Ibjekofhun

General Information
Ibjekofhun, also called Imperial (natively Riksu Ìbǵäkohfjeve "Speech Imperial" or Redau iktät "Citizens' voices") was the official and national language of the White Coast Empire, a thalassocracy dominating the subcontinent of Edalith on the planet Patrona. It was the language of commerce, diplomacy, religion, and science for centuries, and borrowings from it link many Edalith languages.

Classification
Ibjekofhun is an Edalith language (see Proto-Edalith) of the White Coast subbranch. During the time of the empire there were several White Coast languages, but standardization and then the fall of the empire reduced this to two: the Ibjekofhun described here and modern White Coast language, which is technically a descendant of a closely related ancient White Coast language, though its direct Ibjekofhun influence is obvious. Other Edalith languages include Alemarese, Barejine, Egnizhuzh, Garla, and Zegrezhu.

Consonants

 * The glides /j ɥ w/ alternate with short vowels /i y u/.
 * /l/ was barely a separate phoneme in Old Ibjekofhun, as it mainly arises from a process of liquid dissimilation, described below, though it emerged as its own phoneme due to loanwords in later speech.

The Sibilant Shift
In the older texts, as the writing system was being refined, we find evidence of a shift in the sibilants, as shown in the table below.

Vowels

 * Every vowel contrasts two lengths: short and long, and two phonations: modal and breathy. Phonation is only distinguished in stressed syllables.
 * In late Ibjekofhun, the /æ/ vowels merged into their corresponding /e/ vowels.

Stress
Stress is always on the final vowel of roots.

Syllable structure
The core of a syllable is always a vowel, though consonant clusters are common. Some phonotactic rules are as follows:

Voicing assimilation
Clusters are only formed with consonants of the same voicing in native and nativized words, with the exception of /ɸ ɕ x/ plus /ɾ~l/, where the obstruents originate from voiceless sonorants in Proto-White Coast.

Adjacent to breathy vowels and as a part of cluster assimilation, voiced consonants can devoice. Sonorants protect adjacent obstruents from devoicing. While the stops and fricatives devoice in a straightforward manner, the sonorants do not.

Epenthesis
An epenthetic echo vowel appears to break word-peripheral clusters of sonorants and to separate a word-internal non-vowel-adjacent sonorant.

Liquid dissimilation
/ɾ/ dissimilates to /l/ if another /ɾ/ is present in the following coda or syllable. This is especially noticeable in the nominative singular of animate nouns, which have the ending -ar.


 * 3s animate pronoun *kor-ar > kolar

What happens if three /ɾ/ occur? The first becomes /n/, the second /l/.


 * grirg-ar > gnilgar "surprise, rapt attention, restlessness"

Palatalization rules
Some morphological environments cause palatalization of a preceding segment. Some consonants change their place of articulation to palatal: /n t d k g ɸ β θ ð x w/, Some send their palatalization to the preceding vowel: /m p b ɸ ɾ/. /ts dz/ deaffricate. Other consonants and some /ɸ/ don't change. Back vowels front, /e/ raises, /i/ lengthens (if the palatalization directly follows), and the fronted vowels /y ø æ/ gain a following /iː/.

Basics
The Late imperial writing system was an alphabet based on the acrophonic principle: a letter representing a sound is derived from a picture of a word beginning with the sound, except for , which comes from words beginning in breathy vowels. Many letters have multiple forms, though by the late Imperial period the glyphs were standardized. Many religious groups kept alternate sets, however. The voicing contrast was originally unwritten, later an overline developed to distinguish voiced consonants. Breathy vowels were written with a following , and long breathy vowels repeat the vowel after it. Length on non-breathy vowels was never indicated in writing except in poetry and music.

This evolved from the early imperial writing system, which had graphemes that represented morphemes. The rebus principle extended this into a system where each grapheme could represent a sequence of up to five phonemes, with many choices in how to write individual words. This old script preserves some ancient phonemes: the old sibilant set, a singular liquid consonant, and a diphthongal /e/. The late religious script gained even more complexity in form and function while the late popular script became the alphabet known today.

Romanization

 * 1) signals a preceding vowel is breathy

Overview
Nouns decline according to gender, number, and case, via fusional suffixes.

Gender
There are three genders in Ibjekofhun, which adjectives and some verb forms must agree with:


 * Animate (Kimodevät): people, animals, and body parts
 * Lustrous (Gàtseźìt): metals and plants
 * Dull (Uögevüt): objects, locations, and abstractions

These categorizations are generalizations however, as there are many exceptions. For example, mizih “snake” is a lustrous noun, though obviously an animal, which are normally animate.

First declensions

 * 1) Takes the second form after voiced sonorants. Devoices preceding voiced obstruents.
 * 2) Voices preceding consonants.
 * 3) Devoices preceding consonants.
 * 4) Takes the second form after stem-final vowels

Second (breathy) declensions
These endings are used when the stem ends in a breathy vowel (or a breathy vowel followed by /ɸ/ for some dull nouns).


 * 1) Palatalizes preceding segment.

First declension

 * 1) Palatalizes preceding consonants in the early period. In later times this palatalization extended to all plural forms, and was lost from the animate genitive singular.
 * 2) Devoices preceding consonants.
 * 3) Vowel-final stems drop initial short vowels from the endings, any /s/ becomes /ts/, and palatalize in the usual places. Here the locative endings cause the vowel to become breathy.

Second (breathy) declension
These endings are used when the stem ends in a breathy vowel (or a breathy vowel followed by /ɸ/ for some dull nouns).


 * 1) Palatalizes preceding consonants in the early period. In later times this palatalization extended to all plural forms, and was lost from the animate genitive singular.

Third (nominal) declension
Third declension adjectives decline with the same endings as the nominal first declension. In the lustrous gender the stem palatalizes.

Comparative forms
Adjectives also have a comparative and excessive form, formed with suffixes on the root which then take first declension adjective endings.


 * 1) Palatalizes preceding segments

Demonstratives
Ibjekofhun has three levels of deixis: proximal are, medial soae, and distal drèe.

Quantifiers
Quantifiers include the universal quantifier ìbǵe.

Overview
Finite verbs conjugate for tense, mood, and evidentiality, as well as person, number, and sometimes gender of the subject. In addition, there are several nonfinite forms: active and passive nominal and adjectival participles, as well as three adverbial participles and a conauxiliary form, which functions as the dictionary form. There are five regular conjugation classes: A, E, O, U, and H.

Present

 * 1) Palatalizes preceding segment.
 * 2) Devoices preceding segment.

Past

 * 1) ⟨V⟩ represents a short, modal-voiced copy of the preceding vowel.

Evidential infixes
Definite verbs in the 2nd and 3rd person are marked for evidentiality. The unmarked form denotes events which are directly observed. The other evidentials, the reportative and inferential, are marked by altering the stem before the verbal endings.

Some common verbs have suppletive non-palatalizing stems in the marked evidential forms.
 * 1) Takes the second form after voiced sonorants. Devoices preceding voiced obstruents.
 * 2) Takes the second form after all voiced consonants.
 * 3) Palatalizes preceding segment.

Remote tenses

 * Present: 1s.pres + rg (k in the H-conjugation) + A-conjugation present endings. ex. emörgas "it may be"
 * Past: 2s.pst + A-conjugation present endings. ex. emotskas "it may have been"

Imperative

 * 1) Voices preceding consonants.

Conauxiliary
The conauxiliary is used with auxiliary verbs. In form it is identical to the 3s.pst.lstr, that is, it ends in the conjugation's vowel.

Prepositions
Prepositions have comparative and excessive forms, similar to adjectives though more irregular. The meaning of a preposition is also dependent on the case of its object. All simple prepositions are as follows:

Prepositions can be negated with the prefix tsa-. The comparative and excessive can be negated as well. The following have irregular negative forms:
 * 1) irregular stress on first syllable
 * 2) have reduced forms: k, p, pþ, tsft. comparative and excessive forms do not reduce.


 * ats > tsàts
 * eðe > tsaðe
 * ia > tsäia
 * ik > tsäk
 * ip > tsäp
 * utsu > tsaudzu

Nominative
subjects, causers of causative verbs, citation form

Vocative
exhortations or attention-getting

Accusative
definite primary objects, objects of dative prepositions

Genitive
indefinite primary objects, possessors, objects of locative prepositions

Ablative
origins, secondary objects, non-argument topics, objects of ablative prepositions

Instrumental
instruments, subjects of causative verbs

Locative
locations in space and time

Sentences
The basic, unmarked word order in Ibjekofhun is VSO. This is not typical, however.

Topic marking
Usually the person-marked verb is placed in second position, with the topic immediately preceding, though it is usually dropped. The sentence ends with the focus.

Noun phrases
Genitive-Noun-Adjectives-Determiner-Relative clauses-Prepositional phrases

Pronoun dropping
Subject and topical pronouns tend to be dropped.

Passivization
Passivization is accomplished with an auxiliary verb tehja, which ordinarily means "suffer, endure, bear". The passive isn't used with non-finite, imperative, or intransitive verbs.


 * Soaüz buräm äpt tsamàj. "We make those up north." > Soaüz tehjts bura tsamàj. "Those are made up north."

Negation
Verbal negation also uses an auxiliary verb, ìtsa.


 * Soaüz buräm äpt tsamàj. "We make those up north." > Soaüz ìtsäm bura äpt tsamàj. "We don't make those up north."

Instead of stacking the negative with other auxiliary verbs, the auxiliary verb takes the negative prefix tsa-.


 * Soaüz tehjts bura tsamàj. "Those are made up north." > Soaüz tsatehjts bura tsamàj. "Those aren't made up north."

Numbers
Ibjekofhun has a base-8 number system, like most Edalith languages. Numbers are nouns, with the referent put into the singular genitive case. Numbers stay singular unless referring to multiple groups of the same number.

Directions
There are two terms for each intercardinal direction.