Mantis

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!!- The "Mantis" and history thereof, the names of "Urggghtnag" and "KazaaakplethKilik", and FTL: Faster Than Light are properties of Subset Games. -!!


The Mantis are an insectoid alien race from a distant part of the galaxy. Known for their violence and disregard for individual lives, the Mantis regard themselves, entirely correctly, as the scourge of the universe, and are a terrifying foe whether hunting individual ships or entire planets. The Mantis attack on Earth remains a popular horror story for human children, and the Mantis themselves continue their glory-driven assault on all races of the galaxy.

The Mantis language is grating and nearly unpronounceable to the human ear more accustomed to English, although a handful of scholars and diplomats have managed it. It is highly agglutinating and combining, but is most phonologically interesting in its levels of distinctive length, consonant inventory, and nuclear fricatives.

Phonology

Consonants

Bilabial Labio-Dental Dental Alveolar Post-Alveolar Velar Uvular Glottal
Plosive Voiceless p ‹p› t ‹t› k ‹k› q ‹q›
Voiced b ‹b› d ‹d› g ‹g›
Nasal m ‹m› n ‹n›
Fricative Voiceless f ‹f› θ ‹th› s ‹s› ʃ ‹sh› x ‹kh› h ‹h›
Voiced v ‹v› z ‹z› ʒ ‹zh› ɣ ‹gh›
Nasal m ‹m› n ‹n› ŋ ‹ng›
Liquid r ‹r›, l ‹l›
Click ǀ ‹T› ! ‹K›
  • Click consonants are written with capital letters. This can sometimes be confusing when writing Mantis names that may begin with a click or else with a plosive corresponding to the lowercase letter.

Vowels

Front Back
Close i u
Mid e
Open a

Phonotactics

  • Open syllables may not be word-final.
  • All voiced consonants in Mantis may be geminate across syllable boundaries.
  • All fricatives have the potential to be nuclear.
  • Vowels have three levels of phonemic length, ie zhiKik "you yell" - zhiiKik "you negotiate" - zhiiiKik "you run electricity through (something)"

Grammar

Nominal Morphology

Nouns are inflected for case (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, adessive, locative, ablative), number (singular, plural) definiteness, and possession, according to class (males [1], females [2], animals/other races [3-4], tools/ships [5-6], inanimate objects [7-8], groups [9-10], abstractions [11]) through suffixation.

form prefix STEM plural case definiteness/possession

Number

Singular Plural
Class 1
Class 2
Class 3
Class 4
Class 5
Class 6
Class 7
Class 8
Class 9
Class 10
Class 11

Case

Nominative Accusative Genitive Dative Adessive Locative Ablative
Class 1
Class 2
Class 3
Class 4
Class 5
Class 6
Class 7
Class 8
Class 9
Class 10
Class 11

Definiteness and Possession

Indefinite Definite 1s 1p 2s 2p 3s 3p
Class 1
Class 2
Class 3
Class 4
Class 5
Class 6
Class 7
Class 8
Class 9
Class 10
Class 11

Verbal Morphology

Verbs are inflected for person, tense (past, future), voice (passive) and mood (interrogative, conditional, imperative)

form prefix STEM voice tense mood person

Voice

The passive voice is noted with the suffix -sth

Tense

Past
Future

Mood

Conditional
Imperative
  • A third interrogative mood is formed with the particle zin immediately following the verb.

Person

1s
1p
2s
2p
3s
3p

Syntax

Regular word order is SVO, but is flexible. Compounds are head-final.

Lexicon

Numbers

Base-6

Arabic Cardinal Ordinal
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1

Open Class

English Mantis
Glory [11] kazaaak
Great (AUG nom prefix) urg
Resonate (v) plethK
Thorax [9] gght


Examples

Urggghtnag "The Great Thorax"

KazaaakplethKilik "You Will Resonate In Glory"