Renamed since the various incarnations of CQ don't actually have very much to do with each other and I'd like to sidetrack temporarily into a mostly isolating-ish family which will be easier to work with. I'm still unsure where this'll be spoken.

We will start with the phonology since I'm going to be boring for this family:

Voiced stops: /b d ɖ ɟ g/ <b d ḍ j g>
Voiceless stops: /p t ʈ c k/ <p t ṭ c k>
Aspirated stops: /pʰ tʰ ʈʰ cʰ kʰ/ <ph th ṭh ch k>
Nasals: /m n/ <m n>
Fricatives: /s ʂ h/ <s ṣ h>
Liquids: <w r ɻ l ɭ j> <w r ṛ l ḷ y>
Vowels: /i e a ə o u/

Syllable structure is (C)V(C). A consonant is optional word-initially.  Additionally, the following consonants are allowed word-finally: /p t c k b d j g m n w y/. (*uw and *iy are not permitted; nor are *wu or *yi).

Some example words: ṣak, niḷím, súṭhu, ə́raj.

Stress is phonemic: compare yamák '(they) see (something)' with yámak 'dolphin'.

Nouns have a plural marked by -(a)d: yámakad 'dolphins'. Verbs inflect for transitivity and for the number of the subject or agent:





A relative or participial-like form can also be formed using the prefix a(w)-: ayamá. This retains all transitive and number marking.

TAM marking is carried out by particles, which distinguish realis against irrealis, and perfective from imperfective from habitual aspect. The realis imperfective needs no particle.

Unnamed language (which we'll refer to as Sayə́m, which for now has no clear meaning) has distinctions between nouns and verbs, but not between verbs and adjectives. There is no copula, so:

ṣak
flower
'flower'

míṣəg
dandelion
'dandelion'

chəw
be.white
'(it) is white'

ṣak chəw
flower be.white
'the flower is white'

ṣak míṣəg
flower dandelion
'the flower is a dandelion'

ṣák-ad chə́w-i
flower-PL be.white-INTR.PL
'the flowers are white'

ṣák-ad míṣəg-ad
flower-PL dandelion.PL
'the flowers are dandelions'

Causatives of intransitive verbs can be effectively formed by marking them as transitive:

weḍó ṣák-ad chə́w-ən ca
wizard flower-PL be.white-TR.PL PERF
'the wizard turned the flowers white'

yámak-ad ṭhum-i ca
dolphin-PL die-INTR.PL PERF
'the dolphins died'

weḍó-d yámak-ad ṭhum-ək ca
wizard-PL dolphin-PL die-TR.PL PERF
'the wizards killed the dolphins'

As we can see by now, basic sentence order is S(O)V(P), with (P) being the position of the TAM particle.

Participial forms with a(w)- can be used to create adjective-like forms. These come before their head noun and do not lose their verbal marking (e.g. they'll agree with their head in number):

a-chə́w ṣak héji
PRT-be.white flower lily
'The white flower is a lily.'

a-chə́w-i ṣák-ad héji-d
PRT-be.white-PL flower-PL lily-PL
'The white flowers are lilies.'

(I'm going to cut things off here because I've just decided I'm going to reboot CQ as this, and make some major changes to its structure. More later.)