Durtish

Dutrish (Dutrish: Dutralïz or ) is the most widely spoken of the Dutronic languages, with about 36 million speakers, mostly in Dutroland and some thousands L2 speakers around the world. It is the official language of the Lumobean province of Dutroland and has many native speakers in northern Volsland and Oghuzia.

Classification
Dutrish is a member of the Dutric branch of the Dutronic language family. There is a high degree of intelligibility between Dutrish and other Dutric languages, including Turdonish and Lebernish. It shares the same features of all the Dutronic languages, such as vowel harmony, agglutination, and classification of nouns in animate and inanimate.

History
The raising and evolution of Dutrish was determined by many geographical and social factors. Firstly, the the Dutronic peoples, who originated in central Buvaria, were among the first people to domesticate the horse, which allowed the expansion of their language. Their advanced equestrian abilities allowed the spread of people speaking Dutronic languages across the Buvarian continent and eastern Lumobea.

As a result, it was in close contact with other languages, specially the Olobic and Elamic languages of the Zidunic and Viyaro-Lumobean families, respectively. Particularly, the Dutric Dutrones brought their language into the Omberian peninsula, where Dutrish evolved. The first registered script of Dutrish was written around the 6thcentury and the first comprehensive dictionary of Dutrish was published in the 12th century.

During its evolution, Dutrish was highly influenced by Olobish and Volsish. It first started following the adoption of Behomatism in the 9th century by the Zaryek Duntrones, the ruling dynasty of the newly formed Azdamish Empire. The administrative language of this state acquired many loanwords of Olobish words directly or through Volsish.

Then, during the 9thand 12th centuries, Dutrish scientific and artistic literature incorporated a big collection of words from Volsish. This variety, called Middle Dutrish or Azdamish Dutrish, diverged significantly from the variety spoken by the less-educated and rural members of society, which contained a higher percentage of native vocabulary and served as the basis for the modern Dutrish language.

At the beginning of the 20thcentury, after the formation of the Dutrish Republic, Dutrish underwent a process of reformation performed by the newly established Dutrish National Language Academy (DNLA) under the patronage of the first elected Prime Minister of Dutroland. The aim of this institutions was the study of Dutrish and the most important task then was to replace loanwords of Olobish and Volsish origin with native Dutrish equivalents.

The DNLA introduced most of the words derived of Dutronic roots, process helped by its agglutinative morphology. Nonetheless, the DNLA also revived words of Old Dutrish which had not been used for centuries since the formation of the Azdamish Empire. The ban of the use of loanwords by the press and other media and in the public institutions made this process occur rather quickly.

This sudden change created a generational gap, with more young people speaking the reformed version taught in schools while the older people remained speaking Azdamish Dutrish. The role of the DNLA of the coining of new words is a never-ending work. However, some created words sound to artificial and forced, which led to the use of previous or new loanwords. Moreover, some words restored from Old Dutrish have acquired specialised meanings.

Geographic distribution
Dutrish is natively spoken by the Dutrish people in Dutroland and the Dutrish diaspora in some other countries. In particular, Dutrish-speaking minorities exist in regions that formerly belonged wholly or partially to the Azdamish Empire, such as Volsland in the United Federation of Hembivolsia, Drotsland, Gurpusland, Atherland, Lumosland and Glenland in Lumobea.

Almost a million Dutrish speakers live in Teudonland; and there are significant Dutrish-speaking communities in the United Federation of Northsnowedland, Kauland, Halzenland, Bumarland, Plozland and Ambland.

Official status
It has official status in Dutroland and has a special status in the United Federation of Lumobea as a lingua franca of the southwestern region of the country. The regulatory body is the Dutrish National Language Academy (DNLA), which serves under the authority of the Dutrish Provincial Ministry of Education and Science.

Dialects and accents
Modern Standard Dutrish is based on the dialect spoken in the capital area of Dutroland, which belongs to Peninsular Dutrish dialects, and constitutes the model of written and spoken Dutrish. With the rising of the DNLA and the support of famous writers, a levelling process has occurred as the standard version was implemented in mass media and in public institutions.

However, in spite of these efforts, dialectal variation persists. It evident in colloquial speech and, even more, in rural areas. There are 5 dialect groups of Dutrish:
 * Insular Dutrish
 * Peninsular Dutrish, from which Standard Dutrish evolved
 * Plains Dutrish
 * Mountain Dutrish
 * Forest Dutrish

Phonology
Dutrish has a quite diverse inventory of phonemes. It retained most the phonemes of the Proto-Dutronic language with some minor changes and additions. A common feature in all the Dutronic family is a system of vowel harmony that causes vowels in most words to be either front or back and either rounded or unrounded. Furthermore, they undergo consonant assimilation, with affixes having up to 8 variations.

Consonants
The evolution of Dutrish consonantal sounds followed the other members of the Dutric branch, although it has some difference due to the contact with many languages of other families throughout its history, mainly during the age of the Azdamish Empire. Middle Dutrish had the velar stop [q], the velar fricatives [χ] and [ʁ], and the pharyngeal fricatives [ħ] and [ʕ] due to the introduction of Olobish loanwords. However, with the reform during the 20th century, many of these words were replaced with native Dutrish and Dutronic words. The few loanwords that remained were Dutronised using native Dutronic sounds: 1, 2 The labiodental fricatives [f] and [v] are realised as their bilabial equivalents [ɸ] and [β] in most of the Plains and some of the Mountain dialects.
 * [q] > [k] word-initially and finally, intervocalic [q] > [g]
 * [χ] > [h] word-initially, between syllables and in codas [χ] > [x]
 * [ʁ] > [r] word-initially, between syllables and in codas [ʁ] > [ɣ]
 * [ħ] > [h] word-initially and between syllables, [ħ] > ∅ in codas
 * [ʕ] > [j] in all environments

3, 4 The phonemes [l] and [ɫ] are allophones, with /l/ pronounced as a clear or light [l] next to front vowels (including word finally) and as a velarized [ɫ] next to the back vowels. Similarly, [r] and [ɾ] are allophones, with /r/ pronounced as the trill [r] word-initially and as [ɾ] in any other environment.

5, 6 The post-alveolar fricatives [ʃ] and [ʒ] are realised as their palatal counterparts [ɕ] and [ʑ] next to front vowels in some of the Mountain and Forest dialects in contact with Zelofic languages.

5, 6 The velar fricatives [x] and [ɣ] are realised as their uvular counterparts [χ] and [ʁ] next to front vowels in some of the Plains and Insular dialects in contact with Zidunic languages.

Vowels
The vowels of the Dutrish language are, in their alphabetical order, ⟨a⟩, ⟨ä⟩, ⟨e⟩, ⟨ë⟩, ⟨i⟩, ⟨ï⟩, ⟨o⟩, ⟨ö⟩, ⟨u⟩, ⟨ü⟩. The Dutrish vowel system can be considered as being three-dimensional, where vowels are characterised by how and where they are articulated focusing on three key features: front and back, rounded and unrounded and vowel height. Vowels are classified [±back], [±round] and [±high]. Dutrish is among the few Dutronic langauges that retained the ten vowels of Proto-Dutronic as well as its system of vowel harmony, which differentiated five pairs of vowels, in contrast to Lebernish and Turdonish, which lost [æ] and [ʌ]. There aren’t long vowels nor diphthongs; therefore, two paired vowels are pronounced as different syllables.

Vowel and consonant harmony
Dutrish is an agglutinative language where a series of suffixes are added to the stem word. Consonant assimilation and vowel harmony is a phonological process which ensures a smooth flow, requiring the least amount of oral movement as possible.

On one hand, the standard version of affixes uses the voiced consonants, which become devoiced after a voiceless consonant and after vowels. If the word ends in a nasal, it also undergoes a process of assimilation, changing its place of articulation in agreement with the consonant of the affix, although it’s not perfectly showed by Dutrish orthography. Affixes beginning with vowels use epenthetic consonants when the word to which they are attached ends in a vowel.

On the other hand, grammatical affixes, both inflectional and derivational, have a chameleon-like quality regarding the vowels. It means that the place and manner of articulation of the vowels will determine which pattern of vowel harmony the affixes and the whole word will adopt. There are three patterns: The a-type pattern, also known as twofold pattern, only takes into account the place of articulation. While the e-type and i-type patterns, also known as low fourfold and high fourfold patterns, account for both place and manner of articulation. In dictionaries, the patterns use the notation a2, e4 and i4 for the three patterns of vowel harmony.
 * A-type: the suffixes use ä with front vowels and a with back vowels.
 * E-type: the suffixes use e and ë after unrounded vowels (front and back respectively); and ö and o after the corresponding rounded vowels.
 * I-type: the suffixes use i and ï after unrounded vowels (front and back respectively); and ü and u after the corresponding rounded vowels.

Phonotactics
Dutrish phonotactics is almost completely regular. The maximal syllable structure is (C1)(C2)V(C3)(C4), although there are some restrictions of which sounds occur depending on the place of the syllable: Multi-syllable words are syllabified to have C.CV or V.CV syllable splits, C.V split is disallowed, V.V split is only found in rare specific occurrences like loanwords and proper names that originated from a different language family. Two adjacent plosives and fricatives must share voicing, even when not in the same syllable. Germinates are not allowed. There are no diphthongs; therefore, two paired vowels are pronounced as different syllables.
 * C1 may be any consonant
 * C2 may be either a liquid ([ɾ] and [l ~ ɫ]) after a stop or fricative or a fricative after a stop
 * C3 may be a liquid or a nasal
 * C4 may be any consonant except for [h]

Compound words do not follow vowel harmony in their constituent words and when using affixes, they undergo vowel harmony with the closest vowel.

Rhythm and word accent
Dutrish has a syllable-timed rhythm, which suits its agglutinative morphology. However, it may sound somewhat stress-timed in some Mountain, Plains and Insular dialects and when Dutrish is spoken by people of stress-timed languages such as Amblish or Olobish. Word-accent is always on the last syllable of words. Azdamish Dutrish allowed variations in word-accent due to the incorporation of many loanwords and proper names. After the reforms, however, the DNLA stated that words must be stressed on the last syllable to be in agreement with the other Dutronic languages. Even proper names and loanwords are modified to comply with this rule. This process is known as Dutronisation.

Writing system
Dutrish writing system varied throughout its evolution. Proto-Dutronic and its closest descendants, including Old Dutrish, were written in the Old Dutronic scipt. It was first discovered in the region between the Alhan and Jamezi rivers and Qadup Gömil, a Lebernish linguist, was the first to describe it. Thus, it is called the Alhan-Jamezi script or the Gömil's script. Then, during the Azdamishsh Empire, Middle Dutrish was written in the Volsolobish script. Finally, during the reform of the 20th century, the Loksish script was introduced and has been used since then.

The Dutrish writing system is almost phonetic, which means that each letter, or grapheme, corresponds to a sound, or phoneme. It uses digraphs to show sounds not shown by single letters and is completely regular. New loanwords must be dutronised using the Dutrish sounds and script.

Grammar
Dutrish is an agglutinative language because of the use of affixes, specifically suffixes, to indicate the grammatical function of a word and to create new words. such as creating a verb from a noun, or a noun from a verbal root. Dutrish sentences follow a nominative-accusative alignment and is an exclusively head-final language, thus adjectives precede the nouns they modify and postpositions are used to show other cases and relation between words not showed morphologically.

Classification
Nouns are classified according animacy. Nouns can be animate or inanimate, although animacy doesn’t correspond to the state of living, but to the capability of movement. For example, trees are living things, but they are fixed on the ground, so they are considered inanimate. Conversely, rivers, brooks and streams are non-living things, but they represent a continuous flow of water, which is moving, thus they are considered animate nouns. The difference according to animacy isn’t shown by morphology, but rather it must be memorised. Nevertheless, there are some rules to determine if a noun is animate or inanimate:

Animate nouns Inanimate nouns
 * Words ending in the agentive suffix : d – runner, d – singer, d - forester.
 * Words to measure time: d – hour, d – minute, d – second, d – day (24 h), d – month, d – year.
 * Words for bodies of moving water or air: flonh – river, mekhir – stream/brook, rïnla – wind, rïnladï (little wind) – breeze.
 * Some natural phenomena: tlan – rain, vëndagon (big storm) – typhoon/cyclone/hurricane, d – earthquake.
 * Moving animals: vünz – lynx, lömb – wolf, sräle – owl, ojkat – horse, tëvu – eagle.
 * Celestial bodies: d – sun, d – moon, d – comet. But not d – star, which were considered to be static on the sky before it was discovered that they travel in orbits through the galaxies.
 * Abstract nouns formed from adjectives and verbs: d – goodness, d – sadness.
 * Words used for specific parts of the day (24 h): d – day (part of the day with sunlight), d – night, d – morning, d – afternoon, d – evening.
 * Words of geographical features and static water: d – mountain, d – valley, d – forest, d – jungle, d – lake, banës – sea.
 * Non-moving and slow-moving animals: d – star fish, d – coral, d – jellyfish.
 * Word of materials: d – metal, d – wood, d – paper, d – stone.
 * Name of metals: d – gold, d – silver, s – iron.

Inflection
The dictionary-form of a noun can take up to four (kinds of) #Inflectional suffixes, generally in the following order: Derivational suffixes can be attached to a word in between inflectional suffixes to change or add to the meaning of the word, and must follow vowel harmony.
 * Plural suffix
 * Suffix of possession
 * Case suffix

Number
Nouns can be countable or uncountable. Count nouns can be either singular or plural, the singular form being the unmarked form. In contrast, mass nouns need classifiers so they can be counted. The plural is marked by the suffix –(j)ar/-(j)är, with an epenthetic [j] if the word ends in a vowel.
 * Words referring to people, body parts, animals, fruits and pieces of clothes are count nouns: flonh – river > flonhar – rivers, kith – tooth > kithär > teeth, khüvi – sword > khüvijär – swords.
 * Words referring to abstractions, food, metals, materials and some physical phenomena are mass nouns: gan – water, ïdo – fire, hüfe – air.

Possession
As noted earlier, the suffixes of possession give the person (and number) of the possessor of what is named by the noun. When a word takes one of the endings of possession, the word becomes the name of something possessed, not possessing. The word for the possessor, if present, takes the genitive case ending.

Case
Dutrish has 9 cases which derive from the 15 cases of Proto-Dutronic. It is one if the few Dutronic languages that retained the vocative case. They follow vowel harmony and consonant harmony. Nominative

The nominative is the citation form of a noun in a dictionary:

Its basic use is to indicate the grammatical subject of a sentence:

Accusative

Its basic use is to indicate the direct object of a verb in a sentence:

It's used as the 'accusative of exclamation' in phrases that aren't complete sentences, as if dependent on an unstated verb:

(I wish you a) Happy new year!

Finally, some postpositions assign the accusative:

(accusative of duration)

('accusative of changing state' or 'translative case')

Dative

Its basic use is to mark the indirect object of verb in a sentence:

Some verbs govern the dative:

Some postpositions assign the dative:

(dative of purpose)

(dative of benefit or harm’, also known as the 'benefactive case')

Genitive

Its basic use is to indicate that the noun is the possessor of something:

It’s also used as the “genitive of material” to show that something is made out of a particular material:

It’s also used to show the 'partitive case' with mass nouns modified by quantifiers:

Some verbs govern the genitive case, often with an accusative before the genitive or in adjectival phrases:

Finally, some postpositions assign the genitive:

Ablative

It’s used to describe movement away from, as well as a concept, object, act or event originating from an object, person, location or entity. Proto-Dutronic differentiated the outer ablative and inner elative cases, both of which merged during the transition to Old Dutrish:

It's also used as the 'ablative of comparison', being equivalent to the construction

Locative

It’s used to indicate location, which corresponds to the prepositions ‘in’, ‘on’, ‘at’ and ‘by’. Proto-Dutronic differentiated the outer adessive and inner inessive, which merged during the transition to Old Dutrish:

Lative

It’s used to describe movement into or onto something. Proto-Dutronic differentiated the outer allative and inner illative cases, which merged during the transition to Old Dutrish:

Instrumental

Its basic use is to indicate the instrument or the means with or by which actions are accomplished, meaning ‘with’, ‘by’ and ‘by the means of’:

Some postpositions assign the instrumental:

(comitative case, meaning ‘in company with’, ‘together with’, ‘along with’)

(abessive case, meaning ‘without’)

Vocative

It's used to indicate that a noun (person, animal, object, etc.) is being addressed:

Pronouns
Dutrish,as all the Dutronic languages, differentiates 1st, 2nd and 3rd person along with two personal numbers (singular and plural). Old Dutrish was very sensitive to formality, with a strict T-V distinction in the 2nd person. It was favoured due to the highly aristocratic society of the Azdamish Empire, in which the language developed.

However, it has changed in recent times because of the development of better communications technologies, with people now favouring the philosophy of comradery and equality regardless of formal distinctions. Dutrish is one of the few Dutronic languages that makes the distinction of animacy in the 3rd person plural, the others being Leberni and some Olteic languages.

All the pronouns inflect in the same way as nouns do, although there are some irregularities in some cases. In the dative, front vowels become rounded; in the locative, back vowels become unrounded; and in the lative, front mid vowels become low vowels. This is a feature common in most of the Dutronic languages.

Adjectives
Adjectives are words that modify a noun or pronoun, giving more information about the noun or referent of pronoun. They derive from stative verbs and from nouns by the use of derivational suffixes. Unlike nouns, adjectives do not inflect for class, number, possession or case.

Classification
Adjectives can be descriptive or determinative. Determinative adjectives are subdivided into demonstrative, numerical, definite, indefinite and interrogative adjectives. Adjectives follow a specific order:
 * 1) determinative
 * 2) intensifier (adverb of degree)
 * 3) opinion
 * 4) size
 * 5) age
 * 6) shape
 * 7) colour
 * 8) proper adjective (e.g. nationality, origin, material)
 * 9) noun adjective (adjective derived form a noun)

Descriptive adjectives
Descriptive adjectives can be used in two ways, attributively and predicatively.
 * Attributive adjectives are part of the noun phrase headed by the noun they modify. The suffix -(j)i4n is attached to the stem to indicate and adjective is used attributively. Since Dutrish is a head-final language, attributive adjectives always precede the noun they modify.
 * Predicative adjectives are linked to the noun or pronoun they modify by a copula, therefore, no suffix is added. They always succeed the noun or pronoun they modify

Determinative adjectives
Demonstratives adjectives

Demonstrative adjectives are used to indicate which entities are being referred to and to distinguish those entities from others. Their meaning depends on a particular frame of reference and cannot be understood without context. Dutrish makes a three-way distinction of demonstratives: Demonstratives can be nominalised by attaching the suffixes -el for animate nouns, -il for inanimate nouns and -äl when the speaker doesn't now the animacy of the noun being omitted. Nominalised demonstratives can take any of the inflectional suffixes.
 * Proximal pesh – this/these, indicates nouns close to the speaker.
 * Medial thesh – that/those, indicates nouns close to the listener
 * Distal jesh - yon/yonder, indicates nouns far from both the speaker and the listener

Numerical adjectives

Numerical adjectives are treated specially. They can take derivational suffixes, but not inflectional suffixes on their own. The basic forms are called cardinal numbers, which comprises a dozenal system (based on 12): When writing multiples of 10, öm is attached to the multiplier cardinal and undergoes vowel harmony, creating the suffix -(j)e4m: When writing multiples of 100, khir is attached to the multiplier cardinal and undergoes vowel harmony, creating the suffix -khi4r/-ghi4r-: When writing multiples of 1000, fän is attached to the multiplier cardinal and undergoes vowel harmony, creating the suffix -fa2n/-va2n. Powers of ten are attached to the pür one: Units follow multiples of ten; powers of ten come in descending order. Numbers are grouped with hyphens in sets of three digits:
 * 0 (0) - zavur
 * 1 (1) - pül
 * 2 (2) - egü
 * 3 (3) - ith
 * 4 (4) - terd
 * 5 (5) - zhop
 * 6 (6) - ërdo
 * 7 (7) - ghotu
 * 8 (8) - zögüs
 * 9 (9) - tëgïs
 * ᘔ (10) - drashë
 * Ɛ (11) - dhäle
 * 20 (24) - egüjöm
 * 30 (36) - ithem
 * 40 (48) - terdem
 * 50 (60) - zhopom
 * 60 (72) - ërdojom
 * 70 (84) - ghotujom
 * 80 (96) - zögüsöm
 * 90 (108) - tëgïsëm
 * ᘔ0 (120) - drashëjëm
 * Ɛ0 (132) - dhälejem
 * 200 (288) - egükhür
 * 300 (432) - ithkhir
 * 400 (576) - terdghir
 * 500 (720) - zhopkhur
 * 600 (864) - ërdokhur
 * 700 (1008) - ghotukhur
 * 800 (1152) - zögüskhür
 * 900 (1296) - tëgïskhïr
 * ᘔ00 (1440) - drashëkhïr
 * Ɛ00 (1584) - dhälekhir
 * 10 (12) - pülöm - one dozen
 * 100 (144) - pülghür - one hundred
 * 1,000 (1728) - pülvän - one thousand
 * 10,000 (20,736) - pülömvän - ten thousand
 * 100,000 (248,832) - pülghürvän - one hundred thousand
 * 1,000,000 (2,985,984) - püljög - one million (jeg - million, which is suffixed as -je4g)
 * 11↊4 (1996) – pülvän pürghür-drashëjëm-terd


 * 1220 (2040) – pülvän egükhür-egüjöm

Definite and indefinite adjectives
 * 1,204 (2020, the year of the creation of the Dutrish language) - pülvän egükhür-terd - two thousand and twenty or twenty twenty
 * 247 (343, the speed of sound in air at 20ºC in m/s) - egükhür-terdem-ghotu - two hundred and forty-three
 * 84,497,00ᘔ (299,792,458, the speed of light in space in m/s) - zögüsöm-terdjeg terdghir-tëgïsëm-ghotufan drashë - two hundred ninety-nine million seven hundred ninety-two thousand four hundred fifty-eight.

Interrogative adjectives

These adjectives are used to form questions, they are equivalent to the English wh-words and German W-Fragewörter: Both gen and gin can take any inflectional suffix. Other interrogative words are created using gin:
 * gen? - who?
 * gin? - what?/which?
 * gin suruz? - what for? (lit. 'to what reason')
 * gin suron? - why (lit. 'of what reason')
 * gin tövdü? - how? (lit. 'in what manner')
 * gin batï? - where? (lit. 'in/at what place')
 * gin batës? - whence?/from where? (lit 'from what place')
 * gin batam? - whither?/towards where? (lit. 'towards what place')
 * gin zendi? - when? (lit. 'at what time')
 * gin zendes? - since when? (lit. 'from what time')
 * gin zendäm? - for when? (lit. 'towards what time')
 * gin kïsh? - how much/many? (lit. 'what quantity')

Classification
Verbs in Dutrish can be either stative or dynamic.

Stative verbs

Stative verbs express static states. Verbs like the stative copula [] be (in the sense of the Romance verbs estar, stare and a sta),

Dynamic verbs

Dynamic verbs express change, action provoked or actively upheld by the subject. These verbs include the attributive copula [] – be (in the sense of the Romance verbs ser, essere, ésser and a fi),

In addition, verbs can either be intransitive, transitive or ditransitive.

Intransitive verbs

Intransitive verbs do not allow a direct object but rather adverbs or adverbial constructions: Some intransitive verbs allow for objects, either in the accusative case or dative case:
 * It rains (heavily)
 * The sun shines
 * I slept
 * I help you (as in German ich helfe dir)

In general, intransitive verbs often involve weather terms, involuntary processes, states, bodily functions, motion, action processes, cognition, sensation, and emotion.
 * I see you (as in German ich sehe dich)

Transitive verbs

Transitive verbs require a direct object

Some transitive verbs are treated as intransitive in the indicative perfective present (which acts as a gnomic aspect). See the section about mood, tense and aspect for more information: Bite is a transitive verb but when used in the perfective present, it acts as an intransitive verb.
 * Barking dogs seldom bite

Ditransitive verbs

Ditransitive verbs require both a direct object and an indirect object, which correspond to the accusative case and dative case, respectively. These verbs include give, pass, hand, send, say, read, write

Verbal nouns
Verbal nouns are non-finite forms of verbs. As the name states, these forms act like nouns in a sentence. They are also used in dependent clauses