Lanquanese

Lanquanese [IPA: læ̹ŋkʷəˈniːz] is a Romance language spoken by about 2.5 million people. Its vocabulary resembles that of the French language, though Lanquanese is almost mutually unintelligible to that of spoken French. However, when spoken at normal speed, the language can easily perceived to be Italian, and many Lanquanese words resemble written Italian words. Lanquanese is a synthetic language, just as are Latin, French, Spanish, Romanian, and German. Out of Latin's three grammatical genders‒‒masculine, feminine, and neuter‒‒Lanquanese has preserved two‒‒masculine and feminine. Like Spanish, distinguishing between genders is not an arduous task, as it often can be in French or Romanian. There are no cases that are formed with endings tacked on the to end of a noun, as nouns are the used in their nominative form‒‒the standard‒‒wherever they may be placed in a sentence. Lanquanese verbs are conjugated by person, number, and gender, as well as by tense/mood and voice. Nouns are declined by number and gender, and the like is also applied to adjectives.

Setting
Lanquanese is the official language in the country of Lanquania. It is broken up into two medium-sized islands and four small isles and located off the west coast of France and north coast of Spain. With almost 2.5 million people speaking it as their mother tongue, the only other official language is French. The language is also a minority language in parts of Andorra, though particularly in the French coastal region of Bordeaux. Lanquania is made up of ten states: Zacchè, Ghegna, Vacherta, Quartello, Bellagio, Monatagia, Marcetti, Iloquella, La Mezza, and Gnello. The water from the Bay of Biscay, which surrounds the nation, forms the Quanagella River, cutting the nation into two islands, dividing it in half. Lez Arge, the famous Lanquanian mountain range, sets the boundary between Bellagio and Monatagia. All the coastal land surrounding the entire nation makes for wonderful beaches during the summer with warm temperatures, especially in the peninsular state of Gnello, "the Beach State", which prides itself for its crystal clear waters. Lanquania's major exports are granite from Lez Arge, emeralds and sapphires mined from Zacchè and Iloquella, and milk from Orgêssio. "The Cow State" milk is supposedly the creamiest and tastiest due to the upbringing of their cattle and the lush pasture on which they graze. The capital city of Lanquania, Delana, is found in the south of Bellagio and is a two hour drive to Lez Arge. It is also located on the Clearwater Lake, which leads into the Quanagella River. Ferries that cross the Quanagella are often taken from the other half of Lanquania to reach Delana.

Alphabet and Phonology
The Lanquanese alphabet is made up of 41 letters, many of which may be perceived to speakers of English as two letters combined. However, in Lanquanese, these so-called double letters are actually one letter. While they head their own section in a dictionary, both letters are not placed in the same spot in activities such as crossword puzzles or word searches. Unlike other languages, particularly Latin ones, there are no loan letters. All the letters of the Lanquanese alphabet are completely Lanquanese, though some are used more than others. Lanquanese is read just as it looks.

LANQUANESE ALPHABET: Aa Bb Cc CHch CIci CEce CYcy Dd Ee Ff Gg GHgh GIgi GEge GYgy GNgn GUgu Hh Ii Jj Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp QUqu Rr Ss SCHsch Tt Uu Vv Ūū Xx XHxh XIxi XExe XYxy Zz ZZzz Yy

Consonants
There are 35 consonants in Lanquanese, seen in normal fontface in the chart above. However, only 33 of those are true consonants due to the fact that two of the consonants are actually semi-vowels. These semi-vowels can be seen italicized in the same chart. In Lanquanese, most consonants have the same sound as they would in English. These would be Bb, Dd, Ff, Hh, Ll, Mm, Nn, Pp, QUqu, Ss, Tt, Vv, and Zz. However, there are quite a few consonants that would not always be pronounced the way an English speaker might think:


 * It is good to keep in mind that the vowels in CIci, CEce, GYgy, XExe, etc. can change pronunciation when diacritics are placed on them following the rules that that particular vowel follows.

There are also characters in Lanquanese which are not letters in the alphabet, yet are used nonetheless. Two of these have diacritic marks on them: the cedilla on the Cc and the dash on the Hh.

Here is a table of all the sounds that exist in Lanquanese using the International Phonetic Alphabet: Here is how these IPA letters are represented in Lanquanese. If the letter seem in the box above is not seen in the chart below, this signifies that it has the same sound in Lanquanese.

Vowels
Lanquanese has 6 vowels, seen in bold as in the alphabet chart above, and two semi-vowels, seen in italics in the same chart. Sometimes, when placed before or after another vowel, Ii and Uu can act as semivowels, though technically they are not. All 6 vowels can have diacritics on them, which either change the stress placed on them, alter their pronunciation, or do both. There are 4 diacritics that can be placed on them: the acute (´), the grave (`), the circumflex (^), or the diæresis (¨). In general, the acute diacritic changes stress, the grave changes stress, pronunciation or both, the circumflex changes stress, pronunciation, or both, and the diæresis changes lengthens the value of the vowel.

Here is a chart that shows the sounds of all vowels, with and without diacritics, from the IPA. Notice that the grave and circumflex serve the same purpose, but that the grave is placed at the end of a word and the circumflex is placed elsewhere. Also note that when letters with the grave are placed within a word and when letters with a circumflex are placed outside a word, the stress shifts.
 * This denotes that the letter is normally stressed. When two or more letters that denote stress are in the same word, the second one takes the stress.
 * †This denotes that this takes place only when (I) the grave is at the middle or beginning of a word or (II) the circumflex is at the end of a word.

Here is a chart to show how to pronounce the IPA characters:

Phonotactics
There are many consonant clusters allowed in Lanquanese that are not permissible in English. Likewise, the two languages also share a bunch of permissible clusters. Here is a table which shows permissible Lanquanese consonant clusters with examples:

Stress
Stress in Lanquanese is fairly basic. Unlike other Romance languages, such as Romanian or Italian, stress is never irregular. It is always either marked with an stress-changing diacritic or follows the normal stress pattern.

REGULAR PATTERN

When a word ending in a consonant contains no stress-changing diacritic, the normal rule is that the emphasis is placed on the ultimate syllable, that is the last one. Therefore, enstrumôn is pronounced en-stroo-MON. When a word ending in a vowel contains no stress-changing diacritic, the normal rule is that the emphasis is placed on the penultimate syllable, that is the second-to-last. Semi- vowels are not counted as a whole syllable. Therefore, mamilja is pronounced ma-MEE-lya and nazzionalo is pronounced na-tsyon-A-lo. However, since semi-vowels do not count as whole syllables, etudio would be pronounced as e-TOO-dyo.

IRREGULAR PATTERN

This normal rule is not followed when there is a stress-changing diacritic in the word that shifts the emphasis to its syllable. Letters with diacritics that are always stress-changing no matter where they are placed in the word are: Áá, Éé, Íí, Óó, Úú, Ýý. Letters with diacritics that are stress-changing only when they are placed at the end of a word are: Àà, Ùù, Êê, and Ôô. Letters with diacritics that are stress-changing when they are placed anywhere but at the end of a word are: Èè, Òò, and Ââ. If a word contains letters with diacritics that do not change the stress of the word, the stress is placed on the correct syllable as the regular pattern above states.

Singular Nouns
Lanquanese nouns are not as hard to work with as they are in other languages. As Lanquanese is a Romance language, it has retained two of the three grammatical genders from Latin: masculine and feminine. Being able to differentiate between feminine and masculine nouns is not hard. A noun's gender can be distinguished by the letter with which the noun ends. A singular noun that ends in the vowels Aa, Ee (or Êê), Ii or the consonants Nn, Ss, or Ūū is feminine. Nouns are also feminine if the meaning of the word is implicitly feminine. Such is the case with nouns like woman, hen, or daughter. A singular noun that ends in the vowels Èè (or sometimes Êê), Oo, Uu, or Yy or any consonant other than Nn, Ss, or Ūū is masculine. Nouns are also masculine if the meaning of the word is implicitly masculine. Such is the case with nouns like man, rooster, or son. In addition, nouns can be masculine if they end in -ista, signifying the suffix -ist or -er/-or in English. (The equivalent of this for feminine nouns is -egna). The gender of the noun must be known in order to correctly use adjectives and articles accordingly.

Plural Nouns
When it comes to making the plural of nouns, the task is not extremely difficult, yet not the easiest job either. For both masculine and feminine nouns, the plural is formed in multiple ways.

1. If a noun ends in an -a, replace it with  -e to form the plural.

2. If a noun ends in -e, -i (or -ì), -o, or -u, replace it with -i to form the plural. (This means that, in essence, words ending in -i or -ì stay the same in the plural as in the singular).

3. If a noun ends in -ai or -oi, add an -e to form the plural.

4. If a noun ends in -_io (where _ is Cc, Gg, or Xx), replace -io with -ì to form the plural.

5. If a noun ends in -_ia (where _ is Cc, Gg, or Xx), replace -ia with -e to form the plural.

6. If a noun ends in -_ie/-_io (where _ is not Cc, Gg, or Xx), replace -ie/-io with -ï to form the plural. (Technically this follows pluralizing rule #2 which would state that -ie/-io would change to -ii in the plural, but Lanquanese g rammar states that -aa change to -ä, -ee to -ë, -ii to -ï, etc.).

7. If a noun ends in -_a (where _ is Ee, Éé, or Êê), replace -_a with -ë.(Technically this follows pluralizing rule #1 which would state that -ea (even with a diacritic on Ee) would change to -ee (with appropriate diacritics on Ee) in the plural, but Lanquanese grammar states that -aa change to -ä, -ee to -ë, -ii to -ï, etc.).

8. If a noun ends in -à, -è, -ò, or -ù, replace the grave accent (`) with a circumflex (^), and add -le to form the plural. (If however the noun ends in -lè, instead of the plural being -lêle, it is actually -lì)

9. If a noun ends in -ã or -õ, add -e to form the plural.

10. If a noun ends in in -é, -í, -ó, or -ú, replace the final vowel of the word with its nasal equivalent plus its nasal cessor. If there is an additional vowel before the final one, add a Jj between the first vowel and the nasal equivalent and cessor. Here is a chart to show the correct nasal equivalent and nasal cessor to add to form the plural.

11. If a noun ends in -ä, -ë, -ï, -ö, or -ü, replace the final vowel of the word with its nasal equivalent plus its nasal cessor. If there is an additional vowel before the final one, add a Jj between the first vowel and the nasal equivalent and cessor. Here is a chart to show the correct nasal equivalent and nasal cessor to add to form the plural. <p style="line-height: normal;">12. If a noun ends in -ê or -ô, replace the final letter with -î to form the plural.

<p style="line-height: normal;">13. If a noun ends in a consonant, add -e to form the plural.

<p style="line-height: normal;">14. If a noun ends in -_e (where _ is Cc, Gg, or Xx), replace -e with -ë to form the plural.

<p style="line-height: normal;">15. If a noun ends in -_i (where _ Cc, Gg, or Xx), replace -i with -e to form the plural.

<p style="line-height: normal;">16. If a noun ends in -al, change -al to -ai to form the plural.

<p style="line-height: normal;">There are also a few irregular plurals as shown is this chart below: