Gubzgazl

Gubzgazl (previously known as Qolpqolpzkasl or Qolpzkasl) is a language that originally was a subset of Ancient Pencil Language that broke off into a new language when the speakers of The Pencil Language fled to The White Realm to avoid being destroyed by an extremely powerful, artificially-engineered god known as The Seer.

Gubzgazl has many strange traits such as having a consonant inventory composed of no voiceless sounds. Another important thing of note is that an extremely large amount of vocabulary is borrowed directly from The Pencil Language and adjusted to fit Gubzgazl's phonetic inventory and phonotactics.

Classification and Dialects
Gubzgazl does not have distinct dialects. The language is relatively synthetic and has roughly the same level of synthesis as The Pencil Language, albeit with differences.

Phonology
Gubzgazl has a relatively small consonant inventory, with only 10 distinct sounds.

Consonants
Gubzgazl uses the 3-vowel system (/i/, /a/, and /u/).

Phonotactics
Gubzgazl, overall, is relatively much less restrictive over dipthongs than The Pencil Language and allows "aa"*, "ii"*, "uu"*, "ai", and "ui".

* these dipthongs are technically just longer variants of the regular 3 vowels.

Stress is on the antepenultimate syllable if the word starts with a consonant, and is on the first syllable if the word starts with a vowel.

Writing System/Orthography
The longer variants of the Gubzgazl vowels (aa, ii, uu) are used to determine stress (geminated vowels mark the location of stress), and because there cannot be two different points of stress in a word in Gubzgazl, there can only be one long form of a vowel in a word.

Nouns
Nouns only decline to case. There are no articles nor grammatical number (although it technically can be conveyed via other adjectives).

Pronouns are completely absent, although technically they exist in the form of prefixes. This will be demonstrated via the verb "lav" (speak). This is handled the same way if there are adjectives (as in "it is good"). This will be demonstrated via the adjective "i'azh" (bad/evil). If there is an object in the phrase, the pronoun prefix turns into a suffix and is added to the end of the inflected verb. For example, "zhganv" = "I see them" (1-see-3).

The noun cases are:

-(zh)ub = locative case

-(gl)ib = genitive case

-ul = instrumental case (can also be applied to verbs if the verb has been turned into a gerund)

Possessors come after the thing their possessing, unless the possessor is a pronoun, in which the pronoun plus the genitive case will be prefixed to the thing that is being possessed. This same rule also applies to the locative case.

Verbs
Verbs conjugate according to aspect, mood, tense, and voice.

The verb inflectors are:

a(b)- = negator

i'u(b)- = relativizer/gerund former (can be used with other inflectors to produce conjugated forms of "be", such as "was" and "will be". They are listed below:


 * "abugi'u-" = currently is
 * "bugvigi'u-" = was/were
 * "abugi'u__uv'" = will be
 * "lali'u-" = should be
 * "i'u__uzh" = might be

bugvig(n)- = perfective aspect

abug(n)- = imperfective aspect

la(l)- = imperative mood

-uzh = subjunctive mood

-azh = dative case

-u' = passive voice

-uv' = roughly translates to "to" (can be used on words like "bzhiv" (die) to switch the verb from reflexive to non-reflexive, as in bzhivuv' (kill), which literally means "to do death to"). -uv' also can be used to convey interrogative mood by being used as a particle placed at the end of a phrase.

-abuv' = reflexive

To specify that the action is able to be performed by the doer (as in "I can see"), the particle "nan" is added after the verb.

The future tense is created by combining the imperfective aspect with -uv'. For example, "li'" means "like", and "abugli'uv'" = "will like".

Special constructions of verbs, such as "[verb 1] to [verb(s) 2]", do not exist in Gubzgazl, instead, the 2nd verbs all get turned into a gerund and the reflexive gets added to the 2nd verb. For example, "vli'" = "they like", "vli' i'uganabuv'" = "they like to see"

Adjectives
Adjectives take little marking and are frequently joined to the head if the phonotactics allow it.

Gubzgazl has no individual word for "and", so instead of saying something like "this and that" it is simply "this that". If an adjective is described with other adjectives, the relativizer is added onto all the other adjectives. However, there is a word for "or" (ziib).

Comparative Affixes
Just like in The Pencil Language, there are 2 comparative affixes.

They are:

iil(g)- = comparative marker

ii'ul(g)- = superlative marker

Syntax
The sentence structure is SVO. Adjectives come after the head unless they are inflected via the relativizer, in which the head comes after the adjective (all other adjectives with no relativizer still come after the head).

Example text
Gubzgazl:

Zgaazl giiv bugviigi'uibg iilgiv giiv ii'uvinub ii'ugiv ii'ugig ii'uibazgazilabul Zgaazl zhubiilgizhub.

English:

The Awefians were a powerful race of beings, forming the largest and most prosperous civilization in the cosmos, Awef.

Gloss:

Awefian PERF-REL-powerful species creature REL-compose civilization SUP-big SUP-prosperous Awef cosmos-LOC

IPA transcription:

/zgaːzl giːβ bugβiːgiʔuibg iːlgiβ giːβ iːʔuβinub iːʔugiβ iːʔugig iːʔuibazgazilabul zgaːzl ʒubiːlgiʒub/