Shirerothian language

Shirerothian Language (Præta Sxiröþes)
Pronunciation:	[ˈprætɑ ʃiˈrøθes]
Spoken in:	Shireroth
Region:	National
Total speakers:	0
Language family:	Shirerothian
Writing system:	Latin (Shirerothian variant)
Official status
Official language in:	Shireroth
Regulated by:	Department of Constructed Languages

The Shirerothian or Shirerithian language (Præta Sxiröþes in Shirerothian) is a constructed language from Shireroth.

History

Shirerothian has been spoken in Shireroth for thousands of years.

Orthography

The Shirerothian alphabet contains 30 individual letters and 5 digraphs. Each digraph is considered a separate letter in the alphabet, and thus, Shirerothian has a total of 35 letters. The letter x does not have a pronunciation of its own, and is used only in combinations with other letters.

The table below shows the correspondence between the Shirerothian alphabet and IPA. The English pronunciations are based on General American English.

Shirerothian	IPA	English pronunciation
a	[ɑ]	father
æ	[æ]	fat
b	[b]	bat
c	[tʃ]	church
ç	[dʒ]	bridge
d	[d]	dog
ð	[ð]	the
e	[e]	Approx. like hail
f	[f]	fat
g	[g]	gift
h	[h]	home
i	[i]	deed
j	[j]	yes
k	[k]	king
kx	[x]	(Scottish) loch
l	[l]	leave
m	[m]	man
n	[n]	no
ng	[ŋ]	sang
o	[o]	Approx. like coal
ö	[ø]	(German) schön
p	[p]	pie
r	[r]	(Spanish) burro
s	[s]	sock
sx	[ʃ]	shock
t	[t]	tame
þ	[θ]	thin
u	[u]	food
v	[v]	vein
w	[w]	want
wx	[ʍ]	(Old-fashioned) whale
y	[y]	(French) tu
z	[z]	zoo
zx	[ʒ]	mirage

Phonology

The Shirerothian language contains a rich inventory of 26 consonant and 6 vowel phonemes.

Phonemes

Consonants

The table below shows the Shirerothian consonant phonemes.

	Bilabial	Labiodental	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m			n			ŋ
Plosive	p   b			t   d			k   g
Affricate					tʃ   dʒ
Fricative		f   v	θ   ð	s   z	ʃ   ʒ		x	h
Approximant				l		j	ʍ   w
Trill				r

Notes

[l] is a "clear" l (alveolar lateral approximant), and is thus pronounced like "leave" [liːv], not "tell" [tɛɫ] (which has a "dark" l, or velarized alveolar lateral approximant).

[ŋ] can occur at the syllable onset, unlike in English where it can never occur at the syllable onset.

[p], [t], and [k] are never aspirated.

Vowels

The table below shows the Shirerothian vowel phonemes.

	Front	Back
High	i   (y)	u
Mid	e   (ø)	o
Low	æ	ɑ

[y] and [ø] are allophones of /u/ and /o/, respectively, occurring in complementary distribution with [u] and [o].

There are five diphthongs: [æj], [æw], [iw], [oj], and [øj]. They are best analyzed phonemically as /Vj/ rather than /Vɪ̯/.

Stress

The vest majority of Shirerothian words have paroxytonic stress, i.e., they are almost always stressed on the second-to-last syllable. Exceptions are marked in the orthography with an acute accent:

• zxádurum [ˈʒɑdurum] "desk"

Metaphony

Shirerothian exhibits regressive metaphony (or less precisely, umlaut or vowel harmony), a long-distance assimilatory phonological process involving vowels across boundaries.

	[-back] [-rounded]	[-back] [+rounded]	[+back] [+rounded]
[+high] [-low]	i	y	u
[-high] [-low]	e	ø	o

The rule for Shirerothian is fairly straightforward: [-low, +back] vowels (i.e., o and u) become [-back] when the next vowel in the word is [-low, -back] (i.e., i and e). This is represented in the orthography by the changes from o → ö and u → y. For instance,

• læjo [ˈlæjo] "road" → læjöne [læˈjøne] "roads"

Phonotactics

Shirerothian has the following syllable structure: (C)(C)V(C)(C)

Nucleus

All vowels, and only vowels, can appear in the nucleus.

Morphology

Shirerothian is a highly inflected language.

Nouns

Shirerothian has three noun declensions.

-C declension

This declension class is used with noun stems ending in a consonant, except for those ending in -t. All nouns in this class are masculine or neuter, with a few limited exceptions.

	Singular	Plural
Nominative		-e
Accusative	-a	-e
Genitive	-es	-ese
Prepositional	-i	-im

-V declension

This declension class is used with noun stems ending in a vowel. The vast majority of nouns in this class are feminine.

	Singular	Plural
Nominative		-ne
Accusative	-n	-ne
Genitive	-nes	-nese
Prepositional	-ni	-nim

-t declension

This declension class is used with noun stems ending in -t. All nouns in this class are masculine.

	Singular	Plural
Nominative		-ene
Accusative	-ana	-ene
Genitive	-es	-ese
Prepositional	-i	-im

Pronouns

Pronouns in Shirerothian, not unexpectedly, are often irregular. Unusually, Shirerothian declines all pronouns by gender, although in the plural, many forms have been merged.

The neuter gender is listed after the masculine because it originally developed from the masculine in Old Shirerothian. Even today, the neuter shares many of the same endings as the masculine.

Personal pronouns

First person

	æj, æjon, æjo I
	Masculine		Neuter		Feminine
	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Nominative	æj	æje	æjon	æje	æjo	æjöne
Accusative	æja	æje	æjon	æje	æjon	æjöne
Genitive	æjes	æjese	æjes	æjese	æjönes	æjönese
Prepositional	æji	æjim	æji	æjim	æji	æjim

Second person

	þu, þun, þuno you
	Masculine		Neuter		Feminine
	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Nominative	þu	þyne	þun	þyne	þuno	þyne
Accusative	þuna	þyne	þun	þyne	þuna	þyne
Genitive	þynes	þynese	þynes	þynese	þynes	þynese
Prepositional	þyni	þynim	þyni	þynim	þyni	þynim

Third person

	el, e, elo, sen he, she, it, they
	Masculine		Neuter		Feminine		Human
	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Nominative	el	sene	e	sene	elo	sene	se	-
Accusative	ela	sene	en	sene	elon	sene	se	-
Genitive	eles	senese	enes	senese	elönes	senese	senese	-
Prepositional	eli	senim	eni	senim	elöni	senim	senim	-

The "human" form is used to describe a person without indicating his or her gender. This is very similar to the use of "they" as a singular third-person pronoun in English. The human form originally developed from the old third-person plural, which was reanalyzed as a singular. To distinguish between the former plural, which had become a singular, and the true plural, a plural marker was added to the pronoun. The human form does not have a plural; the neuter plural is used when describing a group of people without specifying their gender, or when describing a mixed-gender group of people. While the use of a human form for the singular in Shirerothian appears to be an independent innovation, the use of the neuter plural is likely a borrowing from Eldurian. (It is known that the neuter plural is used because Middle Shirerothian distinguished between masculine, neuter, and feminine genders in the third-person plural, and the neuter plural was always used for unspecified- or mixed-gender groups.)

Demonstrative pronouns

Shirerothian has only one demonstrative pronoun. When greater specificity is required, hi "here", li "there", or ili "yonder" can be used:

• rund ðena "this/that hat" (i.e., "the particular hat being mentioned")

• ræd ðe hi "this house"

• zxádurum ðena li "that desk"

• jatu ðo ili "that sheep yonder"

	ðe, ðena, ðo this, that
	Masculine		Neuter		Feminine
	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Nominative	ðe	ðe	ðena	ðena	ðo	ðene
Accusative	ðena	ðe	ðena	ðena	ðon	ðene
Genitive	ðenes	ðenese	ðenes	ðenese	ðönes	ðenese
Prepositional	ðeni	ðenim	ðeni	ðenim	ðöni	ðenim

Interrogative and relative pronouns, and interrogative adjectives

Unlike English, Shirerothian does not make a distinction between human ("who") and non-human ("what") forms.

	vo who, what, which
	Masculine		Neuter		Feminine
	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Nominative	vo	vöne	vod	vöde	vo	vöne
Accusative	voda	vöden	vod	vöde	von	vöne
Genitive	ves	vese	ves	vese	ves	vese
Prepositional	vi	vim	vi	vim	vi	vim

Determiners

While most determiners follow the noun, certain determiners, such as articles and numbers, precede the noun.

Articles

Shireroth has a definite article, but no indefinite article. The definite article declines for gender and number, but not case.

	Masculine	Neuter	Feminine
Singular	se	se	sa
Plural	sene	sene	sane

Numbers

Numbers are formed rather similarly to English numbers. With the exception of uk "one", which declines according to case and gender, numbers are indeclinable.

	Masculine	Neuter	Feminine
Nominative	uk	uk	uko
Accusative	uka	uk	ukon
Genitive	ykes	ykes	ukönes
Prepositional	yki	yki	yni

Shirerothian	Numeral
uk	1
za	2
joj	3
naþ	4
sxu	5
ylhi	6
gnas	7
tantif	8
stefta	9
graks	10
graksuk	11
zæf	12
jöjne	13
naðak	14
misko	15
graksylhi	16
graksangas	17
grakstantif	18
grakstefta	19
zagraks	20
zagraksuk	21
jojgraks	30
ortu	100
za ortu	200
gozma	1000
graks gozma	10,000
ortu gozma	100,000
tagozma	1,000,000

Adjectives

Shirerothian has two adjective declensions, which are identical to their respective noun declensions. Adjectives are inflected for case, but not for gender. Adjectives generally follow the noun they modify.

-C declension

This declension class is used with adjective stems ending in a consonant.

	Singular	Plural
Nominative		-e
Accusative	-a	-e
Genitive	-es	-ese
Prepositional	-i	-im

-V declension

This declension class is used with adjective stems ending in a vowel.

	Singular	Plural
Nominative		-ne
Accusative	-n	-ne
Genitive	-nes	-nese
Prepositional	-ni	-nim

Prepositions

With exactly two exceptions, prepositions in Shirerothian take the prepositional case. The prepositions að ("of" or "from") and zxa ("in") take the genitive case.

Syntax

Shirerothian typically exhibits a VSO word order, although SVO or OVS can be used to emphasize the subject or object, respectively. Shirerothian also exhibits strong right-branching characteristics: Adjectives follow nouns, genitives and relative clauses follow nouns, pronouns follow verbs, and adpositions appear as prepositions. However, certain determiners such as articles and numbers precede nouns.

Lexicon

The following is a short list of certain words in Shirerothian:

Shirerothian	English	Class
að	of, from	prep.
æwdæk	sword	n. (m.)
dæjta	today	adv.
gönleta	mango	n. (f.)
hæks	arm, weapon	n. (m.)
hödet	hand	n. (n.)
hus	person	n. (n.)
ispæjzxa	after	prep.
jatu	sheep	n. (f.)
jor	yesterday	adv.
læjo	road, path	n. (f.)
mec	fire	n. (m.)
myrita	tomorrow	adv.
præta	speech, language	n. (f.)
ræd	house	n. (m.)
rund	hat	n. (m.)
sikx	city	n. (n.)
sult	ocean	n. (n.)
Sxiroþ	Shireroth	n. (m.)
sxun	spike, nail	n. (m.)
taku	to eat	v.
tast	to	prep.
træjzxa	before	prep.
trojm	journey	n. (n.)
vozx	to run	v.
wxen	male	n. (m.)
wxeno	female	n. (f.)
yrköli	island	n. (f.)
zxádurum	desk	n. (n.)
zxuk	leg	n. (n.)

External links

• The original description of Shirerothian

• The conlanger's description of Shirerothian

• The conlanger's preliminary sketch of Shirerothian