Most nouns fit into one of two groups. Type 1 nouns, inherited from an inflected language, have gender and honorific/diminutive endings. Type 2 nouns come from an uninflected language, so all you’ll need to know is singular and plural.

What if you see a type 2 noun with type 1 endings?? This happens all the time, just like FSE “tooken” or “goed.” But unlike in FSE, there is no stigma on invented “incorrect” forms. As the language is not standardized, one form is as good as another.

Type 1 nouns

Type one nouns have endings for gender (masculine or feminine), number (singular or plural), and register (respectful or diminutive). The latter really only comes up with people, and then only with people who are in some way unequal to you.

Type 1 nouns usually end in a, ar, or i, but they can have any ending.

For our example, we will use lynota, sister (specifically, a chosen or foster sister).

neutral	lynota: sister
respectful	lynotar: older sister
diminutive	lynoti: younger sister

The masculine version will appear in the dictionary separately, as the difference in masculine and feminine isn’t entirely regular with nouns. (Fortunately, it is with adjectives, so adjectives will appear in the dictionary with both forms, eg. vrola/vrula: beautiful.)

neutral	lynuda: brother
respectful	lynudar: older brother
diminutive	lynudi: younger brother

Look at the second-to-last syllable in each word. The vowel in this syllable is called the root vowel. It will receive the emphasis. In a few cases, the root vowel appears in the last syllable because an ending has been dropped: ot, mistress, for instance, used to be ota, and its root vowel is o. In the masculine, the last syllable reappears: the word for master is uta.

In general, words with a root vowel of a or o are feminine, while words with a root vowel of e or u are masculine. Words with i as the root vowel are rare and considered neuter. 

For this reason, sometimes a noun or adjective has its root vowel changed to i to make it neuter. While it is considered appropriate to use the feminine for mixed groups or when the referent is unknown (such that lynotan means siblings), there are a few cases when it’s seen as important to remove gender altogether. That is especially the case in the small community of nonbinary Orions. 

While some Orion cultures are matriarchal and others are patriarchal, the strong sexual dimorphism of the species has led gender roles to be fairly important everywhere. It is difficult for many Orions to even think of what it might mean not to fit into either category. However, nonbinary Orions do exist. They often create i-nouns and adjectives to refer to themselves, as in lynita, sibling. Or they may prefer using type 2 words, which are ungendered by nature.

Plurals simply involve adding an -n if the noun ends in a vowel and -en if it ends in a consonant.

	feminine	masculine
neutral	lynotan: sisters	lynudan: brothers
respectful	lynotaren: big sisters	lynudaren: big brothers
diminutive	lynotin: little sisters	lynudin: little brothers

Pronunciation tip: As said before, the emphasis is on the root syllable. That emphasis remains in place if suffixes are added: hence lynótar changes to lynótaren in the plural.

A few more examples of type 1 nouns:

badi: mother

hedri: father

pola: birth sister

pula: birth brother

vret: aunt, including foster aunt

vredi: uncle, including foster uncle

xota/xuda: trusted one (referring to one’s sibling in incarceration)

ot: mistress

uta: master

brida: ship

Type 2 nouns

There are many more type 2 nouns than type 1, and they can have any kind of ending. Plurals are made with -n after a vowel, r, or rh, and -en after other consonants. Adding an i to make a word diminutive is still very common, even if it means a word ends in two i’s: j’mi, darling, becomes j’mii, little darling. One i is pronounced right after the other, without a break.

Emphasis is irregular but tends to land on whatever syllable is the root of the word. For instance, hastamun, which means desert-mix, is emphasized on hasta, desert: hástamun. Whereas slenvajli, which is a compound meaning outside-empire-person, has the emphasis on vaj, empire, because every other syllable is an affix attached to empire: slenvájli.

Examples of type 2 nouns:

caj: house, as in family

tax: house, as in the building

mxn: body

mi: heart

lisk: associate, fellow slave

mesht: a catlike animal which can be a pet or run feral in cities

vaj: empire

slenvajli: alien

yumanli: human

kas: woman

kej: man

Possession

There are many different relationships which Standard grammar reduces to the possessive. Sam’s mother, Sam’s cat, Sam’s shoes, the shoe’s lace. Obviously Sam’s mother belongs to Sam in a very different way than his shoes do, but grammatically, they’re the same in Standard: apostrophe + s, or the word “of.” 

Possessives can go either before or after the noun they modify. That is because they are adjectives, and adjectives have specific rules about where they are placed—which we will learn later.

In Orion, there are four different types of possession, which it’s vital to distinguish. If you say “you are my lover,” with the possessive of ownership, you’re liable to get dumped.

Possessive of ownership

This possessive is what we would generally think of as possession: when you actually own something (or someone). For this we use the prefix ve’. 

mesht ve’caj: the cat belonging to the family

tax ve’kas: the woman’s house

Possessive of fealty

This one is less common, and it denotes an upward ownership or otherwise imbalanced relationship.

ot el’dubi: master of the slave 

tambra el’mesht: owner of the cat

elt el’brida: captain of the ship

Possessive of relationship

This is the one you would use for your father, lover, child, and so on. Never use any other possessive for a person unless you are discussing a sapient trafficking situation. You add the suffix -la. 

lynota badila: the (chosen) sister of the mother

meshtla pol: the cat’s (biological) sister

Possessive of association:

This is your leftovers category: where you might say “my foot” or “the lace of the shoe,” situations where two things definitely belong together in some sense, but it isn’t ownership and they’re not people. You use the suffix -t, where it makes a legal combination, and -et otherwise. This ending is added after the word is made plural, if necessary. When unsure, use this form. Since it’s the shortest, it tends to be favored for a number of purposes. 

jerid yumanlint: humans’ food

vajt mi: the heart of the empire

Now there’s a lot of overlap in situations where you would use one versus another. For instance, a civilian shipowner might use ve’ for a ship, but a captain might use -la (because she personifies the ship). Leaders of great houses like to use ve’ freely for their things and their slaves, whereas the anarcho-socialist communities of space stations often don’t use ve’ at all, but use -t for any stuff they might happen to be using at the moment.

Enslaved persons may have ve’ as part of their name. In that case, use what the person uses when introducing themself to you, even if it rankles. They choose to use it for reasons of their own, and they don’t owe it to you to gloss over the reality of their situation because of human discomfort. 

(Note: If you have any intention of working with victims of the slave trade, you owe it to yourself and your contacts to read Owned: Autonomy Within and After Bondage, by Talikt Vro. Well-meaning Federation citizens can cause a great deal of offense and harm by trampling into trafficking situations with insufficient knowledge.)

Where a situation is hierarchical, el’ may be used for the head of one’s House, the captain of one’s ship, or one’s patron deity. (Other gods one worships, but is not personally dedicated to, take -la.)

Family members and friends are always -la. Other than that, -t is generally appropriate for most things, and unlike ve’, has no chance of being offensive.

Exercise: 

Answers will appear when the text is highlighted so that you can check your work.

What kind of possessive would you use in the following situations? 

my heart 

my friend 

my house 

my captain 

my slave 

my mother 

my enemy 

my padd 

Translate:

mesht ve’kas

the family’s cat

mi yumanlit

lynuda kejt

tax ve’caj

lisk hedrila

mxn slevajlit