Contents

Introduction                                              2

• Goals

• Lore

• Other Uses

• Flexibility

Phonology                                                   3

• Consonant Inventory

• Vowel Inventory

• Scripts                                                             

• Runic             

• Using the Scripts                   

Starkstaf and Arkstaf                          5

• Compound Runes

• Arkstaf

• Schools of Magic

Simple Sentences                                      5

• Word Order

• Articles

• Adjectives and Adverbs

• Verbs

• A Note About "er"

• Pronouns

Complex Verbs                                            6

• Verb Tenses

• The Vowel Wheel

• Passive Verbs

• Subordinate Clauses

• Auxiliary Verbs

Complex Sentences                                 7

• Table of Correlatives

• Yes or No Questions

• Negation

• Proper Nouns

• Compound Sentences

• More and Most

Complex Sentences                                 8

• Numbers

• Colours

• Creating Colours

Dictionary

Introduction

Kas! Welcome to the language of Marksprek! Marksprek, or "The Language of the Markets" is a constructed trade language, designed to be a simple, regular, easy to learn, and most importantly, fun language, intended for use in   a  Dungeons and Dragons campaign!

Goals

Within a D&D campaign, for the most part, a language is just another skill that a character aquires during their adventures - or more likely, when the character is first created. However learning a new language and being able to communicate with new people is a fun experience in and of itself!

Marksprek is primarily designed to be learned by players via exposure. To achieve this, it is recommended that the DM learn Marksprek's simple grammar and a bit of vocabulary beforehand. As players go to buy or sell items or travel to foreign places, they will meet NPCs who share no other language with them and will thus learn Marksprek as neccassary.

Lore

Marksprek can be intergrated into the lore of a D&D campaign in many different ways. Below is how Marksprek has been integrated into my personal campaigns.

While not designed to be a naturalistic language, Marksprek can be integreatd into the lore of your campaign however you choose as the DM.

Other Uses

Although Marksprek is a fully developed language, it can also occupy smaller parts of the game. The compound runes described in this book can be used for spell scrolls alone, the language could belong to a certain group small of people rather than all traders or perhaps it could be used once in puzzle. As a DM the language is limited only by your creativity.

Flexibility

Although I've fully laid out Marksprek here, if you don't like something about it, change it! The beauty of D&D is that you always have the power to change things to your liking. Feel free to add, remove or change roots, phonemes, sections of the grammar, the scripts etc. If you publish any changes, I'd appreciate being credited.

If you have any suggestions to make regarding Marksprek as it's seen here, feel free to reach out to me at cosmonautkit@gmail.com.

This document was created using The Homebrewery. https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/

Phonology

Marksprek has a small and easy to pronounce phonetic inventory. It contains 20 letters: 15 consonants and 5 vowels. It is larged based on the phonenetic inventories of various Germanic languages.

An IPA chart containing a pronounciation of all these phonemes can be found on Wikipedia here.

Consonant Inventory

All the consonants below are pronounced as they are in English, except for j which is pronounced as an English y and r which is trilled. g is never pronounced as English j.

Vowel Inventory

Marksprek has 5 vowels. These are not the same as they are in English but can be found in a number of other languages such as Spanish, Italian, Esperanto and Toki Pona.

When using the Latin script as seen above, the first letter in a sentence, as well as all nouns and pronouns are capitalised.

Scripts

Marksprek has 2 scripts. A Latin script and a Runic script. The Latin script is written as seen above and can be typed with any English keyboard.

Marksprek's runes are based on the runic scipts of the Elder and Younger Futhark, however Marksprek's runes are distinct and based on phonetics. Each rune has a name in Marksprek as well as an associated significance derived from its name.

Runic

Latin	Runic	Name	Significance
e		erd	earth
u		uft	death, the dead
o		orn	war, victory
a		ark	magic
i		ig	safety, protection
p		put	work, success
t		tank	knowledge, wisdom
k		krab	nature, the wild
m		man	a person or group
n		nir	youth, good fortune
b		bel	love, fertility
d		dank	giving thanks
g		guld	wealth, good trade
f		fir	fire
s		stark	power, strength
l		luft	air
j		jakt	food, a good hunt
r		rask	speed
w		was	water
h		heb	gods, holyness

Each rune is called a "staf" in Marksprek. Staf with elements to the right of the central line are pronounced futher forward in the mouth than those with elements to the left of the line. The type of element describes how the sound is produced in the mouth. This can be understood using the consonant inventory table.

Using the Scripts

When using the Runic script, single dots are used in between words in place of spaces and vertical lines are used in place of full stops.

Runes can be written left to write, top to bottom - or stacked on top of one another on vertical lines, written top to bottom, left to right.

The latin script is used more often in day to day trading, but the runic script is the older of the two. The runic script is often used for short enscriptions, names, songs and poetry.

Examples in this book will be given in the latin script but can easily be transcribed into runic using the Runic table.

Starkstaf and Arkstaf

Each rune in Marksprek has a name: a word that begins with the sound of the rune. For example the rune that makes the "o" sound is named "orn", which means "anger". However the rune "orn" also carries the significance of war or victory in battle. So, a soldier going to war may choose to carve the "orn" rune into their equipment to wish for victory in battle.

These types of runes, used not for their sound but rather their significance are called "Starkstaf", meaning "Power Runes". They're often carved into objects to instill them with a percieved power or can be used for casting spells.

For example, a trader might choose to carve the rune for wealth, "guld" into the covers of their record books, or a hunter might carve the rune for a successful hunt "jakt" into their bow.

Compound Runes

Often, several runes will be combined on a single line to form a compound rune. The combined runes are usually an initialism of a compound word, initialism of a name or several Starkstaf that have been combined. For example, by combining the "m" rune from Mark and the "s" rune from Sprek, we get a compound rune for Marksprek as seen below. There aren't any specific rules about how to combine runes, as long as both of the original runes are recognisable.

Arkstaf

Compound runes can also be used for spells. These runes are called "Arkstaf", meaning "Magic Runes". Arkstaf use the Starkstaf meaning of the runes, and combine them to describe the spell. All arkstaf contain the "a" rune, meaning magic, as well as another rune to identify which of the 8 schools of D&D magic the spell belongs to.

The rune below is the compound rune for the spell "Fireball". The "a" rune meaning "magic" indicates that it's a spell and the "s" rune meaning "power" indicates that it's an evocation. The "f" rune meaning "fire" identifies it as the spell "Fireball".

Schools of Magic

School	Arkstaf	Runes	Name
abduration		ark + ig	sekark
conjuration		ark + put	makark
divination		ark + tank	kunark
enchantment		ark + heb	hodark
evocation		ark + stark	starkark
illusion		ark + man	skinark
necromancy		ark + uft	uftark
transmutation		ark + nir	andark

Since the Arkstaf use the Starkstaf meaning of the runes and not their sounds, many of the names of the schools of magic will be different to the runes in their Arkstaf.

There are no real rules as to what runes identify a spell. For example, the rune for "Fireball" seen earlier can also describe another fire related evocation, "Fire Bolt".

Simple Sentences

Now that you can pronounce words in Marksprek, it's time to learn how to use those words in a sentence to form meaning. There is a Marksprek to English dictionary at the back of the book to help create and understand sentences.

Word Order

Because many words in Marksprek can be used in many various parts of speech, word order is very important in conveying meaning.

The subject (the person or thing that performs an action) of a sentence in Marksprek comes before the verb and the object (the person or thing that recieves an action) of a sentence comes after the verb. This is the same word order as a typical English sentence.

Articles

As you may have noticed in the sentence above, Marksprek does not have any articles (the words "the", and "a/an" in English). As articles are absent from Marksprek, they will also be absent from the translations provided in this book.

Adjectives and Adverbs

Adjectives, descriptive nouns and adverbs are placed directly before their respective nouns and verbs as a compound word. This leads to some ambiguity although the meaning of the word can be inferred through context. All base words are one syllable in length.

Multiple adjectives or adverbs can be used with a single noun. They always group to the right.

Adjectives in Marksprek always group to the right. To say "kitten house" the word "af" must be used in the compound in much the same way "of" is used in English.

Verbs

Verbs in Marksprek only change for tense, not person or number. The word "er" is the copula in Marksprek. It is equivilant to the English words "be", "is" "are" or "am".

It can also be used with "Ik", meaning "it" to state that something exists.

A Note About "er"

Please note that "er" should never be used before a verb as we might use "is", "am" or "are" in English to form a continous verb. Marksprek does not have a continous aspect, and as words can occupy many parts of speech, this can drastically change a meaning of sentence.

Pronouns

Marksprek has a 6 personal pronouns. No personal pronoun in Marksprek has a gender or animacy distinction, only a plurality distinction. Pronouns begin with a capital letter.

To indicate possesion, personal pronouns and names must be used with the word "af" for clarity.

Complex Verbs

Verbs in Marksprek have the ability to be conjugated for past, present and future tense and the passive aspect.

Verb Tenses

Marksprek has 3 verb tenses - past, present and future. Conjugating for verb tense in Marksprek works similarly to some "strong" English verbs, such as sing, sang and sung.

While in English these verbs are somewhat irregular, in Marksprek it is quite easy. To change the tense of a verb, take note of the vowel that will change. A non-compound word will be one syllable in length and thus will only have one vowel. In compound words, the vowel that will change will be the vowel of the final syllable.

To put the verb into the past tense, change the vowel to the vowel anti-clockwise of it on the vowel wheel below. To put the verb into the future tense, change the vowel to the vowel clockwise of it on the wheel.

The Vowel Wheel

Passive Verbs

Passive verbs allow one to state that something has happened without explicitly mentioning the subject. In Marksprek, passive verbs are formed by compounding verbs with the word "get".

To use passive verbs in relative clauses, "wat" also acts as the relative pronoun. Where English can use many relative pronouns "which, who, whom, that", Marksprek only uses "wat"

Subordinate clauses

A subordinate or dependant clause is a sentence which provides another sentence with additional information, but could not stand alone as a sentence. In English we usually use "that" for introducing subordinate clauses, however "wat" is used in Marksprek.

Auxiliary Verbs

Verbs can be used to modify other verbs as auxiliary verbs by placing them before the original word.

When changing the tense of these verbs, only the first verb is changed.

Complex Sentences

There are six "correlative" words in Marksprek: 'wat', 'dat', 'det', 'alt', 'lit' and 'net'. They are used in compounds with other words to form correlatives and cannot be used by themselves. They can be compounded with any word, and are not limited to the columns in the table below.

These correlative words can be compounded with any word, and they do not change the order of the sentence.

Yes or No Questions

To form a yes or no question in Marksprek, the verb is moved to the start of the sentence.

If a sentence has multiple verbs connected with "an", both are moved to the start of the sentence.

Auxiliary verbs are moved to the start of a sentence, but not the verbs they modify.

Negation

To negate a verb, the word "net", meaning "not" is compounded with the verb.

Proper nouns

Proper nouns such as the names of people or places aren't in the Marksprek dictionary. To talk about these things, they should first be adapted to fit Marksprek's phonology by choosing the closest sounds. For example "Faerûn" becomes "Ferun".

These proper nouns are seperated with a dash when forming compound words, or are placed in a box when using the runic script.

Compound Sentences

Compound sentences are two stand-alone sentences, seperated with a comma and one of the conjuctions found in the conjuction section of the dictionary.

More and Most

To form a compartive adjective, we use the word "mer" mearning "more". To form a superlative adjective, we use the word "mest" meaning "most".

Numbers and Colours

Numbers in Marksprek follow a binquinary system, meaning that 2 and 5 are used as subbases. As a result, the numbers 6-9 are created by compounding smaller numbers with "5". This is done to reduce the amount of vocabulary needed to be learned and for lore reasons.

Numbers

Nunber	Marksprek Word	Runic
0	Nul
1	On
2	Twen
3	Der
4	Fir
5	Fimf
6	Fimfon
7	Fimftwen
8	Fimfder
9	Fimffir
10	Ten
20	Twerten
30	Derten
40	Firten
50	Fimften
60	Fimfonten
70	Fimftwerten
80	Fimfderten
90	Fimffirten
100	Hund
1,000	Sund

Colours

Marksprek has 3 words for colour as well as a word for black and white. By compounding these words, A spectrum of different colours, shades and tints can be expressed with the accuracy needed for trade.

Colour	Marksprek Word
Red	Rod
Yellow	Gel
Blue	Blor
Black	Swat
White	Wit

Creating Colours

For secondary colours, the colour words can be compounded in any order with little difference in meaning. For tertiary colours, the doubled colour comes first. To create tints and shades, compound "wit" or "swat" to the beginning of the colour respectively.

Babel-Storhus - The Tower of Babel

Dictionary

Word	Meaning
and	change, alteration: to change, to alter, to modify
ark	magic, spell, sorcery, witchcraft: magical, arcane: to cast magic, to cast a spell, to enchant
ber	up, high
bok	book, text: to read
bruk	to use
brut	accident, mistake, breakage: to break, to destroy, to screw up
et	food, meal: eat, drink, swallow, ingest, consume
flak	furniture, table
gam	old, ancient
gan	movement, transportation: to leave, to walk, to travel, to move, to displace
geb	give, send
gef	monster, enemy
gek	unusual, strange, foolish, crazy, cool (casually): to drive crazy, to make weird (makgek)
god	good, positive, useful, strong, valuable: to improve, to fix, to repair
grund	reason, cause
guld	money, material wealth, currency, dollar, capital
hab	to have, contain
halt	stationary: to keep, to stay, to remain, to stop, to cease
hof	need, requirement, duty: to need, to require, must, should
hol	hole, gap, pit, mine, orphace, burrow
hor	to hear, to listen, to pay attention to
hus	building, home, house, room
ig	container
kan	ability: can, is able to, is allowed to, may, is possible, enable, allow, permit
klen	small, little, young, cute, a bit, short: to reduce, to shorten, to shrink, to lessen
klet	cloth, clothing, fabric, textile
klin	blade, sword, knife, bladed weapon: sharp, bladelike: to stab, to slash, to knife, to cut
knul	sex, sexuality: to have sex, to fuck
kom	beggining, coming, newcomer (nirkomman): to come, to arrive, to begin
kop	to get, to recieve
kret	circle, ring, sphere
kun	knowledge, wisdom, intelligence, understanding: to know, understand, know how to
lag	slow: to slow down, to make slower (maklag)
land	land, country, territory, area
lap	to walk, to run, to go

Word	Meaning
larm	noise, sound: noisy: to make a noise, to make a sound
lat	song, tune: to sing, to whistile, to hum
lik	same
mak	activity, work, deed, project: to do, to make, to build, to create, to work
mark	market, shop, fair, bazaar: to buy (markkop), to sell (markgeb)
min	memory: to remember
ned	down, low
nir	new, fresh, young, recent: to renew, to renovate, to make as good as new
not	music: musical, rythmic: to play music, to write music (ritnot), to sing (spreknot)
oft	common, often
op	open: to open
ord	word, sentence (ordsam)
plat	place
rask	speed: quick, fast, quickly: to speed, to travel quickly, to make faster (makrask)
rit	writing: to write, to draw, to paint
sak	thing, object, affair
sam	collection or group of objects
san	chance, possibility, luck
sek	safe: to save, to protect, to guard
sen	see, look at, watch, look, watch out, pay attention
set	to place, to put, to set down
skin	appear, seem, look
sklan	to battle, challenge, compete against, struggle against, hit, fight
slap	to sleep, rest
slet	bad, negative, cheap, weak
slud	the end, end of an object: to finish, to end, to complete
spel	game, toy, leisure: to play
sprek	language, talking, speech, communication: to communicate, to say, to speak, to talk
staf	letter (of the alphabet), rune, alphabet (stafsam), runestone (stafsten)
stark	energy, strength, power: energetic, strong, fierce: strengthen, energise, empower
ster	shut, closed: to close
stil	quiet, silence: quiet, silent: to quieten, to silence
stok	stick, branch, pole, wand, cylinder,
stor	big, heavy, large, long, tall, important, powerful: to enlarge, to lengthen
stren	string, cord, rope, fibre: to tie, to knot

Dictionary

Word	Meaning
stuk	piece, fragment, component, part of
tank	thought, idea: pensive: to think, to ponder, to contemplate
tek	drawing, painting, image, art
tid	time, period of time, moment, duration, situation
tog	tool, implement, machine, device
uft	death: to die, to kill (makuft)
wag	to drive, to steer, to take transportation
wand	wall
wel	many, a lot, more, much, several, very
wil	want, wish, hope, crave: to want, to wish, to hope
wis	manner