Loshi

Introduction

Setting

Loshi (Loshi: Lëzi /lɛʃi/) is a Locian language spoken primarily in Loshaithe (Loshi: Lëzéd /lɛˈʃɛːð/), being the official language of the country. It's closest relatives are its sister language Rozian, and its daughter language Irocian. Loshi is spoken by roughly 10-12 million people in Loshaith alone, with another 5 million speakers in its extended territories who use the language for business and commerce.

Typology

Loshi is a primarily agglutinative language with some synthetic tendencies. Nouns decline for 11 cases (Nominative, Accusative, Genitive, Dative, Possessive, Instrumental), 3 numbers (Singular, Dual, and Plural), and can be either animate or inanimate. Animacy is primarily semantically based, however the semantic reasoning is not always intuitive to L2 speakers. (okán "egg" is animate, but níoki "claw" is inanimate), and it can be used to distinguish meaning: äk can mean either "human, person, individual", or "body, corpse, cadaver" depending on whether it is declined as animate or inanimate. Verbs decline for aspect, mood, person, number, and animacy. Morphologically verbs behave in a very agglutinative fashion, with each category pairing with a single morpheme.

Phonology

Orthography

Loshi uses a variant of the Latin Alphabet, standardized with inspirations from German and Hungarian.

Alphabet

Letter	Name	IPA
a	Ani	[ɐ]
á	Á	[ɑː]
b	Bani	[pˀ]
g	Gani	[kˀ]
d	Däni	[tˀ]
e	Eni	[e]
é	É	[ɛː]
i	Ini	[i]
í	Í	[iː]
k	Kani	[k]
l	Laz	[ɫ]
n	Ná	[n]
m	Má	[m]
o	Oni	[ɔ]
p	Pá	[p]
s	Sani	[s]
t	Tá	[t]
u	U	[uː]
z	Zani	[ʃ]
ä	Äni	[ɛ]
ë	Ëni	[ɛ]

Consonants

Categories	Bilabial	Dental	Alveolar	Post-Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Nasal	/m/		/n/		/ɲ/
Stop	/p /pˀ/		/t/ /tˀ/			/k/ /kˀ/
Fricative	[f] [v]	[θ] [ð]	/s/	/ʃ/	[ç] [ʝ]	/x/ [ɣ]
Lateral			/l/		/ʎ/

Allophony

    1. /n/ is realized as [ŋ] before /k/ or /x/ and [ŋˀ] before /kˀ/, but [ŋ] before [ɣ]. 

• kunkuz /kunkuʃ/ = [kuŋkuʃ]

• ztunk /ʃtunx/ = [ʃtuŋx]

• bangod /pˀankˀɔd/ = [pˀɐŋˀkˀɔð]

• ljäsáng /ʎɛˈsɑːnkˀ/ = [ʎɛˈsɑːŋɣ]

    2. /n/ is realized as [m] before [ɔ uː p ɸ] and as [ɲ] before [i iː].

• nikutlëz /niˈkutlɛʃ/ = [ɲiˈkutlɛʃ]

• mínot /ˈmiːnɔt/ = [ˈmiːmɔθ]

    3. /p t k pˀ tˀ kˀ/ in coda position are realized as [ɸ θ x β ð ɣ], respectively.

• loknag /lɔknakˀ/ [ɫɔx.nɐɣ]

• mip /mip/ = [miɸ]

• ztát /ʃtɑːt/ = [ʃtɑːθ]

• äkid /ɛkitˀ/ = [ɛkið]

• lokáb /lɔkɑːpˀ/ = [ɫɔˈkɑːβ]

    4. Following /i iː/, /k kˀ/ are realized as [ç ʝ], respectively.

• egig /ekˀikˀ/ = [ekˀiʝ]

• tatik /tɐtik/ = [tɐtiç]

     5. /s/ is realized as [f] before [ɔ u]

• subu /supˀu/ = [fupˀu]