From ConPlanet

Jump to: navigation, search

The Lindjerblau dialect is a dialect of the Almsaundean language, and as the official standard dialect of Vereva, carries the most speakers of all six dialects. It is a tripartite language that is morphologically synthetic-fusional. Its word order is mostly free, with the head of the phrase holding the bulk of the semantical stress, though a standard order may be considered SOV or OSV in dependent clauses. The head direction is said to be head-final but this is shown only when compounding nouns or infinitive verbs. As the standard dialect, Lindjerblau, meaning "lingua franca", is the language spoken in all government and emergency agencies, in most nationwide businesses, in schools and universities, written in newspapers, as directions, on maps and many signs, and found in every form of media published nationally in Vereva. Some forms of media, notably those which are used in cases of urgency and emergency, such television and radio broadcasts, are required by the Verevian government to provide a translation of the standard dialect whenever the regional dialect is being used. These translations can be found in captions on the bottom of a sign or the television screen and often, as a parallel program on the next channel or radio station.

History

Lindjerblau
Lindjerblau
Pronunciation	lɪn'djəʁblau
Spoken in	Vereva
Total speakers	230,000,000
Language family	Bogriain Ancient Almsaundean Old Almsaundean Modern Almsaundean Central Almsaundean Lindjerblau; ; ; ; ;
Writing system	Latin
Official status
Official language in	Vereva
Regulated by	Pfuh Saundekkieptekker, Anderjam
Language codes
ISO 639-1	None
ISO 639-2	–
ISO 639-3	–
	Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

The modern dialects of the Almsaundean language are said to have split and started evolving individually circa 1560. This proposal was first theorized in Troij fro Veiptom's book, "Lowingegesaundeleine," (Living Language of Ours; Pre-regulated Apfe, 1746) which in turn led to the eventual creation of Pfuh Saundekkieptekker, the official Almsaundean language regulation bureau stationed in Anderjam. Because of the popularity of the book among royalty and scholars and the arguments it made, it influenced the Saljente's choice to declare his own dialect of Lindjerblau as the official standard dialect in 1750. An order was issued immediately to provide a translation of Lindjerblau for all official documents. By 1754, Pfuh Saundekkieptekker was established and the Extreme Grammatical Reform was under way. The reform oblitterated irregularities, regularized spelling and simplified dialects enough to have them legibly intelligible and was issued to the population in 1782. By 1810, the standard dialect, having been forcefully taught in not only scholarly schools, but also in common public schools since 1782, was spoken fluently by the majority of the upcoming generation and truly earned status as the national standard.

Phonology

Lindjerblau vowels
	unrounded	rounded	central	unrounded	rounded
	front		central	back
close	i	y			u
near-close	ɪ			ʊ
close-mid	e	ø			o
mid			ə
open-mid	ɛ
near-open	æ
open	a				ɒ

Lindjerblau consonants
	Labial		Coronal				Dorsal			Radical		Glottal
	Bilabial	Labio dental	Dental	Alveolarl	Postalv.	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyn geal	Epiglottal	Glottal
Nasal		ɱ	n				ɲ	ŋ
Plosive	p b		t d					k g
Fricative		f v	θ ð	s z	ʃ ʒ		ç	x	ʁ			h
Approximant							j		ʁ
Trill			r
Lateral app.			l				ʎ

Affricates
	t͡ʃ d͡ʒ

Co-articulated consonants
Approximants	ʍ w	ɥ

Sounds

Vowel sounds
Letter	IPA	Letter	IPA	Letter	IPA	Letter	IPA	Letter	IPA
A a	/a/	Ä ä	/ɛɹ/	Ą ą	/jɒⁿ/	Äu äu	/oiɹ/	Au au	/au/
E e	/ə/	Ë ë	/eɹ/	Ę ę	/jɛⁿ/	Ëi ëi	/aiɹ/	Ei ei	/ai/
I i	/ɪ/	Ï ï	/ɪɹ/	İ ı	/jɪ/	Ïe ïe	/jəɹ/	Ie ie	/i/
O o	/o/	Ö ö	/əɹ/	Ø ø	/jə/	Öi öi	/ɥiɹ/	Oi oi	/oi/
U u	/ʊ/	Ü ü	/yɹ/	Ů ů	/jø/	Üe üe	/əɹ/	Ue ue	/ø/
Consonants
B b	/b/	Gh gh	/ç/	L l	/l/	Nk nk	/ŋ/	Szch szch	/ʒ/
C c	/ð/	H h	/h/	Ł ł	/w/	P p	/p/	T t	/t/
D d	/d/	Hj hj	/ʍ/	Lj lj	/ʎ/	R R	/ʁ/	Tsch tsch	/t͡ʃ/
Dszch dszch	/d͡ʒ/	J j	/j/	M m	/ɱ/	S s	/s/	V v	/θ/
F f	/f/	K k	/k/	N n	/n/	Ş ß	/pts/	W w	/v/
G g	/g/	Kh kh	/x/	Nj nj	/ɲ/	Sch sch	/ʃ/	Z z	/z/

The Lindjerblau alphabet consists of 34 letters used in combinations to make 55 distinctinve sounds, shown in the table at the right.

Aa Ää Ąą Bb Cc Dd Ee Ëë Ęę Ff Gg Hh Ii Ïï Iı Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Öö Øø Pp Rr Ss Şß Tt Uu Üü Ůů Vv Ww Zz

Five letters are basic vowels

Aa Ee Ii Oo Uu

Five letters are called fluid vowels. These letters when singular or dipthong receive an unwritten /ɹ/ sound at the end of them. The /ɹ/ sound exists only after fluid consonants.

Ää Ëë Ïï Öö Üü

Five letters are called liquid vowels. These letters when singular or diphthong receive an unwritten /j/ sound before the enunciation of their sound.

Ąą Ęę İı Øø Ůů

The nineteen other letters are consonants. There are also two consonants (Ł ł and X x) that are not considered part of the standard alphabet. The Ł letter, representing the /w/ sound is found solely in borrowed words while X, representing /s/ is found only in proper nouns such as common names or place names.

Vowels

In Lindjerblau, there are 15 single vowels and 10 diphthongs that make 25 different posssible vowels. Because Almsaundean verbs, adverbs and nouns use a strong declension system based on the stressed syllable in the root of a word, vowels play a vital role in the language. Mispronunciation of a vowel can potentially lead to a change in number, mood, or meaning of a root word. Lindjerblau vowels are put into a chart called the Strength Chart, which shows the pattern in which vowels decline.

Strength Chart

Strength Chart
IND	SUB	JUS	SUB	IND
a	ä	ą	äu	au
e	ë	ę	ëi	ei
i	ï	ı	ïe	ie
o	ö	ø	öi	oi
u	ü	ů	üe	ue

The Strength Chart shows the pattern in which vowels decline. The chart consists of a column of single vowels on the left and a column of diphthongs on the right. Vowels move toward the center column, or down, in the chart to distinguish meaning. Common meanings distinguished by a change in the stressed vowel include verbal mood, tense and noun number.

Examples:
- sıje (I must see, Jussive) « sïeje (I see, Subjunctive) « sieje (I see, Indicative)
- tuschsse (She chooses, Indicative Present) » taschsse (She chose, Indicative Past)
- Gerle (girl, Ergative Singular) » "Gërle"¹ » Gęrle (girls, Ergative Plural)

Note₁: This form no longer exists in modern Lindjerblau.

External Sandhi

Letter	Combining	Hard	Soft	Verbal
a	ha	a	ah	ah
b	pp	b	pt	b
c	jc	cj	cj	cj
d	d	d	d	d
d	d	d	st	st
e	jje	e	ej	ej
f	ff	ff	ff	ff
f	pf	pf	pf	pf
g	g	ct	g	ct
g	g	gh	gh	gh
h	dszch
i	jji	i	ij	ij
j	j
k	kk	kk	kk	kk
k	k	kh	kh	kh
k	kk	ck	ck	ck
l	ll	l	l	l
l	jl	lj	lj	lj
m	m	m	mpt	mpt
n	nn	nn	nn	nn
n	jn	nj	nj	nj
o	ho	o	oh	oh
p	pp	p	pt	ps
r	r	r	r	r
s	sz	ss	ss	szch
s	sch	sch	sch	sch
t	tt	tt	tt	tsch
u	hu	u	uh	uh
v	ff	ff	ff	ff
w	w	w	vv	vv
z	z	tz	tz	z

Single consonants in Lindjerblau follow patterns of sandhi, altering sounds at the boundary of a root word based on neighboring sounds and grammatical function. There are four possible changes that can happen. The first change is an alteration at the beginning of a word if that word is attaching to a compound that ends with a vowel.

wë + ho = wëdszcho

The second possible change happens at the end of a word before an ending of grammatical function starting with a hard vowel (a, o, u and all accented and diphthongal forms beginning with these vowels)

Stal + -o = Staljo

Third, a change may happen at the end of a word before an ending of a grammatical function starting with a soft vowel (e, i and all their accented and diphthongal forms beginning with these vowels)

Pies + -ers = Pieschers

The final change occurs at the end of a word when the grammatical function of the word is a verb.

tem + -äne = temptäne

Note that diagraphs disobey sandhi rules.

The chart below shows the Sandhi declinations for all letters. Some letters have multiple declinations and which declension they take must be memorized for each root while the letter Şß has no Sandhi declination.

Gemination

When a consonant is written after the same consonant, gemination occurs. Gemination, in Lindjerblau, is the extension of the enunciation of a sound so that all letters are pronounced. Almsaundean languages allow for long geminate patterns such as 3 to 5 consonants creating a long sound. The most common triple, quadruple and quintuple geminates were made of the letters p, t or s and occured when grammatical suffixes were added to each other. (Soi + tett + t = soitettt). Modernly, geminants of more than two consonants are replaced by ß, called the geminate consanant. (Soi + tett + t = soiteß). The geminate consonant changes the pronunciation of the geminate cluster to /pts/.

The geminate cluster of w is spelled with a v, though the v then takes the prnounciation of w (/v/) and does not take its own pronunciation (/θ/). This change occured during the Extreme Grammatical Reform to save space on paper and economise ink. Such clusters as "wwww" in the word "Hawwwwcje" were reduced to "Havvvvcje." In modern Lindjerblau, the word would be spelled "Haßcje," though the quadruple geminate which created the nominative plural existed in the 12th gender which collapsed.

Grammar

Because the Almsaundean language is a greatly inflected language, grammar in its dialects can be very complex, most parts of speech declining to fit what their function in a sentence. Due to this high level of inflection, word order is, to a certain extent, free.

Word order

Word order, or syntax, generally have no bearing on the meaning of a sentence in Lindjerblau. There are some cases where order has specific limits in regards to semantical meaning or stylistic purpose.

Semantics:
- Word drop does not occur.
- When adjectives are used to describe several nouns in the same case, the adjectives are placed before or after the noun they modify to avoid ambiguity.
- All parts of a dependant clause (all clauses introduced by a conjunction ending in -vit) must remain after their introductory conjunction. Likewise, all parts of an independent clause must remain before a conjunction which introduces a dependent clause.
- The prepositions or postpositions of phrasal verbs do not receive objects; nouns do not decline with them.
- The prepositions or postpositions of phrasal verbs are place in specific places in the sentence.
Stylistic:
- Any prepositions, postpositions, or nouns or their modifiers in the prepositional, postpositional, dative or genitive cases should not complete a dependant clause. In this case, the verb is almost always thrown to the end of the clause. Other options, although rare, include throwing the adverbial phrase, or parts of the ergative or accusative phrases to the end of the sentence.
- Likewise, particles should never end a sentence.

Relative Clauses

Relative clauses may be dealt with two ways. First, as dependent clauses:

Ą kernne pfo Mano, rju pfo selgotscht. - (I know the man who bought them.)
Ą kernne pfo Mano, rju pfonu Schui schën selgotscht. - (I know the man who bought the new shoes for her.)

Alternatively, the clause can drop everything but the relative pronoun, the accusative noun, the dative noun and the verb and attach themselves respectively at the head of the noun they relate back to.

Ą kernne pfo Rjuszelgotshtmano. - (I know the man who bought (them).)
Ą kernne pfo Rjuschuiselgotshtmano. - (I know the man who bought the (new) shoes (for her).)

Phrases and Comments

Sentences in Lindjerblau can be broken down into two smaller phrases. The Noun Phrase contains a noun and all of its modifiers. "His brother's blue car," is an example of a complete Noun Phrase. The Verbal Phrase contains the verb, its modifiers and all pronouns. "She ran quickly to him," would include only words in the Verbal Phrase. The Old and Ancient Almsaundean languages used a peculiar grammatical form called a grammatical comment, which divides Noun and Verbal Phrases into smaller forms. The grammatical comment combines words into two basic groups; nouns and verbs, and words that modify them. While nouns and verbs stand alone, their modifiers attach themselves to each other creating arbitrarily long compounds. These compounds may not be broken down into smaller words in speech nor in writing.

Noun Phrase

Noun Phrase
- Prepositional Comment
  - Contains the Preposition
- Modifier Comment
  - Contains the Article or Possessive Pronoun + Demonstrative + Adjectives
- Noun Comment
  - Contains the Noun
- Genitive Modifier Comment
  - Contains the Genitive Article or Genitive Case Possessive Pronoun + Demonstrative + Adjectives
- Genitive Noun Comment
  - Contains the Genitive Noun
- Postpositional Comment
  - Contains the Postposition

Nouns

Main article: Lindjerblau nouns

Nouns are inflected for 2 numbers, (singular and plural), 8 cases (ergative, accusative, dative, prepositional, postpositional, genitive, nominative and vocative) and 5 genders (man, women, boy, girl and neuter). More numbers, cases and genders existed in the Ancient and Old Almsaundean language, though they collapsed in most modern dialects. Evidence of the collapsed declinations can still be be found in nouns however. The dual, trial and quadrual numbers can be found as endings for diminutives and pejoratives, and words collapsed into the existing 5 genders from the 10th, 11th and 12th genders are riddled with silent letters. Some postpositions were developed from endings of the cases they once represented.

Articles

There are three types of articles in Lindjerblau, the definite, negative and demonstrative articles. Indefinite articles do not exist. To make a noun indefinite, no article is used. Articles follow a regular pattern. Definite articles are created by adding the noun's case ending to pf-. Likewise, negative articles add the noun's case endings to k-, while demonstrative articles add them to c- or d-. Articles representing nouns in the ergative, nominitive or vocative cases take -uh endings for the man, boy and neuter genders for singular nouns, and -ij endings for woman and girl genders for singular nouns. Articles also place an e to ease pronunciation when the ending it takes begins with a consonant.

Examples:
- pfuh Man - the man, ergative singular
- kes Woms - (not ks Woms) no woman's, genitive singular
- cïns Boins - to these boys, dative plural
- den Gerlen - those girls, accusative plural
- Hausje - a home, vocative singular

When an article acts with an adjective to form Modifier Comment, the article drops all the consonants at the end until it ends with a vowel. Pfers + gegild would thus combine into pfeggegild and not pfersgegild.

Adjectives

Adjectives are highly irregular. There is no rule to inflect another part of speech to make it into an adjective. A noun's adjective form must be memorized. Adjectives inflect like articles, taking the nouns case ending. However, they are different in that they don't always receive endings; they only receive the ending when they are not preceeded by an article. These both are demonstrated by the phrase "Friji Donezoni art hippii Donezoni co pfi Donezoni frij n art cues pfë hippii. Pfuh Saljente isst hippi," (A free people is a content people but the people aren't free so they're not content. The king alone is content.) used as a political slogan in Vereva during the Adelian Revolt

Adjectives are inflected also for comparison. The prefixes ge- (most), be- (more), se- (as), ne- (less) and we- (least) are attached to an adjective to show this. When an adjective begins with a vowel, the prefixes add a -g at the end. Scheingegild Brepfer j kemt. (Her eldest brother is coming.)

Pre- and Postpositions

Prepositions and postpositions were formed from the loss of many cases. Most postpositions are from the singular endings which was the same in every gender for each specific case.

Verbal Phrase

Verbal Phrase
- Adverbial Comment
  - Contains Ergative or Nominitive Pronouns + Accusative Pronouns + Dative Pronouns + Prepositional Pronouns + Postpositional Pronouns + Adverbs of Manner + Adverbs of Time + Mood Endings for Irregular Verbs
- Particle Comment
  - Contains the Particle
- Auxiliary Comment
  - Contains the Auxiliary Verb
- Verb Comment
  - Contains the Main Verb
- Gerundive Comment
  - Contains the Gerundive

Verbs

Main article: Lindjerblau verbs

Verbs conjugate according to 7 moods, 5 persons, 2 numbers and 5 tenses. Verbal aspects are shown by using particles. The 7 moods include the indicative, subjunctive, imperative, jussive, passive, inferential and conditional. The five persons that Lindjerblau verbs decline to include two "genderless" persons and three "gendered" persons. The five tenses are the Present, Past, Pluperfect, Future and Future Perfect. While the present tense is a simple single word tense for all moods (except the conditional), all other tenses are compoud dual word tenses combining conjugations of the verb "bijne," to be, and a participle for Past and Pluperfect, and the verb "hivväne," to have, and a participle for the Future and Future Perfect.

Particles

Particles mark aspect on verbs. These aspects include negativity, perfectivity, and evidentiality, the last aspect of which is only used alongside verbs in the inferential mood. Unlike other parts of speech, the particle does not inflect, and can not be compounded to form new words.

Pronouns

Like verbs, 3rd, 4th and 5th person pronouns inflect for case like nouns, but also reflect the "three gendered persons" which collectively represent the English third person. The first and second persons, inflect for both cases and gender.

Pronouns are intrinsically inclusive, but exclusivity can be shown by attaching the prefix "ke-" to the pronoun to be excluded.

Rjikewë - (we, but not you )
Pfëkeschij - (they, but not she )
Kedszchonschan - (to neither him nor her )

Adverbs

Adverbs are formed by adding "-lij" to the verb root. They agree with the verbs they modify, changing the stressed syllables to match the verbs mood.