Astinian

Astinian
Type	Fusional
Alignment	Nominative-Accusative
Head direction	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
Meta-information
Progress	0%
Statistics Nouns 0% Verbs 0% Adjectives 0% Syntax 0% Words of 1500
Creator	gjordanoff

Classification and Dialects

Being spoken in the Astinian Commonwealth as the official language, Astinian is an Eastern Germanic language, heavily influenced by its Slavic neighboring languages, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian and Russian. It is a fusional and highly inflected language with a case system and a complex verb system. Furthermore, it is the only Germanic language which uses the Cyrillic script. As in Belarusian and Russian, vowel reduction (especially the akanye and the ikanye) is present in Astinian.

Phonology

Consonants

	Labial	Dental, alveolar	Dental	Alveolar	Post-alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m mj	n					ɲ
Stop	p pj b bj	t tj d dj					c ɟ	k g
Affricate		ts tsj			tʃ		tɕ
Fricative	f fj v vj	s sj z zj			ʃ ʒ		ɕ ʑ ç	x	h
Approximant	w	l					j
Trill					r rj
Lateral app.							ʎ

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i	ɨ	u
Mid	ɛ		ɔ
Near-low	æ	ɐ
Low	a

Vowel reduction is a very present phenomena in Astinian. The first vowel reduction is called the akanye, which defines the reduction of the vowels /a/ and /ɔ/ to /ɐ/, when unstressed, e.g. : воґзаль /vɐgzaʎ/ (=train station). The second vowel reduction is called the ikanye, which is the reduction of the vowel /ɛ/ to /ɨ/, when unstressed, e.g. : стрегнецië /str^jɛgɲɨc^jijɐ/ (=decision). The ikanye can only apply, if there are already two /ɛ/-vowels in the words stem. The first /ɛ/ will always be the stressed vowel and the other /ɛ/-vowels will follow the ikanye rule. However, the ikanye does not apply for grammatical endings (e.g. : for nouns, the /ɛ/-vowel stays even if unstressed and for verbs, it stays too or follows a new vowel reduction, the okanye, which will be discussed when talking about conjugations).

Two non-iotified vowels, whether stressed or unstressed, induce palatalization, notably /ɛ/~/ɨ/ represented by the letter е and /i/ represented by the letter i. Mostly the palatalization resumes by adding a /^j/ to the consonant followed by e or i, but the more advanced iotations are :

• n --> ɲ
• k --> c
• g --> ɟ
• tʃ --> tɕ
• ʃ --> ɕ
• ʒ --> ʑ
• h --> ç
• l --> ʎ

Iotified vowels, whether stressed or unstressed, induce of course palatalization too.

Writing System

Letter	А а	Б б	Г г	Ґ ґ	Д д	Е е	Ё ё	Ж ж	З з	S s	I i	Й й
Sound	a~ ɐ	b	g	h	d	jɛ~ jɨ	jɔ~ jɐ	ʒ	z	dz	ji	j
Letter	К к	Л л	М м	Н н	О о	П п	Р р	С с	Т т	В в	У у	Ў ў
Sound	k	l	m	n	ɔ~ ɐ	p	r	s	t	v	u	w
Letter	Ф ф	Х х	Ц ц	Ч ч	Ш ш	Щ щ	Ъ ъ	Ы ы	Ь ь	Я я	Ю ю	Ѣ ѣ
Sound	f	x	ts	tʃ	ʃ	ʃtʃ	*	ɨ	**	ja~ jɐ	ju	æ

*The letter Ъ is used for three purposes :