Alegna

General information
Aleña (/al.'e.ɲa/) is a Romance inspired language spoken in modern day Portuagal, Spain, and Southern France. It is regulated by the Academy of Aleñal Culture and Language. (AACL).

Consonants
/k, g/ turn into [s, ʒ] before /i, e, j/

Diphthongs
[aɪ, aʊ, je, wo]

Orthography

 * Only used before [ ɛ, e, ẽ, i, ĩ, and j ]
 * To break up a dipthing, place an accent on the first vowel

Stress
Stress in Alenã falls on the penultimate syllable, except in infinitves, where it maintained Latin's stress on the V̄́re. Stress is important, as it led to many sound changes.

Sandhi
While usually not written, in fast speech, if a word ends with a vowel and another word begins with the vowel, the second vowel is often not pronounced or replaced by /ʔ/ (there are some cases where the vowel isn't written or replaced by '). There is also a very involved process of contractions in Aleña.

Nuomai (Nouns)
While heavily simplified, Aleña kept Latin's case system. Nouns in Aleña decline for 3 cases: Nominative, Oblique, and Vocative (glossed NOM, OBL, and VOC respectively). Unlike Latin, the Vocative case developed a distinct ending from the Dative case (the Oblique case draws from the Accusative case in Latin).

The Nominative case is always used to mark the subject of the sentence and is also the "infinitive" state of the noun, i.e.the state of the noun when it does not need to be declined. The Oblique case marks the direct or indirect object of the sentence and also serves as the object of a prepositional phrase. The Vocative case is used to address something and to highlight a topic deemed important.

Aleña nouns also indicate gender. Most feminine nouns stayed feminine and most masculine nouns stayed masculine. While most netuer nouns became feminine, some netuer nouns became feminine (e.g. nõmêz [nõm ɛz]  - noun, feminine < nōmen - name, neuter).

Finally, Aleña nouns also indicate 2 numbers: singular and plural.

The citation form of all nouns is the singular, nominative form of each noun. Usually gender is obvious from the citation form, but should be memorized for the irregulars (piedêz [pjed ɛz]  - poet, masculine < poēta - poet, masculine).

The genetive is constructed with di + the possessing noun (lit. of the noun). Note that di is always followed by a definite article.

Verbs can be turned into nouns by dropping the infinitve at adding du (usually, there are exceptions).

Dechinêdai (Declensions)
Aleña combined all of Latins' declensions into just 2 declensions: one for feminine nouns (mostly 1st and 5th declension), and one for masculine nouns (2nd, 3rd, and 4th declensions). They are listed below. 1st Declensions nouns are feminine and end in -êz or -du; 2nd declension nouns are masucline and end in ''-oz. ''

Dechinêdai I (Declension I)
The declensions are listed in the chart below Ex. nuomêz (noun or name; from nōmen)

Dechinêdal II (Declension II)
The declensions are listed in the chart below Ex. nuómêroz (number, from numerus)

Irregular Nouns
Certain nouns are irregular. Nouns ending in -yêz or -yoz are irregular in the vocative plural, y --> gu.

Ex. aimiyoz - friend Other nouns have irregular gender. Most nouns ending in Vdêz or Vlêz where V is a vowel are masculine (example. piêdez, poet, and aicuolêz < agricola, farmer).



Pronouns
Aleña's pronouns maintained more of Latin's cases than other nouns and decline for the nominative, accusative, dative/reflexive, and a possesive (~genitive) case. They are listed in below. While Aleña did not maintain a T-V distinction, it does has separate pronouns for discussing very specific things (i.e. substituing the name of a romantic interest with a pronoun). In the 3rd person it is masculine/feminine. Because of sound changes, some of the inflections have been flattened some since Latin.