Conlang
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Aspenish
Aspenush
Type
Agglutinative
Alignment
Nominative-Accusative
Head direction
Mostly 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



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 information[]

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.

Dialects[]

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.

Regulation[]

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/).

Phonology[]

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.

Consonants[]

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.

Vowels[]

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

Diphthongs[]

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

Alphabet[]

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.

Phonotactics[]

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.

Grammar[]

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 order[]

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 number[]

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.

Articles[]

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

Nouns[]

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

Pronouns[]

Person Subjective Oblique Possessive
1st sing. 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. 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.

Adjectives[]

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

Adverbs[]

[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 - sudden --- sëbdainiz - suddenly
glaady - glad --- glaadyiz - gladly


Modifiers[]

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

Verbs[]

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

Nonfinite verb forms[]

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 subjunctive[]

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


Vocabulary[]


No. English
1I
2you (singular)thö
3he
4we
5you (plural)
6they
7this
8that
9here
10there
11who
12what
13where
14when
15how
16not
17all
18many
19some
20few
21other
22one
23two
24three
25four
26five
27big
28long
29wide
30thick
31heavy
32small
33short
34narrow
35thin
36woman
37man (adult male)
38man (human being)
39child
40wife
41husband
42mother
43father
44animal
45fish
46bird
47doghund
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
93eat
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
171mountainbjarg
172red
173green
174yellow
175white
176black
177nightnoghde
178dayteï
179year
180warm
181cold
182full
183new
184old
185goodgud
186bad
187rotten
188dirty
189straight
190round
191sharp
192dull
193smooth
194wet
195dry
196correct
197near
198far
199right
200left
201at
202in
203with
204and
205if
206because
207name


Example text[]