Gozorian

Gozorian (known by native speakers as Gozor (/'gozoʁ/)) is an isolating language spoken on the planet Chomakra (Gozorian pronounciation /'t͡ʃomakʁa/, from Gozorian chom = sphere + akra = enormous) by the Gozor Hapu Cha (/'gozoʁ 'hapu t͡ʃa/), a group of sentient robots, and by the Gozor Hapu Faalu (/'gozoʁ 'hapu faː'lu/), their army of humanoid aliens.

Classification and Dialects

Gozorian is a member of the Trilinguian family (from Latin tri- = three + lingua = tongue), comprising only two other languages: Heroic and Villainous, both spoken on Chomakra's only inhabited moon, Hastra Agælighboch (from Heroic and Villainous hastra a- =  circumnavigating + gæligh = planet + -boch (diminutive suffix)). Though both languages are mutually intelligible, neither can be understood by Gozorian speakers, and vice versa.

Gozorian has three dialects. As none have native names, they are commonly referred to as the Northern, Southern and Polar dialects due to their locations on the planet Chomakra's surface.

The Northern dialect typically realises Gozorian's only rhotic consonant as /ð/, where other dialects realise it as /ʁ/. It may also realise this sound as /r̪/, depending on the speaker. The Northern dialect is also known for its pronunciation of /a/ as /ɒ/ and the diphthongalisation of /i/, which becomes /ɨu/. Apart from these features, the only difference between the Northern dialect and other dialects is its use of an extra particle to determine a noun's number in addition to the standard one to seven: slom, meaning zero.

The Southern dialect is marked only by its use of /e/ instead of /y/ and /ɞ/, and by its lack of initial forms of words (see Grammar).

The Polar dialect, spoken at both of Chomakra's poles, is the dialect spoken in the capital cities of most of the planet's nations (which are situated close to the poles). It is therefore considered the standard dialect of the language, despite being spoken over a smaller area. For this reason, it is henceforth simply referred to as Gozorian.

Phonology

Gozorian uses 19 consonants and six vowels, shown in the tables below.

Gozorian Consonants Gozorian Vowels Phonotactics

Gozorian always places stress on the first syllable of a word, unless this syllable contains a long vowel, in which case stress is placed on the second syllable. The word faalu, for example, is pronounced as /faː'lu/, not /'faːlu/, since a long vowel forms the nucleus of the first syllable.

Syllables conform to a (C)CN(C) structure, with all vowels capable of being lengthened and all consonants permitted in all positions, provided consonant clusters begin with a sound of greater stricture than the one they end with, and don't contain the phoneme /h/. The cluster /fl/ is therefore allowed while the clusters /zʁ/, /bh/ and /vc͡ç/ are not. As a rule consonant clusters are rare in Gozorian, and most syllables conform to a simple CN structure.

Pauses between phonemes in a word are themselves considered phonemic, and are allowed in all positions except initial and final.

/a/ and /e/ are both typically realised as /æ/ when final. This sound has not been shown in IPA transcriptions of Gozorian words in this article as it is regarded as an allophone, and not a separate phoneme.

Writing System

Gozorian is written using an alphabetic script known as Toroochecha (/'toʁoːt͡ʃyt͡ʃa/), whose characters unfortunately can't be shown in this article due to lack of unicode support.

The Gozorian Latin Alphabet, devised by linguists to transcribe the language, luckily can be shown in this article. The table below shows the individual connections between its characters and the phonemes of the Gozorian language. Long vowels are indicated by double letters, eg: the digraph ii represents the phoneme /iː/. Pauses in speech, which are phonemic, are written using glottal stops, eg: The verb bake'chor (to ignite) is essentially pronounced as two separate words, bake (/'baky/) and chor (/t͡ʃoʁ/), with a clear pause between them.

Grammar

Gozorian uses the subject verb object (SVO) word order, and places adjectives and adverbs on either side of the nouns or verbs they describe.

Each noun and adjective in Gozorian has two forms, a regular form and a sentence initial form. Though the two forms are always phonetically similar, the relationship between them forms is different for each word, and can't be explained using a formula, e.g.:

Dygul (red (regular))→Dyje (red (initial))

Echkra (dog (regular))→Feskra (dog (initial))

This makes learning the language significantly hard. Verbs ending in s are transitive, while verbs ending in k are intransitive. Repeating a verb reverses its natural state, eg:

Chantuk (to kill (intransitive))→Chantuk chantuk (to kill (transitive))

Gozorian has no conjunctives or integration, and is therefore a G1 language. A complex sentence like 'The rabbit ran down the hole to escape the dog.' must be expressed as several smaller sentences, eg: 'The dog chased the rabbit. The rabbit fled down the hole.'

Gozorian contains no preposition, with verb-preposition clusters used in English like 'sit on', 'take in', etc... replaced by single verbs.

Nouns are given number by the particles chil, tul, kut, gor, pa, ho and bekta (the numbers one to seven respectively) placed before them.

Sample Lexicon

Note: initial forms of words do not have their own entries, but are included in the entries of their regular counterparts.

bake'chor     v. to ignite

''bekta            particle. ''designates there are seven of a noun

cha               n. robot (initial form ca)

chantuk         v. to kill

''chil                particle. ''designates there is only one of a noun

dygul             adj. red (initial form dyje)

echkra           n. dog (initial form feskra)

faalu              n. humanoid (initial form jalry)

''gor                 particle. ''designates there are four of a noun

gozeoc           n. speech; language (initial form gozor)

hapu              v. to be spoken by (initial form japhy)

''ho                   particle. ''designates there are six of a noun

''kut                  particle. ''designates there are three of a noun

''pa                   particle. ''designates there are five of a noun

''tul                   particle. ''designates there are two of a noun