Andusoan

Setting
Morlagoan is one of the official languages of the United Islands of Morlago (Las Islas Unitàs de Mòrlago). It is a Romance language that shares some characteristics with Spanish, Portuguese, French and Italian, but in some aspects it retains more features of Latin.

Vowels
Like Spanish, Morlagoan has reduced to only five vowels: a, e, i, o, u.

The five vowels are divided into strong vowels (a, e, o) and weak vowels (i, u). Diphthongs are formed when a strong vowel is followed by a weak vowel (e.g. ai, eu, oi) or the reverse (e.g. ia, ue), or when two weak vowels are toghether (i.e. iu, ui). When they are desired to be pronounced separately, an grave accent is added to the first vowel (e.g. agua - water ['agwa] and fueron - they were ['fweron], but geografìa - geography [d͡ʒeogɾa'fi.a] and policìa - police [poli'ʃi.a)

Gender
All nouns are assigned into one of the two genders in Morlagoan: masculine or feminine. While in some situations it is predictable, such as a bull being masculine and a cow being feminine, the gender of inanimate objects is arbitrary and the gender of each noun must be learnt. A rule of thumb is that nouns ending in -o are usually masculine and those ending in -a are feminine, like in Spanish and Italian.

Number
Nouns are made plural by the following rules:


 * If the noun ends in a vowel (e.g. deo god, mura wall), -s is added to the end (e.g. deo > deos, mura > muras).


 * If the noun ends in a consonant other than -l or -c (e.g. mar sea, condisiòn condition), -es is added to the end (e.g. mar > mares, condisiòn > condisiones †).


 * If the noun ends in -c (e.g. pòrec pig), the -c is removed and -ques is added (e.g. pòrec > pòreques).


 * If the noun ends in -l (e.g. nivel level, degree), the -l is removed, -is is added and the vowel before it is accented (e.g. nivel > nivèis). Double i's merge (e.g. sil small wood, bush > *sìis > sìs).

† Note the loss of the diacritic. This will be explained in the Stress section.

Definiteness and Case
Morlagoan has lost the case system which exists in Latin, and nouns do not decline according to definiteness. Instead, articles are added to show definitiveness, and this will be explained below in the Articles section.

Adjectives
Adjectives decline according to the number and gender of the noun that it compliments. The declensions of adjectives (using bonno good as an example) are shown in the tables below.


 * masculine singular - homo bono good man
 * masculine plural - homos bonos good men
 * feminine singular - parte bona good part
 * feminine plural - partes bonas good parts

Some adjectives have the same form for masculine and feminine. These are normally those that do not end in -o for masculine singular (e.g. triste sad, posibel possible). For these, they will only have two forms: masculine and feminine singular, and masculine and feminine plural (e.g. sg: triste pl. tristes, sg. posibel pl. posibèis). Plural adjectives are formed according to the plurality rules of nouns.

Articles
Articles determines the definiteness of a noun. Like English, there is a definite and indefinite article, each having four forms to represent masculine and feminine, and singular and plural. The definite article is lo, while the indefinite article is un. The following table shows how it morphs according to the gender and number of the noun.


 * definite masculine singular - lo mar the sea
 * definite masculine plural - los mares the seas
 * definite feminine singular - la fior the flower
 * definite feminine plural - las fiores the flowers


 * indefinite masculine singular - un libro a book
 * indefinite masculine plural - unos libros some/several books
 * indefinite feminine singular - una mura a wall
 * indefinite feminine plural - unas muras some/several walls

Contractions
Some forms of the articles contract when they precede certain nouns:


 * Only the singular forms contract.
 * lo contracts to l' when it precedes a noun starting with o- or ho- (e.g. *lo ojo the eye > l'ojo, *lo hotel the hotel > l'hotel)
 * la contracts to l' when it precedes a noun starting with a- or ha- (e.g. *la arena the sand, arena > l'arena, *la habità habitat > l'habità)
 * un does not contract
 * una contracts to un' when it precedes a noun starting with a- or ha- (e.g. *una arena an arena > un'arena, *una habità a habitat > un'habità)