Ledspæk

General information
Ledspæk (or Ledspaek), pronounced [‘lɛdzpæk] from led (peoples, nation) and spæk (speech, language) is one of the many languages spoken on Masa Prima, the old world. It is the official language of Dutia and the native language of the Dutian people.

It is a Dutic Language, descended from Proto-Dutic, and ultimately Proto-Masa. Being a Dutic language, is quite related to the Anglic language.

Orthography
Ledspæk can be written in its traditional runic alphabet as well as the Latin alphabet. The runic alphabet is not a pure alphabet as it has a few characters that represent multiple phonemes.

In the Ledspaek runes, there are three characters that represent consonant blends. However, there are more possible consonant clusters than this, making these runes similar to how the letter 'x' is used in English. There are also two characters that can represent a consonant and vowel: "W" and "J". If these runes are followed by a consonant, the runes are pronounced as /wa/ and /ja/ respectively; however, if they are followed by a vowel, then the /a/ is dropped. Finally, there is a rune for the only diphthong in the language, /ai/.

In modern times, the Latin alphabet has taken over as the standard way to write Ledspæk in academic, governmental, and professional contexts. However, the runes are still manditorily taught to speakers of Ledspæk  and are often used for stylistic purposes (e.g. a store name might be written in stylized runes on a sign outside). Personal letters and proper nouns of Dutian origin are also commonly written with runes.

The following table lists the phonemes as they are written in the Romanized alphabet, as well as any allophones that exist for that phoneme.


 * "R" can be pronounced as  /ʁ/ or /ɹ/, depending on the dialect.

Phonotactics
V, CV, CVC, and VC are all possible syllables in Ledspaek. For convenience and clarity, the rhotic consonant will be written as /r/. The vowel can be any of the vowels: /i/, /y/, /e/, /ø/, /ɛ/, /æ/, /u/, /o/, /ʌ/, /ɑ/, or /ai/.

Verbs
There are three different types of verbs in Ledspaek: strong verbs, weak verbs, and irregular verbs. Strong verbs undergo stem changes to differentiate the base forms from past and participle forms, while weak verbs use only affixes.

Verbs are referred to abstractly in their base or dictionary form, which is an noninflected form that is used in dictionaries. The dictionary form is the morpheme that represents the action described, but not a complete word and thus cannot stand alone. When verbs are discussed in this article, they will always be in this form unless in a conjugation chart.

In all conjugation charts, green text indicates suffixes and olive text indicates stem changes.

Conjugation
In Ledspaek, verbs conjugate according to two moods (indicative and subjunctive), two simple tenses (present and past), and the standard three persons. There also exist an imperative (for informal commands), participle, gerund, and infinitive forms.

Strong verbs
There are four classes of strong verbs in Ledspaek, which descend directly from Proto-Dutic. The vowel in the first syllable (the "stem") determines what class the verb is. Additionally, all strong verbs end in a consonant.

The following chart shows for each class what the stems are in the base, past, and participle forms.

The following charts show the conjugation of an example verb for each class of strong verbs.

Class I
Example verb: "drink" meaning "drink"

Class II
Example verb: "frus" meaning "freeze"

Class III
Example verb: "kwëm" meaning "come"

Class IV
Example verb: "deb" meanning "happen, occur"

Weak verbs
Weak verbs undergo no stem changes, instead having affixes mark the past tense and participle forms. However, there are two slightly different sets of endings: one for verbs that end in a vowel and one for verbs that end in a consonant.

Example verb with consonant ending: "wanat" meaning "want"

Example verb with vowel ending: "ërki" meaning "work"

Irregular verbs
There are only two irregular verbs in Ledspaek: "bjan" meaning "be" and "hæb" which is only used as an auxiliary verb for forming perfect tenses (like in English "have"). The following charts show the conjugations for each irregular verb.

Syntax
This section is under progress and does not reflect the complete syntactical rule set of Ledspaek

Sentence Structure
Ledspaek is loosely head-final.

For simple declarative sentences, Ledspaek follows a Subject-Object-Verb word order, e.g. "Ic (I) sa bok (the book) rodom (read)" meaning "I read the book." Auxiliary verbs, used in the perfect tenses and progressive aspects, always follow the subject, e.g. "Ic (I) bjam (am) sa bok (the book) rodin (reading)" means "I am reading the book."

However, if the direct object has a relative clause attached to it (e.g. in the sentence "I am the man whom you are seeking"), the word order becomes Subject-Verb-Object, much as in English.

For interrogative sentences, Object-Verb-Subject word order is used. For example, to ask "Do you read the book?" one would say "Sa bok (the book) rodat (read) ði (you)?"

Two independent clauses can joined by a semicolon and a conjunction.

Phrases
In general, modifiers (adjectives, adverbs) precede what they modify. The following table lists the abbreviations of the various phrases and parts of speech used here:

Noun phrases: Noun phrases follow the following order: Det-Adj-N-AP

Verb phrases: Verb phrases follow the following order: NP-Adv-V-AP

If the verb is a copularverb (There are two: "sömji" meaning "seem", and "bjan" meaning "be"), the NP can be replaced by a modifier.

Adpositional phrases: Adpositional phrases (AP): Adpositional phrases always come after the word or phrases they describe. The object of the adposition can either be a noun phrase or a subordinate clause. If it is a noun phrase, the adposition follows the main noun; if it is a subordinate clause, it follows the subordinating conjunction. i.e. Det-Adj-N-Adp-AP or SuboConj-Adp-VP

Subordinate clauses
Relative clauses: There are two types of relative pronouns in Ledspaek, each of which signal different functions for the relative clause. A free pronoun indicates a free relative clause, in which the clause completely replaces a noun phrase, e.g. "I ate what I saw." A bound pronoun indicates a bound clause, e.g. "I ate the bread that was on the counter" or "I ate the bread that I saw." Bound relative clauses follow the noun phrase that they modify

Subordinating conjunctions (SubCon): subordinating conjunction clauses replace a noun phrase. They have the following syntax: SubCon-Sentence

Useful phrases and expressions
Greeting

Haldo - Hello, good day (general neutral greeting)

Wilkjem - Welcome

ha, hal - Hi, hey (very casual greeting)

Haldo Unwilkjem - Hello and welcome (Used to greet newcomers/strangers into an area, e.g. often used by store employees greeting customers as they enter)

Das motaðö hæb bin mai got bjanen - lit. "This encounter has been better", sometimes translated as "Pleased to meet you". It is a very respectful phrase used after being introduced to someone for the first time; e.g. it used before business negociations or upon meeting a superior (teacher, boss, etc.)

Mai got - lit. "better", derived from expression above and is a less formal equivalent.

Led (name) gjantam. - My name is (name).

Ic panen Anglis spröke. - I only speak English

Answering questions

ninen - no (formal)

na, ni, m - no (informal)

kolinta - yes (formal)

ja, ga, a - yes (informal)

Pronouns
The following charts shows the pronouns in Ledspaek. For the third-person singular forms, the first entry is the male pronoun and the second is female.

Subject pronouns

Like English "I", "we", "he"

Object pronouns

Like English "me", "us", "him"

Possesive pronouns

Like English "My/mine", "your/yours". Note that these words be used to replace a noun ("mine", "yours") or as a determiner ("my", "your")

Reflexive pronouns

Like English "myself", "yourself"

Interrogative pronouns

There are four interrogative pronouns in Ledspaek. They are eigher human or non-human, and subject or object. The human pronouns are like "who" and "whom" in english, while the non-human pronouns are like "what" and "ehich" in English. The subject pronouns are used when the pronoun is the subject of a sentence, while the object pronouns are used elsewhere (e.g. in an adpositional phrase), like "whom" in English is often used.