Suhengga

[Satsuma]

I didn't want to post anything until I'd gotten more done, yet here I am, posting anyways.

Phonology
Consonants

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m    n    ŋ   
m̥    n̥    ŋ̥   
p    t    k   
mb   nd   ŋg   
        s     h

<h> follows voiceless nasal consonants orthographically, so /m̥ n̥ ŋ̥/ is <mh nh ngh>. /ŋ/ is written as <ng>, and /ŋg/ as <ngg>.
Consonant clusters are not allowed. Only /s/ and /h/ can be at the end of a word.

Vowels

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i   u
 e  o
  a

Vowels can be lengthened, and, if at the end of a word with no following consonant, nasalized. An <m> following a final vowel shows nasalization.
Diphthongs are /ai au ɛi ɛu ɔi ɔu ia ua io uo ie ue iu ui/. Diphthongs whose first vowels are either /i/ or /u/ result in the preceding consonant being palatalized or labialized respectively.

Pronouns
Nominative

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  sg   pl
1 nhie mbua
2 ko   ene
3   uu 

Oblique

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  sg   pl
1 nim  pam
2 kee  eia
3   ma  

Genitive (follows noun)

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  sg    pl
1 nhiam piam
2 kia   iaia
3    uia 

Demonstratives
koi - this, this one
mha - that, that one

Verbs
Verb stems end in a consonant.
Verbs inflect for the subject's animacy and negativity. A noun is usually animate if it is a human or an animal.
"A" is animate, "I" is inanimate, "neg" is negative.

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        perfective/past imperfective/non-past
A       -i              -a
I       -amhi           -a
A neg   -as             a-am
I neg   -ingi           -ei

For example, the verb "pat-" (to go) in theory should be as follows
*

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        perfective/past imperfective/non-past
A         pati            pata
I         patamhi         pata
A neg     patas           apatam
I neg     patingi         patei

BUT it's an irregular verb, so it is conjugated as

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        perfective/past imperfective/non-past
A         pi              pa
I         mbi             pai
A neg     pas             apam
I neg     pim             apei

Word order is SVO.
The optative mood (I'm not sure if if "optative" is what I'm looking for. Some sort of irrealis mood. I might be thinking of subjunctive, but I've never seen it outside of the Indo-european languages, so I don't know how applicable that is here. Maybe conditional?) is represented when a noun in the oblique case precedes the verb and one in the nominative case (unmarked) follows. So,

Nhie pa.
1sg.NOM go.IPFV
I go.

Nim pa.
1sg.OBL go.IPFV
~I could/want/should go.

Next I'll work on noun morphology and post that up.

[Satsuma]

I've revised how the optative/potential/possible is formed: instead of this mood only being shown through noun declension, I've added some conjugations to show it. Now, only inanimate subjects will be in the oblique case, and they will take the prefix u- when the verb isn't negative. When the verb is negative, the verb takes the u- prefix instead of the noun.

Optative

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        perfective/past imperfective/non-past
A       -indim           -ah
I       -amhou           -iah
A neg   -osua            -uom
I neg   -ingha           -ui

So the verb nghoka (to float) becomes
Nhie nghoki.
[n̥ʲe ŋ̊oki]
1sg.NOM float.PFV
I floated.

Nhie nghokindim.
[n̥ʲe ŋ̊okindĩ]
1sg.NOM float.PFV.OPT
I may have floated. / I wish that I had floated.

Uu nghoka.
[uː ŋ̊oka]
3sg.NOM float.IPFV
It is floating.

Ua nghokiah.
[wa ŋ̊okʲax]
3sg.OBL float.IPFV.OPT
It may be floating. / I hope that it is floating.
(note that ma takes the special form ua when preceded by u-)

[Curlyjimsam]

This language has a nice sound.

I think "irrealis" or "subjunctive" would be a reasonable name for the mood you discuss: any other label probably wouldn't cover a sufficient range of meanings. Arabic would appear to have a "subjunctive" mood with a similar set of functions. It would be interesting to know precisely what range of uses this mood has, though - otherwise it's a bit hard to give solid advice on naming it.

[Pangloss]

Bantu languages have subjunctives.

[Satsuma]

This language has a nice sound.

Thanks!

And as for the subjunctive, yes, I think that this would be the most appropriate term. In Suhengga, the subjunctive is used for desires, possibilities, and polite requests.

A less polite way of forming requests would be by using the imperative, -aa. The prohibitive is -asum.

Yes/No questions
Formed simply by saying em at the beginning of the sentence.

Demonstratives
To expand upon the demonstratives, the previously mentioned koi (this) and mha (that) are only used for inanimate nouns. The interrogative form for inanimates is ngo (which, which one?). The following are used for animate nouns:
kois - this one [near speaker]
kous - that one [near listener]
mhas - that one [away from speaker and listener]
ngoni - who, which one?

More demonstratives:
akoi - here
amha - there
ango - where
io - how, in what manner/way
tue - this/that manner/way

Oblique
A noun goes into the oblique case when a preposition precedes it. If there aren't any prepositions before it, it is then the indirect object of the sentence.
This is how it is formed most of the time:
-V(s,h) → -VkV(s,h)
-Vm → -VnggV
Note that V is the final vowel of a word. If the final vowel is a diphthong that contains <a e o> , then that is the sole vowel that becomes replicated. In the cases of <-iu -ui>, they would become <-iuku -uiki>.
For example:
timbuiti → timbuitiki
tukoh → tukokoh
uetum → uetunggu

There are a few nominal affixes whose oblique forms don't decline in this way. Words that share affixes are usually thematically similar, but this isn't always the case.
Common affixes (with their oblique forms after) are:
-kah → -haa
-nho → -noko
at- → t-ka
-him → -sim
-aki → -akai
So for example, suhekah would become suhehaa, and atiendu would become tienduka.

Adjectives
Adjectives inflect based on the noun's animacy. They follow the word they modify.

There are two other parameters according to which adjectives are inflected:
Permanency- Based on whether the speaker assumes that the quality will be temporary or permanent.
Recency- Based on whether the quality is previous or recent/topical/has changed.

Animate

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      temp. perm.
prev. -nhi  -nhua
rec.  -tua  -m

Inanimate

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      temp. perm.
prev. -ta   -tem
rec.  -nda  -toh

Instead of using a copula to link a noun with an adjective in a simple sentence, the adjective takes on the role of a verb, with minor alterations to its previously mentioned inflections.

Animate

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      temp.  perm.
prev. -nh-   -nhu-
rec.  -tu-   -s-

Inanimate

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      temp. perm.
prev. -t-   -tin-
rec.  -nd-  -toh-

Tukoh kaha-tem.
boat big-INAN.PERM.PREV
The big boat.

Tukoh kaha-tin-a.
boat big-INAN.PERM.PREV-INAN.IPFV
The boat is big.

[Burke]

Not trying to tromp the fun here, but anytime I see a place where your romanization can be optimized a little, I tend to speak up, so feel free to ignore me.

You said you are using <ng> for the velar nasal, and this is what I'm focusing on, because there seems to be an overlap hole you can take advantage of.

Based off what I see here, the prenasalized stops are the homorganic nasal + the voiced graph. /mb/ - <mb> for example and this makes sense. But you, and I would say sensibly, use <ng> for the velar nasal leaving the prenasalized velar stop as <ngg>. It looks like you never use a bare <g>. Since /g/ is not present here, I think you might want to look into using <g> for the velar nasal, <gh> for the voiceless velar nasal and either, <ng> or <gg>, I prefer the second, for the prenasalized stop. The main reasons I'm suggesting this is because it will give a bit of consistency through the layers of romanization. The regular stops are one graph, and all the nasal stops will be one graph as well if you use <g> in this way, and that makes the prenasalized and voiceless nasals two with similar markings to note the changes. Again, feel free to ignore this, but it will, in its way, make your romanization a little tidier I think by making use of an unused letter and making simple rearrangements around it.

This said, I think this will sound very nice in the end. The sound inventory is very balanced, and I like the mix of lengthening including the change in qualities and nasalization. From a romanization stand point, I like that the final <m> can be used to show the nasalization. It is unambiguous and nice that you don't have to do things like tossing tildes over everything. I like the tidiness.

Some question I have: The /h/ phoneme. Does this only occur at word end, or can it be intervocalic as well? When at word end, does it alter the vowel at all by inducing a tone or phonation, or is it just the fricative there?

Palatalization and labializing: if an /s/ is palatalized or labialized, does it become an allophone of sorts? I was thinking that since the phonemic inventory is small, on this phoneme in particular there might be changes. I was thinking you might see /s/ + [PALATAL] -> /∫/ | /ç/ and that /s/+ [LABIAL] -> /f/ or some other labial fricative.

EDIT: Small correction and a typo

[Nortaneous]

or just use <nk> for the prenasalized stop

[Satsuma]

Based off what I see here, the prenasalized stops are the homorganic nasal + the voiced graph. /mb/ - <mb> for example and this makes sense. But you, and I would say sensibly, use <ng> for the velar nasal leaving the prenasalized velar stop as <ngg>. It looks like you never use a bare <g>. Since /g/ is not present here, I think you might want to look into using <g> for the velar nasal, <gh> for the voiceless velar nasal and either, <ng> or <gg>, I prefer the second, for the prenasalized stop. The main reasons I'm suggesting this is because it will give a bit of consistency through the layers of romanization. The regular stops are one graph, and all the nasal stops will be one graph as well if you use <g> in this way, and that makes the prenasalized and voiceless nasals two with similar markings to note the changes. Again, feel free to ignore this, but it will, in its way, make your romanization a little tidier I think by making use of an unused letter and making simple rearrangements around it.

What if I did what Fijian does and used <g> for /ŋ/, <q> for /ŋg/, <b> for /mb/ and <d> for /nd/?

Some question I have: The /h/ phoneme. Does this only occur at word end, or can it be intervocalic as well? When at word end, does it alter the vowel at all by inducing a tone or phonation, or is it just the fricative there?

No, /h/ can be anywhere, like how it is in the name of the language. At the end of a word it's just a fricative, oftentimes pronounced as [x]. Early on I've planned that if I make any daughter langs for Suhengga/Suheqa, the word-final fricatives will give way to some tonality or vowel shift or something.

Palatalization and labializing: if an /s/ is palatalized or labialized, does it become an allophone of sorts? I was thinking that since the phonemic inventory is small, on this phoneme in particular there might be changes. I was thinking you might see /s/ + [PALATAL] -> /∫/ | /ç/ and that /s/+ [LABIAL] -> /f/ or some other labial fricative.

[ɕ] and [ç] are the more common ways of pronouncing /sʲ/ and /hʲ/.

[Burke]

Based off what I see here, the prenasalized stops are the homorganic nasal + the voiced graph. /mb/ - <mb> for example and this makes sense. But you, and I would say sensibly, use <ng> for the velar nasal leaving the prenasalized velar stop as <ngg>. It looks like you never use a bare <g>. Since /g/ is not present here, I think you might want to look into using <g> for the velar nasal, <gh> for the voiceless velar nasal and either, <ng> or <gg>, I prefer the second, for the prenasalized stop. The main reasons I'm suggesting this is because it will give a bit of consistency through the layers of romanization. The regular stops are one graph, and all the nasal stops will be one graph as well if you use <g> in this way, and that makes the prenasalized and voiceless nasals two with similar markings to note the changes. Again, feel free to ignore this, but it will, in its way, make your romanization a little tidier I think by making use of an unused letter and making simple rearrangements around it.

What if I did what Fijian does and used <g> for /ŋ/, <q> for /ŋg/, <b> for /mb/ and <d> for /nd/?

Some question I have: The /h/ phoneme. Does this only occur at word end, or can it be intervocalic as well? When at word end, does it alter the vowel at all by inducing a tone or phonation, or is it just the fricative there?

No, /h/ can be anywhere, like how it is in the name of the language. At the end of a word it's just a fricative, oftentimes pronounced as [x]. Early on I've planned that if I make any daughter langs for Suhengga/Suheqa, the word-final fricatives will give way to some tonality or vowel shift or something.

Palatalization and labializing: if an /s/ is palatalized or labialized, does it become an allophone of sorts? I was thinking that since the phonemic inventory is small, on this phoneme in particular there might be changes. I was thinking you might see /s/ + [PALATAL] -> /∫/ | /ç/ and that /s/+ [LABIAL] -> /f/ or some other labial fricative.

[ɕ] and [ç] are the more common ways of pronouncing /sʲ/ and /hʲ/.

I like the nod from Fijian! I'm not familiar with it at all, but that is a clever use of it. It is only personal opinion, but it does feel much more tidy, and that makes me happy. Really what it should come down to is your personal preference, unless you plan on trying to popularize it, then you'll want to consider how others will see it, and that makes it audience dependent. all this said, with everything here, it is my personal opinion that none of the orthographies are confounding at all, they are all simple and clear, and I love that all of them could be learned in less than 20 minutes,which is very impressive. If it takes less time than romaji or pinyin, that's very good in my book

As for the fricatives, that's pretty cool. I like the way it is going! Taking a nod from Chinese linguistic history, no? If you are, also maybe take a look over at the Athapaskan family. they developed tone in a similar manner, but if I remember correctly the tonalities that did develop came from glottal consonants. Feels foggy, but still worth the peek.

Toss something on soundcloud please! I'd love to hear it.

[Satsuma]

As for the fricatives, that's pretty cool. I like the way it is going! Taking a nod from Chinese linguistic history, no? If you are, also maybe take a look over at the Athapaskan family. they developed tone in a similar manner, but if I remember correctly the tonalities that did develop came from glottal consonants. Feels foggy, but still worth the peek.

After reading about it for the first time, I think I might model my lang's tonogenesis off the Athabaskan languages. Maybe something to do with the voiceless nasals influencing tones too.

Toss something on soundcloud please! I'd love to hear it.

In due time.

Some words and changes
biha - to see
de/dee - many, very, intensifier
so - near, by, at, with, on, and -- (preposition)
qau - (similar to so, but used for things that are a bit farther away, yet still within sight. also a preposition.)
meunho - head (note the -nho suffix, which is normally used with body parts.)
gipos - mountain
es - younger brother
nuh - elder brother
maa - mother

Bua, the first person plural pronoun, is also used casually and informally in place of the normal 1.sg pronoun nhie.

The u- prefix mentioned previously now puts the subjunctive verb in the dubitative mood, and is only put in front of the verb if there is no expressed subject.

The adjective endings -nhua and tua are now -nhu and -tu. When followed by the verb ending uom, -nhu- and -tu- become -nhuum and -tuum. When followed by -osua, they become -nhuosa and -tuosa. When followed by -ui they are -nhuu and -tuu but then the -nh- ending becomes -nhiu when followed by -ui. After -ei, the i is dropped, turning the diphthong into an ue, and thus, -nhue and -tue.
(I'll type this up as a chart later; I didn't realize how much of a mess this description would be.)

Adverbs
Adverbs are formed as adjective stems without any inflections preceding the verbs they modify.

Relative clauses
They follow the noun they modify, and behave like adjectives. A -u is placed after the verb stem, then the suitable adjective endings are added, and then finally the regular verb endings. The recency inflections determine the verb's tense (remember that this is only applicable in relative clauses!), with the "previous" governing the past tense, and "recent/topical" the non-past.

Nhie bihi gipos.
[n̥ʲe mbiçi ŋipos]
I saw the mountain.

Es so gipokos nhie bihunhi.
[esːo ŋipokos n̥ʲe mbihun̥i]
My younger brother is on the mountain that I saw.

[Satsuma]

Pitch accent
I originally planned on simply making words have stress on the first syllable, but that seemed a bit boring, so I'd like to know if this pitch accent system is realistic.

The first syllable of a word is assigned one of three tones: high, middle, or low.

High- Following syllables gradually lower in pitch.

Low- Following syllables gradually rise in pitch.

Middle- There are two kinds of middle pitch words. They both sound the same, but for one the pitch gradually rises, and for the other the pitch gradually lowers.

If a <s> or <h> is at the end of a multisyllabic word, its pitch is the same as the first syllable's.

If the final vowel is nasalized, or if a vowel in a word is before <b d q>, it is always one step lower than the preceding vowel. If a vowel comes before <b d q> and it is a word's first syllable, it cannot be a high pitch.

Syllables that start with <mh nh gh> can never be low in pitch, and are always a step higher than the preceding word's pitch if in the same word.

Diphthongs or long vowels have no special effect on pitch, i.e. they function like normal vowels. No interesting changes or anything.

Some examples (using currently non-canonical words, though I may use them in the future... I hate creating words, I'm more of a grammar person):

Note that the acute accent is a high initial, grave accent is a low initial, circumflex is mid falling, breve is mid rising

sé-ka-tem : high mid low
sè-ka-tem : low mid low
tû-te-nui : mid midlow low
tû-te-nhui : mid midlow high (midlow and midhigh function like regular middle pitch syllables, even though they sound slightly lower or higher. so "nhui" is raised to a high pitch rather than a middle pitch)
tŭ-te-nui : mid midhigh high
tŭ-te-nhui : mid midhigh high
hó-kes : high high