Yorshaan

General information
Yorshaan language (Yorshaan: Yorshohtten /ˌjoɻʃoxˈtˤen/) is a language spoken by Yorshaan people. Yorshaan is known to be a language isolate, though most people speaking it live in Europe near the Alps.

As for most people,Yorshaan could be a "solemn language" like Hebrew. Rhymes are crucial in Yorshaan.

As shown in the map at right, most of Yorshaan people dwell in the west-north Atra, which causes a lot of trouble (i.e. separatism). The referedum about the independence of Republic of Yorshaa was once held, but it turned out that the republic failed to establish.

Alphabet
Because the latin alphabet was introduced by German languistics, the names of these alphabets are effected and may sound like those in German.

Consonants

 * 1) Pronounced in front of "u" as in "dawuu" /dɑˈβuː/ (greed).
 * 2) The Standard Yorshaan tends to give the letter two sounds: /t̻/ (laminal) before back vowel and /t̪/ (dental) before front vowel. As for schwa, it remain normal /t/. So does the letter "d".
 * 3) It becomes /ç/ after the vowel "i", /ɧ/ when followed by "y", /ʍ/ when followed by "w".

"Tosa Clozlospyull"
As mentioned in the last section, there can be at most 5 varients of the alveolar plosive: /t̪/, /t̻/, /tʲ/, /tʷ/, and /tˤ/. Consonants like the letter t possessing five varients are called "Tosa Clozlospyull (6-varient sound) in Yorshaan, comprising t and d. Whearas Tosa Sehlospye, a 4-varient consonant, doesn't have dental nor laminal varient. It is believed that there were once dental sibilant /s̪/ and /z̪/, but somehow became non-sibilant as what we use now:/θ/ and /ð/. As for 3-varient consonants, they are lack of pharyngealized form, yet still able to be labialized or palatalized.

Further more, there is even Tosa Csyerlospye (0-varient consonant). That is, they can't be dentalized, laminalized, palatalized, labialized, nor pharyngealized. The letter h is still being argued nowadays, since its palatalization and labialization is not so "perfect" or even able to be regarded as another sound, making them not standard varients.
 * 6-varient Consonant: d, t.
 * 4-varient Consonant: s, z.
 * 3-varient Consonant: p, b, f, v, m, n, l, r.
 * The rest goes into 0-varient consonant.

Demonstrative
Personal demonstratives are now only used for honorifics. The term "raze" shows lower status, while "Stazen" stands for people of higher rank. Additionally, the first letter of "Stazen" must be upper case and be in the front of a sentence all the time. The term "maze" has become rare. All the demonstrative pronouns have the same ending as V-nouns (absolutive) and can also be seen as V-nouns.
 * Stazosy nuta sæysac......(If you, whom I cherished, are tired of war......)
 * Stazen præ joltot? (My lord, who hurt you?)

Demonstrative Determiner
The gio/geo suffix appears when the determiner follows a vowel-opening word. The linking also happens (the break between the determiner and the modified word disappears.) For example:
 * bina (country)
 * rei binae (this country)
 * utye (song)
 * steigio utyei /ˌst̪eŋ‿uˈtʲeɪ̯/ (that song)

Interrogative and Relative Pronouns
It's more like a noun that declines rather than several pronouns according to its grammatical role. All the pronouns decline as the I nouns, except that these pronouns don't have definite form. All interrogative pronouns must be at the head of a sentence. Relative pronouns, or exactly relativizer, is the adjunct form of those interrogative pronouns. Together with a hyphen, Yorshaan create relative clauses with these adjuncts. Certainly there would be such situation like the shared noun plays as different grammatical roles in both relative and main clause. As for the relativizer, it always plays the role in the relative clause. As the examples above, the pronoun "U" (he ergative) becomes introductory.
 * PrœABS mimei du? (Who do you love?)
 * ProsuERG joltot do? (Who hurt you?)
 * ProsautDAT stei mabei griynei du? (Whom do you give that letter to?)
 * ŒprœABS ithot do? (Whom did you run away from?)
 * ProsayINSTR du fronei maha? (Whom do you turn into a pig?)
 * ProsijicaGEN ohy? (Whose book is this?)
 * PROSAAVOC! (WHO!)
 * Lenosy ohy rei melai prosum-mimei cu . (Lena is the girl whom I love. )
 * Rei melui prosum-mimon  co cœlcein anyada.(The girl who loved me jumped down the bridge.)
 * U prosar-griynei rei mabei cu ohy Lenen. ( Who I gave this letter to is Lena.)
 * Lenosy ohy e  prosar-griynei rei mabei cu . (Lena is who I gave this letter to.)
 * U presum-dagohy cu jolta icivordue. ( What I've seen  hurts my mind.)

Nouns
There are three kinds of declension in Yorshaan. The Yorshaan people is used to call the kinds of declension Merlina Zadyum (as for First Declension), Merlina Vhorjull (as for Second Declension), and Merlina Lhosiys (as for Third Declension). They are litarally "Eagle noun" (I), "Horse noun" (II), and "Void noun" (III).

Z-Noun (I)
Z refers to Zadyum as mentioned above. The declension of Z-Noun is sometimes called first declension or declension I by foreign linguists.
 * 1) The prefix of ablative nouns agrees with the first vowel of the noun. Take "bina" for example, the prefix here is "i-". This rule also suits for other groups of nouns.
 * 2) This case is actually a prefix form of a noun referring to some certain relations in Yorshaan, thus it's lack of adjunct form.

V-Noun (II)
V refers to Vhorjull as mentioned above. The declension of V-Noun is sometimes called second declension or declension II by foreign linguists. There is no common rule to distinguish V-nouns from Z-nouns, so one can only memorize which kind of declension a noun should be.

L-Noun (III)
L refers to Lhosiys as mentioned above. The declension of L-Noun is sometimes called third declension or declension III by foreign linguists.

While Z-nouns and V-nouns are all countable, L-nouns are uncountable. Thus such nouns are ocassionally called abstract nouns.

Numeral
The affix representing the noun form of a numeral (-uu) implies that a numeral is actually an L-noun. Pronominal numerals can be regarded as V-Nouns.
 * Bina urit. (One country)
 * Utye uroh. (One song.)

S-Noun (IV)
This sort of noun are sometimes called "Honorified Noun" due to its usage. S-Nouns comprise proper nouns and nouns that are honorified, such as Anglen (England), Atren (Atramia), Jiwen (Jew), Christyen (Christian), and the most typical Stazen (You whom we cherished)(The reason why such kind of noun is called S-Noun).

Because S-nouns are lack of plural form, they are also called "Honorified L-Noun".

Names in Yorshaan
Personal names of people are considered S-nouns too, but their absolutive form is the same as vocative form. Besides, there is always a hyphen between the suffix and the name stem. Though the pronunciation isn't affected.
 * Ramenz!
 * Ithaa Ramenz-iht! (Dash with Ramenz!)
 * Ramenz-wach. (Things that belongs to Ramenz.)

Cases able to reflect
Yorshaan is lack of the idea of preposition (ie of, by, etc). The verb-like word is used instead. That is, there might be a word that act like a verb and an adjective (or a noun) at the same time. In other words, only verbs are allowed to be followed by another noun, and a preposition must be verb form.

Usually one case can be considered stems of verbs in Yorshaan: the instrumental case. It refers to tool and agent. The reflectable case of I noun follows the rule of I verb, while those of II and III nouns follow the rules of II verb. That of proper nouns reflect as III verbs. Take the noun "ucethuu" (loyality) or example: In such way, one can also express how the relation was/is/will be happened. The reflection of the stem from I-nouns are the same as I-verbs, while other nouns follow the rule of
 * ucethuu (absolutive)
 * ucethafh (instrumental)
 * Coi ucethafhaa! (Be loyal to me!)(Lit. Do the royality to me!)

Allative case
The term "allative case" isn't quite formal, but the case can be seen as an extra usage of dative case (in contrast to ablative case).
 * Shujhendemc pserat cradaz. (The humans were banished to the wilderness.)
 * Ushujhende pserat cradaz. (The humans were banished from the wilderness.)
 * E pserat Azarlyen shujhendemc. (He was banished from Zarlia to the wilderness.)

Reflexive case
There is no specific reflection for reflexive cases in Yorshaan, though it was done by combining the absolutive form with hyphen and its ergative ending.
 * crada (person)
 * cradu (person (agent))
 * crada-u (person himself)
 * mei cradai-ui (the person himself)
 * co-u (I myself)
 * Swanaz-uz orvegs. (Siblings killed each other.)

G-Verb (I)
G stands for Gertiys, which means "strong" in Yorshaan, and G-Verb is litarally "Strong verb". Such idea was introduced by Ernst Lornis, a German linguist who researches Yorshaan, in 1843.

Silimar to strong conjugation in Germanic languages, the apophony exists in G-verbs. There are totally three kinds of alternation, depending on the second to the last vowel. The three kinds of strong verb is sometimes called I-A verb, I-U verb, and I-Œ verb. (or A-verb, U-verb, and Œ-verb) Verbs who is formed by doubling its penult vowel and adding an infix -ss- (in order to express negation) such as bœssœzeem (be unable to do) have to change both "œ" of the stem. That is: made bœssœzeg (it is unable to be dealed with.) → made bossozeg (it was unable to be dealed with.).
 * In the case of a, the alternation is a-e-æ. (Present-Past-Future)
 * In the case of u, it's u-i-ai.
 * In the case of œ, it's œ-o-ie.

M-Verb (II)
M refers to Mimiys, which means "small" in Yorshaan, in contrast to Gertiys. No vowels should be replaced or change in M-verbs. Such verbs are sometimes be called "weak verb", corresponding to G-verb, strong verb.

D-Verb (III)
D represents Doriys, which means Stillness in Yorshaan, in contrast to strong and weak verbs. D-verbs are less variable, and can be regarded as simplified verbs. The first and second person are merged.

D-verbs can be categoried into two subtypes: III-E and III-O, depending on the last vowel of the verbs in indicative mood, though their infinite form have the same ending -us.

Irregular Verbs
 Main Article: Yorshaan Irregular Verb 

Yorshaan does have some verbs that doesn't follow the regular rule of verbs (three kinds of ocnjugation). Whether a verb is regular can only be memorized if its infinite form has the same ending as other regular verbs.

Negative form of participles
The suffix "ei" to all 3 regular groups of verbs represents negation.
 * asany (ending)
 * asanyei (never ending)

Voice for participles
Yorshaan has two voices, passive and antipassive voice, which can only be realized by participles though. Participles of some verbs are lack of either of two voices, but they all look like those in passive voice. Generally speaking, each group of verbs has its own infix for the antipassive voice participle. All antipassive participles of I verbs have the same stem as that in past tense.
 * Mei sontue egfortiavesy. (The history destined to be fortold.)
 * Rei sragai egfortesy. (The child destined to fortell.)
 * Mei sontue egfortiavesy rei sragui. (The history destined to be fortold by the child.)
 * Rei sragai egfortesy mei sontue. (The child destined to fortell the history.)

Adjectives and Adverbs
The boundary between adjectives and adverbs in Yorshaan is not so clear as English or other languages. For example, a word "ustiys" might be: The "ustiys" in the first sentence is actually adverb, and in the second one is adjective (as a subject complement). However, the difference is the location of stress. The stress falls on the first syllable of an adjective, and the last syllable of an adverb. See the stress section below for more information.
 * Itha ustiys. (He runs rapidly.)
 * Ohy ustiys. (He is rapid.)

Adjunct in different cases
Remember that adjuncts and nouns don't agree in case. An adjunct in instrumental case can modify a noun in ergative case. Since the adjunct form of a noun can be seen as "modifying form of a noun", each case of a adjunct has its very own meaning regardless the noun it modifies. But the absolutive and ergative adjunct share the same word (in other words, there's no difference.), and the vocative and genetive case doesn't exist.

Comparasion
There are four degrees of comparasion in Yorshaan: positive, comparative, relative superlative, and absolute superlative. Like Greek. The comparasion form of adjectives and adverbs share the same spelling as well. While comparing other things, these comparative (or relative superlative) adjuncts can be seen as III-verbs stems. According to the penult vowel, these verb stems can be devided into two groups.
 * III-E: a, e, i, æ (unround vowel)
 * III-O: o, u, œ (round vowel)

The syntax here is fixed, things that are compared must be put behind the adjunct. That is: The tense, mood and aspect shall be the same as the verb. The person and the number of the adjunct depends on the compared object.
 * Ihy fahijore do. (I'm more powerful than you.)
 * Ahy lontuzyiyso ce! (You are as blind as us!)
 * Sil uniy œrveem-bœzeg lyepijora e, Jomt prœ. (No one can kill other people more cruelly than him, Jomt.)
 * Jomtosy og mei cradai lyepijaran fronzyœ Yorshin. (Jomt was the most cruel man of the Yorshaan princes.)
 * Jomtosy og mei Atracradai lyepijaran. (Jomt was the most cruel man in(of) Atramia.)

Compound
To form compuond, one can easily piece together the stems of nouns. The order of the words does effect the meaning. Gerunds of verbs can also take part in, but not the stem of verbs.
 * Lhascrada (magician): lhas- (magic) + crada (man)
 * Omvyole (age of darkness): om- (darkness) + vyole (age, era)
 * Getarcrada (fortune teller)
 * Cradgetara (fate of a human)
 * Esarfilla (ending chapter): esar- (end) + filla (chapter)
 * Asfilla (wrong, though as is the verb stem of esaruu.)

Syntax
The word order of Yorshaan is somehow uncertain and unpredictable as for a declarative sentence. But the AEV form (absolute-ergative-verb) is the most common form.

Do joltot cu.    A        V         E

I hurt you.

Omiys aena id cu bavict.                       A                   E           V

I shall release your darkened soul.

Question
The interrogative pronouns must be in the front of a sentence, after the honorific pronoun "Stazen".
 * Pre bœzeg masaam du? (What can you do?)
 * Pro co du joltot? (Did you hurt me?)

Participle Clause
Participles in Yorshaan can be used as adjuncts or participles that form a clause. When forming a clause, the present participle often stands for active voice, while the past one refers to passive voice. Generally speaking, this pattern can be seen as: N PART (A...), where N refers to the modified noun, PART to participle, and (A...) to (no) argument(s).
 * Crada nacain. (A person (who was) believed in.)
 * Cradaz nacœnhain. (People who religiously believe.)
 * Cradaz nacœnhain Stazen . (People who believe in you, whom we cherish.)

Appositive
The word "pre" (absolutive what) is used to describe the appositive of a noun.(prounced as /pɹɨ/) Some possible structures might look like English.
 * Lanstin, unit crada gubiciys pre, bailyolt. (Lanstin, a rich man, giggles all the time.)

Participle Construction
Besides participles, adjectives can also be used to construct clauses. Adverbs can also be seperated from the main sentence though, their grammatic role is very different. The word pre is attached to the modified noun regardless of its case.
 * Sil roane, premc pre. Sil styone, pyoremc pre. (The place where is not here. The distination where is not thither.)
 * Birdain noneln, u pre saysohy vozuu. (He who wanders in the world is tired of everything.)

Conditional Sentence
Unlike other sentences, the word order of conditional sentences of Yorshaan must be either VEA or VAE, and the verb must be subjunctive mood. That is, the first word of a conditional sentence must be a subjunctive verb.

One important thing is that the tense of the subjunctive verb refers to the time when condition happens, unlike English.
 * Prœ ohy du, sil yolmg Lanstin du? (If you weren't Lanstin, then who are you?)(Lit. Who are you, if you are not Lanstin?)
 * Æscalc do en, nyo imt nastiys. (If you sacrifice for us, we will be very sad.)

Conjunction "a"
A common conjunction in Yorshaan is "a" /ɤ/, used to connect two things having the same level together. It resembles "and" in English. In informal usage, the object after the conjunction "a" can be shorten and with the conjunction and hyphens form a word. The same part as the previous object is removed.
 * Præ nijan a prœ nijan. (Those who are invade and those who are being invaded.)
 * Edriys a-nast (a nastiys) none. (Painful and sad world.)
 * Pre mlamiom sontuu ohy dœssœrfiom a-ie-any (a diessiefany)! (Falsifying the history is and will never be forgivable!)

Stress
Stress is common in absolutive and vocative noun, but not in other cases. In words with more than three syllables, the stress often falls on the antepenult (the third syllable from the last). Once the noun is absolutive or vocative, the stress always falls on its last syllable (And the one that falls on antepenult becomes secondary stress).

Stress in verb is less common, but they always appear in the first syllable of optative perfect and subjuncitve perfect forms.

Stress of positive (non-comparative) adjectives always locate on the first syllable. On contrary, the stress of adverbs falls on the lasy syllable.

Unstress
These phenomena happen in a unstressed syllable that can be stressed in other cases (with the same spelling). While some always happen. That is, such phenomena would happen on the last syllable of "atomiys" (elegent) but never the second syllable of losyeniys (arrogant). Its pronunciation is either /ˈlosʲenis/ (as an adjective) or /losʲeˈnijs/ (as an adverb).
 * The /j/ consonant after a vowel or palatalization of a consonant would be removed.
 * "o" after another vowel changes from /o/ to /ɤ/.
 * A vowel followed by /l/, /ʎ/,  /m/, or /n/ reduces to schwa /ə/.
 * Any vowel in the syllable in font of a secondary stress becomes schwa /ə/. Though such phenomenon often happen in words comprising more than 3 syllables.
 * "a" reduces from /ɑ/ to /ʌ/ when not stressed (or at a secondary stress).
 * Pharyngealization is removed when it's not in the stressed syllable.

Labialization and Palatalization
Both labialization and palatalization is common in Yorshaan together with two letters "w" and "y" after another consonant. Yes, silimar to Russian, labialization and palatalization do make difference between words. Consider the two pairs of words: But labialization and palatalization can sometimes be removed due to stress. See the stress section below.
 * swede /sʷeˈde/ (ocean) vs sede /seˈde/ (earthworm)
 * unyuu /uˈnʲuː/ (east) vs unuu /uˈnuː/ (time)

Alternation of Labialization
Be aware that Yorshaan doesn't allow the labialization (and /w/) appear in front of the vowel /u/. As their alternation, and /β/ make appearance. That is:
 * swuteem /sβuteːm/ (to detect)
 * swine /sʷɪˈne/ (I was detected.)

W-Hyasa
In other words, "W-replacement". Such phenomenon only appears in the fourth declension of noun (sometimes called honorified noun), when the noun is refecting. Once a word stem ends with "y", the "y" must removed in order to attach the affix "wech" and "wach", which mean dative and genetive.
 * Rushyen (Russia)
 * Rushwach (Things belonging to Russia)
 * Rushwar (of Russia)
 * Anglen (England)
 * Anglwar (of England)

Pharyngealization
Pharyngealization is, however, less common than either labialization or palatalization in Yorshaan. The process is denoted by doubling the letter (Some letters are doubled without pharyngealization). Only t, d, s, and z can be pharyngealized (tt, dd, ss, and zz), which makes the process less common.
 * bœssœzeem /beˈsˤøze:m/ (to beunable to do)
 * ssabzaam /sˤʌbza:m/ (to stare)
 * ohtta /oxˈtˤɑ/ (language)
 * cazzuu /kʌˈzˤu:/ (power)

Intonation
The main function of intonation of Yorshaan is used to distinguish the interrogative pronouns from relative ones since they spell the same in Yorshaan. (also in English, huh)

But unlike the fixed word order of English, Yorshaan can only tell the pronouns apart with intonation. That is, it migt be difficult for one to tell without any audio or pronunciation.

Intonation in question
Let's consider a question:

Pyorimc du pseron? Where are you going?

[↘pʲoɹimk doɡ | ↗pseɹon ‖]

Yet an indication:

Pyorimc du pseron ohy zontiys. Where you are going is mysterious.

[pʲoɹimk | du ↗pseɹon | oɧ ↘ˈzontis ‖]

As we can see, both relative clause and question look the same in Yorshaan, though in English they have a different word order. In Yorshaan queston, a global fall comes first, and a global rise before the second to the last syllable of the sentence which is stressed.

As for the relative clause, a global rise appears after the relative pronoun. There is also a global fall around the end of the sentence.

Vocabulary
The lexicon of Yorshaan can  be seen here: Yorshaan Lexicon.

Also there's another dictionary on conworkshop.

Relation with Atramia people
Atramia people live near where Yorshaan people do, hence its normal to see some Yorshaan words appear in Atramia language and vice versa.

On account to some historical reasons, Atramia people have seen Yorshaan as a "low level language" (Lingueğ Disim) and been sick of it for a long period of time. On the other hand, the Yorshaan people consider those Atramia people "arrogant travelers from the east" (Losyeniys Ænarmyancradaz).

Most of Yorshaan people believe in their ancient religion, whereas a number of Atramia people believe in Christianity. That's often a tricky problem between Atramia and Yorshaan society.

Example text
Loniys ihy com co, sivh sil blugea co!

I might be useless, but don't leave me alone!

Calvnonmyanull hosyæzh Yorshohtten fetors croudiys.

The maidens from the new world speak Yorshaan fluently.

Mei sontue egfortant ninta lontuzyiys.

The history foretelled by the blind prophet.

Cu pre dagohy cu sil shulhalg.

I shall never forget what I've seen.

Wonzhiys, Stazosy sil tœfea nyo!

Please, whom I cherished so much, do not be sick of us!

Nyo cirti!

We shall rise!

Prœ dun mihna eilaam cu, blagug cu prœ eilos juraiys cu?

Whom should I trust then, if whom I trusted the most betrayed me?

Pro cu tœfeg pre vebizhohttuz ohytya?

Do I hate what conlangs have become?

Pro mime dun du, styormg unatye gaziys cu?

What if I became a ugly monster, will you still love me?

«Sil cu syertat pren nyojeg Yorshohttin mei ohttai ‹Hymmnos›.» Fetos u, «Lomy cu made nyojeg ‹Vharrohtta›, mei ohttai vharras.»

''"I didn't even know how to name the language 'Hymmnos' in Yorshaan way." He says, "So I called it 'Vharrohtta', the language of hymm."''

Prœ cu mimiys bœzeg tœfeem?

Who should such a weak person like me hate?

Mei croniclai sonteun, ustiysa gredyitaruu nanar.

The Chronicle of history, as rapid as the blink of an eye.

Thanag cu sraga Twar, vozafh frœnog vyole mœntyiys hosiys!

I shall birth the child of heaven, and return all to the golden age again.

Eilz cu aya fahijarin ayaz!

I shall become the most powerful god amogst gods!

Aah, pre mlamiom sontuu ohy dœssœrfiom a-ie-any!

Ah, falsifying the history is and will never be forgivable!

Dœrfea co. Cu missihnan made. Co lyogzo. Sil co sidi.

''Forgive me. I should haven't do that. I'm scared. I don't want to die.''