Ldon

Ldon (native pronunciation: /ldo̞n/, English pronunciation: /lədɒn/ luh-DON) is a language spoken in Ldonjama.

Numbers: mal seb znu ldoś uan

Phonology

p t k b d v s z ś ź h c ć m n w l j a e i o u /p t k b d v s z ɕ ʑ h ts tɕ m n w l j a e i o u/

Phonotactics

The acceptable initial consonant clusters are lp, lb, lt, ld, lk, sm, sn, sw, sj, zm, zn, zv, zj, tm, kn, pn, tw, kw and dw.

Hiatus is allowed, e.g. hoap = oblique I form of hoc 'son'

Morphophonology

Consonant gradation

Ldon has a process of consonant gradation which works with certain suffixes, as in Finnish. The rules are:

• p -> w
• b, m -> l
• t -> z
• d, n, ć -> ź
• k -> c
• c disappears
• ź, z -> j
• s -> l

Morphology

Ldon nouns come in four cases: direct, oblique I, oblique II and vocative.

• Both subjects and objects of transitive verbs are in the direct case. When used with locative prepositions, it implies location.
• The oblique I case is used for subjects of intransitive verbs. When used with locative prepositions, it implies motion towards an object. It is marked with -(a)p and may cause stem vowel changes.
• The oblique II case is used with non-locative prepositions. When used with locative prepositions, it implies motion away from an object. It has practically merged with the vocative in the modern language.
• The vocative case is marked with -a.

Examples: znam (field); oblique I form znalap; oblique II/vocative znama

swelek (rainbow; the final k is from *-tk); oblique I form swelecap, oblique II/vocative form sweleka

gulu (mite); oblique I gulup, oblique II gulua

Ldon verbs work just like Germanic and Estonian: they inflect for person, number and tense but not aspect, with the past tense possibly being irregular.