Galactic Puzzle Hunt

Who Speaks This Anyway?

Six-fingered aliens that we communicated with in 2019, after the discovery of an Antarctic Artifact.
You will not need any resources from our first contact for this puzzle, other than what is directly linked in the body of this document. For completeness there are existing guides on the GPH website and the Github. In a couple places, older information may slightly disagree with this document; in those cases, the more modern understanding is correct.

Sounds

Every syllable is (C)V(C) (exactly one vowel with up to one consonant on each side).
- Therefore three-consonant clusters never occur.
A pronunciation guide is here. (It's pretty different from English in several places.) Major notes:

c is /ʒ/ ("zh" in leisure)
g is /ŋ/ ("ng" in bring)
q is /tʃ/ ("ch" in chime)
u is /ə/ ("uh" in pencil)
w is /u/ ("oo" in boot)
x is /ʃ/ ("sh" in push)
y is /ɲ/ ("ñ" in mignon)
' is /🔔/ ("🔔" in 🔔🔔🔔)

Nouns and Adjectives

Always end in a vowel.
Singular things almost never end in -w or -we.
Part of speech is left to context, e.g. twipe works just as well meaning "sugar" or "sweet (sugary)".

ag-

Indicates that a thing is larger or otherwise more intense than its base form, e.g. agtwipe "very sweet".
May apply before or after noun class infixes depending on whether "a big/very X" or something semantically distinct is intended, e.g. agtwripe "very sweet (liquid)" vs agturwipe "cloying".

sa-

Indicates that a thing is smaller or otherwise less intense than its base form, e.g. saityeri "tint".
May apply before or after noun class infixes depending on whether "a small/slightly X" or something semantically distinct is intended, e.g. saittiha "small light" (LED?) vs atsatiha "dimmed".

-r- / -ur-

Indicates that a noun is a fluid.
Infix -r- before the word's second vowel, e.g. twipe → twripe.
- Use -ur- instead if using -r- alone would cause a three-consonant cluster, e.g. enxa → enxura, not enxra.
All simple (non-clause) descriptors on a fluid noun also take this transformation.
- "twripe enxura" "sugar water" because the water is a fluid.
- enxa uxfaplo "water bottle" because the bottle is not a fluid.

Vt-

Indicates that a noun is a light source.
Prepend a copy of the noun's first vowel + t, e.g. erqoye → eterqoye "moon".
All simple (non-clause) descriptors on a light-emitting noun also take this transformation.
- otombu eterqoye "full moon" because the moon is a light source.
- erqoye twipe "moon sugar" because the sugar is not a light source.

-Cw-

Indicates that a noun is an action defined by physical activity.
- "jump", "stand", "fight"
- not "raise", "cook", "write"
- depending on context, "lift", "spin", "sing"
Duplicate the final consonant cluster and put a -w- between them, e.g. tanuva → tanuvwva.
All simple (non-clause) descriptors on a physical activity noun also take this transformation.
- anuvwva tanuvwva "high jump" because the jump is a physical activity.
- tanuva tahlo "sauté pan" because a pan is not a physical activity.

-ay-

Infix -ay- before the final vowel to negate a thing, e.g. twipaye for "not sweet".
- The resulting word always has adjectival sense.
This transformation applies after noun class transformations.

-w

Replace the final vowel with -w to indicate the dual number, e.g. twipw "two sugars".
All simple (non-clause) descriptors on a plural noun also take this formation, e.g. "twipw lochw" "two sweet foods".

-we

Replace the final vowel with -we to pluralize, e.g. twipwe for "sugars" or "sweet things".
This transformation applies after negation, e.g. twipaywe, not twipwaye.
All simple (non-clause) descriptors on a plural noun also take this formation, e.g. "twipwe lochwe" "sweet foods".

-s

Adverbializes an adjective, e.g. erida "fast" → eridas "quickly".

-l

Verbifies a noun or adjective, e.g. twipe "sugar" → twipel "to sweeten".

-'fi / -'

Makes an adjective comparative or superlative respectively, e.g. twipe'fi "sweeter" and twipe' "sweetest".

-ro

Proclitic indicating possession, e.g. Baba-ro toreli "Baba's cookie".
When applied to a personal or relative pronoun, the pronoun gets infixed instead, e.g. at "it" → rato "its"; ory "those described things'" → roryo.

Pronouns

Pronouns can appear on their own but most often occur infixed into verbs (see Verbs).

	Singular		Dual		Plural
	Subject	Object	Subject	Object	Subject	Object
1st person	wm	um	wn	un	wy	uy
2nd person	iz	ez	ij	ej	ix	ex
3rd person	at	ot	ab	ob	ad	od
"This"	ita	eta	itw	etw	itwe	etwe
"That"¹	iqa	eqa	iqw	eqw	iqwe	eqwe
Relative²	al	ol	an	on	ary³	ory³

"That" also gets used at the determiner "the".
These appear in subordinate clauses to indicate the role of the thing being described by the clause, where appropriate; e.g. wlwmoloc-ka locho "the food that I ate".
When these appear alone they are written arye and orye.

Conjunctions

Attached as enclitics to the preceding item, e.g. Alisa-li Bobu "Alice and Bob"."
Take the -s suffix when linking verbs or adverbs, e.g. wlatoc-lis zumatuz "it eats and it sleeps".

Verbs

Verbs end in consonants and have a root form that is never used on its own.
Verbs take pronoun infixes indicating subject and object before their final vowel, e.g. wloc "to eat" → wlwmoc "I eat"; wlizotoc "you eat it"
- The "this" and "that" "pronouns" aren't used like this, they just stand alone, i.e. eta-ro "that( thing)'s", not retao
In the active voice, the subject infix always appears; the object infix only appears sometimes, especially when it is useful to disambiguate subject from object.
In the passive voice, the object infix appears alone, e.g. wlotoc "It is eaten".
az "to be" is the only irregular verb and takes its infixes as suffixes after z, e.g. zwm "I am".
If a small word appears immediately before a verb, it could be a pronoun, a tense/aspect modifier, or a postposition.

ag-

Indicates that an action is done very much, intensely, or overly so, e.g. agwloc "overeat".
Applies after pronoun infixing but some ag- verbs are considered standalone words.

sa-

Indicates that an action is done only a little, slightly, or underdone, e.g. saerok "scratch".
Applies after pronoun infixing but some sa- verbs are considered standalone words.

vo-

Indicates that an action is reversed, e.g. horod "to remember" → vohorod "to forget".
Applies after pronoun infixing; ordering with other two prefixes depends on context.

-ey-

Indicates that an action is not done, e.g. wlwmeyoc "I do not eat".
Goes after the subject pronoun infix and before the object pronoun infix, e.g. wlateyodoc "it does not eat them".

-a

Indicates the action of the verb, as a gerund, infinitive, or present participle, e.g. eroka "cutting" or "to cut".

-afe

Indicates the performer of a verb or something capable of performing the verb, e.g. wlocafe "eater".

-who

Indicates the recipient of a verb or something that can be acted upon by the verb, e.g. karwho "addend".

-wmi

Indicates a thing that has already been acted upon by the verb, e.g. karwmi "added".
In cases where more details are needed, a dependent clause may be used instead, e.g. axwroqas kolar-ka "daily added".

-aqo

Indicates a thing used to perform the verb, e.g. wlocaqo "utensil"

-ice

Indicates a place where the verb is performed, e.g. wlocice veonxi "eat-hosting building" (diner, restaurant).

-ede

Indicates a thing that causes the verb to happen, e.g. horodede kude "notebook"

-oda

Indicates the result of an action, e.g. realoda "mixture"

Clauses

General sentence order is subject-object-verb.

Qarzu    daxaqo            nagatut.
Charles  teach-instrument  it-writes.
Charles writes a guide ("an instructive").

Things generally go before the things they modify.

Iqa   daxede  ogwe   nathwe  qatun.
That  guide   manys  words   it-has.
The guide has many words.

The object of a ~~pre~~adposition modifies it, and the adpositional phrase modifies something else.

Ot  henqwe          sivegwe,   pazulu  zadey.
It  within(-plural) showings,  puzzle  they-are-not.
(The) examples in it are not a puzzle.

Two independent clauses can be linked by attaching an adverbial conjuction to the first clause's verb.

Yokuxa  zat-dis    yokuxa'fi  aza    fel             zat.
Long    it-is-but  longer     being  [hypothetical]  it-can.
It is long but it could be longer.

Dependent clauses have -ka(s) attached to the verb and are generally positioned the same as the part of speech the clause assumes.

Qarzu    lavwe       rojdwe    swgatodor-ka         ocratal.
Charles  previouses  versions  that-it-agrees-them  it-hopes.
Charles hopes (that) it agrees with previous versions.

If the dependent clause modifies a noun, a relative pronoun might be used to indicate the role of the modified noun in the clause.

Os            nagatolut-ka    neru   zat.
[perfective]  it-writes-that  fifth  it-is.
It is the fifth (one that) he has written.

Uta  laves       nagolut-ka       rojde    tihan  jatif.
One  previously  that-is-written  version  here   it-exists.
A previously written version is here.

Clauses with other semantic roles are introduced with a ti- or al- word.

Izwfwe  gotena       zalova,   tidul        fel
Old(s)  reading-them needing,  this-reason  [hyp.]

orcizeyin-kas   exizeyin.
you-don't-want  you-should-not.

You should not need to read the old ones if you don't want (to).

Uta  cuafi  rojde    albwr      Qarzu    giravroxotel-kas
One  new    version  that-time  Charles  it-is-confused

jifoted.
it-is-created.

A new version is created whenever Charles is confused.

If dependent clauses get long enough to interfere with the flow of the sentence, they may be moved after the verb.

Podhe  rojde    henqos      dwtdwt  et        mwyizid,
Next   version  interiorly  again   [future]  we-see-you

eta   13210  henqos      et      qwyoluk-ka
that  2022   interiorly  [fut.]  we-make-that

pazulliqexu   ziy  et      nagolut-ka.
puzzleparty  for  [fut.]  that-is-written.

We will see you again in the next version, which will be
written for the puzzlehunt that we will make in 2022.

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