Rartish
| Rartish | |
|---|---|
| Endonym | la rarta |
| Region/people | Epikka, low IQ races |
| Lifespan | 1200AP–present |
| Language family | Rartic languages |
| Ancestors | Old Dwaian |
| Descendants | Bogo-Rartic |
| Writing system | Dwaian Script (lowercase) |
Rartish (endonym la rarta) is the second most widely spoken language in Dwaia and the surrounding continent of Epikka, ranking only after Common Dwaian in terms of speaker count. It is descended from Old Dwaian, and is therefore a sister language to Dwaian. However, while Dwaian kept many of the grammatical intricacies of Old Dwaian intact, Rartish devolved into what is generally considered a "shittier but significantly easier" language. As such, it is popular among less intelligent races living in and around Dwaia, such as Spicos, ratmen, smeglins, pleppies, and rocks. Due to cultural contact, a lot of the Rartish vocabulary is derived from the language of Spic. For the same reason, it loans several words from the Pidoric languages. Rartish is part of the greater continuum of Rartic languages spoken throughout Epikka, including Bogo-Rartic and Rartish Deluxe.
"Rartish" is also the source of the Dwaian word "retarded".
Phonology and Phonotactics
Rartish words tend to contain mostly voiced consonants, such as /b/, /d/, /g/, /l/, /r/ and /n/. For example, the Rartish word for "horse" is la boni, which starts with a /b/ sound, even though the Old Dwaian source word pownei (literally "powerful neigher") started with an unvoiced /p/ sound.
Rartish words generally do not contain any complicated consonant clusters. Usually they simply alternate between single vowels and single consonants, like in la ebol ("apple") and la bababa ("banana"). In fact, the endonym of the language, la rarta is pronounced more like la rota, but it remains spelled the way it is for historical reasons.
Grammar
Rartish has little grammar to speak of. Sentences follow a Subject-Verb-Object order resembling Dwaian. However, adjectives come after the nouns they modify, like in Spic. Every noun phrase should be preceded by an "articloid": "the" and "a" become la, "my/our", "your", "their" become ma, yo, der respectively, "this" and "that" become dis and da, etc.
Vocabulary
See Rartish/List of Common Words.
Example sentences
Dwaian: "Greetings!"
Rartish: "hemlo/hoi"
Dwaian: "I feel sick."
Rartish: "ma tumi es angoro"
Dwaian: "The red fox is tall and sly."
Rartish: "la bogis redi es longo e snigi"
Dwaian: "Where can I find the nearest grocery store?"
Rartish: "wer es la boi cronch" (Literally "Where is the cronch boy." The word cronch is borrowed from Dwaian. cronch boi then means "thing where you can get the cronch.")