Nurian

Nurian is a Talsmic language descending from Thensarian, inspired by Lithuanian and Italian. It is spoken alongside Meetzarric languages, Clofabic languages and New World Reber Wiebian.

Historical phonology

• Cl > Cj > Cʲ (Italian style)
• C₁C₂ > C₂C₂ (similarly to Italian)
• mlīd - conclusion, end > mīd /mʲiːdˠ/

Numbers

• 1: cēm /ˈt͡ɕæːm/
• 2: tiħōr /tʲɪˈħɔɚ/
• 3: nargь /ˈnɑɚd͡ʑ/
• 4: dhaufь /ˈðɐʊfʲ/
• 5: saliħ /ˈsɐlʲɪħ/
• 6: stām /ˈstɑːm/
• 7: rōdь /ˈroːdʲ/
• 8: loreħ /ˈlɔɚrʲɛħ/
• 9: farvь /ˈfɑɚɹɪ/
• 10: ħiorь /ˈħoɚrʲ/
• 11: cēmar /ˈt͡ɕæːmɑɚr/ (< Themsarian cēmiħioré, influenced by Zutarl emarra)
• 12: pirdь /ˈpʲɪɚd/ (Zutarl pirdi)
• 144: rtarþь /ɚˈtɑɚθ/
• 1728: ūbyc /ˈu:bɪ̞k/

Phonology

Consonants

that's the jokey element in Nurian (a Russian trying to imitate Tamil and sounding English in the process)

As a result of a series of historical palatalizations, Nurian has many consonants in hard (velarized) and soft (palatalized) versions, similar to Lithuanian and Russian; however, many consonants (namely retroflexes, radicals and /h/) cannot palatalize in Standard Nurian.

Consonant phonemes in Nurian

		Labial		Dental		Alveolar		Palatal	Velar	Radical	Glottal
		vel.	pal.	vel.	pal.	vel.	pal.
Nasal		mˠ	mʲ	n̪ˠ	nʲ			ɲ~ɲ̄	ŋ
Stop /Affricate	tenuis	pˠ	pʲ	t̪ˠ	tʲ			tɕ	k
	voiced	bˠ	bʲ	d̪ˠ	dʲ			dʑ	g
Fricative	voiceless	fˠ	fʲ	θˠ		sˠ	sʲ	ɕ	x	ħ	h
	voiced			ðˠ		zˠ	zʲ	ʑ	ɣ	ʕ
Trill						rˠ	rʲ
Approximant	central	w				ɹ		j
	lateral			ɫ			lʲ

Consonant alternations

Grapheme	m	p	b	f	v	n	t	d	th	dh	s	z	r	l	ng	c	g	ch	gh	ħ	ȝ	h	j
Hard	/mˠ/	/pˠ/	/bˠ/	/fˠ/	/w/	/nˠ/	/tˠ/	/dˠ/	/θˠ/	/ðˠ/	/sˠ/	/zˠ/	/rˠ/	/ɫ/	/ŋ/	/k/	/ɡ/	/x/	/ɣ/	/ħ/	/ʕ/	/h/	silent
Soft	/mʲ/	/pʲ/	/bʲ/	/fʲ/	/j/	/nʲ/	/tʲ/	/dʲ/	/sʲ/	/zʲ/	/sʲ/	/zʲ/	/rʲ/	/lʲ/	/ɲ/	/t͡ɕ/	/d͡ʑ/	/ɕ/	/ʑ/

r = /ɹ~ɻ/ before a consonant

Word-final soft consonants use a soft sign ь.

Vowels

The spelling to the left is the "hard" vowel, and the spelling to the right indicates its "soft" counterpart. Both spellings are used after retroflexes and radicals, which cannot palatalize.

Vowel phonemes in Nurian

	Front			Central		Back
	short	long	rhotic	short	rhotic	short	long	rhotic
Close	/ɪ~ɪ̞/	/iː/	/ɪɚ/			/ʊ/	/uː/	/ʊɚ/
Mid			/ɛɚ/	[ə]	/ɚ/	/o/	/oː/	/oɚ/
Open	[ɛ]	/æː/		/ɐ/			/ɑː/	/ɑɚ/

Diphthongs: ai, iai /ɐɪ/ au, iau /ɐʊ/

• Short /ɪ/ is lowered to [ɪ̞] after hard consonants.
• ia and e both represent [ɛ], the allophone of /ɐ/ after palatalized consonants.
• [ə] occurs after word-final geminates.

Stress

• A short final vowel cannot be stressed
• Only one of the last 3 syllables can be stressed
• the last heavy syllable is stressed
• If no heavy syllables, the 3rd from last is stressed

Grammar

Somewhat unusually, Nurian is verb-final with prepositions and modifier-modified order.

Nouns

Sgv-clv-plv system.

Dialects

hard <l> in Nurian in one dialect can be /w/ while soft <l> is /l/ (as in polish)
nurian has /ɫ/ /lʲ/ /ɭ/ but no ordinary /l/!
hard <l> = /l/, soft <l> = /j/ is like kashoebian
also considering ȝ ~ ng merger to /ŋ/ / /ɲ/
thus i will have /q/ > /ɲ/
another idea: v = /w/ / /j/
I should have <r> = /ɻ/ before a consonant in Standard Nurian
thus i'll have r-colored vowels!
it should be ok now that rencadian /r/ is a trill
that's how I could mix some English into Nurian!
but in a different way than how Rencadian does it
maybe one accent can lack retroflexes entirely and have r-colored vowels as phonemes instead!
another idea: soft f > palatal fricative?
for a dialect that does crazy things with slender consonants