Solina

Name: Solina Type: Fusional Alignment: Nominative-Accusative Head Direction: Number of genders: 2 Declensions: Yes Conjugations: Yes Nouns declined according to Case Number Definitiveness Gender Verbs conjugated according to Voice Mood Person Number Tense Aspect

Classification and Dialects

Solina is classified as an Ibero-Romance language with heavy borrowing from Hebrew, Turkic and West Chadic sources. By local custom, it is grouped with the Ybrán language family, to distinguish it from the Alshriki, Bantat, and Chadik families which coexist locally. Solina began its life as a dialect of Proto-Ybrán, a creole spoken among Northern nomads, and has since developed, with influence from Hausa locals and Ladino scribes, into a distinct language, which itself has an Ayask dialect marked by greater integration of Hausa influences.

Phonology

Consonants

	Bilabial	Labio-dental	Dental	Alveolar	Post-alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar
Nasal	m		n				ɲ	ŋ
Plosive	p (b)		t d					k(w) g(w)
Fricative	(ɸ) β	v	θ	s	ʃ ʒ		ʝ	ɣ
Trill			r
Flap or tap			ɾ			(ɽ)
Lateral app.				l			(j)

Certain phonological shifts occur in the Ayask dialect, namely [ʝ] -> [j], [β] -> [b], [v] -> [ɸ], [θ] -> [t] between vowels, [ɾ] -> [ɽ], and [k]/[g] are rounded when followed by [a] or [o].

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close			u
Near-close	ɪ
Mid	e	ə	o
Open		a

Vowel morphology occurs as outlined in the orthography section below, with the Mid/Central vowel appearing only when [a] or [e] would occur in the word-final position of a plural noun, and in certain loanwords on a case by case basis.

Orthography

Letter	Aa	Dd	Ee	Ff	Gg	Hh	Ii	Kk	Ll	Mm	Nn
Sound	[a/ə]	[d]	[e/ə]	[v(ɸ)]	[ɣ/g(w)]	[h]	[ɪ]	[k(w)]	[l]	[m]	[n]
Letter	Oo	Pp	Rr	Ss	Şş	Tt	Uu	Vv	Ww	Yy	Zz
Sound	[o]	[p]	[ɾ(ɽ)]	[s]	[ʃ]	[θ/t]	[u]	[β(b)]	[w]	[ʝ(j)/ɪ]	[s/ʒ]

Above is the standard Latinate orthography for Solina, however, for religious purposes and among pious Terşero, an alternate set of vowels descended from Solitreo is used, in addition to a streamlined set of consonants. As the influence of the Terşero has grown, the use of Latinate orthography has steadily declined.

To the right is an outline of the Solinate orthography, including the heavily context-dependent vowel system. Isolate forms are derived from the respective vowels being placed over the word-final [a], which also acts as a "neutral" or "carrier" letter.

*indicates a word-final form

†indicates an isolate form

Nouns

Gender

Nouns in Solina are marked for gender in different ways depending on their historical root. Words originating from Ybrán generally conform to the rule that words ending in -o are masculine, -a are feminine, and others are assigned on an individual basis. Words introduced by Ladino scribes sometime before the separation tend also to be assigned gender according to Ybrán convention, such as the word Kule (tower), which comes from a Turkic root with no gender, and became male by convention.

Number

The dominance of certain Southern Iberian accents during the period of upheaval complicated the Ybrán plural system, and by extension that of Solina. Plurals are only marked intermittently, and there by a vowel shift:

Singular	Plural
Kule ['ku.le]	Kule' ['ku.lə]
Avrogaro [a.βro.'ga.ro]	Avrogaro [a.βro.ga.'ro]
Sienga [si.'eŋ.ga]	Sienga' [si.eŋ.'gaː]
Aksjon [ak.sjon]	Aksjone [ak.'sjo.nə]

In the Ayask dialect, plurals are additionally marked with a high/rising tone on the final vowel, a change which is not apparent in any orthography of the language.

Articles

All nouns in Solina must appear with an article, which come in two classes: definite and indefinite.

	Singular		Plural
Definite	el	la	lo	lah
Indefinite	un	una	uno	un´h

Be aware that the orthographic plural marking does not occur in words ending in -o, and that the apostrophe marking on -e and -a does not always occur, and cannot be relied on to indicate plurality. Likewise, pronunciation of plural vowel shifts in the noun occur frequently but vary by dialect and word construction. The only reliable indicator of plurality is the article.