Boselenan

=Orthography=

Alphabet
The Boselenan alphabet consists of 39 letters. This includes all the basic latin letters except q, w, x and y, as well as 6 letters with diacritics, 9 digraphs and 2 trigraphs.

A B C CH D DY E É F G GŬ H HŬ Ĥ I Ĭ J K KŬ L M N NY O Ó Ŏ P R S SH SHŬ T TY U Ŭ V Z ZH ZHŬ

All the digraphs, trigraphs and letters with diacritics are treated as letters in their own right, and are placed seperately in alphabetical order. The letters ĭ, ŏ and ŭ are never seen at the beginning of words, and ĭ & ŏ are only ever seen after vowels, as they only represent the second element in dipthongs.

Often, the letters q, w, x, y which are not used in native words, are used in foreign placenames. For example, Qazaĥstan ("Kazakhstan") where "Q" represents /k/.

Ĭ ĭ Ŏ ŏ Ŭ ŭ Ĥ ĥ

=Basic Grammar=

Personal & Demonstrative Pronouns
The demonstrative pronouns (i.e. this and that when used as a pronoun in their own right) are treated just like personal pronouns in Boselenan.

Examples
 * leneĭ la chiedye - "I like this"
 * shaŏ aŭ shtienie - "That is fine"

Interrogative & Relative Pronouns
The interrogative pronouns of Boselenan are those which begin a question.

Relative pronouns are formed by adding the word hugt before the interrogative.

Nouns
Boselenan is an agglutinating language, in which nouns are declined for number and case.

Articles
There are two sets of articles used with Boselenan nouns. Which one is used depends on the definateness of the noun, as well as the number.

Examples:
 * ak okŭont - "the man"
 * ''akér okŭontér - "the men"
 * on okŭont - "a man"
 * onér okŭontér - "some/any men"

Number
There are three grammatical numbers: the singular, plural and absent. In order to show the plural, the suffix -ér is added to the end of the noun. In order to show the "absent", the suffix -megt is added.

So take the following noun taŏk "book" becomes taŏkér "books" or taŏkmegt "no books". For example Oshŭet la taŏkmegt "I have no books/I don't have any books".

Case
Boselenan employs the use of 11 noun cases. In most nouns, the nominative and accusative case are not differentiated. The nominative-accusative distinction is maintained only in personal and reflective pronouns.

Word Order
Boselenan employs the Verb-Subject-Object word order. For example "I know what you want" is written "Kurvan la hugt ha dezeĭ dyé ie" (literally meaning "know-I-what-want-you-(/)".

Transitivity
Most verbs in Boselenan can take on a transitive and an intransive form, without any morphological change. Transitive verbs take on the usual VSO form, for example Tyeshŭet la ak talló menyshiet "I read the book all the time". However, intransitive verbs (ones which only take a subject, with no object) require the insertion of the auxilliary object ie. For example Tyeshŭet la ie menyshiet "I read all the time" requires the insertion of ie to indicate the nonexistant object.

Tense & Aspect

 * Datiegvezadaĭchaŏk la sheŭ umnaség - ''"I will have been done talking to him by tomorrow"

Adjectives & Adverbs
Adjectives and adverbs are positioned after the nouns and verbs they describe. For example akér cechér teĥen "the white cats" is literally "the (plural) cats white".

Adverbs take the same form as their corresponding adjectives, with the addition of the adverbial suffix -(k)aĭ. For example slitiesh tyaĥadaĭ ak cechie tyaĥad ie. "the unpleasant cat smiled unpleasantly" (literally "smiled unpleasantly the cat unpleasant").

There are five degrees of intensity of adjectives, corresponding roughly to the english use of more & less etc.

The suffixes used to indicate intensity are the same for every adjective.

Comparisons
To make a comparison - such as in the sentence "She is not as nice as the man", you follow the following:


 * Take the regular "she is nice" clause hŭetyiek aŭ sheŭ ("she is nice")
 * Change the adjective to the correct degree of comparison (in this case "less nice") hŭetyiekpvie aŭ sheŭ ("she is less/not as nice").
 * Add the preposition ment, followed by the object being compared to (in this case "the man") - hŭetyiekpvie aŭ sheŭ ment ak agró, resulting in "she is not as nice as him".

Numbers

 * Oshŭet sheŭ cechér ruĭtebólérédy - "She has eighteen cats" ("has she cats eighteen")

=Dictionary= Boselenan Dictionary