Zvretulin

General information
The Zvretulin language is spoken by the Zvretulin people, scattered across much of Europe from Sweden to Greece with some more recent immigrations to Finland and Japan. It has many dialects all differing each other exclusively what loan words they share, though many of these will contain a few loans of Latin & Slavic from an earlier contact before the current diaspora. It has only one known relative, the overwhelmingly complex Zonqval spoken in the far east near Korea. But the two are quite different from each other.

The Language is very complex in its syntactical morphology, but very simplistic, rather analytic, otherwise.

Consonants
               Ng isnn There is no regular distinction between the laterals. They are interchangeable.

ng is an allophone of n before velar plosives.

         ggg

Vowels
When words appear to start with a vowel, they actually begin with a glottal stop.

Alphabet
Nothing is capitalized

The symbol ' is used to separate letters so they don't form digraphs

Phonotactics
CV, CVC, CCV, CCVC, SCCV & SCCVC, but not VC. (S being any sibulant)

Affricates, voiced plosives & glottals are not clusterable, nor do the appear in the final position. This is with the exception of "tc" witch can appear in the final position.

A sibulant can be before a fricative, plosive, or approximant.

An unvoiced plosive cannot follow a voiced sibulant nor can a voiced plosive follow an unvoiced sibulant.

Plosive & fricatives can be before a flap, including the lateral flap.

Nouns
Nouns have three cases to mark the subject, direct object, indirect object, & the agent. Each has a prepositional form. More about the the use of the prepositionals will be explained in the example sentences below.

Nouns also decline according to definitiveness, having a definite, indefinite, and a "non-definite" form. The non-definite form is used when the definitiveness of a noun isn't known, when there are non of the noun, or other instances where it can't be identified as definite nor indefinite.

There are a couple declensions depending on the root ending.

Declension C, where the root ends with any consonant other than t & v. Declension T Declension V

Pronouns
Zvretulin pronouns act like regular nouns. There are no determiners.

Verbs
Verbs can take multiple tenses. More about the tense can be explained in the example sentences below.

Past Tense: -zel

Past & Present tense: -zelis

Present Tense: -lis

Present & Future Tense: -lisca

Past, Present, & Future Tense: -zelisca

There cannot be a past & future tense without it also being present tense.

Additionally, verbs have prefix forms used to mark the distinction between transitive & intransitive.

Transitive: u-

Intransitive: (no prefix)

To turn a verb into a gerund, use the suffix -int. This is then followed by the appropriate Declension T noun suffix

To turn a verb into an adjective, use the prefix il- & the suffix -int.

To turn a verb into an adverb, use the prefix il-.

The Copula & Passive Voice.
The Copula is zve. It is often prefixed into the next word, but not if the next word starts with a vowel. Unlike other verbs, zve does not have any inflectional forms.

Examples

Before nouns: be a thing = zvetanu

Before adjectives: be good = zvebon

Before Verbs: is reading = zveluc

Before adpositions: be inside: zveti

The copula never appears before any other part of speech.

The Zvretulin equivalent of "is being" is "Zvega." This form inflicts regularly like any other verb.

Negative Particle: ni

Opening Particles
The "Opening" Particles, so-called because they occur at the start of a sentence. identify the type of sentence. They also mark formality.

Numbers
Cardinal

a

la

ti

cin

van

vi

pi

ya

tu

ca

Ordinal

sa

sla

sti

scin

svan

svi

spi

za

stu

sca

Syntax and Additional Rules
Much like Japanese, Zvretulin is a Verb final language.

To form a question, put the particle "x" at the end of a sentence. This is the only word in the whole language that uses a click.

When an adposition indicate a relation between two nouns, the first noun takes an adpositional suffix & the adposition goes in between the nouns.

When a adposition indicate a relation betwee the noun and an entire event or clause, the addposition ends with i and the noun takes a adpositional suffix. The event or clause can come either before the adposition or after the noun, separated by a comma, but never between.

Adjectives can behave like verbs when transitive.

Duplication adds intensity to an adjective or verb.

Aside from all these rules, Zvretulin is a rather free language.

Example text
I am reading my book & the book is very good.

I(subject) me(direct object/prepositional) of book(direct object/definite) be-(intransitive)read(past-present-future), and book(agent/definite) be (transitive)good-good(past-present-future)

icu iceni di libril zveluc'zelisca, i librir zve ubonbonzelisca.