Choroze
Posted: 13 Aug 2020 00:19
This is a language for a conworld that I've had since I was a kid. It exists on the edge of a universe 20 universes away from ours, but I will go into more depth about the world at another time. Although Choroze as a whole is very linguistically diverse, on other planets the upper-mid dialect of the Bulaqond Reloze language is simply known as Choroze, since it is most commonly used for external affairs.
The language uses historical spelling, and the romanization preserves that by having each letter correspond to a letter in the Choroze alphabet. For instance, Choroze is pronounced /ˈhɔɾoɒ/. The alignment is split, with the main clause being nominative/accusative and subordinate clauses being ergative/absolutive. The word order in nominative clauses is similar to the V2 order found in Germanic languages, except that the verb comes second to last. In ergative clauses the verb comes first. Nouns decline for 5 cases and have 4 genders. Verbs decline for 3 persons and 3 tenses. There are loan words and grammar from languages to the north, giving the lexicon a lot of diversity.
Here is the basic phonology to start off with:
Consonants:
/p(ʰ) b t(ʰ) d k(ʰ) ɡ kʷ ɡʷ/ ⟨p b t d c g q ğ⟩
/m n r~ɾ ʀ l j/ ⟨m n r gr l j⟩
/f v s z ʃ h~ç/ ⟨f v s z ś ch⟩
/p͡f t͡s t͡ʃ/ ⟨pf ts tś/cś⟩
Of course, these consonants will often be silent or make different sounds because of the historical spelling.
Vowels:
Each vowel can be long or short. Long vowels are represented by the vowel being doubled. Long vowels have three different pronunciations based on whether they are isolated (before a short vowel or end of a phrase), before a long vowel, or before itself.
⟨i⟩ long: /iə iː eɪ/ short: /ɪ/
⟨e⟩ long: /e̝ə e̝ː jɪ/ short: /ɛ/
⟨a⟩ long: /e̞a e̞ː aɪ/ short: /ɑ/
⟨o⟩ long: /oɒ oː uo/ short: /ɔ/
⟨u⟩ long: /uʊ uː ou/ short: /ʊ/
Short ⟨e⟩, ⟨o⟩, and ⟨a⟩ are realized as /ə/ in some places, including at the end of words.
The language uses historical spelling, and the romanization preserves that by having each letter correspond to a letter in the Choroze alphabet. For instance, Choroze is pronounced /ˈhɔɾoɒ/. The alignment is split, with the main clause being nominative/accusative and subordinate clauses being ergative/absolutive. The word order in nominative clauses is similar to the V2 order found in Germanic languages, except that the verb comes second to last. In ergative clauses the verb comes first. Nouns decline for 5 cases and have 4 genders. Verbs decline for 3 persons and 3 tenses. There are loan words and grammar from languages to the north, giving the lexicon a lot of diversity.
Here is the basic phonology to start off with:
Consonants:
/p(ʰ) b t(ʰ) d k(ʰ) ɡ kʷ ɡʷ/ ⟨p b t d c g q ğ⟩
/m n r~ɾ ʀ l j/ ⟨m n r gr l j⟩
/f v s z ʃ h~ç/ ⟨f v s z ś ch⟩
/p͡f t͡s t͡ʃ/ ⟨pf ts tś/cś⟩
Of course, these consonants will often be silent or make different sounds because of the historical spelling.
Vowels:
Each vowel can be long or short. Long vowels are represented by the vowel being doubled. Long vowels have three different pronunciations based on whether they are isolated (before a short vowel or end of a phrase), before a long vowel, or before itself.
⟨i⟩ long: /iə iː eɪ/ short: /ɪ/
⟨e⟩ long: /e̝ə e̝ː jɪ/ short: /ɛ/
⟨a⟩ long: /e̞a e̞ː aɪ/ short: /ɑ/
⟨o⟩ long: /oɒ oː uo/ short: /ɔ/
⟨u⟩ long: /uʊ uː ou/ short: /ʊ/
Short ⟨e⟩, ⟨o⟩, and ⟨a⟩ are realized as /ə/ in some places, including at the end of words.