Luepolan

General information
The Luepolan language is a constructed language that serves as the official language of Luepola, a country located in Eastern Europe. The language was constructed by various scholars, appointed and paid by the new government to create a new language to unite the various people-groups of the country. Construction of the language began in the late 16th century. The language is primarily inspired by and based on English, but also takes mild cues from Spanish, German, and Russian.

Alphabet
The Luepolan Alphabet is very similar to the English Alphabet. Most individual letters are pronounced the same way as in English. Differences are detailed below.


 * C: The letter C is pronounced as the digraph 'ch' (IPA: [tʃ]). The former sounds of the letter C (IPA: [s] and [k]) are now used solely by the letters S and K, respectively.
 * G: The letter G, by itself, is pronounced solely as a 'G' sound, such as in 'get' (IPA: [g]). It is still when used in the digraph 'ng' (IPA: [ŋ]), although the digraph itself is uncommon in Luepolan.
 * J: The letter J is pronounced as the English digraph 'zh' (IPA: [ʒ]). The former sound of J (IPA: [dʒ]) is very uncommon in the Luepolan language, and is represented by the digraph 'dj' when needed.
 * Q: The letter Q is not present in the Luepolan Alphabet. Words using the 'qu' digraph are spelled with 'kw' instead.
 * X: The letter X is pronounced as the digraph 'sh' (IPA: [ʃ]).
 * Y: The letter Y now makes the sound of the English digraph 'th' (IPA: [θ] and [ð]).  The vowel-like sounds of the English Y (IPA: [i], [ɪ], [ai]) are represented by the letter I (or sometimes the digraph 'ai', in the case of [ai]). The consonant sound of the English Y (IPA: [j]) is now paired with a vowel via an acute accent mark; for example, 'é' would indicate that the [j] sound precedes the vowel sound.

Verb Conjugation
Verbs are conjugated based on tense. The Luepolan language has four tenses: Past, Present, Future, and the base infinitive, which is also used as a gerund. Each tense has a suffix tied to it that is added to a root verb to indicate the tense.

Verb Particles
Luepolan makes use of a system of particles wherein a short word is placed after the verb to denote its mood or aspect. The suffix -n is placed at the end of any particle to denote negativity (except núl, which itself denotes negativity).

Pronouns
Luepolan pronouns are as follows:

In addition to the English nominative pronoun types, Luepolan also has the pronoun 'Gu', to refer to a Holy figure. It is uncommon in regular speech and is used mainly in Holy scriptures and texts such as the Bible or Qu'ran.

Number
Nouns are declined according to number. There are three number forms in Luepolan: Singular, Paucal, and Plural. Singular, as in English, is used specifically to refer to one item or entity. Paucal is used to refer to a small number of items and/or entities. Plural is used to refer to a larger amount.

There is no exact number at which the paucal becomes the plural, and it frequently depends on the item in question and its context. For example, a soldier who has 20 bullets would be said to have "Dwedi balisten", as that is a small quantity for a soldier, whereas a man who owns 10 cars would be said to have "Okide otokartes", as that is a large number of cars for a man to own. Another example can be used with currency: A man who makes $100 a year would be said to make "Okipa doluren", as that is a small amount given the context; however, a child who owns $100 would be said to have "Okipa dolures", as $100 is generally considered a large amount of money for a child.

The word 'Wu' (We) in Luepolan is a special case: Its base form (which would ordinarily translate to 'me' or 'I') denotes inclusiveness of the addressee, rather than a singular form, whereas the paucal and plural forms denote exclusiveness of the addressee.

Possessive
In addition to the noun declension system, Luepolan makes use of three different suffixes to indicate possession. The possessive affixes for paucal and plural replace the default affixes for said numbers.

Affixes
In Luepolan, all prefixes end in a vowel, and all suffixes begin with a vowel. This is done so as to avoid difficult consonant combinations (i.e. 'mv'), as well as to avoid resorting to 'exceptions' to get around said combinations. If the word begins with a vowel and a prefix is added, the first letter of the base word becomes accented. This puts the [j] sound between the bordering vowels. Similarly, if the word ends with a non-silent vowel and a suffix is added, then the first letter of the suffix is accented. If the word ends in a silent vowel, the silent vowel is replaced by the non-silent vowel of the suffix.

The exception to this rule is the -n suffix, which is affixed to the end of verb particles to denote negativity.