Obiquaʒic

Obiquaʒic (native name Obiquaʒ Ønduko) is the language of the Aðɛⅎbuk, the human inhabitants of the Bœgoronak Apeirohyle, one of the three great Apeirohyles (from ancient Greek apeiron = infinite + hýlē = forest) of the known universe. Note apeirohyle is not an Obiquaʒic word. As only one Apeirohyle is known to the Aðɛⅎbuk, there is no native word for one in their language.

History

Obiquaʒic is a distant ancestor of English, most of its vocabulary, grammar and phonology descended from that of English. The relationship between the phonemes of the two languages is loose, many Obiquaʒic sounds able to be substituted for a single English phoneme when translating between them. The English word castle, for example, can be transliterated as either kaþ⋳ℓ, ⅊ehaʒ, or any other word that's pronounced vaguely the same as in English.

Phonology

Obiquaʒic uses twenty consonants, five glides and ten monophthongs, shown in the tables below.

Obiquaʒic Consonants Obiquaʒic Monophthongs Obiquaʒic Monophthongs Writing System

Long vowels and geminate /d/ are indicated by double letters in the Obiquaʒic script and by macrons in the Latin script.

Capitals are never used by native speakers when writing in the Obiquaʒic script. When linguists choose to capitalise Obiquaʒic letters, they either use the capital forms of their Latin equivalents, or simply enlarge the letters. The letter ℓ, capitalised as ℄, is an exception to this rule.

Phonotactics

Final stops are unreleased. Cluster /bɭ̆/ is simplified to /ʙ/, which is itself a separate phoneme in Obiquaʒic.

Phonemes/cç/ and /x/ become /s/ at the end of a rime before a voiced consonant. This allophone never occurs word finally (ie: when the following consonant is part of a separate word).

All monophthongs, as well as the first components of glides, can be either short or long.

Stress is always placed on the first syllable of a word.

Monophthongs in syllables containing dorsal consonants (excepting the allophone /s/) are lengthened (so short vowels become long and long vowels become extra long). If these syllables also contain the phoneme d, this phoneme is geminated, with the syllable's nucleus given a rising tone. This process occurs regardless of if the nucleus is a glide or monophthong.

If a syllable is both stressed and given a rising tone (eg: word initial /xad/), these two features cancel each other out, and the syllable is instead pronounced with an ingressive airstream.

Grammar

Obiquaʒic uses the SVO word order, with adjectives and adverbs placed before the words they describe. Adjectives and adverbs technically belong to the same grammatical catagory, as both can be used interchangably.

Transitive verbs can be made intransitive by placing a reflexive pronoun after them. Reflexive pronouns are formed by the suffix -þeℓʏ added to regular pronouns.

Clauses can be used as either the subject, object, verb of a sentence, or as adjectives or adverbs. they are always preceded by the particle ψøʏ and followed by the particle ðen.

Tense is placed on verbs using the suffixes -ᴇd (past tense), ᴇℓ (present tense) and uℓ (future tense). Not placing tense on a verb renders it as atheoretical action, something that may or could potentially happen.

Example Text

yaℓ maℓᴇd ⅊it ʒœk.

Translation:

A young man sat on a rock (a famous Obiquaʒic proverb).