Zwani

Zwani is a language spoken in the Zwan Kingdom (Zwanas Davigulús), where it is the sole official language of it's entire population of 43 million people. 

General information
Zwani is a highly inflected language, with three noun genders, six noun cases, three tenses, three aspects, three persons, four moods, two voices, and two numbers. It is a fusional nominative-accusative language. Word order is rigidly SVO, but becomes VSO in interrogative sentences. The language is pro-drop as well, which means that subject pronouns are dropped due to verbal indication. The language also has a very heavy use of derivation through suffixes, which change the meaning of a word.

History
Modern Zwani has been standardized since the Zwan Kingdom became a constitutional diarchy in 1914. Before this, multiple dialects of Zwani and multiple other Imanith languages were spoken throughout the Kingdom. It was written in the constitution that any official language needed to be standardized by the government, and the first comprehensive grammar of Zwani was commisioned. Many other Imanith languages are still spoken regionally within the kingdom, but few, if any, have more than a million speakers.

The language is different from Middle Zwani, which fell out of usage sometime in the mid-1600s, due to the loss of dual number, the loss of the progressive aspect (which is now expressed periphrastically), the loss of the conditional mood (which is also now expressed periphrastically), the higher rate of affixing, the complete loss of the cocative case (where it would be used historically, the nominative case is now used), the merging of the partitive and genetive cases, and the merging of the dative and the benefactive cases among other small differences. Despite the numerous grammatical changes, the phonology has remained almost the same. Only /ð/ has dissappeared and merged with /θ/.

Consonants

 * A nasal consonant can assimilate to a labiodental or dental before labiodental or dental consonant, but these nasals are not seperate phonemes. Similarly, before a voiced consonant, /θ/ becomes /ð/, but it isn't a seperate phoneme.
 * The letters X and Q may appear in loan words, and are pronounced /ks/ and /k/ respectively.

Dipthongs
All dipthongs can combine with [j] or [w] to form a syllable nucleus. In a dipthong, /u/ can be represented with either ‹u› or  ‹w›. Similarly, /i/ can be represented by either  ‹i› ‹y›. Dipthongs are always stressed and defy normal stress rules.

Phonotactics
The syllable structure is (C₁)(C₂)V(C₂)(C₁).

Stop-fricative and fricative-stop clusters are permitted both syllable-initially and syllable-finally as long as they agree in voicing. C₁ can be either a stop or fricative when C₂ is a liquid /l  ɾ r/ approximant /j w/. Stop-nasal clusters cannot occur syllable-initially but nasal-stop clusters can occur syllable-finally if they agree in place of articulation.

Primary stress is placed on the first syllable of a word and secondary stress is placed on the last syllable of a word in two syllable words and the penultimate syllable in three or more syllable words. Stress affects vowel pronounciation, illustrated in the table below. Many speakers, however, have a tendency to pronounce word-final /e/ and /i/ as [ə] and [i], respectively.

Pronouns
Pronouns are highly irregular and do not follow normal declension patterns as other nouns do. Zwani is a pro-drop language so nominative pronouns are usually omitted. However, 3rd person pronouns are usually not omitted if the gender distinction is necessary. Pronouns in the 3rd person show natural gender and do not agree with the grammatical gender of a noun.

Verbs
Verbs in Zwani are highly complex, and conjugate for three tenses, two aspects, and two moods (three in the present tense). Infinitives end in -ék and verb stems take on different endings to convey information. The passive voice is expressed periphrastically similarly to English. The conditional mood and the progressive aspect are both expressed periphrastically as well. The verb anék - to make - is conjugated below.

Participles
There are six participles in Zwani. They retain a passive conjugation unlike verbs where it is expressed periphrastically. Construction of participles is similar to verbs, remove the -ek ending and suffix the respective participlial ending. They are demonstrated below on the verb disek - to see. Participles are translated a number of ways - similar to an English participle, as a relative clause, as a temporal clause, or as a causal clause, though the latter 3 are falling out of usage in favor of actual clauses.

Irregular verbs
There are a few irregular verbs in Zwani. They are detailed in a seperate article.

&gt; Zwani/Irregular Verbs

Nouns
All nouns in Zwani belong to three genders: Masculine, Feminine, and Inanimate. Nouns are generally assigned a gender semantically, i.e. man would be masculine, woman would be feminine, and wheel would be inanimate. However, many inanimate nouns belong to either of the animate genders. Most living things or professions (bear, president, etc) are inherently feminine and a suffix is added to indicate that the noun in question is semantically masculine, but there exists completely seperate words for things such as man and woman, son and daughter, or king and queen. Some nouns are inherently masculine, such as aos - god, or únizi - soldier. Nouns in each gender can decline differently as well, depending on whether they end in a consonant or vowel. If a noun ends in a diphthong, it declines as a consonant-ending noun regardless of its spelling. Nouns decline for six cases and there are no irregular declensions.
 * The nominative case marks the subject.
 * The accusative case marks the direct object of a clause, but also that of a preposition.
 * The dative case marks the indirect object, but also functions as a benefactive case, and marks the object of almost all non-locative preposition.
 * The genetive case shows possession or apposition, but also functions as a partitive case.
 * The insturmental case marks an object being used for something. This can be using an object to do something (ex: i write with the pencil) or using a place for a gathering (ex: we had a party at my house). Using the locative case for the latter construction is considered uneducated.
 * The locative case marks location in at or on something. There is no distinction between the three other than context. It is also used to mark certain locative prepositions, but not all.

Inanimate nouns
Most nouns in Zwani belong to the inanimate gender, but not all semantically inanimate nouns do, and no semantically animate nouns do. Inanimate nouns have the widest array of different declensions, with 4 different declensions being utilised if the noun ends in a voiced plosives and unvoiced fricatives, an unvoiced plosive or sonorant, a front vowel, or a back vowel.

The consonant endings essentially suffix case endings, and the only difference in declensions between voiced plosives/unvoiced fricatives and unvoiced plosives/sonorants is in the genitive and locative singular endings, and many plural endings. Endings are in bold.

The vowel ending nouns are more complicated than consonant ending nouns, as these utilise vowel mutation as well as suffixes. The final vowel is often truncated in favor of an opposite vowel (front for back, back for front). However, not all declensions utilise vowel mutation and simply suffix a case ending onto the noun. Endings are in bold.

Masculine nouns
Masculine nouns in Zwani constitute all semantically masculine nouns, including feminine nouns with the masculinizing suffix -ig, as well as irregularly masculine nouns that are semantically inanimate. Semantically inanimate masculine nouns include body parts, weapons, or languages. Masclune nouns decline under different distinctions than inanimate nouns, possessing 3 seperate declensions for sonorant or plosive endings, fricative endings, and vowel endings.

Feminine nouns
Feminine nouns in Zwani constitute all semantically feminine nouns, including masculine nouns with the feminizing suffix -ixúm, nouns with this suffix are uncommon because most nouns that can be distinct based on the gender of the subject are inherently feminine, such as bear or lawyer. Common nouns with this suffix include aosixúm - goddess, and únizixúm - soldier (f). Feminine nouns decline 3 different ways depending on whether the noun ends in a sonorant or plosive, a fricative, or a vowel.

Modifiers
Modifiers agree with whatever they modify and decline to show comparativity or superlativity, and decline differently if they end in a consonant or vowel. In a similar fashion to nouns, adjectives or adverbs ending in a diphthong (as well as adverbs with the -au ending) decline as a consonant-ending noun.

Adjectives
Adjectives decline differently if they end in a consonant or a vowel and agree with the case and gender of the noun they modify. Adjectives also decline to become comparative or superlative.

Adverbs
Adverbs, like adjectives, preceed the verb they modify. They decline differently if they end in a consonant or vowel similarly to adjectives. Adverbs agree with the verb they modify in tense, and in their unmarked form agree with the present tense. Adverbs also decline to become comparitive or superlative the same as adjectives. To derive an adverb from an adjective, suffix -au.

Vocabulary
 Zwani Dictionary  at ConWorkShop (updated frequently)  

Numbers
Numbers in Zwani almost completely irregular from 0-99. Numbers past 100 are formed simply: by multiplication and addition. A base, such as azac (hundred), cannot represent 100 by itself. Because of this, ef is needed in order to represent 100, resulting in efazac. Two vowels next to each other from forming larger numbers are pronounced with a hiatus. The suffix -wu is added to denote ordinal numbers. Adverbial numbers (once, twice, thrice) are formed by the suffix -lu.