Rhodian

Rhodian is Romance language spoken on and around the island of Rhodes in the southeastern Aegean Sea. It is heavily influenced by the Rhodian Doric variety of Greek spoken on the island before, as well as French and Italian from the Knights Hospitaller who ruled the island until a communist revolution in 1924. Thenceforth, it incorporated many Russian loanwords.

In the modern day, Rhodian is spoken by around 150,000 people worldwide; around 103,000 of those in Rhodes and the surrounding islands, 9,000 in the coastal regions of southwest Turkey, 6,000 in Greece - mainly in some villages on Crete, on the Greek side of Karpathos (Cárpatu), and on Kasos (Casu) - and the rest in diaspora around the world, mainly in Germany, Romania, the UK and the USA. There used to be a large Rhodian minority in Russia, but since the 1990s it has largely disappeared.



Classification and Dialects
Rhodian within the Republic of Rhodes has largely lost its dialectal variation since the communist era, during which time the use of Standard Rhodian was enforced to create a sense of national cohesion. However, in other places - particularly in Turkey - the dialects are very rich and varied.

Rhodian is an isolate within the Romance family, but the Romance language with which Rhodian bears the most similarity is said to be either Sardinian or Vlach/Romanian. This is largely a lexical and aesthetic similarity, as the grammar of Rhodian is highly divergent. It derives 55% of its vocabulary directly from Latin and around 32% from Greek, mainly the Rhodian Doric variety. The remainder of the vocabulary is made up of French (5%), Russian (4%), Italian (2.4%), with others such as English and Turkish accounting for the rest. It retained cases from Latin, of which there are between 5 and 7 depending on whom you ask and how you count, and has a much more robust morphological tense system than other Romance languages - including the simple aorist, a convention borrowed from Greek.

Phonology and Writing System
Rhodian is written with the Latin alphabet, although it has been written in the Greek and Cyrillic scripts in the past. Letters can stand for many different sounds due to rampant lenition that took place in the language.

On top of the 24 base letters, there are three diacritics used in Rhodian.

The acute accent is used on all vowel letters (á é í ó ú ý) and marks irregular stress. Many words are distinguished by stress, such as ancon (javelin, spear) and ancón (elbow, corner, meander). Stress is usually on the penult in Rhodian, although lenition and reduction can often blur the lines between syllables in speech, but in writing it's pretty transparent.

The grave accent is used on some vowel letters (à è ì ù ỳ) is used in two ways. First, it's used to distinguish between certain words that are spelt the same, a convention adopted from French. Contrast words like trans (across) with tràns (interesting). The second and much more common purpose is to de-emphasise some vowels. For example, the word piscìs (fish) is pronounced [pɪʃ], but would be pronounced [ˈpɪ.ʃɪs] without the diacritic.

The final diacritic and arguably the most characteristic in Rhodian is the circumflex, used again on all vowel letters (â ê î ô û ŷ). It has two functions also, the first being to separate vowels in different syllables that may otherwise be construed as diphthongs, such as the word eâr (spring - [ˈɛ.aɾ]). This function hearkens back to the origin of this diacritic, the ancient Greek trema, which was written more like a diaeresis but on Rhodes was simplified to require only one stroke to write - a convention which some printhouses still neglect. The second more important use of the circumflex in Rhodian is to transform 'soft vowels' into 'hard vowels'. Some Rhodian consonants lenite in the presence of the vowels ,  and , dubbed 'soft vowels', with the other vowels being by extension named 'hard vowels'. Occasionally, a consonant is not lenited before a soft vowel - usually due to etymological shenanigans - and this is marked by putting a circumflex over the vowel. Compare the words ce (to, up to, against - [ʃɛ]) and cê (also, and - [kɛ]). It is worth noting, however, that the circumflex does not affect the lenition of some consonants, notably  and .

There are also many sequences of letters that have perhaps unexpected pronunciations: Rhodian also has a system of velarisation, where liquids that are next to historic [g] sounds are velarised. For example, the word gregalis (common, usual) is pronounced [ɾɣɛ.ˈjajs]. This applies to , but also ,  and . It is worth noting that among younger speakers this velarisation is disappearing and the consonants are pronounced plain.
 * 1)  is pronounced as [b] in word-initial consonant clusters only, elsewhere it is [w] ~ [β].
 * 2)  is pronounced [k] before hard vowels, [ʃ] before soft vowels, [x] after most vowels but [ç] after vowels [i] and [ɪ] and glide [j].
 * 3)  is pronounced [ð] intervocalically and syllable-finally (occasionally devoiced to [θ] word-finally) and [d̪] elsewhere.
 * 4)  is pronounced [j] in the sequences  and , with the exception of the first-person singular nominative pronoun, in which it is pronounced [ʒ].
 * 5)  is pronounced [ɣ] around hard vowels except , around which it is pronounced [w]. It is pronounced [j] around soft vowels.
 * 6) <l> is pronounced [l] around hard vowels, [j] around soft vowels, [w] before fricatives and [ɮ] before stops (both assuming it is not already lenited by a soft vowel).
 * 7) <o> is pronounced [ɔ] in stressed syllables and [o] in unstressed syllables.
 * 8) is only found in the digraph <qu>, where it is usually pronounced [kʷ] before hard vowels (except ) and [k] elsewhere. However, it is pronounced [k] in all environments by many speakers, particularly in informal speech.
 * 9) <r> is pronounced as a tap [ɾ], but when doubled as <rr> it is usually pronounced [r] or [r̥]. It is also often devoiced, particularly around unvoiced consonants.
 * 10) <x> is pronounced as [ks] intervocalically, and as [s] elsewhere. There is a growing tendency to pronounce intervocalic <x> as a geminated [s], probably from Italian influence.
 * <di> + any vowel = [ʒ], <dì> anywhere.
 * <de> + <a, o, u> = [ʒ], <dè> anywhere.
 * <si>/<ti> + any vowel = [ʃ].
 * <se>/<te> + <a, o, u> = [ʃ].
 * <li> <ly> <le> <gi> <gy> <ge> are often reduced to simply [j] in unstressed syllables.
 * <cî>/<tî> + any vowel = often [ɕ].
 * Final <t> and <d> sometimes are softened to [θ] after vowels - particularly in informal or dialectal speech (in the areas closer to Greece).
 * <mb> and <nd> are pronounced as long nasals rather than clusters or prenasalised stops. Sometimes there is a more forceful, stop-like release, but this is minimal.
 * Coda <n> before voiceless consonants is often deleted.
 * <tc> + high vowel = [t͡ʃ], <tç> anywhere

Declensions, Gender and Cases
Nouns in Rhodian are divided into two genders, Masculine and Feminine. Within these genders, there are six declension patterns that determine how nouns change when they decline into each of Rhodian's five cases, which it retained from Latin - thanks in part to the Greek influence upon the language. A noun's declension is independent of its gender, and while there are some declensions that have a particular gender associated with them (1st declension feminine nouns, 2nd and 3rd declension masculine nouns) there are many exceptions to that rule. Furthermore, there are a small subset of noun endings that do not correspond to these declensions, as they are common derivational suffixes that diverged slightly, the most common example being -siu (from Latin -tiō, related to English/French -tion, Spanish -ción, etc).

(AN: I would highly recommend expanding the page view so as not to be bamboozled by the formatting of this table) NB: ~ refers to a very variable ending. | * the -e ending can also be -y if the nominative form of the noun ends in -iu

Rhodian has a case called the Locative-Vocative, which was formed from the merger of the Latin ablative and vocative cases. It is used as a vocative and also to mark the objects of many prepositions of location. It is also sometimes called the Prepositional-Vocative, and while being technically more accurate it has less of a ring to it so that name is less frequently used.

There are also many verbs in Rhodian that assign cases other than the Nominative and Accusative to their subjects and objects respectively, a phenomenon known cross-linguistically as quirky subject.

Finally, an interesting aspect of both nouns and verbs (as discussed later) in Rhodian is stem alteration, where the nominative singular form of the verb does not correspond to its stem. Examples include words like aner (man - whence pronoun ner, more below) becoming andra (acc); the stem of this noun is not aner- but andr-. Stem alteration is a phenomenon most common in the fifth declension but pervasive throughout all categories of nouns, much to the chagrin of bright-eyed learners.

Pronouns
The Rhodian third-person pronouns are dissimilar to almost all of the modern Romance language pronouns, with the exception of Romanian. This is due to the fact they come from a different set of Latin demonstratives, notably 'ea/is/id' rather than 'illa/illus/illud'. The Genitive and possessive pronouns are also identical, but are understood to be different due to their placement either before or after the relevant noun.

The Vocative is also labelled Emphatic, as some argue this label is closer to their actual function; similar to the emphatic pronouns in Germanic languages such as Dutch. However, this form remains that which the pronoun takes in agreement with certain prepositions that assign a more Vocative meaning, as well as being etymologically descended from the Latin (and in the case of ner, Greek) Vocative cases, so the name Vocative still tends to be used.
 * 1) Pronounced [ʒɔ]
 * 2) Pronounced [ja] (see above)
 * 3) Originally ýu, often still so in older or more formal texts (pronunciation remains [ju] rather than expected [ˈi.u])
 * 4) In recent years, dra has slowly begun being replaced by ner
 * 5) The spelling and pronunciation of this pronoun, and its declined derivatives (as genitive pronouns agree in case and number with the possessed argument) is strange. It is pronounced in its base form [jɛw] and all other forms follow this same pattern, such as eia (feminine nom sg possessee) pronounced as [ja] and eiie (masculine gen sg possessee) as [ˈjɛ.jɛ].

Furthermore, the third-person singular epicene pronoun is contentious among some speakers. It was coined in response to the growing frustration of a strange pair: the small Rhodian non-binary gender community and the even smaller Rhodian community of document writers. The former group wished to have an official pronoun by which to refer to themselves and the latter group wanted to cut down on the ink costs from having to print ' ey/e, eoru/earu'  and such like on all their forms, not to mention the differences in formatting between choosing to type ' e(y)'  or  'ey/e' and the potential biases toward either sex that this presented. Many older and/or less informed speakers combat the joint decision by the Buró Regularu Lengue Rodou (the Bureau of Language Standardisation of Rhodes) and the Lexicon Rodie (Rhodian Dictionary) to include it in their official documentation as of the 2021 reforms.

Articles and Demonstratives
Rhodian has a definite article but no indefinite article. Occasionally though, the numeral one (ys/mía) is used to specify exactly one of something, but this doesn't carry the same exact meaning as a generic indefinite article. The definite article is very different from that found in modern Romance languages, due to it coming from Greek. It also declines for only four cases; the nominative also expressing the vocative and the dative also expressing the locative. There is no comitative article, as there is with pronouns. Note: mass nouns are ascribed plural articles, not singular ones. For example, 'the grass' = te herba, not ha herba (the latter would imply a specific type of grass)

There are also demonstrative pronouns, derived from Latin. These take slightly different cases than other nouns.

These follow a relatively predictable pattern of declension, contrasting with the personal pronouns.

Numerals
The last set of relevant determiners are the numerals, which up to and including the number three have irregular declension patterns. All cardinal numbers are derived from Greek, as that was the most common trading language in the Aegean Sea, but the ordinal numbers are all from Latin. Because of this, the Greek-derived numbers decline for the same four cases as the definite article, and the Latin-derived numbers for the five of most other nouns. The irregularly declined numbers are as follows.

Verbs
Rhodian verbs are divided into four conjugations, based on the ending of the infinitive verb.