Dwarven is an analytic, agglutinative language.
Dwarven is analytic because words don't change their forms:
deb means: (to) eat (present or infinite form of the verb)deb also means: eats (present form conjugation of the verb to the nth person)deb can also mean: eaten (past perfect of the verb)deb can also mean: ate (simple past of the verb)The verb in this case is not conjugated.
Nouns also do not change:
Mabdug means ale (singular form)Mabdug also means ales (plural form)Additionally, Dwarven nouns are not declined and have no gender:
Onol means mountainustos means angryThese words can be combined in Ustosonol and this means angry mountain.
These words can also be combined as Onolustus which means mountainous anger.
Words are joined together to form meaning, also known as affixation. Therefore the word order is extremely important:
Ustosonol means angry mountainOnolustus means mountainous angerIn the examples above, the word at the end is the word being described: it is the noun of the sentence. The other word when put in front, becomes an adjective.
In this sense, words for verbs, nouns and adjectives are interchangeable: a word can take on any meaning based mostly on its position in the sentence.
udiz is optional and dropped in the majority of cases.-akk is always required.Because Dwarven is an analytic language, one in which words do not change, in order to know the meaning of a word the context in which the word is used must be considered.
The word order then defines the meaning of a word in the particular context considered. The word order in Dwarven is:
Subject - verb - object - (indirect object) - (anything else)
SVO for short.
Dwarven does not have any pronouns. Personal pronouns like: I, you, we, they. This also applies to their accusative forms: me, him, her. Dwarven does not have possessive pronouns also: my, our, their do not exist.
In Dwarven everything is in the third person. To indicate the subject speaking (or writing) the word Kutam (speaker)
can be used:
Kutam deb Bemòng.
I eat an apple.
To indicate instead the person(s) listening, the word Fmid (hearer) can be used instead:
Fmid var Âtast.
You are brave.
To recap:
Kutam means speaker and can be used as a form of IFmid means hearer and can be used as a form of you, both singular and plural formsDwarven does not have articles, genders or declinations for nouns.
Nouns in Dwarven are always capitalized:
Amal means teacheramal means (to) teach (also teaching)Words used in front of nouns become adjectives for the noun that follows them, as described in the Introduction.
More words can be used together to describe other characteristics of the noun via affixation:
Ustosonol means angry mountainOrustosonol means large angry mountainOrustosonol is fact composed of the adjectives or (large), ustos (angry) and the noun Onol (mountain). The
first letter must always be capitalized as it indicates a noun.
The order of the adjectives can be used to change the meaning of the resulting word:
Orustosonol means angry large mountainHere the speaker wants to stress the "angry" quality of the mountain rather then its size. The first adjective used describes the most important quality of the noun.
To add a comparison to adjectives (angrier, smaller) Dwarven uses extra adjectives, morr (more) or gekur (less):
Morrustosonol means angrier mountainGekurustosonol means less angry mountainTo create superlative adjectives Dwarven uses the adjectives mos (more) and gudos (less):
Telustosonol means angriest mountainGudosustosonol means least angry mountainVerbs never change their form (conjugation) in Dwarven and have no tenses. The verb deb means (to) eat to indicate
the present, the past or the future. The verb deb also does not change for any of the persons as there are no personal
pronouns (I, you, he, she…), whether for the speaker "I" (Kutam) or listener (Fmid) "you" the verb form is always
deb.
In order to indicate the time an action refers to, Dwarven uses tense markers. Tense markers are affixed to verbs: there are 5 tense markers:
udiz is for present (optional)geth is for pastzalud is for futurezott is for something hypotheticalzilir is imperativeNote that in Dwarven there are no continuous forms of verb tenses (is eating, was eating…).
The word udiz is optionally affixed to the verb to indicate the present tense. The un-affixed form of the verb (the
base word) is assumed to be in the present tense when used on its own.
Urist deb-udiz Shokmug.
Urist deb Shokmug.
Urist eats cheese.
Urist is eating cheese.
The past tense is made by affixing the word geth to the verb.
Urist deb-geth Shokmug
Urist ate cheese.
Urist was eating cheese.
The future tense is made by affixing the word zalud to the verb.
Urist deb-zalud Shokmug.
Urist eat cheese (later).
Urist will eat cheese.
Urist is going to eat cheese.
The hypothetical tense is made by affixing the word zott to the verb.
Urist deb-zott Shokmug.
Urist might cheese.
The imperative tense is made by affixing the word zilir to the verb.
Urist deb-zilir Shokmug.
Urist eat cheese!
Tense markers can be affixed using the sign ' in order to create new meaning. Only certain combinations make sense,
but in theory every tense marker can be combined at will and as many as needed:
Urist deb-zalud'zott Shokmug
Urist might eat cheese (later)
Urist will possibly eat cheese
Tense markers can also be combined with any other words to create even further meaning. As mentioned in the Introduction, words can take on many functions in a sentence based on their position (Subject-Verb-Object), so it is possible to combine an adjective and a tense marker to create a functioning sentence:
Urist ustos(-udiz) Mosus.
Urist angers Mosus.
Some combinations are at first glance absurd but are grammatically correct:
Urist onol(-udiz) Mosus.
Urist mountains (?) Mosus.
Adverbs are adjectives that describe verbs. In Dwarven adverbs behave like adjectives: they are not declined therefore not changing their forms. Adverbs are suffixed to the verb they describe in the same way in which adjectives are to nouns.
Urist buketdeb(-udiz) Shokmug.
Urist quickly eats cheese.
The word bucket (quick, fast) can also be used as an adjective for the noun:
Urist buketdeb(-udiz) Buketshokmug.
Urist quickly eats fast cheese.
Words like always, never, maybe, every, finally… are special adverbs as they cannot just be suffixed to the
verbs: the meaning of "final" is not the same meaning of "finally". For these special adverbs, the ending -akk is
affixed to the adjective:
dog means there, so when combined with -akk it is used as the adverb thereUrist dogakkdeb(-udiz) Shokmug.
Urist eats cheese there.
In Standard Dwarven the usage of -akk is recommended but in Dwarven this is mandatory:
Urist alodakkdeb(-udiz) Shokmug.
Urist eats cheese daily.
This sentence cannot be written in the following form:
Urist aloddeb(-udiz) Shokmug.
This would create confusion. Fhe word Alod (day), given its position in the sentence, it is an adverb because it is
found in front of a verb. The suffix -akk helps identifying it as such: without it, Alod could mean today or
daily, which have two completely different meaning.
The Passive Voice is used when you don't know who the subject is and the object of the sentence becomes the focus. In
Dwarven, the word ver (become) is used. ver is affixed to the verb and it should be in the first position, in
front of adverbs if present:
Shokmug verdeb-geth.
The cheese was eaten.
Shokmug verdeb-udiz.
The cheese will be eaten.
Dwarven has no prepositions and no pronouns: the possessive forms are indicated by affixation of the word -long (to
belong to, belonging to) to nouns, followed by another noun to indicate possession:
Shokmug-longUrist.
Urist´s cheese.
The cheese (that) belongs to Urist.
The cheese belonging to Urist.
Urist deb-geth Shokmug-longMosus.
Urist ate Mosus´s cheese.
(Urist eat-past cheese-belongstoMosus)
Question words end in -arg. The following is the list of question words in Dwarven:
vadarg means whatvasarg means whereudosarg means who-longudosarg means whose (belonging to who)vanarg means whenhivarg means whynigarg means howvilkarg means whichQuestions words go at the end of a sentence, as the SVO structure of Dwarven sentences does not allow other words to be at the beginning or in the middle.
Urist var-udiz varsag.
Where is Urist? (Urist to be-present where)
Avuziseth-longudosarg.
Whose job is it to mine? (mining task-belongs to who)
Shámmankutam var-udiz vasarg.
Where are we? (many speaker to be-present where)
Number until 10 can be found in the first section of the table below. Numbers higher than 10 are formed by a combination
of sums and multiplications. The connector between numbers - indicates a sum, while i indicates a multiplication:
zezzez-nir (10 + 1)nobizez (2 * 10)nobizez-nir (2 * 10 + 1)Numbers until 50 are shown here:
| 1 | nir | 11 | zez-nir | 21 | nobizez-nir | 31 | mezizez-nir | 41 | vorizez-nir |
| 2 | nob | 12 | zez-nob | 22 | nobizez-nob | 32 | mezizez-nob | 42 | vorizez-nob |
| 3 | mez | 13 | zez-mez | 23 | nobizez-mez | 33 | mezizez-mez | 43 | vorizez-mez |
| 4 | vor | 14 | zez-vor | 24 | nobizez-vor | 34 | mezizez-vor | 44 | vorizez-vor |
| 5 | fimm | 15 | zez-fimm | 25 | nobizez-fimm | 35 | mezizez-fimm | 45 | vorizez-fimm |
| 6 | gät | 16 | zez-gät | 26 | nobizez-gät | 36 | mezizez-gät | 46 | vorizez-gät |
| 7 | sjun | 17 | zez-sjun | 27 | nobizez-sjun | 37 | mezizez-sjun | 47 | vorizez-sjun |
| 8 | ått | 18 | zez-ått | 28 | nobizez-ått | 38 | mezizez-ått | 48 | vorizez-ått |
| 9 | nag | 19 | zez-nag | 29 | nobizez-nag | 39 | mezizez-nag | 49 | vorizez-nag |
| 10 | zez | 20 | nobizez | 30 | mezizez | 40 | vorizez | 50 | fimmizez |
Multiples of 10s have special words:
zezbogzeztonzezgurnzezmalzeztükMore complex examples are shown here:
nobizezbog-fimmzez-sjun ((2 * 100) + (5 * 10) + 7)zezton-sjunizezbog-mezizez-nag ((1 * 1000) + (7 * 100) + (3 * 10) + 9)Ordinal numbers are formed from cardinal numbers by appending a -t:
nirt means firstnobt means secondmezt means thirdUrist sogg-udiz Nironol.
Urist sees one mountain. (Urist to see-present one mountain)
Urist sogg-udiz Nirtonol.
Urist sees the first mountain. (Urist to see-present first mountain)