Ëangluk

Ëanglluk is a future version of English meant to be spoken by space colonists who have been isolated from Earth for long enough to develop their own language. The phonology has changed drastically, for example tone developed when consanants began to alter the pitch of nearby vowels. After consonant mergers tone became phonemic e.g. byets pronounced with a low tone means "bread", and with a rising tone means "breath". Other notable features are the development of ejectives, implosives and glottalised resonants, with the voicing distinction being lost everywhere except affricates. Uvular, retroflex and pharyngeal consonants have also emerged. The range of possible syllable structures has shrunk to (C) (j) V (j/w) (ñ) (C).The grammar has also changed, with noun incorporation becoming much more productive. Word order has become Topic - Verb - Subject - Object although sometimes arguments after the verb can be dropped. = Phonology =

Vowels
There are seven vowels.

Before a nasal consonant all vowels are nasalised. There are two diphthongs ae /ae/ and eo /eɔ/.

Consonants
(Phonemes in brackets are marginally phonemic)

After a front vowel the velarised lateral l /ɫ/ is pronounced as a palatal lateral. Velar ng /ŋ/ can only occur after a vowel, and ll /l/ can only occur before a vowel. Retroflex consonants other than the nasal, ejectives, aspirated consonants, r /ɾ/, y /j/, rk /q/, q /ʔ/ and w /v/ can also only occur before a vowel.,

As noted above the range of possible syllables is restricted to (C) (j) V (j/w) (C). However /j/ can only occur after velar and bilabial stops or vowels, and /w/ can only occur after a vowel. Also after an open syllable, the next syllable in the word must begin with a consonant. The combinations /aej/, /aew/ /uw/, /ɔw/, /ij/, /εj/, and /ɔj/ also never occur.

The retroflex nasal ñ // has a variety of pronunciations. It can only occur after a vowel. Before another vowel, it is usually lenited to a nasal approximant, written ñrz. Before a non-retroflex consonant, it is not pronounced, except for nasalisation of the preceding vowel. Elsewhere it is pronounced as a retroflex nasal.

Affricates are lenited to fricatives if they are not before a vowel. I have written this in the romanization in the case of ts.

Accent
Up to one syllable in a word can be accented, marked by a h before the syllable. The most common way that accent manifests itself is by consonant mutation. p /p/ and t /t/ become implosive b /ɓ/ and d /ɗ/ respectively. The cluster ky /kj/ becomes implosive j /ʄ/, and in other cases k /k/ becomes pharyngeal c /ʡ/. The velar affricate x /kx/ becomes pharyngeal ch /ʢ/ and the glottal stop q /ʔ/ becomes h /ɦ/. The affricates pf /pf/ and ts /ts/ are voiced to bv /bv/ and dz /dz/ respectively. Nasals and approximants become creaky voiced. The accent cannot fall on syllables beginning with consonants that are aspirated or ejective, nor the uvular stop rk /q/ or the retroflexes rt /ʈ/ and rts /ʈʂ/ although it can fall on the retroflex approximant rz /ɻ/. A substantial minority of speakers downstep the tones for the rest of the word after an accent, with or without the consonant changes described above. The tone in a syllable immediately before an accent must be either Low or Falling, and in accented syllable it must be Low or Rising.

Tone
There are 6 tones in Ëangluk. There are many rules about how tones in a word can combine with each other and with consonants such as aspirates, ejectives and implosives.

Low Tone: a /a˨/ pronounced at the bottom of the speaker's vocal range and either level or slightly falling

Rising Tone: á /a˨˦/ starting at the bottom of the speaker's vocal range and rising.

High Tone: a (unmarked) /a˦/ starting at the top of the speaker's vocal range and either level or rising slightly.

Falling Tone: à /a˦˨/ starting at the top of the speaker's vocal range and falling.

Dipping Tone: ä /a˦˨˦/ starting at the top of the speakers vocal range, falling and then rising again.

Glottallised Falling Tone: â /aʔa ˦˨ / pronounced like the falling tone but with creaky voice. It can only occur in unaccented words, and only a maximum of one time per word and some consider this to be an accent on a syllable with Falling Tone. However Falling Tone only occurs in syllables that cannot bear accent.

One important tone rule in words with two or more syllables is that if a the tone of a syllable begins high (High, Falling, Dipping and Glottalised Tones), then the tone on the preceding syllable in the word (if any) must have ended high (Rising, High, or Dipping Tones). Likewise if the tone of a syllable begins low (Low and Rising Tones), then the tone on the preceding syllable must have ended low (Low, Falling and Glottalise Tones).

Another important rule is that the tone in syllables beginning with aspirated consonants can only be High or Falling. No other tones are possible in these syllables. Also if a word ends with an open syllable (without a consonant at the end) then it can only have Low or Falling Tone.

= Mutation= Ëangluk has an extremely large number of bisyllablic words that are compounds of two monosyllabic words. Also a large number of words that were bisyllabic in English were broken down into two monosyllabic words, which were then recombined to make new bisyllabic words e.g. from the verbs ëxphoñl - export.GEN and imvôm - to inform came exvôm - leak information (literally exform). From ëatheak - attack.GEN came ïntheak - to besiege and ëxtheak - to sortie. In isolation, the "ex" in export and the "in / im" in inform are pronounced êx and ìhn respectively. However, as can be seen with these examples, sandhi rules change the tone of syllables when they are compounded. These rules concerning this are complex

One syllable in a word is designated as a Strong syllable, and the others as Weak. In most verbs this is the last syllable, except in verbal nouns when it is the second last syllable of the root (it cannot fall on an infix). In nouns it is the second last syllable of the root, except in the possessive form when it shifts to the last syllable of the root. The most important factor in tone sandhi in noun compounding or incorporation is whether or not the word originally began with a vowel or a consonant

Tone Sandhi in syllables beginning with consonants
If the last syllable of the compound word is Strong, then the tone does not change.

If the last syllable of the compound is Weak then the following changes occur in that syllable:

If a syllable is designated as Strong and it is not the last syllable of the word, then it may or may not change tone depending on the following syllable.

If the syllable is designated as Weak and it is not the first or the last syllable of the word, then the following changes occur:

If the syllable is designated as Weak and it is the first syllable of the word, then the following changes occur:

Note that the last two cases are identical except for syllables beginning with an aspirated consonant. Note that phy /phj/ and ph /ph/ do not go through the above sandhi process and become y /j/ and a glottal stop q /ʔ/ instead (this is because Ëangluk does not like ejective p).

Tone Sandhi in syllables beginning with vowels
When these syllables are combined into compound words, then their tone depends on both the preceding and following syllables. However in isolation, syllables beginning with a vowel can only be of two types, Glottalised Tone or Dipping Tone. Here is how they change:

As can be seen, in syllables that do not begin with a vowel, the original tone only matters at the end of words.

Going back to the examples above - to export was broken down to ëx and ''phoñl. Likewise imvòhm - to inform was broken down to ìhn / ìhm and vòhm''. Then using the rules above they were combined to make verbs like ëxvòhm. By changing the 1st syllable from Weak to Strong and the 2nd syllable from Strong to Weak, nouns can be derived from these verbs e.g. exphoñl - (to export) -&gt; ëxpoñl (an export.GEN), imvòhm (to inform) -&gt; ïmvòm (information.GEN), exvôm - (to leak information) -&gt; ëxvòm (a leak of information.GEN). This is analagous to (and indeed descended from) English words like "impact" which are nouns when the stress is on the first syllable e.g. IM-pact and verbs when the stress is on the second syllable e.g. im-PACT. This process is extremely productive in Êangluk as in the following examples:

phaeleys - security guard.GEN (from English police)

qaelëys - to employ security for a venue

phartsàw - protected / secure area.GEN (from English patrol)

qartsâw - to patrol

ëapfòy - application.GEN

ëaphfòy - to apply

hrzékòñt - record.GEN (noun)

hrzékhòñt - to record (verb)

Epenthetic Consonants
If affixing or compounding would mean result in two vowels or diphthongs being adjacent to each other without an intervening consonant, an epenthetic consonant is inserted, which depends on the preceding vowel and whether the next syllable is classified as Strong or Weak:

(Ëangluk words cannot end with ea or oa.) Here are some examples illustrating this:

ëangkà - anchor.GEN

ëangkàrz u s - anchor-ERG.SG

b e - bear.GEN

b e rz u s - bear-ERG.SG

kyì - stew.GEN

kyòal u s - stew-ERG.SG

âm u - army.GEN

âm u ny u s - army-ERG.SG

d ae - dough.GEN

d a l u s - dough-ERG.SG

kheo - cow.GEN

khelùs - cow-ERG.SG

hl o - wool.GEN

hl o l u s - wool-ERG.SG

Mutation of Final Consonants
Sometimes the final consonant in a word or morpheme can be changed if it becomes vowel medial as a result of affixation or compounding, as shown in the table below:

Here are some more examples of final consonant mutation after suffixing:

rkhug - cliff.GEN

rkhuvuny - cliff.ACC

khòav - curb.GEN

khòapúny - curb.ACC

kâñ - scar.GEN

kâñrzúny - scar.ACC

kûñ - school.GEN

kûngúny - school.ACC

khaw - coal.GEN

khaluny - coal.ACC

vêy - fee.GEN

vênyúny - fee.ACC

dél - debt.GEN

déruny - debt.ACC

by e t - bread.GEN

by e rúny - bread.ACC

The tone of a word is usually unaffected, except that if the word ends with -p and the tone on the last syllable is Falling, Glottalised or Low, it changes to High, Dipping and Rising respectively e.g.

hm oa p - mop.GEN

hmóapuny - mop-ACC

= Basic Grammar =

Nouns
Plurals are marked by a -s suffix in words ending in a vowel, ñ, y or w. e.g. b e  - bear -&gt; b e s - bears. Note that this is pronounced voiceless like in English hiss, not as a voiced /z/ like in English his. In words ending with a -k the plural form has -x in instead e.g. bók - book, bóx - books. Likewise words that end in -g or -t change this to -s e.g. lâyg - slave.GEN, lâys - slaves.GEN. In other cases plurals are unmarked e.g. by ai n - brain / brains.

Word order in phrases is head-initial. Numbers and adjectives follow the nouns they modify e.g. bók hl a n - one book, bóx thì - two books, bóx thì kyêyp - two cheap books. Note that tone sandhi does not operate across word boundaries.

There could be said to be 4 cases, genitive, ergative (subject of transitive verbs), intransitive and accusative (object of transitive verbs). The genitive case is always unmarked, and the intransitive form is always the same as either the ergative or the accusative form. Therefore Ëangluk could be said to be a split ergative language.

Ëangluk morphology is highly fusional, with a single noun affix being able to mark case, possession and topicality. There are different series of affixes for animate and inanimate nouns, being further divided by whether or not the noun root consists of a single syllable. Below is a table with the complete series of noun affixes. An initial hypen indicates a suffix e.g. -ùts, while a hyphen at the end indicates a prefix e.g. hm o y-. Note that the affixes here are shown in their base forms, and undergo tone sandhi when combined with a word.

Collective number is used for nouns such as c a gmén - government, which is one entity but consists of many individuals, politicians, bureaucrats etc. The future suffix -ò is only used for nouns which do not exist yet e.g. an unborn child. Likewise the past suffixes -òats and - are only used for nouns which do not exist anymore e.g. a deceased person. The 1st person suffix -èam can be used for objects the speaker owns or is associated with e.g. héotsèam - my house.ERG.

Possessors take the genitive case and come after the noun they possess e.g.

utslâyg                                   khukyèn

ERG.POSS3PSINAM-slave.SG kitchen.GEN

The kitchen's slave

If a noun in the genitive case is in turn possessed by another noun, then it takes the intransitive case e.g.

utslâyg                                   äkhukyèn                   khañsò

ERG.POSS3PSINAM-slave.SG INT.SG.POSS-kitchen castle.GEN

The castle's kitchen's slave

However if the possessor only has one syllable (including any affixes) then the possessed noun is not marked for possession e.g.

lâyg u s            khùng

slave-ERG.SG king.GEN

The king's slave.

But if affixes make the possessor have more than one syllable, the normal construction is used instead e.g.

qútslâyg                                    äkhùng                  phealeas

ERG.POSS3PSMASC-slave.SG INT.SG.POSS-king  palace.GEN

The king of the palace's slave

Onee other thing that is important is that uncountable nouns usually take plural affixes e.g. jútsàñ - juice.ERG, ïmvòm a ñ- information.ERG. If the singular affix is used, then this implies a very small quantity e.g. jútsùts - a drop of juice.ERG, ïmvòm u s - a small piece of information.

Adjectives
Ëangluk has no grammatical class of adjectives that are separate from nouns in the genitive case. Most of the nouns that are used where English would use an adjective are monosyllabic, and therefore do not inflect the noun they modify for posssession e.g. kyêyp - cheap (item), bókuny - book.ACC, bókuny kyêyp - cheap book.ACC. Comparatives and superlatives are formed by putting hm o ñ and hm ae ny respectively after the adjective e.g. bókuny kyêyp hm o ñ- cheaper book.ACC, bókuny kyêyp hm ae ny- cheapest book.ACC or kheluny hny a ng hm o ñ - younger cow.ACC, kheluny hny a ng hm ae ny - youngest cow.ACC. "Adjectives" can be inflected like nouns as in the sentences below:

hny e nyt a y       lokvôñ hny a ng               phaeleys 

yesterday.TPC search young               security guard.ACC

Yesterday, some young people are looking for security guards.

hny e nyt a y       lokvôñ hny a ng           hm o ñ  phaeleys 

yesterday.TPC search young           COMP security guard.ACC

Yesterday, some younger people are looking for security guards.

hny e nyt a y       lokvôn hny a ng             kyëypuny 

yesterday.TPC search young.ERG.SG cheap.ACC

Yesterday, some young people were looking for cheap things.

hny e nyt a y       lokvôn lokvôn hny a ng             hm o ñ   kyëypuny     hm ae ny 

yesterday.TPC search young.ERG.SG COMP cheap.ACC SPLTV

Yesterday, some younger people are looking for the cheapest things

Verbs
Ëangluk verbs do not inflect for tense or aspect, but take a variety of prefixes (which are shown in their base forms, but undergo the tone sandhi rules). Here are a few common ones (attached to m ea nyd eo n - to crumble):

khèan - like English "can" e.g. qkèanm ea nyd eo n - can crumble

hnóal - negation e.g. n oa lm ea nyd eo n - not crumble

d i - Yes / No interrogative e.g. t i m ea nyd eo n - Is it / them etc. crumbling?

There are also some infixes, which come immediately before the last syllable of the root (if the inserting the infix would result in a sequence of 3 consonants in a row, -òa is inserted before the infix):

-t- basic passive e.g. méanyòatd eo n - crumble.PASS The tone change can be explained by the fact that m ea nyd eo n can be broken down into two root syllables hméany and d eo n.

-m- basic antipassive. Also this assimilates to the place of articulation of any following consoant. e.g. méanyòazd eo n - crumble.ANTPASS.

-hm u - an antipassive that implies that the action was done to the 1st person (exclusive, singular or plural)

-hm e y- emphatic version of the above (singular only)

-hm e ys- emphatic version of the above (plural only)

-as- like -hm u -, but used for the inclusive 1st person (including the listener)

-ny a - an antipassive that implies that the action was done to the 1st person (singular or plural)

-ny i - emphatic version of the above (singular only)

-ny i s- emphatic version of the above (plural only)

-l- an antipassive that implies that the action was done to an inanimate object (singular or collective number only), and only performed once.

-ul- emphatic version of the above

Ëangluk also has a construction called a verbal noun, that does not take any nouns as arguments after it. It is formed from an antipassive by changing the Strong syllable to the second last syllable of the root (as opposed to the last syllable) e.g.

méanyòand eo n - to crumble.ANTPASS

hméanyòant eo n - to crumble.VBLNOUN

hm ea nym u r eo n - to crumble me.VBLNOUN

It is possible for verbal nouns to take the prefixes discussed above e.g.

n oa lhméanyòant eo n - to not crumble.VBLNOUN

qkèanhméanyòant eo n - to be able to crumble.VBLNOUN

nóalkèanhméanyòant eo n - to not be able to crumble.VBLNOUN

t i hméanyòant eo n - the question of whether it is crumbling.VBLNOUN

t i n oa lhméanyòant eo n - the question of whether it is not crumbling.VBLNOUN

tíkèanhméanyòant eo n - the question of whether or not it can crumble.VBLNOUN

t i nóallkèanhméanyòant eo n - the question of whether or not it cannot crumble.VBLNOUN

Syntax
Ëangluk has a range of possible word orders, the basic ones are Topic - Verb - (Agent)- Object in transitive sentences and Topic - Verb - Subject in intranstive sentences. If an antipassive verb is used, then the word order is Topic - Verb - Agent in transitive sentences. If the speaker cannot be bothered placing any nouns after the verb (e.g. if the subject or object is obvious from context or has been moved in front of the verb to be a topic) then verbal nouns are used. The word order here is simple: Topic - Verbal Noun.

Yesterday.TPC hand over government-ERG.SG palace.ACC

Yesterday, a / the government handed over a palace.

phaeleys                 m ea nyd eo n khokù

security guard.TPC crumble       cookie.ACC

The security guard is crumbling a cookie

hnenytay          meanydeon phaeleytsùs                khokù

yesterday.TPC crumble     security guard-ERG.SG cookie.

Yesterday, a security guard crumbled a cookie.

hnenytay          meanydeon khokù

yesterday.TPC crumble     cookie.ACC

Yesterday, a cookie crumbled.

hnenytay          méanyòandeon phaeleys

yesterday.TPC crumble            security guard.ACC

Yesterday, a security guard crumbled it / them.

khokù       hméanyòant eo n

cookie.TPC crumble.VBLNOUN

The cookie is / was crumbling.

Relative and subordinate clauses do not have a topic e.g.

hn e nyt a y          imvôm meanydeon phaeleytsùs                    khokù 

yesterday.TPC inform crumble      security guard.ERG.SG  cookie.ACC

Yesterday, (I / you / he / she / they) informed (me / you / him / her / them) that a / the security guard had crumbled / was going to crumble a / the cookie.

This is similar to German except that instead of the verb going to the end of the sentence, it goes to the front.

Ditransitive sentences are constructed using serial verbs, usually káertî - to go and kélrtî - to get e.g.

hn e nyt a y          q ea hn ea g c a gménèag                   káertî phealeatsùs       âm u 

yesterday.TPC hand over government-ERG.COLL  go      palace-ERG.SG army.ACC

Yesterday, a / the government handed over a palace to the army.

Literally:, Yesterday a / the government handed over the palace going to the army

hn e nyt a y          q ea hn ea g c a gménèag                  kélrtî âmunyeag           phealeas 

yesterday.TPC hand over government-ERG.COLL get    army-ERG.COLL  palace.ACC

Yesterday, a / the government handed over the palace to the army.

Literally: Yesterday a / the government handed over the army getting a palace.

Nouns in the ergative case (except topics) can be freely deleted, so the following sentences are all grammatical:

hn e nyt a y          q ea hn ea g káertî phealeatsùs       âm u 

yesterday.TPC hand over  go      palace-ERG.SG army.ACC

Yesterday, I / you / he / she / we / they handed over a palace to the army.

hn e nyt a y          q ea hn ea g kélrtî âmunyeag           phealeas 

yesterday.TPC hand over  get    army-ERG.COLL  palace.ACC

Yesterday, I / you / he / she / we / they handed over a palace to the army.

hn e nyt a y          q ea hn ea g c a gménèag                   káertî âm u 

yesterday.TPC hand over  government-ERG.COLL go       army.ACC

Yesterday, the government handed me / you / him / her / us / them over to the army.

hn e nyt a y          q ea hn ea g c a gménèag                  kélrtî phealeas 

yesterday.TPC hand over  government-ERG.COLL get    palace.ACC

Yesterday, the government handed over a palace (to me / you / him / her / us / them).

Yesterday.TPC hand over  go      army.ACC

Yesterday, I / you / he / she / we / they handed over me / you / him / her / it / us / them to the army

hn e nyt a y          q ea hn ea g kélrtî phealeas 

Yesterday.TPC hand over get    palace.ACC

Yesterday, I / you / he / she / we / they handed over a palace (to me / you / him / her / us / them).

The passive form inverts subject and object. Pro-dropping is not allowed when the passive form is used e.g.

hn e nyt a y          q ea hn ea g           phaeleatsùs      cagmén

Yesterday.TPC hand over.TPASS palace-ERG.SG government.ACC

Yesterday, a palace was handed over by the government.

The passive form can also be used in ditransitive sentences. Here it shifts the subject to the end of the sentences, but does not change the order of object and indirect object e.g.

hn e nyt a y          q ea nd ea g káertî phealeatsùs       âm u          c a gmén                  

yesterday.TPC hand over  go      palace-ERG.SG army.ACC  government.ACC

Yesterday, a / the palace was handed over to the army by the government.

hn e nyt a y          q ea nd ea g kélrtî âmunyeag           phealeas       c a gmén  

yesterday.TPC hand over  get    army-ERG.COLL  palace.ACC government.ACC

Yesterday, a palace was handed over to the army by the government.

= Dictionary =

Numbers
1 - hl a n

2 - thì

3 - hr e y

4 - vôñ

5 - vôyg

6 - tsüx

7 - tsêañv

8 - äyl

9 - hn o yn

10 - thèn

11 - thèn hl a n

12 - thèn thì

20 - thì thèn

21 - thì thèn hl a n

30 - hr ey thèn

100 - h a n

200 - thì h a n

1,000 - khày (from English "K" e.g. 10K)

1,000,000 - hm i w

1,000,000,000 - b i w

1,000,000,000,000 - khyìw

9,876,543,210,987 - hn o yn khyìw äyl h a n tsêañv thèn tsüx b i w vôyg h a n vôñ hr e y hm i w thì h a n thèn khày hn o yn h a n äyl thèn tsêañv

= Example text = ...