Testificate language

The Testificate language, also called Hhu, is a language rarely spoken across Rathnir and Eldham. It is a member of the Hhuhu language family, of which it is the only known living member - making it a language isolate. This language family included the various languages spoken by the Villagers before their widespread destruction at the turn of the 1st Century TE.

In a sense it is a type of constructed language, because it was revived through the efforts of the Makerist Church's clergy by recording and transcribing the members of the Hhuhu language family with ancient documents across Alteniquia, Ummarnu, and Serrona, and combining these various tongues to make the Hhu language.

Sentence structure
Hhu is an SVO language, meaning its sentences are structured subject-verb-object, meaning you would phrase something as "Mary walks the dog" as opposed to something literally translated as "The dog Mary walked" or some other iteration.

Adjectives are always placed before what they are describing.

Pronunciation
In any word, the stress is penultimate, meaning the second to last syllable is what has the stress placed on it. For instance in the word "diwa", meaning "to show/to present", the stress would be placed on "DIwa" as opposed to "diWA".

There is no irregular pronunciation with the orthography of Hhu, meaning the letters/graphemes will always produce the same sounds as they are presented within the language's rules, with no exceptions, including loanwords, which are instead adapted to the language's sound inventory.

Noun gender
Nouns can be masculine, feminine, or neuter. There is no innate way to tell by the structure of the word or its letters what gender it is. Instead, it is based on what you are literally talking about. If the noun is known to be male, than the rules for masculine nouns are applied to. Same applies for other gender markers. These make no functional gender difference in the language except for when you have to pluralize a noun.


 * If a noun is masculine, the suffix <-i> is added. If the noun in question ends with a vowel, this becomes the suffix <-di>. The ending original vowel of the noun is not cut off. For instance, “hukuu”, meaning “boy”, will become “hukuudi”, meaning “boys”.
 * If a noun is feminine, the suffix <-ii> is added. If the end of the noun in question ends with a vowel, the vowel is this becomes the suffix, regardless of what the ending vowel was. The ending original vowel of the noun is not cut off. For instance, “hruum”, meaning “baby girl”, will become “hruumii”, meaning “baby girls”.
 * If a noun does not have a gender or the gender is unknown, or it applies to a group of varying gender, you use the neuter suffix when making a plural. This is the suffix <-uk>, if the noun ends in a vowel, the original vowel is not dropped and the suffix <-k> is simply used. For instance, “hwi”, meaning “dog” (specifically one where the gender is not known or is irrelevant), will become “hwik”, meaning “dogs”.

Verb tense
The language uses a standalone word to signify past tense in verbs, this word is “hhu”. This is where the name for the languages is believed to derive from, referring to the past livelihood of the Villager civilization before its collapse.

Similarly, a standalone word is also used to signify future tense in verbs; this word is “muu”. When a verb is left in its base form by itself, it refers to present tense; and can be progressive, habitual, perfect, etc. aspect.

Word morphology

 * Adjective to noun (the quality of being the adjective): suffix <-uh>, or if ends with vowel <-h>
 * Noun to adjective (e.g. economy becomes economic): suffix <-u>, or if ends with vowel <-hu>
 * One who does a verb or uses a noun (e.g. paint becomes painter): suffix <-am>, or if ends with vowel <-m>
 * Place of a noun (e.g. wine becomes winery): suffix <-mi>, or if ends with a consonant <-ima>
 * Diminutive (e.g. cigar becomes cigarette): suffix <-ah>, or if ends with a vowel <-h>

Phonology
Notably, every single word in the Hhu language is nasalized. This because the three vowels used in this language are all nasalized, as all the sounds made by the Villagers feature prominent nasalization.

The language includes a total of merely twelve phonemes, of which three are vowels and nine are consonants. Every sound used in the language has been used by Villagers in some form of media.

Orthography
The aesthetic orthography of Hhu is prone to change, for instance , , and  are often further extended for dramatic effect. For instance "Hruuhaa" may be written as "Hruuuhaaaaaaa" in some writing to further emphasize the vowel length. The pronunciation of those vowels is identical to their counterparts , , and , their only difference is their length, i.e. how long you produce the sound in question. There is no differences in the quality of those vowel sounds.

Phrase negation
You can negate something such as a verb by using the standalone word “aa” before the word in question. For instance “aa diwa” would mean “not show”, while “diwa” by itself would mean “show”.

Interrogative words
These are words that are used in asking questions or specifying information.


 * kim : who, whom
 * kaahi : whether, if
 * dudaa : where
 * kamaa : when
 * kumuu : how, how much, how many
 * pakii : why, because
 * ki : what, which, that, this, there, which one
 * kaa : like, as, alike

Numerals
Hhu operates on a base-ten numeral system.


 * 1 : waa
 * 2 : imii
 * 3 : kuwu
 * 4 : iwi
 * 5 : hhim
 * 6 : ki'i
 * 7 : wamuhu
 * 8 : hiiha
 * 9 : hriiha
 * 10 : hha
 * 100 : upa
 * 1,000 : pa'i

Examples of further written numbers include:


 * 11 : hhah du waa (ten and one)
 * 32 : kuwu hhahuk du imii (three tens and two)
 * 147 : waa upa du iwi hhahuk du wamuuhu (one hundred and four tens and seven)