Adwan

(NOT DONE)

Adwanic (Ad: Aðẃana) is my very first con-lang, and its main purpose was to understand the various grammars of the world which involved the usage of declensions. As a native Spanish speaker, and a fluent English speaker, I never much learned the use of grammatical cases and the like, so when I found out I was going to the Czech Republic (I'm not anymore, for personal reasons), I went straight to trying to learn Czech. Little did I know, I didn't know what Declensions were, and alas, in order to understand them, Adwanic came!

Note: Now that I've continued Adwanic, I will, later, add a culture and history to the language. Y'know; give it some life.

=Setting= In Europe, old and new, was a tribe of people -- people not indigenous to any country; a nomadic sort of people. These people, famous among eachother for their incredible peace and wisdom, never went to war. When their land would be taken over, strategies would be formulated which would get all the members of the tribe to another place, safe, away from harm... That is, until the last of the tribe assimilated and broke the traditional Adwanic tradition.

The Adwanic tribe was, and is known as one of the most mysterious tribes of Europe. With only seventy four srolls, anthropologists and historical linguists have had much trouble understanding the overtly complicated grammar that is Adwanic. So without further adieu, I present to you Adwanic, with a disclaimer; the grammar might be hard, and it might not be. What am I trying to say? Blame it on the Adwanic Tribe ;)

=Phonology= Adwanic is a purely phonetic language. It is unsure how Adwanic runes were transliterated, but it is said that somewhere in the mountains lived a near-extinct population which used the same runes; transliterated from those runes is what Adwan is today. Modern Adwanic speakers (mainly descendants of the Adwanics that are reconnecting with their culture) use a modified version of the Latin Alphabet. Ironically, while Adwanic hasn't been seen to be related to any main language, it does borrow a good deal of words from Latin, Germanic, and Slavic origins, therefore, Adwanic has been said to have a very mixed sound, sounding like a mixture of Icelandic, Czech, Spanish, and Norwegian.

=Adwan Alphabet (Foskorav Aðẃanøz)= As stated before, the Adwanic alphabet uses an extended version of the Latin alphabet to represent seperate phonemes, or seperate sounds. Adwan is completely phonetic -- there are no such things are Diphthongs or Triphthongs in Adwan, and all pronunciation rules rely on the speaker and the way it's written. (A professional table on the consonants and vowels is soon to come; until then, a written, basic pronunciation list is to be writtin, with an IPA chart right after it).

Aa - Ah, as in ‘cat’.

Áá - Ah, with a ‘y’ sound added to it. Yah. Acute accents add a "y" sound to the beggining of the letter.

Ää - Ah, but with an extra yah added to it. Ahyah, like in Spanish ‘alla’. Diareasises add the regular noun, plus a noun with an acute accent. A + Á = Ä

Ąą -  Aw, as in Awful. The tail at the bottom of the A elongates the A. The tail (Ogronek in Polish, Tæku/Tæúv in Adwanic)

Ææ - I, as in kite, or eye as in eye.

Bb - Same as in English. B as in bat.

Þþ - Th, as in thin. It is unvoiced.

Cc - Ch, as in chair.

Ćć - Ych. There is no sound for this in English, but think of the rule for accents. Ć = Y + CH

Dd - Same as in English, if only a little softer. D as in dad.

Ðð - Th as in the, or there. Unlike þ, it is voiced.

Ee - Eh as in bed.

Éé - Yeh, as in yet.

Ëë - No English equivalent. Ë = E + É (Ehyeh)

Ęę - Ay as in play. It is a long e.

Ff - Same as in English. F as in fun.

Gg - G as in English great. It is always a hard g; never soft, like in geology.

Hh - H as in hat.

Ĥĥ - CH as in Loch; or a German, or Czech CH. Or like a kh.

Kk - Same as in English. K as in kick.

Ll - L as in laugh, not as in full.

Mm - Same as in English, although unlike some m's in English, the Adwanic M is always pronounced. M as in mood.

Nn - Same as in English. Always pronounced. N as in night.

Ńń - Yn. No English equivalent; it is the "y" sound combined with the "n" sound.

Oo - O, as in Norwegian på; or Spanish no. It is NOT rounded like "coat" or "note".

Óó - Yo; "Y" plus the "o" sound.

Öö - Oyo; like in Spanish oyo.

Øø - A very throaty "oy"; very much like the Norwegian øy.

Œœ - The same as the French œ, or the Norwegian ø.

Pp - The same as in English. P as in pair.

Rr - A flapped r, like the Spanish pero, or the English kitty.

Ŕŕ - Yr. "Y"plus the flapped "r".

Ss - Same as in English. S as in stop.

Śś - Ys. "Y" + "s"; like the Czech ‘jsem’.

Şş - Ts, like the English cats, or a Czech ‘c’.

Šš - Sh, like the English cash.

Tt - Same as in English, if not a little softer. T as in top.

Uu - Oo as in new.

Úú - Yu, as in you.

Üü - Ooyou; Ü = U + Ú, or OO + YOU.

Vv - Same as in English; V as in very.

Ww - Same as in English; W as in weep, or the French ou/oi, as in the French oui/oiseau, respectively.

Ẃẃ - Yw; No English equivalent, but is very much like the UI in the French ‘lui’; Y+W = Ẃ.

Yy - Ee, as in keen.

Ýý - Yee, as in yeast.

Ÿÿ - Eeyee; "ee" + "yee". Y + Ý = Y

Zz - Same as in English. Z as in zero.

While the Adwanic alphabet may look somewhat intimidating, don't be afraid. Learning the Adwanic alphabet is easier than learning another language's diphthongs, mainly because each letter represents a sound. There are no silent letters, no rules around it; everything is always pronounced as seen.

Stress
Stress in Adwan was never too strict; it all depended on the tone of the sentence. Usually the stress will depend on what the speaker is saying; however, generally, the penultimate (second to last) syllable is always the one to be stressed.

Ex: Sun --> Solęku= Soh-LAY-koo.

=Grammar= To say Adwanic's grammar didn't cause headaches to the average person that didn't speak an inflecting language would be a lie. Adwanic is a heavily inflected language that inflects Verbs for Tense, Mood, Person and Aspect; Nouns for number, and Adjectives, Numbers, Prepositions, and Quantifiers.

Adwan declines to 7 cases; the Nominative, the Ablative, the Accusative, the Genitive, the Locative, and the Vocative.

There are 7 classes of nouns, and two numbers (singular and plural); this leaves there to be 98 different endings for nouns -- nouns ONLY.

There are 8 different endings for Adjectives, times the 7 cases, giving us 56 different endings for Adjectives.

There are 2 endings for Adverbs, leaving 14 suffixes for Adverbs.

All Prepositions, Numbers, and Quanitifiers have their own respective ending, leaving there to be 1 suffix per case; 7 cases, times the three endings leaves us with 21 endings for Prepositions, Numbers, and Quantifiers.

This leaves Adwan with an intimidatingly high number of suffix possibilities (189). This may all seem extremely scary, but as the rules are shown, it really isn't; it's just a matter of memorizing what endings go to what.

Declensions, an overview.
Declensions occur in Adwan for a variety of reasons, the main ones to A) mark the function of each noun, adjective, preposition, adverb, number and quanitifer, and to B) free up word order. The Adwans didn't like limitations much (which can be seen in the incredibly free word order of their language), so having a language with free word order was something they positively needed to have. While nouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, numbers and quantifiers are declined to the same 7 cases in which a lot of European languages use, not all the cases are exactly the same.

The Nominative case marks the subject of the sentence, or the head of the subject phrase. It is the doer of the verb. This is probably the easiest of the cases to learn, as it shares this usability with other languages. Note: Adwan doesn't have personal pronouns, due to the intense conjugations that verbs under go, so sentences with Pronouns as the subjects won't have nouns in the Nominative. Ex: The monkey jumped off the ledge. The monkey is to be declined in the Nominative, because it is the subject which does the verb.

The Ablative case is similar to Latin's Ablative case. It marks the causive noun. In English, the Ablative is marked by the prepositions "because of", "from" and "of "(not the possessive, though). Ex: The latter broke because of the weight. The weight would be declined in the Ablative, because it is the noun which causes the subject to do the verb.

The Dative case marks the indirect object in Adwan. In English, indirect objects are usually tagged with prepositions, like "to" and "for" (The Dative covers these prepositions). It marks the object that was not affected directly. Ex: I bought the teacher a yellow cake. The teacher would be declined in the Dative, because it is not the direct object; the verb's action is directed towards the cake, and the cake is for the teacher. Note: Not all nouns in the Dative case will cover "for" and "to", as the main goal of the Dative is to mark the indirect object.

The Accusative case marks the direct object; the object to recieve the action of the verb. The Accusative and the Nominative usually go hand in hand in many sentences, as there is always a subject, a verb, and an object with is affected by the verb. Ex: The cat hissed at the dog. Who did the cat hiss at? While the Accusative doesn't cover any prepositions, many can be inferred by seeing a noun declined in the Accusative. A good question to ask yourself in finding this case is "The subject did the verb to who/what?".

The Genitive case is probably the trickiest of them all, for it has many, many layers to it. There are many levels to the Genitive case, just like there are many levels of rhetoric and writing. The Genitive marks the possessor of an item with posession. Although most of Adwan has free word order, the basic Genitive case has a rule that the noun in the Genitive case come before the item of posession. Ex: the girl's car crashed. The girl is in the Genitive, because she is in possession of the car.

The Locative case marks the location. Most prepositions are attached to this case, as most prepositions point the way towards a location, which is the locative case. The locations don't matter, as long as there's a direction attached to it. Ex: I left my book at school. You can find out what is in the locative by asking yourself "Where?"

The Vocative case is the second easiest of them all; it merely points out direct calling. "O Father!" would be a great example. The vocative case marks the noun that is being directly addressed. Ex: Mary, I cannot believe you did that. Mary would be in the Vocative, because she is being directly adressed.

Many adjectives, adverbs, quantifiers, numbers and prepositions are declined to a case that fits its needs. With everything declined, suffixes will point the direction to what does what. It doesn't matter if the Subject goes before, after, or isn't even near the verb, for as long as it is in the nominative, it doesn't matter.

Syntax
Syntax in Adwan is not very strict at all. Due to the heavy inflections that go on, plus helping rules, many word variations can be used.

For example, "The dog jumps over the fox," in Adwan, using the same proposed word order is "Dogólœv rompy ĥuno martydø." However, with all the inflections that Adwan has gone through, it can be worded as so:

Rompy dogólœv ĥuno martydø. Jumps-it dog-NOM over-ACC fox-ACC. Rompy martydø ĥuno dogólœv. Jumps-it fox-ACC over-ACC fod-NOM. Ĥuno dogólœv rompy martydø. Over-ACC dog-NOM jumps-it fox-ACC. Ĥuno rompy martydø dogólœv.Over-ACC jumps-it fox-ACC dog-NOM. Martydø dogólœv ĥuno rompy. Fox-ACC dog-NOM over-ACC jumps-it. Martydø rompy ĥuno dogólœv. Foc-ACC jumps-it over-ACC dog-NOM.

It doesn't matter what the word order is in Adwan, as it all means the same thing, for each noun is marked in a special case that tells what the noun does. For example -- it doesn't matter where the subject is, for if it's the first or last word in the sentence, it will always do the verb due to it being declined in the Nominative case.

Now, the same cannot be said for more complicated phrases, but we'll get to that later.

However, the free word order can become some-what of a linguistic anarchy, and the Adwanics did not like that. Generally speaking, a VOS word order was followed throughout the whole of the Adwanic language's history. It was only in poetry and literature, the little of it that was found, that word order was different. Most of the time, a certain mood is attached to a certain word order, general speak being attached to VOS.

Example of VOS; The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

Adwanic: Rompy ĥuno laznor dogólœd kafne martyvø.

Direct Gloss: Jumps-it over-acc lazy-acc dog-acc brown-nom fox-nom.

Notice how since the dog and the fox switched motives in this sentence, their endings are different.

=Dictionary= ...

=Example text= ...