The Sinistral Language
Throughout the novel series, some Sinistral characters—such as Erim—occasionally speak in their native language, which they call Ŝinosa. Ŝinosa is a distant relative of Common Eiranic, the setting’s lingua franca, analogous to Westron in The Lord of the Rings or "Common" in Dungeons & Dragons. However, due to an extremely early divergence, the two languages are now entirely mutually unintelligible.
For the glossary, please click here
Sinistral is a constructed language (conlang) influenced by several real-world languages, including Standard Chinese, Latin, Portuguese, Spanish, and Japanese.
It features a unique sex-specific syntactic system, in which the basic word order changes based on the speaker's sex:
- OSV (Object–Subject–Verb) for speakers using the feminine form
- SOV (Subject–Object–Verb) for speakers using the masculine form
History
The native language of the Sinistrals, the language has its origins as a dialect of Ancient Sinistral which was partially intelligible with Classical Eiranic. Both languages were "gifts" from the gods after the demise of the Divine languages, which Old Sinistral (Unrelated to Ancient Sinistral) is the only documented member of.Modern Sinistral, a form emerging in the Third Age of Aiogara after the demise of the Aiogaran Empire, is spoken entirely on the Sinistral archipelago, though many Sinistrals can understand Common Eiranic and continue to use it in mixed or diplomatic contexts due to the difficulty of their language for foreigners.
Orthography and Transcription
Sinistral employs a native abugida, traditionally carved or inscribed in a highly angular, vertical script arranged top-to-bottom and left-to-right. The characters consist of geometric shapes optimized for carving into stone or wood. An alternate runic script, derived from Modal Eiranic, was historically used in multicultural or frontier regions.There are two historical styles of Eiranic runic writing:
- Mode Primary: a boustrophedon format, beginning left-to-right and reversing direction on each alternate line.
- Mode Secondary: a more conventional left-to-right, top-to-bottom layout.
Due to the limitations of the native script in digital and international contexts, a romanized orthography has been standardized. The Sinistral romanization uses the following modified Latin alphabet:
A Ã Ch D E F G H I J K L M N O Ø R Ř S Ŝ T U Ü V W X Z
The language lacks the phonemes /b/, /p/, /q/, and /y/, and therefore does not use the letters B, P, Q, or Y in standard romanization. The diacritic letters (e.g., Ř, Ŝ, Ø, Ü) and digraphs (e.g., Ch) reflect distinctive phonemic values, which will be explained in the Phonology section.
Spelling in Sinistral includes a number of historic orthographic conventions, and certain morphemes preserve archaic spellings. As with many natural languages, the orthography is not entirely phonemic or intuitive, and exceptions will be discussed as needed.Vowels
Sinistral has an eight-vowel system. Most vowel lengths are consistent,
except where the ` mark is used, to clip the vowel short. The IPA for the vowels are below:
a: /a/
e: /e/
i: /i/
o: /o/
u:/u/
ã:/ɐ̃/
ø:/œ/
ü: /y/
Vowels marked with a ˆ or circumflex mark stress accent in text. If the stress is not marked, it is on the second vowel.
Consonants
Sinistral's consonants are very irregular compared to most human languages, lacking /b/ or /p/ sounds at all. For names transcribed into it, substitute /v/ for /b/ and /h/ for /p/.
ch /t͡ɕ/
d /d/
f /f/
g /g/
h /h/
j /j/
k /k/
l /l/
m /m/
n /n/
r /ɹ/
ř/ɾ/ (The alternative written form is "rh")
s /s/
ŝ/ɕ/ (The alternative written form is "ss")
t /t/
v /v/
w /w/
x /x/
z /z/
Basic Introduction to Grammar
Sinistral is a topic-prominent, agglutinative language with strong noun-verb agreement, complex argument marking, and a lexically split verb system. It employs both syntactic alignment (through word order) and morphological marking (via suffixes and vowel alternations) to distinguish subjects, objects, topics, and verbal categories. The language exhibits polypersonal agreement between verbs and arguments in some constructions.Grammatical Suffixes
Sinistral uses suffixes to inflect its verbs, objects and occasionally subjects of sentences. The priority of suffixes is: Topical/Direct Object, Dative, Middle Voice, tense/aspect, and then negation/interrogative at the very end.Cases
Sinistral marks grammatical relations using four morphologically marked cases. These are not cases in the Indo-European sense (i.e., full declensions for nouns), but rather suffixes and alternations that serve similar functions.Topical Case: Shortens the final vowel to declare a persisent topic. Written using a grave (`) accent on the last vowel. A topic remains active until replaced.
Direct Object Case: Transitive verbs are aligned to the object they act on. This case is used to mark the direct object, but is applied to both the verb and direct object. Uses an acute accent followed by -i in writing and shifts stress to the preceding vowel.
Dative Case: Used in indirect object constructions or when an intransitive verb semantically affects an entity other than the subject. Though the verb is intransitive, this suffix denotes semantic affectedness of the marked noun. -ii is the ending.
Negation Case: A negation suffix applied to the verb. It can be combined with any other suffix. -ai is the ending.
The Middle Voice
Sinistral uses a middle voice on verbs and subjects, which indicates that the subject is also the experiencer or patient of the action. This is used for reflexive constructions, copular identity statements, and subject-internal processes. The standard middle voice suffix is -ão, but when following a /u/ sound, the vowel changes to w (e.g., u → w), and the suffix simplifies to -ao.Tense and Aspect
Sinistral marks three temporal/aspectual distinctions morphologically and one with a particle:Completive Tense: Marked with the suffix -da. Indicates past tense or a completed action.
Continuous Tense: Marked with the suffix -ir. Indicates continuous or present progressive tense.
Future / Future Potential Tense: Marked with a sentence-final particle of lei. chuu lei indicates potential/uncertain future tense.
Interrogative
Interrogative or questioning is done by immediately preceding the verb witn esu.Prepositions and Deixis
Sinistral uses prepositions to express syntactic and semantic relationships between nouns and clauses. These include both relational and locative meanings. Prepositions precede both nouns and adjectives. Common prepositions include:
nei - of
hü - in
jod - around
fika - with
Sinistral features a complicated deictic system, with four distinct spatial deixis categories that distinguish physical location based on speaker and listener orientation, as well as visibility and presence.
These deictic terms are used prepositionally, and differ depending on whether they refer to a location or a person/object/animate referent. This system is similar in scope
to the Japanese ko-so-a-do system, but with a fourth category for absence/invisibility.
Close to the speaker
Close to the listener
Far away from one/both
Not visible/present
These are handled as prepositions:
řão - close to the speaker, referring the location.
řiu - close to the speaker, referring to the object/person/animal
ŝoü - close to the listener, referring to the location
ŝix - close to the listener, referring to the object/person/animal
zore - far away from one/both, refers to the location
zare - far away from one/both, refering to the object/person/animal
miřo - not visible/present, refers to a location
milos - not visible/present, refers to object/person/animal/idea
These precede the adjectives and any nouns.
Conjuctions
Sinistral uses coordinating conjunctions to join words, phrases, or clauses. When joining two independent clauses with wai (“and”), a comma must be used to mark the end of the first clause. Standard conjunctions:
wai - and
uja - or
Grammatical Gender
Sinistral assigns grammatical gender to all nouns. This gender distinction affects agreement in pronouns, copular constructions, and occasionally word order or aspectual emphasis. The language lacks a neuter gender; there is no equivalent of English “it.” As such, even inanimate nouns are referred to using gendered pronouns—either masculine or feminine—based on semantic classification, not natural gender.This is a semantic gender system (also called a noun class system), with conceptual domains assigned to each gender.
Masculine categories include: Commerce, Engineering, Writing, War, Tools, Villages/Settlements, Art, Food
Feminine categories include: Ideas, Emotions, Weapons, Cities, Clothing, Music, Buildings, Elements/Compounds This classification often reflects cultural perceptions of function, abstraction, or strength, rather than physical traits.
Verbs
Sinistral verbs are divided into two lexical classes: Standalone verbs: fully lexical; do not require additional modifiers. Dependent verbs: semantically incomplete without an adverbial complement referred to as an epistemic adverb.Standalone Verbs
Fai - Feminine copula
Vão - Masculine copula
Chigu - To have
Aruct - To go, to travel to
Saitas - To fall
Korvo - To kill
Jarou - To fornicate with, vulgar
Ŝok - To open/enter
Řø - To close/exit
Jigu - To capture/contain
Kaguŝ - To release/let go
Chomas - To trespass
Verei - To liberate/free/release
Dependent Verbs
The following section uses evaluative adverbs for meaning
go – to have passion for
tar – to express or embody an emotion
noři – to treat, to behave or act
Uses its own adverbs
mea – to engage in commerce, to transact; requires a commerce adverb to specify the type of trade
Evaluative Adverbs
sû - absolute positive
dii - normative positive
hei - normative negative
eru - absolute negative
gua - neutral
Example: dii go - to like something, hei go - to dislike something,
gua go - to have little to no opinion on, ambivalent, eru go - to hate, sû go - to love.
Commerce Adverbs
tao - to buy/purchase/exchange money for goods
ju - to sell/give for money
chuu - to trade/barter directly without exchange of money, a fair trade
Nouns and Pronouns
All nouns and first and third person pronouns in Sinistral are obligatorily gendered, either masculine or feminine. This applies consistently across animates and pronouns.Pronouns are relatively regular to most languages.
na - First person feminine
sa - First person masculine
tei - You (either gender)
kano - Third person feminine
naso - Third person masculine
Plural and Dual Markers
Sinistral distinguishes between dual and plural for animate nouns:iji - a pair, two. sa iji (The two of us)
aji - more than two.
These only are used for nouns referring to animates. For inanimate objects, the number must be stated or it is inferred via context.
Adjectives
Adjectives always precede the noun they modify. They are written as separate words unless forming part of a compound noun.
tai - large
ŝi - small
jeng - cold
nø - hot
uye - wide
zoha - flat
geida - useless/futile
volti - other
Sound Change and Phonological Divergence
Historical Sound Correspondences (Modern Sinistral vs Common Eiranic)
/kt/ in Sinistral is /ks/ in Common Eiranic.
/r/ corresponds to /ir/ initial syllables in Common Eiranic
/z/ at the end of words in Sinisral is corresponded with /s/ in Eiranic at the end of words.
/o/ in Sinistral became /mo/ in Common Eiranic.
/ao/ in Sinistral became /amo/ in Common Eiranic.
These changes reflect in proper nouns and names, and can assist in etymological tracing between Common Eiranic and Sinistral forms.
Ongoing Phonological Change in Spoken Sinistral
These changes are in progress and vary by dialect:
Loss of nasal vowel /ɐ̃/ [ã], Merged with /a/ in several dialects.
Merging of /l/ and /ɾ/: In Ikudo dialects, all /l/ realized as /ɾ/.
Loss of front rounded vowel /œ/: Being replaced by /u/ in most dialects, especially urban ones.
Sample Texts
Translation of some texts into Sinistral can be difficult for some people. Generally, it is recommended to use SOV syntax if the sex of the speaker is unimportant, as that's how the in-universe books are written most of the time.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 1
Eiradòaji vereião wai mojaimoja hü moja wai xarei vão. Toheião chigwao, wai volti eiradãoaji fika voisadiřen norião.
Literal translation: Humans are free and equal in value and rights. (Humans) have logic, and should treat other humans with brothergroup (there's no separate word for hood - all groups are diřen).