Sempi

The Sempian language is spoken only in a smaal inland group in the Mediterranean Sea; roughly half-way between Greece and Italy. It is a language isolate with no known relative languages and has distinctive features unlike most European languages. However, because of extensive cultural relations with both Ancient Greek city states and later the Roman Empire, it has developed some similarities to them, especially in sentence structure and vocabulary.

Traditionally, Sempi is written in the Greek alphabet as it was the first standardized scripture for the language. Later on, as Roman influence became stronger on the archepelago, a second alphabet was introduced to ease communication with the Romans. Nowadays, both the Latin and Greek alphabet have official status and official documents are always published in both alphabets. The Latin alphabet is the more commonly used alphabet, though.

Grammatically, Sempi is a highly synthetic language with agglutinative features. Its tripartite nature is one of the language's more unique features, along with its unusual grammatical numbers.

Vowels
The Sempian language has a relatively small number of vowels with only 7 native monophthongs /a ɛ e i ɔ o u/. The vowels /a e i o u/ are usually called "big vowels" because they (have to) appear on their own without a following consonant (called "free vowels" in English). On the other hand, the remaining vowels /ɛ ɔ/ are called "small vowels" because they (have to) appear with a following consonant (called "checked vowels" in English).

The vowel /y/ is not native in Sempi but it appears in a number of Greek loan words. It is also often used as a replacement for the native /u/ (depending on dialect) in uneducated speech in an effort to sound more educated.

In addition to the 7 monophthongs, Sempi also has 2 diphthongs /ei̯ ou̯/ which are equivalent to "big vowels" (except for word stress).

Consonants
The consonantal system of Sempi is also relatively small with only 14 consonants. The consonants /n s l r/ are called "enhancers" because they can follow checked vowels to form a complete syllable. There is no specific name for the other consonants.

The only consonants with allophones are /n/, which is pronounced [ŋ] before dorsal plosives or [m] before labial plosives, /s/, which is pronounced [z] before voiced plosives, and /x/, which is pronounced [ç] before front vowels /ɛ e i/.

Syllable structure
The general syllable structure of Sempi is C(C)(r)V(E).

The onset can be either a single consonant, /s/ followed by a voiceless plosive or /f/ followed by /t/. Additionally, /p b t d k g f x/ can be followed by /r/ regardless of any previous consonants.

The nucleus is formed either by a single free vowel /a e i o u/ or by a checked vowel /ɛ ɔ/ followed by an enhancer /n s l r/.

Stress
The primary stress of words usually falls on the ultimate syllable of a word but can shift to the penultimate syllable if the ultimate contains a free vowel and the penultimate contains either a diphthong or a checked vowel.

Greek alphabet
The Greek version of Sempian alphabet is a phonemic alphabet, in which every letter is assigned to only one phoneme (and vice versa). There are only 2 exceptions to this rule:

The letter "Ι ι" can either represent the vowel /i/ or the consonant /j/. If "Ι ι" represents /i/ and is followed directly by another vowel, it has to be marked with a trema "Ϊ ϊ". Usually, the context of the letter makes it very clear which sound is meant.

The second exception is the letter "Υ υ". In native Sempian words, it is always used to represent /u/, while in Greek loan words, it is always used to represent /y/. Usually, the letters are not marked to indicate a particular pronunciation and the correct pronunciation of a word has to be learned. If there actually is a minimal pair between the different pronunciations (which are very rare) and a differentiation has to be made, /y/ is marked by a trema "Ϋ ϋ". It is allowed (although not common) to write every /y/ with "Ϋ ϋ" for clarification.