Ughonic

=Orthography= Ughonic uses a variation of the Cyrillic Alphabet, mainly because the Cyrillic Alphabet represents native Ughonic sounds more readily than the Latin. However, there is an official Romanisation scheme, which intends to show the pronounciations of Ughonic letters to people unfamiliar with the Cyrillic Alphabet.

Hard Sign
The hard sign 'ъ' is not assigned to any phonetic value and is kept in the alphabet predominantly for historical reasons, having absolutely no effect on the pronunciation of the word. However, it does have a productive use in that it helps to differentiate in writing words that would otherwise be spelt the same. For example, the words 'миж' ("water") and 'мижъ' ("to wonder") are both pronounced identically, but the hard sign allows the reader to know immediately which of the two meanings is being referred to.

И versus Ы
The letter 'и' represents the vowel /ɪ/ as in English "big", whereas 'ы' represents a much more reduced central vowel [ɨ]. The sound [ɨ] is often regarded as being the equivalent to an unstressed /ɪ/, and sure enough 'ы' only appears in unstressed syllables (i.e. any syllable other than the first). However, to add confusion 'и' is also often found in unstressed syllables, representing a centralised vowel realised as [ɨ].

=Grammar=

Nouns
Ughonic nouns are complicated, with nouns declining for things such as number, case, possession and article. This means that a single noun can come in hundreds of different forms.

Case
Ughonic has a rich case system, with cases having particular emphasis on the location of a noun. For example see the following table:

Therefore one could say "I am on top of the house" in two words: напиштабаст гваг. Formed from 'напиш' (house) + 'та' (definate article) + 'баст' on top of + 'гваг' (I am).

Ughonic also has a number of noun suffixes to indicate motion towards and motion from a particular noun.

Posession
Posession is indicated in Ughonic by various suffixes added to the end of the noun.

Articles
In English the articles (the, a, an) are prepositions. i.e. they are put before the noun they are modifying. In Ughonic it is the opposite, the articles are put after the noun they are modifying, in the form of a suffix.

The definate article is -тa (ta), and the indefinate article is -ле (le).

Number
There are two grammatical numbers in Ughonic: the singular and the plural. If the noun ends in a vowel, the plural is made by adding the suffix -к to the noun. If the noun ends in a consonant, the plural is made by adding the suffix -ек.

Tenses
There are several tenses in Ughonic, each represented by a suffix.

Subjects and Objects
Subjects and objects are shown in a combined suffix, which takes into account both the agent and the participant. For example in the phrase "I like you", you take the verb ящ ("to like"), and then find the I-you suffix which (as you can see from the table below) is -нед. So "I like you" is written 'ящнед' (jaščned).

Adjectives
Adjectives come in three forms, these are the basic, comparitive and superlative. The comparitive is formed by adding -єль, and the superlative is formed by adding the curcumfix гвин-єль. For example "сем" meaning "nice" becomes "семєль" ("nicer") and then "гвинсемєль".