Lundiyani grammar | Alex Bahia

Phonology

Sounds

Lundiyani has lost the Lunde h, keeps x as its own sound, and writes ł and ğ as Lunde does.

There is no h sound: Lunde h is lost (Lunde hara → ara, three). x is a different sound and stays.
au and aw spell the same sound.
Final a → ai happened in some words only; it is not a rule.

Spelling

ł is one sound, the Welsh ll.
A written xl is x + l, where a word in x meets a suffix in l: kaxli (kaxi + -li).
ğ replaces gy.

Syntax

Word order

The basic order is subject, verb, object, and modifiers come before what they modify.

Before the noun: articles, demonstratives, possessors and adjectives. nei kawe on (this tall person), ide kora (my cat).
Before the verb: negation and every tense, aspect or mood particle.
After the noun: relative clauses. i on xaon lo lai yada (the person who was singing).
At the end: the question particle me.
Prepositions are separate words. No word attaches to another except the suffix -de and the plural endings.
Exceptions: ta (to have) and commands put the verb before the subject.

Prepositions

Preposition	Meaning	Example
nai	in, at, on	nai ci louba (in the bottle)
an	to, towards	an ci pay (to the village)
de	from, of	de ci kala (from the sea)
am	with	am ide kiwuru (with my dog)
amb	by (the agent)	amb ni wakti (by the warriors)
on	for	on o (for you)
ewa	about	ewa o (about you)
anta	before	anta o lo luran (before you came)

Morphology

Verbs

Verbs never change form. Tense, aspect, mood and negation are separate particles between the subject and the verb, and they combine freely.

Slot order

Subject	Aspect	Negation	Tense or mood	lai, dei	Verb	Object	End
i	tefri, talei, mai, kiena	lan	lo, na, lei	lai, dei	vera	ne	me

Particles

Particle	Meaning	Example
(none)	present	i vera ne (I do it)
lo	past	i lo lau o (I loved you)
na	future	i na lau o (I will love you)
lai + verb	progressive	i lo lai vera ne (I was doing it)
dei + verb	passive	ci pay lo dei raxavi (the village was destroyed)
tefri	perfect	i tefri lo eden (I have eaten)
tefri lo lai	past perfect	i tefri lo lai eden (I had eaten)
talei	habitual, “used to”	i talei lo yada (I used to sing)
mai	just now	ilie mai lo eden (we just ate)
kiena	not yet, with lan	ale kiena lan lo eden (they haven’t eaten yet)
lei	conditional	as o lei luran, i lei lai kuali (if you came, I would be happy)
lan	negation	i lan lo lai valia (I wasn’t sleeping)

lai is also the copula (i lo lai kili, I was young) and, at the start of a sentence, means “there is”: lai anei nai ci louba (there is water in the bottle); negated, lan lai anei (there’s no water).
lan comes after kiena and tefri, which work like adverbs: ale kiena lan lo eden (they haven’t eaten yet).
A modal or second verb takes the bare verb: i lan sa valia (I can’t sleep), ilie mail kapa (we need to talk).

Passive

Tense + dei + verb, with amb for the agent: ci pay lo dei raxavi amb ni wakti (the village was destroyed by the warriors); i lo dei fastixi (I was blinded). dei comes from Lunde daze (by him or her), the agent in the Lunde passive of be + participle + ablative.

ta (to have)

ta is the one verb that comes before its subject; particles and the object follow in the normal order.

Lundiyani	Meaning
ta i kora	I have a cat
ta i lo kora	I had a cat
ta i lan kora	I don't have a cat
ta o kora me?	Do you have a cat?
ta nei kawe on re kiwuri	This tall person has two dogs

Commands

Commands are ov + verb + person.

Command	Meaning
ov lua	go! (formally ov lua o)
ov lua ilie	let's go
ov lua a	let him or her go
ov lua ale	let them go

The person comes after the verb. With singular you it has fallen out of use (ov eden, eat!), but formal writing keeps it (ov eden o).
Negation follows ov: ov lan lua ilie (let’s not go).
ov keeps commands apart from o (you).

Every verb with every particle is in the verb conjugator.

Pronouns

Pronouns and possession

Pronouns have one form for subject and object; possessives add -de.

Person	Pronoun	Possessive
1st singular	i	ide (my)
2nd singular	o	ode (your)
3rd singular, animate	a	ade (his, her)
3rd singular, inanimate	ne	nede (its)
1st plural	ilie	iliede (our)
2nd plural	ole	olede (your)
3rd plural, animate	ale	alede (their)
3rd plural, inanimate	nilie	niliede (their)

-de attaches to any word, nouns included: i onde osili (the person's eyes).
-de is a remnant of the Lunde genitive (kide, ude, dade).
Each other: on-a-oni. ale lau on-a-oni (they love each other).
Reflexive: amon. a lo kanxi amon (she looked at herself).

Nouns, articles, adjectives

Nouns and adjectives

Plural nouns take -i, and the articles come from Lunde.

Plural -i: osil → osili (eyes), kiwuru → kiwuri (dogs), kora → kori (cats), on → oni (people).
Inanimate nouns take -en after a consonant and -nen after a vowel: skin → skinen (books), louba → loubanen (bottles). Irregular: yami → yamo (feet).
After any number above one the noun is plural: re kiwuri (two dogs).

Articles

The Lunde set without its accents. Many speakers also use i with inanimate nouns.

	Animate	Inanimate	Plural
the	i	ci	ni
a, some	ia	an	na

an (a) and an (to) share one form; context tells them apart.

Adjectives

After lai, -de marks a permanent quality such as color or size, and only in a plain “X is ADJ” sentence: i onde osili lai lasode (the person’s eyes are blue). It never appears before a noun (ko kiwuru, a big dog) or in comparisons.
Without -de the word names a state or an impression: i lai kuali, literally “I am happiness” (kuali = happy, happiness).
Comparison: kaw + adjective + da. i wuru lai kaw ko da i kiwuru (the wolf is bigger than the dog).
Superlative: i kaw + adjective. a lai i kaw leia on nai ci payi’an (she is the most beautiful person in the city).

Derivation

Word formation

A few productive suffixes build new words; unlike the particles, they are part of the word.

Pattern	Meaning	Examples
plain verb	experiencing	kana (see), kawa (hear), ampa (feel)
-xi	doing it actively or on purpose	kanxi (look), kawxi (listen), ampxi (touch)
-kai	making someone do it	edenkai (feed), enakai (explain), iloarikai (make cry); works on any verb
-on	person	yadaon (singer), kiliyon (child)
-li	thing	kaxli (name), sipli (end)
łe-	undoing	łera (forget), from lera (remember)

nia (to make someone feel an emotion) is a separate verb, never a suffix: it can make someone sad, but not make them cry: o lo nia i drese (you made me sad).
kaxi = to name (a verb); kaxli = name (a noun).
Doublets (resa and akał, dal and ana…) are deliberate dialect or register variants.

Indefinite words

	any	every	some	no
person	avon	elion	naon	lanon
thing	avali	eleili	li	lani
place	avama	eleima	nama	lanma
time	avaya (forever)	evai (always)	na-a-nari (sometimes)	levai (never)
before a noun	ava	elei (elei teila, every day)

Numbers

Lundiyani counts in base twelve, as Lunde does, with the Lunde rules.

0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12
ułe	na	re	ara	du	jai	jau	isa	wena	fisa	dion	fyu	sion

Before a noun the bare form is used; when counting, é- goes in front (é-na, é-re). Zero is ułe.
Powers of twelve: sion (12), iyion (144), galation (1,728), ayation (20,736).
Numbers are built as in Lunde: resion (24), sion-na (13).

Try any number in the Lundiyani numbers tool.

Syntax

Questions

Yes/no questions end in me; question words stay where the answer would go, or move to the front.

o lo vera ne me? (Did you do it?)
o lai vera xa? or xa o lai vera? (What are you doing?) In place is more grammatical; both are common.
xaon lau o? (Who loves you?) A subject question word is already in place at the start.
Questions with a question word take no me.

Word	Meaning
xa	what
xaon	who
maxa	where
xar	when (also: near)
anxa	why
ała	how
xataw	how many, how much
xati	what kind

Syntax

Clauses

Subordinate clauses open with a conjunction; relative clauses use sa after the noun.

and: a before a consonant, ad before a vowel. ide kora ad ode kiwuru (my cat and your dog).
when: xanarya after the main clause: a lo lai yada xanarya o lo luran (she was singing when you came). When the when-clause comes first, xar, though xanarya also works: xar i lo lai kili, i talei lo yada (when I was young, I used to sing).
if: as, with lei in both clauses. as o lei luran, i lei lai kuali (if you came, I would be happy).
Other conjunctions: ema (because), ant (but), anta (before), nes (until), dal or ana (while), no (or).
Relative clauses: noun + sa + clause, as in Lunde, for people and things: i on sa yada lai ide bana (the person who sings is my brother). ci skin sa o lo sila lai leia (the book that you wrote is beautiful). xaon is also used for people: i on xaon lo lai yada lai kuali (the person who was singing is happy).
That-clauses: xa. i so xa o na luran (I know that you will come).

Commands are under Verbs.

Lexicon

Vocabulary

Decisions on single words, Oct 14, 2026. Every word is in the lexicon.

Word	Decision
keme, kemxi	smell, sniff
ini	here
nama	somewhere
xar	when? and near; xanarya is the conjunction “when”
o, ole	you (singular), you (plural)
ta	to have
kime	short; size words to revisit
urane	to harm
erane	to kill, from the Lunde namon irrana (irrasa, to grab)
mana	spiritual energy; lawmana = to marry
na, ra, ara…	the numbers are the Lunde ones
lurankai	to move someone; -kai and -xi are part of the word
ov	command particle, so commands don’t look like “you”
ara	three; Lundiyani has no h (Lunde hara)
dei	passive particle
amon	reflexive: herself, himself, itself
adar, idar	to leave, to arrive
malai	parent (in general); family and animal words vary by region and all stay
lala, lurani, tu'ali, taluv, tavnei, vantasi, xwitiwi, nivya	written without internal spaces

Karen is not a word; a → al is not a rule.

Glossed sentences

Example sentences

The first elicited sentences, glossed word by word.

Round 1

1. 'I have eaten.'
i1SGtefriPRFloPSTedeneat
2. 'I had eaten when you came.'
i1SGtefriPRFloPSTlaibeedeneatxanaryawheno2SGloPSTlurancome
3. 'When I was young, I used to sing every day.'
xarwheni1SGloPSTlaibekiliyoungi1SGtaleiHABloPSTyadasingeleieveryteiladay
4. 'She was singing when you came.'
a3SGloPSTlaibeyadasingxanaryawheno2SGloPSTlurancome
5. 'We just ate.'
ilie1PLmaiRECloPSTedeneat
6. 'They haven't eaten yet.'
ale3PLkienaYETlanNEGloPSTedeneat
7. 'If you came, I would be happy.'
asifo2SGleiCONDluran,comei1SGleiCONDlaibekualihappy
8. 'I wasn't sleeping.'
i1SGlanNEGloPSTlaibevaliasleep
9. 'Did you have a dog?'
tahaveo2SGloPSTiaINDFkiwurudogmeQ
10. 'My cat and your dog are small.'
i-de1SG-POSSkoracatadando-de2SG-POSSkiwurudoglaibeki-desmall-DE
11. 'The person's eyes are blue.'
iDEFon-deperson-POSSosil-ieye-PLlaibelaso-deblue-DE
12. 'This tall person has two dogs.'
tahaveneithiskawetallonpersonretwokiwur-idog-PL
13. 'I saw a cat, and the cat saw me.'
i1SGloPSTkanaseeiaINDFkora,catadandiDEFkoracatloPSTkanaseei1SG
14. 'Who loves you?'
xaonwholauloveo2SG
15. 'What are you doing?'
o2SGlaibeveradoxawhat
xawhato2SGlaibeverado
16. 'The person who was singing is happy.'
iDEFonpersonxaonwholoPSTlaibeyadasinglaibekualihappy
17. 'Let's eat! Let's go!'
ovIMPedeneatilie1PL
ovIMPluagoilie1PL

Abbreviations: PRF perfect (tefri), HAB habitual (talei), REC just now (mai), YET not yet (kiena), COND conditional (lei), NEG lan, IMP command ov, DEF and INDF the articles i and ia, POSS -de, PL plural -i.

Round 2

1. 'There is water in the bottle.'
laibeaneiwaternaiinciDEF.INANloubabottle
2. 'Some people came to the village.'
naINDF.PLon-iperson-PLloPSTlurancomeantociDEF.INANpayvillage
3. 'I came from the sea with my dog.'
i1SGloPSTlurancomedefromciDEF.INANkalaseaamwithi-de1SG-POSSkiwurudog
4. 'The wolf is bigger than the dog.'
iDEFwuruwolflaibekawmorekobigdathaniDEFkiwurudog
5. 'She is the most beautiful person in the city.'
a3SGlaibeiDEFkawmoreleiabeautifulonpersonnaiinciDEF.INANpayi'ancity
6. 'They destroyed the village.'
ale3PLloPSTraxavidestroyciDEF.INANpayvillage
7. 'I made her cry.'
i1SGloPSTiloari-kaicry-CAUSa3SG
8. 'I saw the bird, but I didn't look at it.'
i1SGloPSTkanaseeiDEFkioto,birdantbuti1SGlanNEGloPSTkanxilooka3SG
9. 'Where do you live?'
o2SGnivyalivemaxawhere
10. 'Why didn't you come?'
o2SGlanNEGloPSTlurancomeanxawhy
11. 'How many cats do you have?'
tahaveo2SGxatawhow.manykor-icat-PL
12. 'I can't sleep because I'm sad.'
i1SGlanNEGsacanvaliasleepemabecausei1SGlaibedresesad
13. 'I know that you will come.'
i1SGsoknowxathato2SGnaFUTlurancome
14. 'The book that you wrote is beautiful.'
ciDEF.INANskinbooksaRELo2SGloPSTsilawritelaibeleiabeautiful
15. 'We need to talk.'
ilie1PLmailneedkapatalk
16. 'They love each other.'
ale3PLlauloveon-a-onieach.other
17. 'I have twenty-five dogs.'
tahavei1SGresion-natwenty-fivekiwur-idog-PL

New abbreviations: INDF.PL na (some), CAUS -kai, REL sa. Sentence 6 is the active version; the passive is formed with dei.

Round 3

1. 'The village was destroyed by the warriors.'
ciDEF.INANpayvillageloPSTdeiPASSraxavidestroyambbyniDEF.PLwaktiwarrior
2. 'I was blinded.'
i1SGloPSTdeiPASSfastixiblind
3. 'I bought two bottles and three books.'
i1SGloPSTdailbuyretwolouba-nenbottle-PLadandarathreeskin-enbook-PL
4. 'The person who sings is my brother.'
iDEFonpersonsaRELyadasinglaibei-de1SG-POSSbanabrother
5. 'You made me sad.'
o2SGloPSTniamakei1SGdresesad
6. 'The dog is big.' / 'I saw a big dog.'
iDEFkiwurudoglaibeko-debig-DE
i1SGloPSTkanaseeiaINDFkobigkiwurudog
7. 'Open the bottle!'
ovIMPkiawopenciDEF.INANloubabottle
8. 'Let's not go.'
ovIMPlanNEGluagoilie1PL
9. 'There's no water.'
lanNEGlaibeaneiwater
10. 'Before you came, I was sad.'
antabeforeo2SGloPSTluran,comei1SGloPSTlaibedresesad
11. 'I did it for you.'
i1SGloPSTveradone3SG.INANonforo2SG
12. 'We talked about you.'
ilie1PLloPSTkapatalkewaabouto2SG
13. 'I'll wait until you come.'
i1SGnaFUTdalodwaitnesuntilo2SGlurancome
14. 'She looked at herself.'
a3SGloPSTkanxilookamonself
15. 'The cat's eyes are green.'
iDEFkora-decat-POSSosil-ieye-PLlaibereiki-degreen-DE

New abbreviations: PASS dei, DEF.PL ni.