Aspenish

Aspenish (Aspenush; /ɑs.'pɛ.ɲʊʃ/) is the native language of the Aspenish people and the official language of the Republic of Aspenia, an island nation in northern Europe, and one of languages of the Nordic Council.

General information
Aspenish is classified as a Middle Germanic language, the last surviving language of this branch. It has been significantly incluenced by both West and North Germanic langauges and slightly influenced by Insular Celtic, mostly Scottish Gaelic, and Romance languages, especially French through English and Dutch.

Dialects
There are twelve main dialects spoken in Aspenia. They are The formation of dialects is due to the influence of different languages in specific zones. Dialects typically differ in terms of inflectional morphology, vocabulary, and particle usage.
 * Apple dialect (Äpil djalekt; //),
 * Ash dialect (Askur djalekt; //),
 * Cedar dialect (Zeedhar djalekt; //),
 * Cherry dialect (Kirïzya djalekt; //),
 * Elm dialect (Uulmo djlekt; //),
 * Fir dialect (Daane djalekt; //),
 * Mapple dialect (Ehornu djalekt; //),
 * Oak dialect (Ëik djalekt; //),
 * Pear dialect (Piira djalekt; //),
 * Pine dialect (Füro djalekt; //),
 * Rowan dialect (Roowen djalekt; //),
 * Spruce dialect (Gutha djalekt; //),
 * Wilow dialect (Söusye djalekt; //).

Regulation
The regulatory authority for the teaching of Aspenish is the National Academy of the Aspenish Language (Nasjonelu Akademi ev der Aspenushu Spöök; /nɑ.sjɔ'nɛ.lʊ ɑ.kɑ.dɛ'mi: ɛv dɛr ɑs'pɛ.nʊ.ʃʊ spø:k/) and carer body of the literary heritage in Aspenish is the National Institute of the Aspenish Literature (Nasjonelu Instituut ev der Aspenushu Litaratüür; /nɑ.sjɔ'nɛ.lʊ ɪns.tɪ'tu:t ɛv dɛr ɑs'pɛ.nʊ.ʃʊ lɪ.tɛ.ɾɑ'ty:r/). Both are especial bodies of the Aspenish Ministry of Culture, Education and Sport (Aspenushu Ministaarje för Kultüür, Ontarvëisong ent Spoort; /ɑs'pɛ.nʊ.ʃʊ mɪ.nɪs'ta:.ɾjɛ fœr kʊl'ty:r ɔn.tɑɾ'vʌɪ.sɔɲg ɛnt 'spo:ɾt/).

Phonology
Aspenish has 33 consonant phonemes including allophones and 20 vowel phonemes, 10 long and 10 short. One of the most notorious charactaristics of Aspenish is the lack of affricates.

Consonants
The inventory of consonants in Aspendush is is similar to Germanic and Celtic languages. It has no clicks, ejectives nor implosives. The consonants are: 1/ɱ/ is the allophone of /m/ before labiodentals.

2/ŋ/ is the allophone of /n/ before velar plosives and fricatives.

3/r/ is the allophone of /ɾ/ at the beginning and the end of words.

4/ɦ/ is the allophone of /h/ voiced consonants.

Vowels
The inventory of vowels was anciently similar to the other North Germanic languages, but it was modified due to the influence of other Germanic and Celtic languages. Each of the 10 long vowels is phonetically paired with one of the 10 short vowels. The 20 vowels are:

Alphabet
The Aspenish alphabet uses a modified version of the Latin script:

Aa Ää Bb Dd Ee Ëë Ff Gg Hh Ii Ïï Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Öö Pp Rr Ss Tt Uu Üü Vv Ww Zz

Cc, Qq and Xx only appear in foreing words, especially names. Yy also appears in foreing words and after alveolar consonants to form their palatal counterpart. For example, ty and dy are pronounced /c/ and /ɟ/ respectively, and so on. The vowels are doubled to lengthen them.

Phonotactics
The standard syllable structure is; Where (A) is a liquid consonant or a semivowel. There is consonant harmony according to the place of articulation when a syllable ends with a nasal or a liquid consonant (except fricatives and affricates) and the next syllable begins with a plosive or a fricative.

Grammar
Aspenish is a nominative–accusative language, morphologically agglutinative, flexive and uses several particles to determine the grammatical functions of the sentence elements.

World order
The basic word order in Aspendish is SVO in main clauses, SOV in relative clauses and VSO in questions and commands. However, as words are heavily inflected, the word order is fairly flexible and every combination may occur in poetry, i.e. SVO, SOV, VSO, VOS, OSV and OVS are all allowed for metrical purposes.

Cases, gender and number
Aspenish nouns do not inflect in any case, articles add an 'u' when they modify a noun and articles vary in the subjective and oblique cases.

Words also vary in three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter. Inanimate nouns are arbitrarily distributed in these three genders; the animate, however, are declined in the masculine or feminine according to sex and neuter is used when the speaker doesn't know the gender of the being or if it's ambiguous, like the case of plants, some of which hermaphrodite.

Finally, wrords are divided in countable and uncountable nouns.The countable nouns vary in number following the singular-plural scheme.

Articles
One shared property with Germanic languages is the definiteness, which, in Aspenish, is marked by articles. They are put before nouns and are devided in definite and indefinite.

The definite article declines in case, gender and number. The indefinite article declines in case and gender in the singular number.

Nouns
Nouns have three grammatical genders: masculine (xxx), feminine (xxx) and neuter (xxx), Inanimate nouns gender is largely arbitrary and must be memorized. For example: don lägh (lake), dem kruuza (cross) and dar klan (clan). On the other hand, animate nouns add suffixes,   -or  or -am for masculine and -in or -ez for feminine. For example: 


 * dar gaty - cat of any gender


 * don gatyor - male cat


 * dem gatyin - female cat

Also:


 * dar sagart - priest of any gender


 * don sagartam - male priest


 * dem sagartez - female priest, priestess

Plural are formed depending on the procedence of the noun stem. Latin words form the plural adding an 's' ('is' after consonants). For example:


 * kanyon (f)  - cannon --- kanyonis - cannons

Germanic words form plural adding an 'n' ('en' after consonants) or an 'r' ('ar' after consonants). For example:


 * hund (n) - dog --- hunden - dogs


 * bjarg (m) - mountain --- bjargar - mountains.

Word roots from other languages (like Celtic, Slavic, other Proto-Indo-European languages and others, like Chinese, Japanese, Hebrew, Arabic, etc.) do not follow a rule and form plural with one of the suffixes before mentioned. For example:


 * [Japanese] kimono (m) - kimono  --- kimonos - kimonos


 * [Arabic] alkohol (n) - alcohol --- alkoholen - alcohols


 * [Scottish Gaelic] klane (n) - clan --- klaner - clans

Pronouns
The possessive adjectives are fomed by adding the article endings to the each possessive pronoun. For example, the possessives of the 3rd person singular neuter are: The demonstrative, interrogative, and relative pronouns are liste in the correlatives table below.

Adjectives
Adjectives are used to modify a noun or pronoun, giving more information about that specific noun or pronoun. In and as in English and other germanic languages, adjectives come before the noun.They are also declined, but only when they come before a noun to directly describe it, in the attributive position of a nominal phrase, adding an '-u' after the root. For example: del gudu hundin - the good bitch. In the predicative position, they do no inflect. For example: dal tee ist gud - the tea is good and not dar tee ist gudu.

There are three degrees of comparison: positive form, comparative form, and superlative form: these correspond to English equivalents.

The basic form of the adjective is the positive form: the adjective stem with the appropriate ending.
 * dïïp - deep
 * dol dïïpu ozeaan - the deep ocean

The basic comparative form consists of the stem and the suffix -er. Inflected, the adjective ending is attached.


 * dïïper - deeper
 * dïïperu ozeaan - deeper ocean

The basic superlative form consists of the stem and the suffix -ast. Inflected, the adjective ending is attached.
 * dïïpast - deepest
 * dol dïïpastu ozeaan - the deepest ocean

Adverbs
[NEED HELP WITH ADVERBS, HELP!]

An adverb is a word that qualifies the meaning of a verb, adjective, other adverb, clause, sentence or any other word or phrase. There are adverbs of location (in space and in time), of manner, of quantity and epistemic adverbs.

[NEED SUGGESTIONS FOR THESE ADVERBS]

Adverbs of manner that are based on adjectives and are formed by adding the suffix -iz to adjective stem. For example:


 *   sëbdain  - sudd  en --- sëbdainiz - sudd  enly


 *   glaad  y - gl  ad --- glaadyiz - gladly

Modifiers
Modifiers in Aspenish, as in English, follow a specific order:
 * 1) Determiner (articles, possessive adjectives, demonstratives)
 * 2) Ordinal number
 * 3) Cardinal number
 * 4) Opinion
 * 5) Size
 * 6) Measurement
 * 7) Condition
 * Age
 * 1) Temperature
 * 2) Shape
 * 3) Colour/Pattern
 * 4) Origin
 * 5) Time/Season
 * 6) Material
 * 7) Power
 * 8) Location
 * 9) Porpuse
 * 10) Head noun