Boselenan

The Boselenan language (pfüülen boselenithii) is a heavily agglutinative VSO language, with grammar not particularly based on any natural language.

=Phonology and Orthography= There are two Boselenan alphabets, the 'regular' and 'extended' alphabets. The basic alphabet is the most used, consisting of 32 letters. It contains both letters with diacritics and digraphs which are all treated as independant letters in their own right representing their own phoneme.

Extended Alphabet
The alphabet shown above is the basic alphabet, the one used most often. There are three letters of the basic latin alphabet which are not used in Boselenan w, x and z, however they are retained in the 'extended alphabet' due to their use in foreign names.

The full extended alphabet complete with the foreign letters is as follows:

A Ä B C D DH E F G H I J K L M N NY O Ö Ọ P PF Q R S SH T TH U Ü V W X Y Z

Digraphs
There are five digraphs in use in the regular Boselenan alphabet: dh, ny, pf, sh and th. These letters all represent their own phonemes and are treated as letters in their own right. This means that they are placed after their parent letter in alphabetical ordering. So for example duugin comes before dhäu, and essäänyi comes before eshim.

Diacritics
There are four letters in Boselenan which are modified with diacritics. The umlaut is used on a, o and u, and the underdot is used below o, resulting in ä, ö, ü and ọ. These letters, like the consonantal digraphs, are all treated like letters in their own right.

Letter Doubling
As Boselenan has phonemic vowel length, vowels are doubled to indicate it. All vowels come in a long and a short variety, resulting in aa, ää, ee, ii, oo, öö, ọọ, uu and üü.

In addition, all consonants can be doubled. Fricatives and affricates are the only consonants that have a phonemic length, so ss represents a longer sound than s. Other letters such as the stops b, t etc do not have phonemic length, however are sometimes found doubled. Doubled bb, dd, gg, kk, ll, mm, nn, pp and tt have no phonemic difference from their single-letter counterparts and must simply be remembered.

Some letters when doubled represent slightly different sounds to their single-letter counterparts. A hh combination represents the sound /x/, which is equivalent to a geminated /h/. A jj combination represents the more fricated sound /ʝ/, equivalent to a geminated /j/.

When digraphs need to be doubled, the first letter of the digraph only is doubled, resulting in ddh, nny, ppf, ssh and tth.

=Basic Grammar=

Nouns
Because of it's very heavily agglutinative nature, nouns in Boselenan are altered for number, article, posession, quantity and several noun cases, which are added to the end of the noun in the form of a suffix.

Plurals and Quantity
The grammatical number is placed before any other suffix is added. Different suffixes are added if the quantity of the noun is anything specific between 1 and 10, and a 'general plural' form if the quantity is unknown or a number above 10. Otherwise, if the number is 11 or above, then the quantity is placed seperately after the plural form.

Examples:
 * E-mäthinna nosolkehcii ottasinyleb - "There are eight houses down that street"

Articles
Articles are placed after the quantity suffix (if there is one). There are two articles in Boselenan, the definate and indefinate. They are both added to the noun as a suffix. The definate article is the suffix -sen, and the indefinate article is -unyaad (or colloquially -unn). For example nosolsen "the house", nosolunyaad "a house", nosolshuunsen "the nine houses".

Posession
Possession is marked in Boselenan by the addition of a possessive suffix to the end of the noun of which someone possesses. There are different personal suffixes for each of the different personal pronouns present in Boselenan. If a possessive suffix is needed, then it is common not to use an article, for example nosolsen "the house" can become nosolitil "my house" without having to become nosolsenit "my (the) house".

Case
Boselenan employs several non-manditory cases, of which the majority of them are locative.

Tense and Aspect
This is the system of tense and aspect employed by Boselenan, using the verb fou "to go".

Mood
Boselenan employs the use of numerous grammatical moods in order to indicate various modes. They are considered seperate to tense & aspect (which go together), instead being prefixed onto the verb they are altering.

To Have
Boselenan has no specific word for "to have", instead it uses the auxilliary word shog coupled with the noun with a possessive suffix attached. For example roonya "wheel" becomes roonyanil "my wheel", and then with the word shog placed beforehand it becomes shog roonyanil "I have (a/the) wheel".

Adjectives
Adjectives in Boselenan are easy, they come in five different forms depending on their degree of intensity.

There is also an equivalent for 'than' "ment" for example ste öölä teliifej ment duu "he is nicer than you", and an equivalent for 'as' "theg" - for example ste öölä telii theg duu "he is as nice as you".

Adjectives are always placed AFTER the noun.

Adverbs
Adverbs are not treated differently to adjectives.


 * laagäk telii - her nice walk (adjective)
 * laag öölä telii - she walks nicely (adverb)

shog
The word shog has several uses, and is one of the most commonly used in the language. Firstly, it is used for the word "how?" when referring to an action - shog heshimobb id? "how did you do it?"

Its second use is to connect two clauses into a single sentence. It goes before an interrogative. For example the sentence karuu heshimobb id? "what did you do?" can become Ste stii shog karuu heshimobb id "this is what I did". If the interrogative used in the sentence is "shog" in the sense of meaning "how?", then both shogs are retained: Ste stii shog shog heshimobb id "This is how I did (it)".

Thirdly, it is used to indicate the verb "to have". In Boselenan there is no dedicated word for "to have", instead the word shog is used before the noun coupled with a possessive suffix. For example umul "shoe" > umulil "my shoe" > shog umulil "I have (a) shoe". All three uses of "shog" can be found in the same sentence: Ste stii shog shog shog umulil "this is how I have a shoe".

ut vs. ithim
The basic meaning for both the words ut and ithim is "and", however which is used depends on the context. Ut is found when listing objects, for example olomi ut dhigini "eggs and bacon", whereas ithim is used when listing emotions and adjectives, for example Ste ilin tepii ithim guurt meluu "I was happy and sad at the same time" and hifasen takanaa ithim tehhen "the black and white cat"