Conlang
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Alitalia
Alitalia (Latin form)
Type
fusional to analytical
Alignment
mostly neutral
Head direction
mostly head-initial
Tonal
No
Declensions
Yes
Conjugations
Yes
Genders
No
Nouns decline according to...
Case Number
Definiteness Gender
Verbs conjugate according to...
Voice Mood
Person Number
Tense Aspect



General information[]

Lingua Alitalia (English: Alitalian Language), or Alitalia for short, is the official language of Federa de'es Respublika Alitalia(Federation of Alitalian Republics), an intergalactic federation. The language comes from Proto-Indo-European language, mixed with Turkic loan words, but has been adapted to the local people's customs for a clearer pronunciation and shorter written form. Modern Alitalia still has conjugations and declensions, but they are highly regular and simpler than ancient Alitalia. 

History[]

It is said the ancestors of the Alitalian people were emigrated from the Earth to a habitable planet several thousand years ago, under the guide of an unknown "divine" power. It is also said that the Noah's Ark is actually describing this event, i.e. a salvage operation to preserve the sentient beings when a catastrophic climate change may destroy the indigenous humans on Earth. They then evolved into a human-like race and over 3,000 hybrid races around 1400 BC. After a series of clashes and wars, these races are united into the current regime. Following the Code of Enlightenment left by a somewhat advanced unknown species, they invented rockets, satellites and spaceships, settled on adjacent planets, and found the Earth (their legendary origin) around 1st Century A. D. Their first contact with humans on Earth is in 2031, and an equal treaty of cooperation is signed in 2049. 

The language itself is based heavily on Proto-Indo-European Language (PIE) and Old Turkic Language, as they were the language of the humans being transported to the new world. The language they speak forms the basis of today's Alitalia, although it has undergone many changes. In 1924 A.D., The Grand Federal Congress (of FAR) regulated the Spelling Reform Act of (1924) (abbr. SRA/1924), but reserved the right to make it compulsory to the Minister of Culture. SRA/1924 is officially adopted in 1927 A.D. 

It is worth mentioning that, among the Group in Exile, the old version of spelling (referred as Old Standard Orthography, OSO) is used, since they arrived at the Earth in 1913 A.D. and refused to adopt all the acts from FAR. This article, however, will only talk about spellings and grammar regulated in SRA/1924. 

Phonology[]

The phonology below is used by humans on Capital Planet of Alitalia. Pronunciation may vary among human sub-groups and other non-human species. 

Consonants[]

Bilabial Labio-dental Dental Alveolar Post-alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m n
Plosive p,b t,d k,g ʔ
Fricative (ɸ,β) f,v s,z ʃ,(ʒ) ɕ (x) h
Affricate ts,(dz) tʃ,dʒ tɕ,dʑ
Approximant j w
Trill r
Lateral app. l

Vowels[]

Front Central Back
Close i,y u
Close-mid e
Mid ə
Open-mid ɔ
Open a

Alphabet[]

Alitalia use Des Litera Baronika ("Baronic Letters", but the meaning of Baron is now missing)as its writing system. During the discovery of Earth, the Alitalia people found the link between Baronic alphabet to several writing systems on Earth, especially the Kartvelian Asomtavruli letters (Although Asomtavruli did not appear at that time, since the Noah's Ark is believed to came to rest at Mts. Ararat, this is quite probably not a coincidence). As they observed another popular writing system known as Latin or Roman alphabet, they decided to invent a transcription system for it. 

Des Litera Baronika

The Baronic Alphabet

To keep texts simple and easy to read, this article, along with any article relevant to Alitalia and written on Earth, uses Latin transliteration instead of Baronic alphabet. 

Alitalia uses 24 letters, with upper and lower cases. They are listed by order as follows: 

Aa Bb Gg Kk Dd Ee Ff Hh

Ii Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Rr Ss

Cc Tt Ww Uu Vv Yy Zz Xx

Pronunciation[]

Since Alitalia is an interstellar language being spoken by quite a lot of species, the pronunciation varies from planet to planet, from place to place. The following pronunciation guide is the most widely adapted version among humans (of different nationalities).

B, K, F, L, M, N, P, S, T, V, SH and CH are pronounced as in English.

Letter G never goes soft. It always pronounces /g/.

Letter H, when not used in DH, SH, CH, always pronounces /h/ or /x/.

Letter R is always trilled when not used in AR, AUR, ER, EUR, IR and OR. Alternatively, if trilling is hard for a speaker, /ʒ/ is recommended.

Letter C is pronounced /ts/.

Letter W is recommended to be pronounced /β/. /w/ is also accepted. 

Letter Y, when used as a consonant, or in IY, is pronounced /j/. However, when used as a vowel, it pronounces /y/.

Letter Z can be pronounced as /z/ or /dz/.

Letter X is pronounced /ɕ/ (like in Chinese). 

DH is pronounced /dʒ/, DX is pronounced /dʑ/.

TX or CX are pronounced /tɕ/.

A is always pronounced /a/.

The pronunciation for E is complicated: When not stressed and at the end of a word, or used in ER, EUR, /ə/; When stressed and after B, L, M, N, X, but not before A, F, H, I, N, O, U, /ɛ/; Otherwise, /e/.

I is pronounced /i/, but sometimes, before another vowel, it will change to consonant /j/.

O is always pronounced /o/ or /ɔ/, based on user's own preference.

U is pronounced /u/, but sometimes, before another vowel, it will change to consonant /w/. And, when used in OUR, it is silent.

EU is pronounced /ɔy/. 

In non-trilled accents, AR, AUR, ER, IR, OR, EUR are pronounced /a:, auəə(:), iəɔ:, (y)ə/, respectively, while letter R is silent. Trilled R is also acceptable.

Stress[]

Stress is mostly on the first syllable after prefixes and pseudo-prefixes. Exceptions will be marked with stress symbol (`) in dictionaries. e.g. Ni`hon (Japan), but not in common written form.

Most Alitalia Dictionary will have a Prefix Table. It lists all prefixes and pseudo-prefixes. So, a learner may quickly pronounce a very complicated word correctly as long as he/she/it figures out the structure of this word. 

Phonotactics[]

Currently, the following constraints exist in Alitalia(note that these constraints may not apply to loan words and foreign words):

  1. All syllables must have a nucleus.
  2. No geminates or long vowels.
  3. "x", "dx" and "tx" don't appear in the coda.
  4. No affricates in complex onsets.
  5. if "h" is voiced in the coda, it must be a /x/.
  6. Onset "ng" exists only in foreign words.
  7. Onset /ʒ/ exists only in some dialects (as letter R).
  8. The first consonant in a complex obstruent must be an obstruent. 
  9. In codas, two neighbouring consonants must be or not be voicing together. 

Grammar[]

Gender Cases Numbers Tenses Persons Moods Voices Aspects
Verb No No No Yes No No Yes No
Nouns Yes Yes No No No No No No
Adjectives No No No No No No No No
Numbers No No No No No No No No
Participles No No No No No No No No
Adverb No No No No No No No No
Pronouns Yes Yes Yes No Yes No No No
Adpositions No No No No No No No No
Article Yes No Yes No No No No No
Particle No No No No No No No No


Nouns[]

There are proper nouns and common nouns in Alitalia as in other languages.

There is a simple declension for nouns (see below).  Nouns in genitive form can also be attributive, but unlike adjectives, they must be placed after the head. 

Nouns had three genders: neuter, masculine, feminine. Masculine words always end with -ius; feminine words always end with -ina. However, according to SRA/1924, semantically neutral words must not end with -ius or -ina except loan words. Despite this new rule, there are quite a few exceptions. For example, chemical elements are all ended with -ius, but they are neuter words.  

Declension[]

Nouns in Alitalia have three cases: Nominative, Genitive and Prepositional. The Prepositional case is exclusively used if usage of different prepositions won't matter the meaning of the context. Otherwise, preposition is not ignorable. For example, domum (prepositional case of dom, "house") may indicate "in/on/about/with the house". However, if one must say "in the house", he should say en das dom

Declension in Alitalia is relatively simpler than most Roman languages, as it only depends on the ending of the word. 

The declension table is:

Declension Table
Nominative Genitive Prepositional
-a, -ar, -as -as -um
-b, -g, -d, -k, -l, -m, -n, -p, -s, -t, -z +es +um
-dh -des -dum
-e, -es, -em -es -em
-er -es -um
-f -ves -vum
-h -ges -gum
-i, -ir, -ion, -ium, -ius, -y, -iy -ies -ium
-ina -ines -inum
-o, -or, -os -os -um
-sh -ses -sum
-c, -ch -tes -tum
-u, -um, -ur, -us -us -um
-ua, -ue, -uo +s -um

“+es” means: add "es" directly after the entire word. "+um" is the same. 

Proper Nouns[]

Proper nouns are capitalised (on the first letter); when indicating names, locations and unique localised objects, the spelling will be as close as the localised pronunciation on most occasions. This may differ from common names used on the Earth. For example, Moskva (not Moskow or Moskov), Nihon or Yamato (not Japan). Exceptions include Kataiy (not China or Zhongguo, because this is a loan word) and Kuumat (not Egypt in English, or Misr/Masr in Arabic, because that's in Ancient Egyptian language). 

Names of days, months, scientific names (of biological, chemical, astronomial, or other names with a naming system) are also capitalised.  

Honourifics, such as Sur (neutral, for both "Mr. " and "Ms. "), Fratius ("brother") and Fratina ("sister"), are always capitalised.  

The Articles[]

The article, das, which comes from Deutsch in late 19th Century A.D., is used for neutral words. Masculine words use der, and feminine words use die

Since nouns have no plural forms, if plural must be emphasized, use the article des.  

When indicating indefinite meaning, use an (numeric "One") or bia (indefinite "One") instead. They are not articles. 

Verbs[]

Nearly all verbs are ended with letter "i", with only a handful of exceptions. 

Verbs can be transformed into "disposal" verbs, which can loosely mean "to make somebody do". This transformation is only available when the original verb does not have a "disposal" meaning. Disposal verbs are never passive. 

Conjugation[]

A verb generally has 12 forms, with non-past (present and future) and past tenses, active and passive voices, simple, progressive and perfect aspects. It doesn't use perfect-progressive aspect. 

To form a future tense, use a proper form of verb wil before an simple aspect verb.  

It is recommended, when not causing confusion, to use simple aspect, present tense and active voice.  

The conjugation table is as follows (showing each aspect's end):  

Conjugation Table (General Verbs)
Tenses & Moods Simple Progressive Perfect
Active Present i in en
Active Past id ed od
Passive Present u inu enu
Passive Past idu edu odu

For disposal verbs, the conjugation table is a bit different:

Conjugation Table (Disposal Verbs)
Tenses Simple Progressive Perfect
Present ati atin aten
Past adi adid aded

However, copula es is never passive, thus it has its own conjugation rule:

Conjugation Table (Copula)
Tenses Simple Progressive Perfect
Present es sin sen
Past est sint sent

Auxiliary verb wil, which indicates future tenses, conjugates as follows:

Conjugation Table (wil)
Tenses & Moods Simple
Active Present wil
Active Past wild
Passive Present wu
Passive Past wud

The verb di (English: do, act, perform), conjugates as follows:

Conjugation Table (di)
Tenses & Moods Simple Progressive Perfect
Active Present di din den
Active Past did dind ded
Passive Present diu dun deun
Passive Past dud dund deud

Its conjugation is irregular for the conflict with numeric word du (2) if using standard conjugation table. 

Adjectives and Adverbs[]

Adjectives have various endings, of which -ik, -(i)an, -al are the most common. Derived adverbs always end with -o. 

Adjectives, when used as a modifier, are put before the head. A genitive noun can also be a modifier, but is placed after the head. 

Adjectives and adverbs have comparative and superlative forms. Suffixes are added then. 

Suffixes for Comparison (Adjectives and Adverbs, partial)
General Form

Augmentative Comparative

Diminutive Comparative

Augmentative Superlative

Diminutive Superlative
-ik -ike -ikete -ikest -iklest
-(i)an  -ane -anete -anst -anest
-al -ale -alete -alst -alest
-o -ore -olete -ost -olest

Pronouns[]

Pronouns are declined by person, gender and number. They can be listed in the table below:

Pronouns
English meaning (nominative) Nominative Genitive
I A (permanently capitalised) ars
you (singular) O (permanently capitalised) os
he ka kans
she na nans
it (or gender unknown) da dans
we arm arms
you (plural) tut tums
they (masculine) kam kams
they (feminine) nam nams
they (neuter or gender unknown) dam dams

Note that pronunciation of A and O should be led by a glottal stop /ʔ/. To express reflective meaning, use genitive pronoun plus noun aut to form a phrase (also led by a glottal stop if following a vowel). The genitive form of a reflective pronoun is a genitive pronoun plus autes (genitive of aut). 

Related Words[]

For a new learner, being familiar with related words is important. Related words are mostly pronouns and adverbs, divided into five groups, representing assertive, universal, demonstrative, interrogative and negative meanings. These words are initially regulated in 1376 A.D. for language simplification purpose, and finally re-confirmed in the 1924 A.D. Act. See as follows: 

Related Words
Function Assertive Universal Demonstrative Interrogative Negative
Ali. Eng. Ali. Eng. Ali. Eng. Ali. Eng. Ali. Eng.
Object bi something ci everything dis this thing wi what ni none
Indicate bia some of cia all of dia that wia which nia none of
Reason vaus somewhat taus after all daus therefore kaus for what reason naus for no reason
Temporal ben on an unknown time; sometime ten all the time den then wen when nen not ever
Location bir somewhere cir everywhere dir here, there wir where nir nowhere
Person bo somebody to everyone do this person wo who nio nobody
Possessive bos somebody's cios everyone's zios of this person wos whose nios nobody's
Circumstance bion on some condition cion no matter what happens dion under this circumstance kion under what circumstance nion never
Quantity vom some (partial) (ci/cia) ziom so much/that much kom how much (ni/nia)
Category ved some kind(s) of ced all kinds of zed this kind of ked what kind of ned not a kind of

Numbers[]

Unlike decimal system on Earth, Alitalia people use hexadecimal system. The numbers are shown as follows: 

Alitalia numbers
Decimal Alitalia Decimal Alitalia
0 nul 11 elf
1 an 12 twolf
2 du 13 treh
3 tri 14 bieh
4 kuad 15 moneh
5 pent 16 hes
6 ses 256 (an) cent
7 sep 4096 (an) tau
8 okt 65536 (an) myr
9 nov
10 dek

Giant Numbers[]

For giant numbers, there is a naming system for every exponent. If the exponent can be divided by 8, use the quotient and add a suffix -(i)yon. if the exponent can be divided by 4 but not 8, use the quotient when divided by 8 and add a suffix -(i)yard

16^8 = 2^32 = 4294967296 = an miyon

16^12 = 2^48 = an miyard

16^16 = (16^8)^2 = an duiyon

16^20 = an duiyard

16^24 = (16^8)^3 = an triyon

...

16^32 = (16^8)^4 = an kuardiyon

Syntax[]

Structure[]

The basic structure of Alitalia is SVO. 

Vocabulary[]


No. English Alitalia
1IA
2you (singular)O
3heka
4wearm
5you (plural)tut
6theydam
7thisdis
8thatdia
9heredir
10theredir
11whowo
12whatwi
13wherewir
14whenwen
15how
16notne
17allcia
18many
19somebia
20few
21otheralt
22onean
23twobi
24threetri
25fourkuad
26fivepent
27big
28long
29wide
30thick
31heavy
32small
33short
34narrow
35thin
36woman
37man (adult male)
38man (human being)
39child
40wife
41husband
42mother
43father
44animal
45fish
46bird
47dog
48louse
49snake
50worm
51tree
52forest
53stick
54fruit
55seed
56leaf
57root
58bark
59flower
60grass
61rope
62skin
63meat
64blood
65bone
66fat
67egg
68horn
69tail
70feather
71hair
72head
73ear
74eye
75nose
76mouth
77tooth
78tongue
79fingernail
80foot
81leg
82knee
83hand
84wing
85belly
86guts
87neck
88back
89breast
90heart
91liver
92drink
93eatedi
94bite
95suck
96spit
97vomit
98blow
99breathe
100laugh
101see
102hear
103know
104think
105smell
106fear
107sleep
108live
109die
110kill
111fight
112hunt
113hit
114cut
115split
116stab
117scratch
118dig
119swim
120fly
121walk
122come
123lie
124sit
125stand
126turn
127fall
128give
129hold
130squeeze
131rub
132wash
133wipe
134pull
135push
136throw
137tie
138sew
139count
140say
141sing
142play
143float
144flow
145freeze
146swell
147sun
148moon
149star
150water
151rain
152river
153lake
154sea
155salt
156stone
157sand
158dust
159earth
160cloud
161fog
162sky
163wind
164snow
165ice
166smoke
167fire
168ash
169burn
170road
171mountain
172red
173green
174yellow
175white
176black
177night
178day
179year
180warm
181cold
182full
183new
184old
185good
186bad
187rotten
188dirty
189straight
190round
191sharp
192dull
193smooth
194wet
195dry
196correct
197near
198far
199right
200left
201atet
202inen
203with
204ande
205ifsi
206because
207name


Example text[]

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