Sicaron

Sicaron is intended to be a simplified form of Russian, and it serves as the national language of the fictitious Social Republic of Sicaro, in Slayermoon's novel in progress Freedom America, which takes place in a future North America, long after the United States of America has ceased to exist. Sicaro is a nation located in the northwestern former United States, with Krasnograd (formerly Olympia, Washington) as its national capital, and is named for its three major mountain ranges: the Sierra Nevadas, the Cascade Ranges and the Rocky Mountains. Sicarons are a peace-loving and self-reliant lot who work hard to maintain not only a sustainable lifestyle for themselves but also to keep other nations from getting in the way of those aims.

Orthography
Although derived from Russian, Sicaron is written in the Latin script. The Sicaron alphabet lacks the letters V and X, using these only as Roman numerals, and also uses no letters not also used in English. There are 24 letters, named and pronounced as follows:
 * A a — aza [a] as in taco
 * B b – buka [b] as in birch
 * C c – craco [ɡ] like g in green
 * D d – dobir [d] as in dark
 * E e – ege [ɛ] as in smell
 * F f – fertu [f] as in finch
 * G g – giwo [ʒ] like si in lesion
 * H h – harwi [ʃ] like sh in short
 * I i – ygi [i] as in liter, replaced by y at the beginning of a word so that its uppercase form won’t be mistaken for lowercase l
 * J j – jeri [j] like y in yellow, never appears adjacent in a word to i or word-initial y
 * K k – kako [k] as in kitsch, aspirated [kʰ] before j, l, r, w or a vowel except after h or s
 * L l – luda [l] as in lemon, more like the British dialect sound
 * M m – misla [m] as in mine
 * N n – nagi [n] as in north
 * O o – ono [ɔ] like aw in British raw but short
 * P p – poki [p] as in pinch, aspirated [pʰ] before j, l, r or a vowel except after h or s
 * Q q – qoru [x] like ch in Scottish loch
 * R r – rytsu [r] as in Spanish roja
 * S s – slowa [s] as in south
 * T t – turto [t] as in torch, aspirated [tʰ] before r, w or a vowel except after h or s
 * U u – uku [u] as in truth
 * V v – romsko pethek used only as a Roman numeral 5
 * W w – wige [v] like v in vine
 * X x – romsko disathek used only as a Roman numeral 10
 * Y y – yry [i] like i at the beginning of a word, [ɯ] like u in Japanese tsunami elsewhere
 * Z z – zemy [z] as in zone

Phonology
Slavic languages tend to have notoriously liberal phonotactic rules when it comes to consonant clusters. For a Slavic language, however, Sicaron is relatively conservative in this aspect. Every vowel in Sicaron (a e i o u y) forms the core of its own syllable, and stress is always on the first syllable of a word. The following consonant clusters are permitted at the beginning of a syllable before the vowel:

- b bj bl br c cj cl cr cw d dr dw f fj fl fr g gl gm gn gr gw h hl hm hn hr ht hw j k kj kl kr kw l m mj n p pj pl pr q ql qr qw r s sk skj skl skr skw sl sm smj sn sp spj spl spr sr st str sw t th ts w wj wl wr z zl zm zn zr zw

The following consonant clusters are premitted at the end of a syllable after the vowel:

f fs fsk fst ft h ht j jf jfs jft jh jht jk jks jkt jm jn jns jnt jp jps jpt jq jqs jqt js jsk jst jt jth jtht jts jtst k ks kst kt l lf lfs lft lh lht lm ln lp lps lpt lq lqs lqt ls lsk lst lt lth ltht lts ltst m mf mp ms msk mst mt n nh nht ns nsk nst nt p ps psk pst q qs qst qt r rf rfs rft rh rht rk rks rkt rm rn rns rnt rp rps rpt rq rqs rqt rs rsk rst rt rth rtht rts rtst s sk sp st t th tht ts tsk tst

When a consonant may exist at the end of one syllable and at the beginning of the following syllable, it’s considered part of both syllables but written only once. Thus, the syllables of Smiqowe are considered to be smiq, qo and we, but only one q is written.

Syntax
Word order in Sicaron is subject-verb-object, as in English, and this order is invariable, even in questions.

Nouns
Sicaron nouns are declined by number and case, and they have natural gender like English, but while English has four genders — epicene (with they as its 3rd-singular pronoun), feminine (pronoun: she), masculine (pronoun: he) and neuter (pronoun: it) — Sicaron has only two of these: the epicene and the neuter. The epicene gender takes over for the feminine and masculine genders of English. Sicaron also allows a noun to end with any letter regardless of gender, but the final letter determines how the plural is formed: Sicaron has four cases — nominative, accusative dative and genitive — but the nominative and accusative cases both have no case inflections. The dative case marks an indirect object, the logical subject of the passive voice or the object of certain prepositions. It is formed in the singular by adding -m to a noun ending in -a, -e, -o or -y and -em to any other noun, and in the plural by adding -em to the plural inflection. Ex: wo komnata in a room > wo komnatam into a room, wo zemlik on Saturday > wo zemlikem through (ending on) Saturday, u coraj in the mountains > u corajem to the mountains.
 * A noun ending in -a or -o forms its plural by adding -j. Ex: komnata room > komnataj rooms, okno window > oknoj windows.
 * A noun ending in -i forms its plural by adding -ej. Ex: parti party > partiej parties.
 * A noun ending in -e changes this final -e to -i. Ex: crade city > cradi cities.
 * Every other noun simply adds -i. Ex: ruts hand > rutsi hands, menju menu > menjui menus.

Adjectives
Adjectives are, for all practical purposes, treated as nouns in Sicaron. (Japanese treats them as verbs.)

Numbers
Cardinal numbers are treated as a special class of adjectives, ones which are either always singular or always plural. Ordinal numbers are essentially treated as normal adjectives.

Verbs
Verbs aren’t conjugated according to tense, instead using special modal verbs to these ends.