Now that I’m entertaining the idea to integrate Quriil into the Rykaic language family, I decided to write down the most characteristic linguistic features of the family and its members. These are mostly grammatical features, because I want Ryka and Quriil to look and sound totally unrelated on first sight, only revealing their strange similarities in rather exotic features on closer inspection.

Features of the Rykaic family

Some key features should apply to all members of the Rykaic family, even though they might have mutated a bit in some languages. The word order, for instance, could have changed in some descendants, but there should still be remnants of it visible in some specific constructions.

No noun-verb-adjective distinction: This is the very first outstanding feature I came up with when Ryka still went under the working title “Altkabukanisch”. Proto-Ryka had no clear distinction between nouns, verbs and adjectives, allowing “nominal” and “verbal” affixes to apply to every non-functional word. Instead, it grouped its words into the categories state, change, thing and landscape. In Ryka, there is still no distinction between verbs and adjectives, and the original four word categories remain visible in the static vs. dynamic verb distinction and two of the now four nominal genders, as well as the fact that both nouns and verbs must go with an “article”. I imagine Balconian Ric to be slightly more conservative in this regard (although functioning similar to Ryka), with a less prominent noun-verb distinction and no additional nominal genders. Quriil could have retained most of this, or maybe have no noun-adjective distinction instead.

Ergativity: One of the defining features of Rykaic as opposed to Konoic is that its languages have ergative-absolutive morphosyntactic alignment. This was also one of the first features I settled on when inventing Ryka (even though Ryka now has active-stative alignment, but this has evolved from its ancestor’s ergativity) and it should apply to the whole family, also to Quriil.

VOS word order: For me, the unusual verb-object-subject word order tied in with the ergativity, so that should also be a family-wide feature, retained at least in some grammatical constructions.

Serial verbs: The serial verb constructions are a newer feature in the conlanging history of Ryka, but I really like them and they a good means to explain the many nominal cases of the modern language. I think they would also fit really well into Quriil, so we can make them a defining feature of the whole family.

Features of Proto-Ryka lost in one branch

Some other key features were present in Proto-Ryka and have left traces in all descendants, but have been lost almost completely in at least one branch.

Vocalic nasal: Proto-Ryka’s nasal is one of the trickier features to get into Quriil. So far, the ancient language is supposed to have no nasal onsets, like Ryka, instead featuring the nasal as a vowel. Quriil, however, does have nasal onsets, but no nasal nuclei, not even nasalized vowels. I could say that the vocalic nasal merged with neighboring consonants to create onset and coda nasals, although that feels a bit cheap. It could also be the source of Quriil’s super-short vowels. Whatever I decide on, this feature got lost completely in the Quriil branch of the family.

Base-8 numerals: Proto-Ryka had an octal numeral system that is still retained in Balconian Ric and, for smaller numbers, in Ryka. I’m not sure yet if I want this in Quriil. The “Tenyávi’s children” would definitely have borrowed a base-10 system from Nyirvón, given their academic society, but it’s harder to explain a change in the numeral system of the original Quriil population. Perhaps this feature was only lost in Tenyávi Quriil – I’m still undecided.

Features of the Asiulen Ryka subfamily

These are some features that evolved in the variant spoken by the Asiuluiam after Quriil split off and should be shared across its descendants (Capital Ryka, Balconian Ric, and others).

Consonant system: Ryka’s very specific consonant system with the basic consonants and their three modes, as well as the consonant mode assimilation should be present in the Asiulen variants in some way. The base consonants may differ and the degree to which mode assimilation is enforced may vary, but the consonant mode system should be present.

Affect: A very peculiar feature of the Asiulen branch is affect, the grammatical expression of the speaker’s stance and feelings towards the proposition, and it is tied so closely to the Asiuluiam’s identity and culture that it has also been borrowed into Asiul and resurfaces in basically any language that they learn to speak. This is supposed to be an innovation after the Quriil split.

Features of the Quriil subfamily

As the Quriil language is still only a draft, this section will be short. The Quriil branch will have at least two language varieties: The one spoken by the original population and the “Tenyávi Quriil” spoken in the Cloud Palace.

Vowel system: Its phonology is basically the only defining feature of the language so far. The vowel system is loosely inspired by Aleut: It also has phonemic vowels in just three different positions (a, i, u), but they come in three different lengths (super-short, short, long) instead of two. Similar to Aleut, the vowel quality changes substantially depending on the neighboring consonants. An additional factor is stress, which will diphthongize short vowels under certain circumstances. It will be challenging to let this strange system evolve from a common ancestor with Ryka, whose vowel system is rather simplistic. But since Quriil has split off rather early and evolved in a small, isolated population, we can apply some pretty wild sound changes here without losing realism.