Adwan

(NOT DONE)

Adwanic, or Adwan (Adwanic: Áðẃyn) is my very first con-lang, and its main purpose was to understand the various grammars of the world which involved the usage of declensions. As a native Spanish speaker, and a fluent English speaker, I never much learned the use of grammatical cases and the like, so when I found out I was going to the Czech Republic (I'm not anymore, for personal reasons), I went straight to trying to learn Czech. Little did I know, I didn't know what Declensions were, and alas, in order to understand them, Adwanic came!

Note: Now that I've continued Adwanic, I will, later, add a culture and history to the language. Y'know; give it some life.

=Setting= In Europe, old and new, was a tribe of people -- people not indigenous to any country; a nomadic sort of people. These people, famous among eachother for their incredible peace and wisdom, never went to war. When their land would be taken over, strategies would be formulated which would get all the members of the tribe to another place, safe, away from harm... That is, until the last of the tribe assimilated and broke the traditional Adwanic tradition.

The Adwanic tribe was, and is known as one of the most mysterious tribes of Europe. With only seventy four srolls, anthropologists and historical linguists have had much trouble understanding the overtly complicated grammar that is Adwanic. So without further adieu, I present to you Adwanic, with a disclaimer; the grammar might be hard, and it might not be. What am I trying to say? Blame it on the Adwanic Tribe ;)

=Phonology= Adwanic is a purely phonetic language. It is unsure how Adwanic runes were transliterated, but it is said that somewhere in the mountains lived a near-extinct population which used the same runes; transliterated from those runes is what Adwan is today. Modern Adwanic speakers (mainly descendants of the Adwanics that are reconnecting with their culture) use a modified version of the Latin Alphabet. Ironically, while Adwanic hasn't been seen to be related to any main language, it does borrow a good deal of words from Latin, Germanic, and Slavic origins, therefore, Adwanic has been said to have a very mixed sound, sounding like a mixture of Icelandic, Czech, Spanish, and Norwegian.

=Adwan Alphabet (Foskorav Áðẃanøz)= As stated before, the Adwanic alphabet uses an extended version of the Latin alphabet to represent seperate phonemes, or seperate sounds. Adwan is completely phonetic -- there are no such things are Diphthongs or Triphthongs in Adwan, and all pronunciation rules rely on the speaker and the way it's written.

While the Adwanic alphabet may look somewhat intimidating, don't be afraid. Learning the Adwanic alphabet is easier than learning another language's diphthongs, mainly because each letter represents a sound. There are no silent letters, no rules around it; everything is always pronounced as seen.

Stress
Stress in Adwan was never too strict; it all depended on the tone of the sentence. Usually the stress will depend on what the speaker is saying; however, generally, the penultimate (second to last) syllable is always the one to be stressed.

Ex: Sun --> Solęku= Soh-LAY-koo.

=Grammar= To say Adwanic's grammar didn't cause headaches to the average person that didn't speak an inflecting language would be a lie. Adwanic is a heavily inflected language that inflects Verbs for Tense, Mood, Person and Aspect; Nouns for number, and Adjectives, Numbers, Prepositions, and Quantifiers.

Adwam declines to 7 different cases (will be specified latater). Nouns are declined to number and class, and Adjectives, Numbers, Pronouns, Prepositions, Quantifiers/Determiners, and Adverbs are declined according to their case (their suffixes.)

Nouns have 4 different endings (with two possible declensions for each ending due to declension of singular and plurals); Adjectives have 8 different endings; Prepositions have 1 ending; Numbers also have 1 ending; Adverbs have 2 endings, and Quantifiers/Determiners have 1 ending. Overall, that's a total of 17 different endings.

Nouns have 56 different possible declensions, Adjectives have 56, also; Adverbs have 14 possible declensions; Prepositions only have 7 declensions, as do Numbers and Quantifiers/Determiners.

All in all, there is a total of 147 different declensions. While it may seem incredibly intimidating at first, once the rules of declensions are down, it'll be as easy as conjugating a verb.

Declensions, an overview.
To see declension tables for Adwan's Nouns, Determiners, and Adjectives, go here.

Declensions occur in Adwan for a variety of reasons, the main ones to A) mark the function of each noun, adjective, number and quanitifer, and to B) free up word order. The Adwans didn't like limitations much (which can be seen in the incredibly free word order of their language), so having a language with free word order was something they positively needed to have. While nouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, numbers and quantifiers are declined to the same 7 cases in which a lot of European languages use, not all the cases are exactly the same.

The Nominative case marks the subject of the sentence, or the head of the subject phrase. It is the doer of the verb. This is probably the easiest of the cases to learn, as it shares this usability with other languages. Note: Adwan doesn't have personal pronouns, due to the intense conjugations that verbs under go, so sentences with Pronouns as the subjects won't have nouns in the Nominative. Ex: The monkey jumped off the ledge. The monkey is to be declined in the Nominative, because it is the subject which does the verb.

The Ablative case is similar to Latin's Ablative case. It marks the causive noun. In English, the Ablative is marked by the prepositions "because of", "from" and "of "(not the possessive, though). Ex: The latter broke because of the weight. The weight would be declined in the Ablative, because it is the noun which causes the subject to do the verb.

The Dative case marks the indirect object in Adwan. In English, indirect objects are usually tagged with prepositions, like "to" and "for". It marks the object that was not affected directly. Ex: I bought the teacher a yellow cake. The teacher would be declined in the Dative, because it is not the direct object; the verb's action is directed towards the cake, and the cake is for the teacher.

The Accusative case marks the direct object; the object to recieve the action of the verb. The Accusative and the Nominative usually go hand in hand in many sentences, as there is always a subject, a verb, and an object with is affected by the verb. Ex: The cat hissed at the dog. Who did the cat hiss at? A good question to ask yourself in finding this case is "The subject did the verb to who/what?".

The Genitive case is probably the trickiest of them all, for it has many, many layers to it. The Genitive marks the possessor of an item with posession. Although most of Adwan has free word order, the basic Genitive case has a rule that the noun in the Genitive case come before the item of posession. Ex: the girl's car crashed. The girl is in the Genitive, because she is in possession of the car.

The Locative case marks the location. Most prepositions are attached to this case, as most prepositions point the way towards a location, which is the locative case. The locations don't matter, as long as there's a direction attached to it. Ex: I left my book at school. You can find out what is in the locative by asking yourself "Where?"

The Vocative case is the second easiest of them all; it merely points out direct calling. "O Father!" would be a great example. The vocative case marks the noun that is being directly addressed. Ex: Mary, I cannot believe you did that. Mary would be in the Vocative, because she is being directly adressed.

Many nouns, adjectives, determiners, and numbers are declined to a case that fits its needs. With everything declined, suffixes will point the direction to what does what. It doesn't matter if the Subject goes before, after, or isn't even near the verb, for as long as it is in the nominative, it won't change the meaning -- atleast not the meaning of who did the verb.

Syntax
Syntax in Adwan is not very strict at all. Due to the heavy inflections that go on, plus helping rules, many word variations can be used.

For example, "The dog jumps over the fox," in Adwan, using the same proposed word order is "Dogólœv rompy xu martydø." However, with all the inflections that Adwan has gone through, it can be worded as so:


 * Rompy dogóv xu martyt. Jumps-it dog-NOM over fox-ACC.
 * Rompy martyt xu dogóv. Jumps-it fox-ACC over fox-NOM.
 * Xu dogóv rompy martyt. Over-ACC dog-NOM jumps-it fox-ACC.
 * Xu rompy martyt dogóv. Over-ACC jumps-it fox-ACC dog-NOM.
 * Martyt dogóv xu rompy. Fox-ACC dog-NOM over jumps-it.
 * Martyt rompy xu dogóv. Foc-ACC jumps-it over dog-NOM.

It doesn't matter what the word order is in Adwan, as it all means the same thing, for each noun is marked in a special case that tells what the noun does. For example -- it doesn't matter where the subject is, for if it's the first or last word in the sentence, it will always do the verb due to it being declined in the Nominative case.

Now, the same cannot be said for more complicated phrases, but we'll get to that later.

However, the free word order can become some-what of a linguistic anarchy, and the Adwanics did not like that. Generally speaking, a VOS word order was followed throughout the whole of the Adwanic language's history. It was only in poetry and literature, the little of it that was found, that word order was different. Most of the time, a certain mood is attached to a certain word order, general speak being attached to VOS.

Example of VOS; The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

Adwanic: Rompy xu laznor dogólœd kafne martyvø.

Direct Gloss: Jumps-it over lazy-acc dog-acc brown-nom fox-nom.

Notice how since the dog and the fox switched motives in this sentence, their endings are different.

About Noun Declensions
Nouns in Adwan are declined according to number and class. Nouns are versatile words, and are typically genderless, for the gender is usually determined by the verb or other adjectives of the like.

There are 4 different classes of nouns in Adwan, and they are all classified on their origin.
 * Words of Adwanic origin end in -KA, and -YN.
 * Words of Romanic origin end in -TA.
 * Words of Germanic origin end in -ÓL.

Every noun ends in one of the above endings, depending on the origin of the noun. Incidentally, these are the classes that nouns are declined to, right beside numbers.

To see the table for Noun Declensions, go to Declension Tables.

About Adjectives and their Declensions
Adjectives are probably one of Adwan's most defining features; they come in many different classes, usually determined by their state and usage, and have the same number of declensions as nouns do, even if they don't decline to number.

Adjectives are important to not only the Adwan language, but to the Adwan culture, for Adjectives were used rather liberally in old Adwanic texts. Adjectives can be categorized into two different types: Descriptives and Predicates. (Note: Most adjectives have two different parts to them, the Descriptive and the Predicates).

Descriptive Adjectives are adjectives that paint a picture; they describe the noun's exterior. For the most part, Descriptives, in English, always precede nouns; funnily enough, Adjectives have no specific word order in Adwan, so long they stay within their respective clauses. Predicate Adjectives are adjectives that describe the subject, for the most part. In English, they almost always follow the verbs. An example of a predicate would be emotions in the past form. However, as stated before, there is not always only one Adjective per type. The Adjective ‘blue’ can be both a Descriptive and a Predicate, depending on the usage. Shown above is an example of the adjective ‘blue’ being used as a predicate, rather than a descriptive adjective. Adjective classifications are incredibly important due to the nature of where they go after declension. If blue was always a descriptive, it could never be used as a predicate, and would always describe the noun, rather than describe how it was. There's definitely a big difference between "The red door turned blue," and "The red blue door turned."
 * The blue door stood in front of the quick fox.
 * The tall, yellow flower blossomed under the bright sun.
 * I am bored.
 * I am cold.
 * She was tired.
 * We are sleepy.
 * The door we knocked on was blue

Descriptive Adjectives will end in either -ÉN, -ÁS, or -ÚM. Note: Between inner type endings, the endings don't necessarily have different changes, more so, they just categorize the descriptive adjectives furthermore; ex: descriptive colors will always end in -ás.

Predicate Adjectives will end in either -ÁT, -RO, or '''-ŃE. '''

The declension of each adjective will depend on the ending and classification of each noun. Brown, kafás, in the nominative, will always be kafne, while groén, big, in the nominative will always be gronor.

Further Information
 * Descriptives in -én are usually size related, but not always.
 * Descriptives in -ás are usually color related, but not always.
 * Descriptives in -úm are usually complex and are like the -ing adjectives in English that precede nouns.
 * Predicates in -át are usually size and color related, but not always.
 * Predicates in -ro usually have to do with emotions, but not always.
 * Predicates in -ńe usually have to do with complex adjectives sometimes not known in English (like glyzeravńe, which is like saying ‘wasn't, but is now in the process of being clean´.
 * Eksplotumy glyzeravlœ sy vóšav. (My house, which wasn't, but is now in the process of being clean, exploded.) is a great example of the above mentioned.
 * Predicates and Descriptives ending in -úm and -ńe generally have verbs built in, letting two verbs come into the picture without having to create another clause.

To see declension tables for Adwan's Nouns, and Numbers, Adjectives, go here.

=Lexicon=

Numbers
Numbers in Adwan do decline according to the case it applies to, so you will never actually see a number end in ‘-vo’. (Note, in case you didn't notice, ALL NUMBERS END IN -VO).
 * Zero - Næýð (Nænu, the quantifier/determiner ‘none’ is used rather than ‘zero’. The number ‘zero’ does not exist in Adwan.)
 * One - Nyvo
 * Two: Cavo
 * Three - Tervo
 * Four - Høvo
 * Five - Kynvo
 * Six - Nąvo
 * Seven - Kęvo
 * Eight - Tøvo
 * Nine - Hævo
 * Ten - Cyvo
 * Hundred - Wyvo
 * Thousand - Zyvo
 * Million - Ŕyvo
 * Billion - Śyvo
 * Trillion - Ńyvo
 * Quadrillion - Šryvo
 * Quintillion - Šnyvo

The counting system in Adwan is very much simple.


 * 45 = Høcykynvo. Hø = 4, Cy = 10, Kyn = 5.

The rule for Adwan's numbers are of great importance when counting. If any number between 1-9 precedes a Ten, Thousand, Million, Billion, etc, it is multiplied.
 * Tercyvo. Three ten = Three × ten.

And if a number between 1-9 comes after a Ten, Thousand, Million, Billion, etc, it is added.
 * Cytervo = Ten three - Ten + three.

Notice how Tervo went became Tervam when used in the Accusative, and how Cavo became Canæ. Notice how when Tervo (three) was used in the nominative, the ending ‘am’ from Tervam became ‘næ’, in Ternæ.
 * The two dogs jumped over the three lazy dogs.
 * Rompnyş xuno lazne tervam martyt canæ dogóv.
 * The three dogs jumped over the two lazy dogs.
 * Rompnyş xuno lazne ternæ martyt cavam dogóv.

=Dictionary= ...

=Example text= ...