I wanted to share my latest work with the community.
Some of you might know about the language Lortho - some through the posts about its writing system. This time around, I wanted to share an overview of the language here.
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The Basics
- Type: Agglutinating
- Alignment: Nominative-Accusative
- Word Order: VSO
- Type of Writing System: Alphabet
- Direction of Writing: Left-to-Right
Phonology
Consonants:
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| Labial | Alveolar | Postalveolar | Velar | Glottal |
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Nasal | m | n | | | |
Plosive | p pʰ b | t tʰ d dʰ | | k kʰ | |
Fricative | f | s | ʃ | | h |
Lateral Approximant | | l | | | |
Tap or Flap | | ɾ | | | |
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| Front | Central | Back |
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Close | i | | u |
Close-Mid | | | o |
Open-Mid | ɛ | | |
Open | | a | |
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/ei/, /ai/, /oi/, and /au/.
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Phonotactics
Syllable Structure:
- (C)(C)V(V)(C)1
- Stress is on the penult of a word except :
- -n verbs will always receive stress on the final syllable of the infinitive.
- all verbs will retain the stress on the final syllable of the stem when conjugated
- adverbs always receive stress on the final syllable
- Stress is neither given to prefixes nor suffixes except :
- pluralized nouns will shift the stress to the penult
Orthography
The writing system is an alphabet, albeit it behaves similarly to an abugida. Consonant-vowel combinations are written in ligature form except for /i/ which is a stand alone vowel. With the recent updates to the writing system, the vowel [ɛ] can be written underneath the consonant as a separate glyph vs in ligature form. More about the writing system can be seen here.
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Morphology
Nouns
Nouns in Lortho have three main features:
- They are one of three genders: masculine, feminine, or neuter
- All nouns are modified to denote case
- All nouns end in a vowel (there are exceptions)
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Masculine | Feminine | Neuter |
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-i | -u | -a |
dharakhi | dhammu | hadikha |
mountain | chair | country, land |
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Grammatical Case
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Case | Example | Translation |
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Nominative | kansaptha | the forest (neut.) |
Accusative | kansaptha-me | forest (dir obj) |
Dative | kansaptha-mela | forest (ind obj) |
Genitive^2 | kansaptha-nau | of the forest |
Lative^3a,b | kansaptha-ina | in/into the forest |
Ablative | kansaptha-nat | out of/from the forest |
Allative | kansaptha-dan | to/towards the forest |
Prolative | kansaptha-dar | through/via/by way of the forest |
Instrumental | kansaptha-len | using the forest |
Vocative | fa-kansaptha | Hey, Forest! |
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Each noun class is pluralized by adding a suffix:
- Feminine (-u) and neuter (-a) nouns add the suffix –ne:
- e.g.
- Fem: kansaphu [kanˈsapʰu] (tree); plural kansaphune [kansaˈpʰunɛ]
- Neut: hadikha [haˈdikʰa] (land, country); plural hadikhane [hadiˈkʰanɛ]
- e.g.
- Masculine (-i) nouns add the infix –en- before –i:
- e.g. olakhi [oˈlakʰi] (boat); plural olakheni [olaˈkʰɛni]
- Masculine nouns ending in –ni will change the plural suffix to –emi:
- e.g. phorenni [pʰoˈɾenːi] (peak, summit); plural phorennemi [pʰoɾɛnˈnɛmi]
Definite and Indefinite Articles
The definite article does not exist and is implied with the absence of the indefinite article. The indefinite article is the numeral 1 (ikhi). The counting system in Lortho is decimal (base 10) and you can see them here.
Verbs
There are currently three types of verbs4 :
- -o verbs
- the verb stem is made by subtracting the final -o
- e.g. konpharo (to speak); konpharin (I speak)
- -t verbs
- the verb stem is made by changing the final -t to -d
- e.g. lharit (to run); lharidin (I run)
- -n verbs
- the infinitive is also the verb stem
- e.g. shailan (to sit); shailanin (I sit)
Conjugation
Present Tense: konpharo
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Singular | Masc | Fem | Neut |
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1S | konphar-in | konpharun | - |
2S | konphar-anni | konphar-annu | - |
3S | konphar-i | konphar-u | konphar-a |
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Plural | Masc | Fem | Neut |
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1P | konphar-inan | konphar-unan | - |
2P | konphar-amin | konphar-amun | - |
3P | konphar-imi | konphar-imu | konphar-ima |
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Present Tense: thomit
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Singular | Masc | Fem | Neut |
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1S | thomid-in | thomid-un | - |
2S | thomid-anni | thomid-annu | - |
3S | thomid-I | thomid-u | thomid-a |
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Plural | Masc | Fem | Neut |
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1P | thomid-inan | thomid-unan | - |
2P | thomid-amin | thomid-amun | - |
3P | thomid-imi | thomid-imu | thomid-ima |
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Present Tense: shailan
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Singular | Masc | Fem | Neut |
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1S | shailan-in | shailan-un | - |
2S | shailan-anni | shailan-annu | - |
3S | shailan-I | shailan-u | shailan-a |
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Plural | Masc | Fem | Neut |
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1P | shailan-inan | shailan-unan | - |
2P | shailan-amin | shailan-amun | - |
3P | shailan-imi | shailan-imu | shailan-ima |
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Preterite:
The preterite of all verbs are made by adding the suffix -ikh before the personal endings:
- e.g. konpharikhin (I spoke)
All adjectives are roots to which the corresponding gender suffix is added (-i, -u, -a) to agree with the gender of the noun which they modify. They are placed before the noun. They do not agree with number.
Adverbs
Adverbs are easily discernible since most end in -r and are usually placed before the word they modify; however, this is not a rule.
Agreement
Verbs must be conjugated in gender and number to agree with the subject, whether implicit or implied. Adjectives agree in gender, but not in number.
Special Markers
In order to form a question, the mandatory question marker kaura is placed at the beginning of the sentence.
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Examples
Here you can find multiple written samples with IPA, romanization, translation, and interlinear glosses.
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Footnotes:
- Onset consonant clusters are possible, though extremely rare.
- The genitive case is only one aspect of possession.
- For masculine nouns, the ending is -ena; feminine nouns change the -u to -o to form the diphthong -oina.
- There is no locative case. Lortho handles this mainly through context with the verb. For example:
-
[g=live-1MSG forest.N-LAT]thomid-in kansaptha-ina[/g]
I live in the forest
vs -
[g=run-1MSG forest.N-LAT]lharid-in kansaptha-ina[/g]
I run into the forest
-
- Stress is maintained on the final syllable of the verb stem.