Difference between revisions of "Shirerothian language"
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The passive voice is formed by adding the prefix f(e)- to the verb: | The passive voice is formed by adding the prefix f(e)- to the verb: | ||
− | * fetakyler sa jatu "the sheep was eaten" | + | * fetakyler sa jatu vi wxif "the sheep was eaten by a wolf" |
====Table of verb affixes==== | ====Table of verb affixes==== |
Revision as of 13:14, 28 December 2010
Shirerothian Præta Sxiröþes | ||
---|---|---|
Pronunciation: | [ˈprætɑ ʃiˈrøθes] | |
Spoken in: | Shireroth | |
Region: | National | |
Total speakers: | 0 | |
Langauge family: |
Shirerothian
| |
Writing system: | Latin (Shirerothian variant) | |
Offical status | ||
Offical language in: | Shireroth | |
Regulated by: | Department of Constructed Languages | |
Langauge codes | ||
MIC 639-1: | shr |
The Shirerothian or Shirerithian language (Præta Sxiröþes in Shirerothian) is a constructed language from Shireroth.
Contents
History
Shirerothian has been spoken in Shireroth for thousands of years.
Proto-Shirerothian
Proto-Shirerothian, the ancestral language of Shirerothian, was spoken approximately from 4000 BSC to 262 ASC.
Old Shirerothian
Old Shirerothian was spoken from the beginning of Kaiser Erik II's reign in 262 ASC until 1239 ASC.
Old Shirerothian was heavily inflected, with eight noun cases (nominative, accusative, vocative, genitive, dative, ablative, instrumental, and locative) and seven noun declensions. Verbs were divided into six conjugations.
However, Old Shirerothian was characterized by only two genders; the neuter gender did not develop until early Middle Shirerothian.
Middle Shirerothian
Middle Shirerothian is traditionally dated to have begun with Kaiser Nikkolo I's reign in 1239 ASC, and lasted until 3004 ASC.
Middle Shirerothian greatly simplified the Old Shirerothian noun system. The dative, ablative, instrumental, and locative cases all merged into a prepositional case, and the original seven noun declensions were reduced to four. Adjectives were no longer inflected for gender. Additionally, the middle voice merged into the passive, and the dual number merged into the plural.
Middle Shirerothian also saw the development of the human gender of the third-person singular pronoun.
Modern Shirerothian
Modern Shirerothian has traditionally been dated to begin with the reign of Kaiser Mors V in 3004 ASC. Distinguishing features of Modern Shirerothian include the following:
- The loss of the vocative case.
- The loss of breathy voiced plosives: /bʱ/ > /b/, /dʱ/ > /d/, and /gʱ/ > /g/.
- The rhotacization of intervocalic /z/.
- The fricativization of voiceless plosives: /pt/ > /ft/, /tt/ > /θt/, and /kt/ > /xt/.
The last development may have developed under the influence of Eldurian.
Language contact with Eldurian
As attested by the large number of loanwords and borrowings into its grammar, Shirerothian has been in contact with Eldurian for a large part of its history. The amount and type of words borrowed suggests that such contact has been quite intimate. For example, Old Shirerothian borrowed basic words such as portale "gate" (Eldurian portale), porko "pig" (Eldurian porce), pikxtyre "picture" (Eldurian pichture), and li "here" (Eldurian ile, meaning "this").
The pronunciation of Eldurian loanwords in Shirerothian has been used to help date certain sound changes in Eldurian. For example, Eldurian traditionally did not mark that a word-final l had become vocalized. Linguists thus had to turn to Eldurian loanwords in other languages in order to date l-vocalization.
In Shirerothian, both portale "gate" (portale) and ræw "regal" (regale) were borrowed from Eldurian. While portale first appeared in mid-to-late Old Shirerothian, ræw did not appear until Middle Shirerothian. The fact that ræw does not contain an l establishes that l-vocalization in Eldurian must have occurred during the transition from Old Shirerothian to Middle Shirerothian. Comparisons to Eldurian loanwords into other languages during this time period, as well as the discovery of the Varjaga Cave Journals, bears out this theory: portale, pronounced [pɔrˈtaːle] in Old Eldurian, became [pɔrˈtaːw] in Middle Eldurian. Similarly, regale was pronounced [reˈgaːle] in Old Eldurian and [reˈgaːw] in Middle Eldurian.
A few grammatical features also have their roots in Eldurian. For example, Eldurian uses the neuter third-person pronoun to indicate a person or group of people of unspecified or mixed gender. Shirerothian independently developed a "human" gender third-person pronoun for the same purpose in the singular, but like Eldurian, uses the neuter gender in the plural. This borrowing appears to have first occurred during late Middle Shirerothian.
Furthermore, some linguists have posited that the development of the neuter gender was influenced by the existence of the neuter gender in the Eldurian, which in Eldurian has become the dominant gender.
Curiously, while Shirerothian has borrowed liberally from Eldurian, there has been nearly no borrowing at all from Shirerothian into Eldurian.
Orthography
The Shirerothian alphabet contains 30 individual letters and 6 digraphs. Each digraph is considered a separate letter in the alphabet, and thus, Shirerothian has a total of 36 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 |
lx | [ɬ] | (Welsh) llwyd |
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 27 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 | |||||||
Lateral Fricative | ɬ |
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).
[ɬ] is a rare sound in European languages. For help pronouncing [ɬ], see Wikipedia.
[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"
When possible, metaphony proceeds across the entire word:
- /urkoli/ → yrköli [yrˈkøli] "island"
/æ/ and /ɑ/ are considered neutral vowels. Neutral vowels in Shirerothian are opaque, and thus, the presence of a neutral vowel will block any further metaphony:
- /muritɑ/ → myrita [myˈritɑ] "tomorrow", but
- /portɑle/ → portale [porˈtɑle], not *pörtale "door"
Phonotactics
Shirerothian has the following syllable structure: (C)(C)V(C)(C)
Onset
Nucleus
All vowels, and only vowels, can appear in the nucleus.
Coda
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, se 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 | vo | vöde | vo | vöne |
Accusative | voda | vöden | vo | 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.
seo, seo, sa the | |||
---|---|---|---|
Masculine | Neuter | Feminine | |
Singular | seo | seo | 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.
uk, uk, uko one | |||
---|---|---|---|
Masculine | Neuter | Feminine | |
Nominative | uk | uk | uko |
Accusative | uka | uk | ukon |
Genitive | ykes | ykes | ykönes |
Prepositional | yki | yki | yki |
Shirerothian | Numeral |
---|---|
uk | 1 |
za | 2 |
joj | 3 |
naþ | 4 |
sxu | 5 |
ylhi | 6 |
gnas | 7 |
tantif | 8 |
stifta | 9 |
graks | 10 |
graksuk | 11 |
zæf | 12 |
jöjne | 13 |
naðak | 14 |
misko | 15 |
graksylhi | 16 |
graksangas | 17 |
grakstantif | 18 |
grakstifta | 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 |
Verbs
Verbs in Shirerothian have the following properties:
- Three persons: First, second, third
- Two numbers: Singular, plural
- Two aspects: Perfective (finished), imperfective (unfinished)
- Six tenses: Present, past, future, present perfect, past perfect, future perfect
- Three finite moods: Indicative, subjunctive, imperative
- Two voices: Active, passive
- Three non-finite forms: Infinitive, gerund, participle
Shirerothian has two verb conjugations. The first conjugation is characterized by the infinitive ending -nar, while the second conjugation is characterized by the infinitive ending -nur.
Shirerothian is a pro-drop language. In other words, the pronoun is optional but can be used for emphasis. When the pronoun is included with the verb, it follows the verb:
- takun æj sa jatun "I am eating the sheep"
Overview
Passive voice
The passive voice is formed by adding the prefix f(e)- to the verb:
- fetakyler sa jatu vi wxif "the sheep was eaten by a wolf"
Table of verb affixes
Type | Affix |
---|---|
Past tense | -le- |
Future tense | -þura- |
Subjunctive mood | -ti- |
Passive voice | f(e)- |
Present tense
Indicative mood
Indicative Active Present | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
First Conjugation takunar "to eat" |
Second Conjugation vozxanur, "to run" | |||||||
Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |||||
First Person | takun | -n | takyne | -ne | vozxam | -m | vozxane | -ne |
Second Person | takuz | -z | takyre | -re | vozxaz | -z | vozxare | -re |
Third Person | takur | -r | takut | -t | vozxa | - | vozxast | -st |
Indicative Passive Present | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
First Conjugation takunar "to eat" |
Second Conjugation vozxanur, "to run" | |||||||
Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |||||
First Person | fetakun | -n | fetakyne | -ne | fevozxam | -m | fevozxane | -ne |
Second Person | fetakuz | -z | fetakyre | -re | fevozxaz | -z | fevozxare | -re |
Third Person | fetakur | -r | fetakut | -t | fevozxa | - | fevozxast | -st |
Subjunctive mood
Subjunctive Active Present | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
First Conjugation takunar "to eat" |
Second Conjugation vozxanur, "to run" | |||||||
Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |||||
First Person | takytin | -n | takytine | -ne | vozxatim | -m | vozxatine | -ne |
Second Person | takytiz | -z | takytire | -re | vozxatiz | -z | vozxatire | -re |
Third Person | takytir | -r | takytit | -t | vozxati | - | vozxatist | -st |
Subjunctive Active Present | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
First Conjugation takunar "to eat" |
Second Conjugation vozxanur, "to run" | |||||||
Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |||||
First Person | fetakytin | -n | fetakytine | -ne | fevozxatim | -m | fevozxatine | -ne |
Second Person | fetakytiz | -z | fetakytire | -re | fevozxatiz | -z | fevozxatire | -re |
Third Person | fetakytir | -r | fetakytit | -t | fevozxati | - | fevozxatist | -st |
Past tense
Adverbs
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.) |