Adwan

The Adwanic language, (English: Adwan, French: Aduanne, Spanish: Aduana, Adwan: Aðẃana) is a fictional art language that is said to be Indo-European, though exact proof is unsure. Adwan, an isolating language, therefore, only shares grammatical roots more than lexical roots with any of its neighboring languages.

The name Aðẃana literally means The Adwanic one. Like the lack of distinction between the nationalatiy of being English and the language English, Adwan lacks the distinction between the nationality of being Adwanic and the language, Adwan. It is common, however, to use Sachvyż Aðẃanyň, or Language of the Adwanics, when referring to the language and Chiðaùm Aðẃany, or Person of Adwan.

Features
The controversy between the classification of Adwan's family comes without reason, for Adwan shares many things with other Indo-European languages, yet has many differences from them (plus the fact that it is isolating and therefore only shares about 3-5% words with any European language, with the exception of cognates).
 * Adwan is a fusionally synthetic language. This means that words change depending on their usage (I am would be það, yet you are could either be þus or þuš, depending on the number).
 * Adwan also expresses a very agglutinative nature when it comes to verbs, which conjugated by stringing affixes together.
 * Verbs in Adwan are conjugated to four persons, two numbers, three tenses, four aspects, four voices, four moods and three polarities.
 * Adwan lacks auxilliary verbs.


 * Adwan is a pro-drop language; the person is conjugated into the verb.
 * Adwan declines nouns for number, and grammatical case. Gender is lost in most nouns, though some can be declined for gender by adding respective affixes.
 * Adwan has 7 cases; nominative, genitive, accusative, dative, ablative, locative and vocative, and 2 numbers; singular and plural.
 * Loanwords to Adwan are generally rare; about 3-5% of Adwan's vocabulary is shared with other European languages (though something like mesa is found in Spanish, mesa in Adwan means island, while mesa in Spanish means table).
 * Adwan is syllable timed; stress is always put on the penultimate syllable unless stated otherwise (acute accents over vowels show irregular stress rules, which are incredibly common).

Phonology
Adwan empoys 30 consonants and 8 vowels (with a numerous amount of diphthong combinations).

Consonants

 * The phoneme /ɬ/ is not an allophone of /l/.
 * Bilabial plosives (‹b› and ‹p›), glottal plosives (‹ʔ›), palatal approximants (‹j› ‹ɥ›), velar fricatives (‹h›), velar approximants (‹w›), and alveolar lateral fricatives (‹ɬ›) can never end a word.

Phonotactics
Adwanic words generally follow a CV(CV)N pattern, where N represents a final letter (a,c,d,ð,ď,e,f,g,k,l,m,n,r,þ,s,t,v,z,ž and ż). Adwanic words, however, can reach an incredibly high number of words (most of these being verbs); an example of this is the verb deteriorate, or vachmeżychfan, conjugated to say it would most certainly have been deteriorating would be vachmeżychfyseżyðetaùd.

Diphthongs in Adwan are considered a single V, rather than VV.

Alphabet
The Adwanic alphabet consists of 38 letters:

A B C Č D Ð Ď E F G Ğ H I J K L Ł M N Ň O Ö P R Þ S Š T Ť U Ü V W Ẃ Y Z Ž Ż

Consonant-wise, Adwan is completely phonemic. Along with the 37 letters in the alphabet, Adwan also has the traditional digraph ‹ch›, representing the phoneme ‹x›.

Latin Alphabet Extensions
Adwan employs 14 letters that are foreign to the basic Latin alphabet. These letters are considered letters on their own, rather than letters with diacritics.
 * ‹Č,č› represents the phoneme ‹tʃ›, as in the English word chocolate.
 * ‹Ð,ð› represents the phoneme ‹ð›, as in the English word therefore.
 * ‹Ď,ď› represents the phoneme ‹dʒ›, as in the English word jam.
 * ‹Ğ,ğ› represents the phoneme ‹ɣ›, which doesn't exist in English. It is a ‹g›, but smoother and in the back of the throat, almost like a ‹g› version of ‹x›; it is represented as in the Greek word γάλα.
 * ‹Ł,ł› represents the phoneme ‹ɬ›, which doesn't exist in English. It is almost like saying ‹š› and ‹l› together but quickly, or blowing while your tongue is curled back. It is represented as in the Welsh word lloyd.
 * ‹Ň,ň› represents the phoneme ‹ŋ›, as in the English word sing. Note that the ‹g› isn't pronounced, and the ‘n‘ is velarized.
 * ‹Ö,ö› represents the phoneme ‹ø›, which doesn't exist in English. The closest sound would be the ou in would, only a bit higher. It is represented as in the French word peu, or the Norwegian word søt.
 * ‹Š,š› represents the phoneme ‹ʃ›, as in the English word cash.
 * ‹Ť,ť› represents phoneme ‹ʔ›, like the pause in the English phrase uh-oh. Note how you don't sayd uhhhoooh together, but you break them apart -- that's what ‹Ť,ť› does.
 * ‹Ü,ü› represents the phoneme ‹y›, which doesn't exist in English. Say ee and round your lips as if saying ‹ö›. It is represented as in the French word tu.
 * ‹Ẃ,ẃ› represents the phoneme ‹ɥ›, which doesn't exist in English. It is like a ‹j› + ‹w› sound (y + w for non-IPA users). It is represented as is in the French word lui.
 * ‹Ž,ž› represents the phoneme ‹ʒ›, as in the English word vision, or as in the French word je.
 * ‹Ż,ż› represents the phoneme ‹dz›, as in the English word cards. 

Acute Accent; Stress
Adwan adds acute accents (and double acute accents to all vowels with umlauts) to all vowels to add stress if the stress isn't on the penultimate syllable.
 * ‹Á,á› represents stress on the ‹a›.
 * ‹É,é› represents stress on the ‹e›.
 * ‹Í,í› represents stress on the ‹i›.
 * ‹Ó,ó› represents stress on the ‹o›.
 * ‹Ő,ő› represents stress on the ‹ö›.
 * ‹Ú,ú› represents stress on the ‹u›.
 * ‹Ű,ű› represents stress on the ‹ü›.
 * ‹Ý,ý› represents stress on the ‹y›.

Grave Accents; Diphthong Formation
Apart from acute accents, hačeks, grave accents are also added to vowels that create diphthongs. As Adwan is a phonemic language, double vowel clusters do not form diphthongs, but are pronounced each. A vowel cluster that has the second vowel with a grave accent creates the diphthong. Note: Diphthongs for the vowels ‹ỳ› are allophones of ‹ì›.
 * ‹À,à›
 * ‹Eà, eà›; represents the sound in the word can, stressed to sound slightly country.
 * ‹È,è›
 * ‹Iè, iè› represents another rounded sound, like ‹ià›. It sounds like a northern Norwegian "e", or like the word "kit", rather like "Kih-et", said in one syllable.
 * ‹Ì,ì›
 * ‹Aì, aì›; [aɪ̯]; represents the sound in kite, or eye. 
 * ‹Eì, eì›; [eɪ̯]; represents the sound in cake, or fate.
 * ‹Öì, öì›; [øɪ̯]; represents the sound of ‹ö› plus ‹y› or ‹i›.
 * ‹Uì, uì›; [uɪ̯]; represents the sound in the Spanish word muy. It's a combination of "oo" and "ee", for non-IPA readers.

Syntax & Morphology
Adwan is an inflecting language, where many words change their form depending on their function in a sentence. This may pose a problem for many English speakers, Chinese speakers, or other speakers of analytical languages, for analytical languages depend on word order to convey their meaning, as opposed to morphology.

Adwan, as an inflecting language, inflects verbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, numbers, and determiners depending on their function in a sentence, or their case (or person, mood, voice, tense and aspect, for verbs).

Word Order
Because of the inflections that go on in Adwan, word order is generally a lot freer than it would be if it didn't have all those inflections. Adwan generally follows an SVO word order, though many word orders are feasible depending on the mood or emphasis they want to put on the sentence. Many times, word order can change voice and mood to words without actually changing the mood or voice. In the OVS order, the verb should be in the passive voice, but because of the word order, the passive voice is not needed. It is, however, much more common and easier to follow a generic SVO order and use morphology to change meaning, rather than word order.

Cases
Adwan has seven cases to which decline its nouns, adjectives, pronouns, numbers and determiners. They are the nominative, the genitive, the accusative, the dative, the ablative, the locative and the vocative.

The Nominative and the Accusative are subject-object cases. No prepositions govern either case; the verb distinguishes the subject and the direct object; in the phrase Paul eats apples, "Paul" is in the nominative, and "apples" is in the accusative. Nothing ever stands in the way between a nominative and an accusative case, other than the verb, theoretically.

The Genitive case is the case of posession and relation. Since Adwan's ratio of adjectives is low compared to its nouns and verbs, many nouns act as adjectives when used in the genitive. In the phrase The dog house, when compound word usage is not preferred, the genitive case is used, in which the phrase would then mean The house of dogs, in which "dogs" would be in the genitive. the genitive is ideally the "of" case; posessors always follow the nouns, rather than the nouns following their posessors like in other languages. In the girl's cat, the girl is the posessor and comes before the cat; however, in Adwan, the girl comes after the cat, because a possessive noun is like saying "of [a/the]". Therefore, the girl's cat would be the cat of the girl. Note: Irregular prepositions govern the Genitive case, but since there are only a few, the genitive doesn't qualify as a prepositional case.

The Dative, Ablative and the Locative cases are prepositional cases in Adwan; these are the three cases which are governed by prepositions. Many prepositions are alike and must therefore have a distinction to their usage, which is why the three cases come in. The Dative case refers to the indirect object as a recipent of the verb; the ablative case refers to the indirect object as the causative noun, and the locative case refers to the indirect object as a locational noun. The Vocative case refers to a dialogue case, used when addressing someone in specific. It is the least complicated of the cases, and only ever used in day to day dialogue, rather than writing (though it does occur a lot in writing with dialogues). In the phrase Hey, Paul!, "Paul" is in the vocative, because it is being adressed.
 * The ablative case is the most isolated of these three, as its usage differes from the dative and locative. It is the case of instrument and cause, therefore in the phrase Paul eats apples with a fork, "fork" would be in the ablative.
 * The dative case and the locative case share many prepositional uses, but establish a line of distinction when it comes to their usage. The locative case uses prepositions of direction and of location, while the dative uses the same prepositions but doesn't refer to location or direction. In the phrase I'm going to the store, the "store" is in the locative, because "to" refers to a place; however, in the phrase I gave an apple to my mom, "mom" would be in the dative, because it is a recipent of an action. Many times, it is easy to distinguish which preposition and case to use by seeing their usage. If it's not instrument, or location, it's in the dative, most likely.

Prepositions
Prepositions in Adwan govern three cases; the dative, the ablative, and the locative. Each preposition is assigned to only one case, as there is no amiguity, however, many prepositions are copulas of eachother (such as v and ef, which both mean "in" but describe different situations.

Below is a list of all prepositions used in Adwan, listed under their respective cases Italicized prepositions are default prepositions for the respective case; therefore, a case without a preposition is automatically assumed to be that preposition.
 * Dative
 * 1) At - Ła
 * 2) Concerning - Ğaù
 * 3) Compared to - Deìnaìpora
 * 4) For - Y
 * 5) Regarding - Jar
 * 6) Than - Kö
 * 7) To - Šču*
 * 8) Toward - Aì
 * Ablative
 * 1) About - Ðö
 * 2) According to - Voch
 * 3) After - Ďeňkwy
 * 4) Against - Seď
 * 5) Among - Kaìch
 * 6) As opposed to - Vsorysjonšču
 * 7) Because of - Oďy
 * 8) Before - Kpy
 * 9) By - Her
 * 10) Despite - Or
 * 11) During - Kureùň
 * 12) From - Žeìň*
 * 13) In - V
 * 14) Like - Som
 * 15) On behalf of - Def
 * 16) Since - Jeùr
 * 17) Until - Ďeù
 * 18) Versus - Raùch
 * 19) Via - Sery
 * 20) With - Zuþ
 * 21) Without - Saþ
 * Locative
 * 1) Across - Tra
 * 2) Against - Des
 * 3) Around - Naìsle
 * 4) At - Er*
 * 5) Behind - Chva
 * 6) Between - Þ
 * 7) By - Ièt
 * 8) From - Ďa
 * 9) In - Ef
 * 10) In front of - Jeg
 * 11) Into - Šlaù
 * 12) Near - Per
 * 13) Next to - Vel
 * 14) On - Ü
 * 15) Outside of - Daùr
 * 16) Over - Chu
 * 17) To - Al
 * 18) Under - Och
 * Genitive
 * 1) Ago - Doň; used prepositionally, rather than postposionally in English. Three years ago in Adwan would be Doň jaìsar nyhy, or Ago of three years.

Nouns
Nouns in Adwan have the most extensive inflections in the whole language, except for verbs. Nouns are decline for Case, Number and Gender, though all nouns are, by default, neuter. Gender declension is only optional (yet vital depending on the context), and it works with the same word, only changing it up a bit, as opposed to using a completely different word. Adwan has two main sets of declensions; weak declensions and strong declensions. Strong declensions consist mainly of declensions that work by changing a vowel using a system of ablaut, etc, while weak declensions make extensive use of infixes and suffixes. Shown below are the Adwanic declension tables for nouns.

NOTE: Inanimate nouns can not be declined for gender. They may have grammatical paradigms, but it is incorrect to decline an inanimate object, like "road" to feminine or masculine.

Weak Declensions
Declensions shown below mainly consist of suffixes and infixes.

First Declension
Nouns in the first declension are controversially thought to be strong, though in some paradigms they do add suffixes. Nouns in the First declension end in -a. Šlyna = Child;

Second Declension
Nouns in the second declension follow the same idealogical patter than nouns in the first declension do. Nouns in the Second declension end in -e. Bre = Adult

Third Declension
The third declension deals with all nouns ending in -ch, -g, -s, and -z. Feaz = Tourist

Fourth Declension
The fourth declension deals with all nouns ending in -ď, -l, -r, and -ž. Maìr = Mayor

Fifth Declension
The fifth declension deals with all nouns ending in -c, -ð, -t, and -ż. Kaùleð = Hiker

Sixth Declension
The sixth declension deals with all nouns ending in -n, -k, -f, and -v. Marin = Sailor

Seventh Declension
The seventh declension deals with all nouns ending in -d, -ğ, -m, and -þ. Parm = Road

Strong Declensions
Nouns in the strong declension in Adwan change vowels rather than changing affixes. The stem to the word is literally changed, as opposed to the affixes added to words in weak declensions. Note, ablaut only happens to case changes, not number changes.

NOTE: nouns in the strong declensions are indeclinable for gender.

First Declension
The first declension deals with words that end in -és, -ér, and -éż. Montér = bus