Aspenish

Progress 68%
	Stats Nouns 98% Verbs 29% Adjectives 100% Syntax 67% Words of 1500

Aspenish Aspenush
Type
Agglutinative
Alignment
Nominative-Accusative
Head direction
Mostly Initial
Tonal
No
Declensions
Yes
Conjugations
Yes
Genders
3
Nouns decline according to...
Case	Number
Definiteness	Gender
Verbs conjugate according to...
Voice	Mood
Person	Number
Tense	Aspect

Aspenish (Aspenush; /ɑs.'pɛ.ɲʊʃ/) is the native language of the Aspenish people and the official language of the Republic of Aspenia, an island nation in northern Europe, and one of languages of the Nordic Council.

General informationEdit

Aspenish is classified as a Middle Germanic language, the last surviving language of this branch. It has been significantly incluenced by both West and North Germanic languages and slightly influenced by Insular Celtic, mostly Scottish Gaelic, and Romance languages, especially French through English and Dutch.

DialectsEdit

There are twelve main dialects spoken in Aspenia. They are

• Apple dialect (Äpil djalekt; //),
• Ash dialect (Askur djalekt; //),
• Cedar dialect (Zeedhar djalekt; //),
• Cherry dialect (Kirïzya djalekt; //),
• Elm dialect (Uulmo djlekt; //),
• Fir dialect (Daane djalekt; //),
• Mapple dialect (Ehornu djalekt; //),
• Oak dialect (Ëik djalekt; //),
• Pear dialect (Piira djalekt; //),
• Pine dialect (Füro djalekt; //),
• Rowan dialect (Roowen djalekt; //),
• Spruce dialect (Gutha djalekt; //),
• Wilow dialect (Söusye djalekt; //).

The formation of dialects is due to the influence of different languages in specific zones. Dialects typically differ in terms of inflectional morphology, vocabulary, and particle usage.

RegulationEdit

The regulatory authority for the teaching of Aspenish is the National Academy of the Aspenish Language (Nasjonelu Akademi ev dem Aspenushu Spöökh; /nɑ.sjɔ'nɛ.lʊ ɑ.kɑ.dɛ'mi: ɛv dɛm ɑs'pɛ.nʊ.ʃʊ spø:x/) and carer body of the literary heritage in Aspenish is the National Institute of the Aspenish Literature (Nasjonelu Instituut ev demr Aspenushu Litaratüür; /nɑ.sjɔ'nɛ.lʊ ɪns.tɪ'tu:t ɛv dɛm ɑs'pɛ.nʊ.ʃʊ lɪ.tɛ.ɾɑ'ty:r/). Both are especial bodies of the Aspenish Ministry of Culture, Education and Sport (Aspenushu Ministaarje för Kultüür, Ontarvëisong ent Spoort; /ɑs'pɛ.nʊ.ʃʊ mɪ.nɪs'ta:.ɾjɛ fœr kʊl'ty:r ɔn.tɑɾ'vʌɪ.sɔɲg ɛnt 'spo:ɾt/).

PhonologyEdit

Aspenish has 33 consonant phonemes including allophones and 20 vowel phonemes, 10 long and 10 short. One of the most notorious characteristics of Aspenish is the lack of affricates.

ConsonantsEdit

The inventory of consonants in Aspendush is similar to Germanic and Celtic languages. It has no clicks, ejectives nor implosives. The consonants are:

	Bilabial	Labio-dental	Dental	Alveolar	Post-alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m	ɱ1		n		ɲ	ŋ2
Plosive	p b			t d		c ɟ	k g
Fricative		f v	θ ð	s z	ʃ ʒ	ç ʝ	x ɣ
Approximant						j		h ɦ4
Labialised app.							w
Trill				r2
Flap or tap				ɾ
Lateral app.				l		ʎ

¹/ɱ/ is the allophone of /m/ before labiodentals.

²/ŋ/ is the allophone of /n/ before velar plosives and fricatives.

³/r/ is the allophone of /ɾ/ at the beginning and the end of words.

⁴/ɦ/ is the allophone of /h/ voiced consonants.

VowelsEdit

The inventory of vowels was anciently similar to the other North Germanic languages, but it was modified due to the influence of other Germanic and Celtic languages. Each of the 10 long vowels is phonetically paired with one of the 10 short vowels. The 20 vowels are:

	Front	Near-front	Near-back	Back
Close	i: y:			ɯ: u:
Near-close		ɪ ʏ	ɯ̽ ʊ
Close-mid	e: ø:			ɤ: o:
Mid
Open-mid	ɛ œ			ʌ ɔ
Near-open
Open	a: ɶ:			ɑ ɒ

DiphthongsEdit

Ortography		IPA
ai		ɑɪ
aï		ɑɯ̽
äu		ɒʊ
äü		ɒʏ
ei		ɛɪ
eï		ɛɯ̽
öu		œʊ
öü		œʏ
ëi		ʌɪ
ëï		ʌɯ̽
ou		ɔʊ
oü		ɔʏ

AlphabetEdit

The Aspenish alphabet uses a modified version of the Latin script:

Aa Ää Bb Dd Ee Ëë Ff Gg Hh Ii Ïï Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Öö Pp Rr Ss Tt Uu Üü Vv Ww Zz

Cc, Qq and Xx only appear in foreign words, especially names. Yy also appears in foreign words and after alveolar consonants to form their palatal counterpart. For example, ty and dy are pronounced /c/ and /ɟ/ respectively, and so on. The vowels are doubled to lengthen them.

PhonotacticsEdit

The standard syllable structure is;

(C)

(C)

(A)

V

(C)

(C)

Where (A) is a liquid consonant or a semivowel. There is consonant harmony according to the place of articulation when a syllable ends with a nasal or a liquid consonant (except fricatives and affricates) and the next syllable begins with a plosive or a fricative.

GrammarEdit

	Gender	Cases	Numbers	Tenses	Persons	Moods	Voices	Aspects
Verb	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
Nouns	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
Adjectives	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No
Numbers	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Participles	No	No	No	Yes	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	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
Particle	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No

Aspenish is a nominative–accusative language, morphologically agglutinative, flexive and uses several particles to determine the grammatical functions of the sentence elements.

World orderEdit

The basic word order in Aspendish is SVO in main clauses, SOV in relative clauses and VSO in questions and commands. However, as words are heavily inflected, the word order is fairly flexible and every combination may occur in poetry, i.e. SVO, SOV, VSO, VOS, OSV and OVS are all allowed for metrical purposes.

Cases, gender and numberEdit

Aspenish nouns do not inflect in any case, articles add an 'u' when they modify a noun and articles vary in the subjective and oblique cases.

Words also vary in three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter. Inanimate nouns are arbitrarily distributed in these three genders; the animate, however, are declined in the masculine or feminine according to sex and neuter is used when the speaker doesn't know the gender of the being or if it's ambiguous, like the case of plants, some of which hermaphrodite.

Finally, wrords are divided in countable and uncountable nouns.The countable nouns vary in number following the singular-plural scheme.

ArticlesEdit

One shared property with Germanic languages is the definiteness, which, in Aspenish, is marked by articles. They are put before nouns and are divided in definite and indefinite.

The definite article declines in case, gender and number.

Number			Singular	Plural
Case			M.  F.  N.	Pan gender
Subjective			dol del dal	dil
Oblique			dom dem dam	dim

The indefinite article declines in case and gender in the singular number.

Case			M.	F.	N.
Subjective			önol	önel	önal
Oblique			önom	önem	önam

NounsEdit

Nouns have three grammatical genders: masculine (xxx), feminine (xxx) and neuter (xxx), Inanimate nouns gender is largely arbitrary and must be memorized. For example: don lägh (lake), dem kruuza (cross) and dar klan (clan). On the other hand, animate nouns add suffixes, -or or -am for masculine and -in or -ez for feminine.

dal gaty - cat of any gender

dol gatyor - male cat

del gatyin - female cat

Also:

dal sagart - priest of any gender

dol sagartam - male priest

del sagartez - female priest, priestess

Plural are formed depending on the procedence of the noun stem. Latin words form the plural adding an 's' ('is' after consonants).

kanyon (f)  - cannon --- kanyonis - cannons

Germanic words form plural adding an 'n' ('en' after consonants) or an 'r' ('ar' after consonants).

hund (n) - dog --- hunden - dogs

bjarg (m) - mountain --- bjargar - mountains.

Word roots from other languages (like Celtic, Slavic, other Proto-Indo-European languages and others, like Chinese, Japanese, Hebrew, Arabic, etc.) do not follow a rule and form plural with one of the suffixes before mentioned.

[Japanese] kimono (m) - kimono  --- kimonos - kimonos

[Arabic] alkohol (n) - alcohol --- alkoholen - alcohols

[Scottish Gaelic] klane (n) - clan --- klaner - clans

PronounsEdit

Person			Subjective	Oblique	Possessive
1st sing.			më	mëgh	mën
2nd sing.			thö	thögh	thön
3rd sing. masc.			hol	hom	hos
3rd sing. feme			hel	hem	hes
3rd sing. neut.			hal	ham	has
3rd impersonal and reflexive sing.			hiun	zu	zus
1st plur.			vï	vïkh	vïr
2nd plur.			dhü	dhükh	dhür
3rd plur.			täl	täm	tär
3rd reflexive plur.			-	zi	zis

The possessive adjectives are formed by adding the article endings to the each possessive pronoun. For example, the possessives of the 3rd person singular neuter are:

Person			Nominative	Accusative
sing. masc.			hasol	hasom
sing. femi.			hasel	hasem
sing. neut.			hasal	hasam
plural			hasil	hasim

The demonstrative, interrogative, and relative pronouns are listed in the correlatives table below.

AdjectivesEdit

Adjectives are used to modify a noun or pronoun, giving more information about that specific noun or pronoun. In and as in English and other Germanic languages, adjectives come before the noun.They are also declined, but only when they come before a noun to directly describe it, in the attributive position of a nominal phrase, adding an '-u' after the root.

del gudu hundin - the good bitch

In the predicative position, they do no inflect.

dal tee ist gud - the tea is good and not dar tee ist gudu.

There are three degrees of comparison: positive form, comparative form, and superlative form: these correspond to English equivalents.

The basic form of the adjective is the positive form: the adjective stem with the appropriate ending.

dïïp - deep

dol dïïpu ozeaan - the deep ocean

The basic comparative form consists of the stem and the suffix -er. Inflected, the adjective ending is attached.

dïïper - deeper

dïïperu ozeaan - deeper ocean

The basic superlative form consists of the stem and the suffix -ast. Inflected, the adjective ending is attached.

dïïpast - deepest

dol dïïpastu ozeaan - the deepest ocean

AdverbsEdit

[NEED HELP WITH ADVERBS, HELP!]

An adverb is a word that qualifies the meaning of a verb, adjective, other adverb, clause, sentence or any other word or phrase. There are adverbs of location (in space and in time), of manner, of quantity and epistemic adverbs.

[NEED SUGGESTIONS FOR THESE ADVERBS]

Adverbs of manner that are based on adjectives and are formed by adding the suffix -iz to adjective stem. For example:

 sëbdain  - sudd en --- sëbdainiz - sudd enly

 glaad y - gl ad --- glaadyiz - gladly

ModifiersEdit

Modifiers in Aspenish, as in English, follow a specific order:

1. Determiner (articles, possessive adjectives, demonstratives)
2. Ordinal number ()
3. Cardinal number ()
4. Opinion
5. Size
6. Measurement
7. Condition
8. Age
9. Temperature
10. Shape
11. Colour/Pattern
12. Origin
13. Time/Season
14. Material
15. Power
16. Location
17. Porpuse
18. Head noun

VerbsEdit

Verbs come in five moods, two voices, four aspects, and three tenses, along with the four persons

Nonfinite verb formsEdit

Infinitive	stem -un	Present participle	gu- stem -and
Gerund	stem -ong	Past participle	gu- stem -et
Supine	stem -uly	Future participle	gu- stem -il

Indicative and subjunctiveEdit

After the Aspenish Orthography and Grammar Reform of 1836, the indicative and subjentive mood were combined and the tenses remain the same for each person and number:

Present	Past	Future	Conditional	Imperative
stem -a	stem -et	stem -il	stem -od	stem

VocabularyEdit

No.	English
1	I	më
2	you (singular)	thö
3	he	—
4	we	—
5	you (plural)	—
6	they	—
7	this	—
8	that	—
9	here	—
10	there	—
11	who	—
12	what	—
13	where	—
14	when	—
15	how	—
16	not	—
17	all	—
18	many	—
19	some	—
20	few	—
21	other	—
22	one	—
23	two	—
24	three	—
25	four	—
26	five	—
27	big	—
28	long	—
29	wide	—
30	thick	—
31	heavy	—
32	small	—
33	short	—
34	narrow	—
35	thin	—
36	woman	—
37	man (adult male)	—
38	man (human being)	—
39	child	—
40	wife	—
41	husband	—
42	mother	—
43	father	—
44	animal	—
45	fish	—
46	bird	—
47	dog	hund
48	louse	—
49	snake	—
50	worm	—
51	tree	—
52	forest	—
53	stick	—
54	fruit	—
55	seed	—
56	leaf	—
57	root	—
58	bark	—
59	flower	—
60	grass	—
61	rope	—
62	skin	—
63	meat	—
64	blood	—
65	bone	—
66	fat	—
67	egg	—
68	horn	—
69	tail	—
70	feather	—
71	hair	—
72	head	—
73	ear	—
74	eye	—
75	nose	—
76	mouth	—
77	tooth	—
78	tongue	—
79	fingernail	—
80	foot	—
81	leg	—
82	knee	—
83	hand	—
84	wing	—
85	belly	—
86	guts	—
87	neck	—
88	back	—
89	breast	—
90	heart	—
91	liver	—
92	drink	—
93	eat	—
94	bite	—
95	suck	—
96	spit	—
97	vomit	—
98	blow	—
99	breathe	—
100	laugh	—
101	see	—
102	hear	—
103	know	—
104	think	—
105	smell	—
106	fear	—
107	sleep	—
108	live	—
109	die	—
110	kill	—
111	fight	—
112	hunt	—
113	hit	—
114	cut	—
115	split	—
116	stab	—
117	scratch	—
118	dig	—
119	swim	—
120	fly	—
121	walk	—
122	come	—
123	lie	—
124	sit	—
125	stand	—
126	turn	—
127	fall	—
128	give	—
129	hold	—
130	squeeze	—
131	rub	—
132	wash	—
133	wipe	—
134	pull	—
135	push	—
136	throw	—
137	tie	—
138	sew	—
139	count	—
140	say	—
141	sing	—
142	play	—
143	float	—
144	flow	—
145	freeze	—
146	swell	—
147	sun	—
148	moon	—
149	star	—
150	water	—
151	rain	—
152	river	—
153	lake	—
154	sea	—
155	salt	—
156	stone	—
157	sand	—
158	dust	—
159	earth	—
160	cloud	—
161	fog	—
162	sky	—
163	wind	—
164	snow	—
165	ice	—
166	smoke	—
167	fire	—
168	ash	—
169	burn	—
170	road	—
171	mountain	bjarg
172	red	—
173	green	—
174	yellow	—
175	white	—
176	black	—
177	night	noghde
178	day	teï
179	year	—
180	warm	—
181	cold	—
182	full	—
183	new	—
184	old	—
185	good	gud
186	bad	—
187	rotten	—
188	dirty	—
189	straight	—
190	round	—
191	sharp	—
192	dull	—
193	smooth	—
194	wet	—
195	dry	—
196	correct	—
197	near	—
198	far	—
199	right	—
200	left	—
201	at	—
202	in	—
203	with	—
204	and	—
205	if	—
206	because	—
207	name	—

Example textEdit