Written Language
Hettic has two standard orthographies, Southern (Sudscrif) and Standard (Heuscripf). This article will only cover Heuscripf.

Alphabet
The Hettic Alphabet has 28 letters. The letters q, x, y, and w are only used in foreign loanwords and toponyms.

The letter ë is very infrequent and often considered old and antiquated, but still in use by the Hettic government.

The grapheme ä is frequently used but not considered a seperate letter. It comes from a ligature between a and u and in handwriting the diacritic is written more like a tilde "~", but computers use the unicode character ä. See: Hettic Orthography

Nouns
Hettic nouns are inflected for case (Nominative, Accusative, Dative, Genitive, and Instrumental), and number (Singular and Plural). There are two noun declensions depending on the ending of the word. Only the last noun in a noun phrase takes a case ending, the rest are in the default singular nominative form and are joined by a hyphen (-).

Pronouns
Hettic pronouns are inflected for person (1st, 2nd, 3rd), gender in the third person (Masculine, Feminine, Neuter), case (Nominative, Accusative, Dative, Genitive, Reflective), and have a TV distinction in the second person.

Adjectives
Hettic adjectives do not inflect for anything when they modify a noun. Adjectives directly precede the noun that they modify, and follow the order "Size- Opinion- Shape- Origin- Age- Colour- Material- Purpose." Adjectives are not separated by commas, but when an adjective modifies an adjective they are joined by a hyphen "-". EX: Een großav gütta scharav Jaggerstånn frå alt blå steilavs gehanav svert." “A big, good, sharp, Hagstonian, old, blue, steel, sword”. “Een licht-rott Jaggerstånnic-steilavs kar.” A light red, Hagstonian steel car.

Comparisons
Hettic adjectives are modified by a noun-postceding comparative word.

Verbs
Hettic verbs conjugate for plurality (Singular, Plural), Voice (Active, Passive), Aspect (Indicitive, Subjunctive), and Tense (Preterite, Past, Present, and Future). Hettic is not pro-drop.

Word order
Hettic is primarily SVO, with frequent examples of SOV word order and less frequent examples of VSO. SOV worder order is used when the direct object is a pronoun, in this scenario the object pronoun comes directly after the subject pronoun. VSO word order is used in interrogative statements, EX: "Czin Dasse kar?" "Do you see the car?"

The passive mood word order is SOV, even if the object is not a pronoun.

Hettic has V2 word order.

Sentence construction
Hettic sentences are constructed with either 1 independent clause (Simple), 2+ independent clauses joined by coordinating conjunctions (compound), or 1 independent and an infinite amount of subordinate clauses (complex). Subordinate clauses are always in the passive mood. In complex sentences the independent always comes first and is separated from the dependent clause by a subordinating conjunction. In compound sentences with 2-3 clauses, the clauses are separated by a coordinating conjunction. In more compound sentences with more than 3 clauses, each clause is separated with a comma and a coordinating conjunction.

The North Wind and the Sun
Des Nordvin og des Son haffer beste af Fei des strünge En mest onn var. "The North wind and the Sun argued of who would have been the one most strong one."

Deselfs onn beste ellesch een ketrarnt-Aczosjer pess onn sjinge. "They were arguing with themselves when a cloaked traveler walked past."

"Tschell ovv bostij." Des Son onn sjakke. "Fa Fei kan ikyorren des vaszc åfe des Aczosjer er des strünge En mest."

"Ja, je boste met."