Lycentian

Lycentian, natively Lykenti, is the official and national language of the Lycentian Federation. It is spoken by about 27 billion as a first language and by a few trillion as a second language. It was created to serve as a lingua franca due to the diversity of the LF and the fact that the languages of each planet have evolved to be unintelligible. It is standardised by the Ministry of Culture of the Lycentian Federation.

Classification and Dialects
Countless dialects of Lycentian exist across the galaxy, but they are still classed as dialects of the same language. The old languages that humans used before galactical colonisation had evolved so much that accents evolved to dialects, and eventually into their own languages.

Consonants
The Lycentian language has a total of 25 consonant sounds. The labial and alveolar sounds may be palatalised, represented by adding a 'j' after it in a word. When n and l are labialised, they may be assimilated to ɲ or ʎ. All Lycentian consonants may be geminated, represented by a double letter in a word. If a digraph is geminated, only the first component is doubled. The following table shows the Lycentian consonants:

Vowels
Lycentian has 6 vowel sounds which may all be elongated by doubling the letter in a word.

Diphthongs
An opening diphthong may be formed by adding an i after the vowels a, e or o. However, the i would be pronounced as a [j] sound. A closing diphthong may be formed by adding a u after the vowels a, e or o. The u would be pronounced as a [w] sound.

Phonotactics
The nucleus of a syllable is compulsory and can only be a vowel sound. The onset may be constructed with two sounds, and only the second component may be palatalised. The coda may only be formed from one sound. Below is a table of possible consonant clusters:

Nouns
Nouns have 3 grammatical genders, masculine, feminine and neuter. They can appear in singular and plural forms. Each noun has a gender-specific singular nominative ending, to which there are no exceptions. Some nouns, mainly professions and job titles, are classed as 'multi-gender', meaning the gender they have may change depending on the person or thing the noun is referring to. They decline in the same way a typical noun of the selected gender would decline.

Noun cases
Nouns can decline according to 7 cases:


 * Nominative
 * Genitive
 * Dative
 * Accusative
 * Instrumental
 * Ablative
 * Locative

Articles
The Lycentian language has two articles: the definite ku and the indefinite su. They appear in front of the noun and agree with the gender, number and case. They decline in the same way as a multi-gender noun.

Pronouns
All Lycentian pronouns act and decline like neuter nouns.

Possessive pronouns
The Lycentian language has no exact equivalents of possessive pronouns, instead the personal pronouns in the genitive case are used after the noun it describes.

Interrogative pronouns
As with personal pronouns, there is no interrogative possessive pronoun. This role is filled by the appropriate interrogative pronoun in the genitive case.

Adjectives
Adjectives in the Lycentian language appear after the noun they describe. They agree with the case, gender and number of the noun. Adverbs can be formed from an adjective by changing the ending from -u to -o. Adverbs do not decline further. Adverbs appear before the verb they describe.

Verbs
Verbs share a common ending -o, and every verb conjugates in the same way. The Lycentian language does not drop pronouns, they are kept in the sentence as in English. Verbs can be negated by adding the word vai before it.

Conjugations
Verbs conjugate according to the person and number of the subject, as well as 3 tenses: past, present and future.

The following table lists the verb conjugations, with linjako (to fly) used as an example.

Syntax
The case system gives Lycentian sentences an aspect of flexibility, but a generally accepted word order is as follows:

Nominative, adjective; adverb, verb; dative, adjective; accusative, adjective; instrumental, adjective; ablative, adjective; locative, adjective

Lexicon
"Main article: Lycentian/Dictionary"