Chlouvānem

Chlouvānem, natively Chlouvānaumi dældā ("language of the Chlouvānem people"), is the most spoken language on the planet of Calémere (Lac.: Liloejāmna). It is the official language of the Chlouvānem land (Chlouvānaumi bhælā), and a lingua franca in many areas of the eastern part of the continent of Evandor. Despite the fact that local vernaculars in most of the Chlouvānem lands are in fact daughter languages of Chlouvānem or creoles based on it, the Chlouvānaumi dældā is a fully living language as every Chlouvānem person is bilingual in it and in the local vernacular, and in fact in the last half century the Chlouvānem language itself has been replacing some vernaculars as internal migrations have become more and more common. About 1,4 billion people on the planet define themselves as native Chlouvānem speakers, more than for any other Calémerian language.

External History

Chlouvānem is the ninth radically restructured version of Laceyiam; I started creating it in late November 2016 as I found some parts of my conworld which were too unrealistic to work - and as such by changing the whole conworld I had to change the language. I took that opportunity to change some things in the grammar that, while I liked them and they worked well, I wanted to do in some different way — mainly this arises from my love of more complex inflection patterns. As such, compared to Laceyiam, Chlouvānem has much more influences from Sanskrit and Lithuanian (which always were my main influences anyway); other natlangs that influenced me a lot are Russian, Latvian, Icelandic, Proto-Indo-European, (Biblical) Hebrew, Latin, and Japanese. Still it is an a priori language and, despite having much in common with all of these (particularly with the IE ones), is also strikingly different (the Austronesian morphosyntactic alignment, morphological expression of evidentiality and more broadly the particular emphasis on moods probably being the most noticeable things). Moreover, I tried to create a language very different from my native language (Italian) while keeping many - not so apparent - similarities.
The morphology of Chlouvānem is very different from Laceyiam, though many words are still the same (like smrāṇa (spring), junai (foot), jāyim (girl), saṃhāram (boy)).

As I mentioned before, Chlouvānem is the latest version of the conlang for my main conculture. I started sketching conlangs back when I was 9 or 10 but only started interesting myself into linguistics seven years later - in 2014 - and since then I started doing more "serious" conlangs (the earlier ones were more like relexes of my native language, Italian). Ideally, Chlouvānem is the refined version of all of these languages, but except for a few recurring words (like maila (water) or hulyn (woman)) it is only comparable to those languages I have been creating since July 2015.

Chlouvānem is mainly thought for my conworld, but more than any other conlang of mine it is quite on the border between an art- and a heartlang.

Phonology

Consonants

Chlouvānem has a large consonant inventory, with 55 different consonants, divided into seven categories: labials, dentals, palatalized dentals, retroflexes, palatals, velars, and laryngeals.

	Labials	Dentals	Palat. dentals	Retroflexes	Palatals	Velars	Laryngeals
Nasals	m mʲ	n	nʲ	ɳ	ɲ	ŋ	N*
Unvoiced stops	p pʰ	t̪ t̪ʰ	tʲ tʲʰ	ʈ ʈʰ		k kʰ	ʔ
Voiced stops	b bʱ	d̪ d̪ʱ	dʲ dʲʱ	ɖ ɖʱ		g gʱ
Unvoiced affricates		t̪͡s̪ t̪͡s̪ʰ	t͡sʲ t͡sʲʰ		c͡ɕ c͡ɕʰ
Voiced affricates		d̪͡z̪ d̪͡z̪ʱ	d͡zʲ d͡zʲʱ		ɟ͡ʑ ɟ͡ʑʱ
Sibilant fricatives		s	sʲ	ʂ	ɕ
Non-sibilant fricatives	f v	θ					ɦ
Approximants		ð̞		ɻ	j		ʀ ʀʲ ɴ̆ ɴ̆ʲ

Vowels

The vowel inventory of Chlouvānem is fairly large too, consisting of 23 phonemes: 14 monophthongs, 7 diphthongs, and 2 syllabic consonants.
Phonetically, there are also nasal vowels, but they are phonetically /VN/ sequences. On the contrary, breathy-voiced vowels may phonetically surface as [Vh] or [Vχ] in some contexts (most notably before stops) in some pronunciations — e.g. tąkis /tɑ̤kis/ (a kind of herb) pronounced in Cami as [ˈtaxkʲis].

	Front	Central	Back
High	i iː i̤		u uː ṳ
Mid	e eː e̤		ɔ
Low	æ	a aː	ɑ̤
Diphthongs	aɪ̯ eɪ̯ eɐ̯	ɔə̯	aʊ̯ ɔu̯ uo̯
Syllabic consonants		ʀ̩ ʀ̩ː

Morphology

Nouns - Halenī

The Chlouvānem noun (haloe, pl. halenī) is highly inflected: it declines for three numbers (singular, dual, plural), and eleven cases (direct, vocative, accusative, ergative, genitive, translative, exessive, essive, dative, ablative, and locative). Nouns also have grammatical gender, being divided in three classes (called dragon, lotus, and parrot based on nouns included in them).

Gender

Genders and declensions are dependent on the form of the noun. Due to the prevailing endings in direct case, dragon nouns are also called the s-class; lotus nouns the m-class; and parrot nouns the h-class:

Dragon nouns (kaṃšūlñī halenī):

• 1s: nouns ending in -as or -ās
• 2s: nouns ending in -us or -ūs
• 3s: nouns ending in -is or -īs
• 4s: nouns ending in -oe /ˈɔə̯/

Lotus nouns (yujamñī halenī):

• 1m: nouns ending in -am, -em, -ām, -ėm, or any vowel plus -n
• 2m: nouns ending in -um or -ūm
• 3m: nouns ending in -im or -īm
• 4m: nouns ending in -ai

Parrot nouns (geltařñī halenī):

• 1h: nouns ending in -a, -ah, -ā, or -āh
• 2h: nouns ending in -ė, -eh, or -ėh (and a few exceptions in -oê /ɔˈɛ/)
• 3h: nouns ending in -uh or -ūh
• 4h: nouns ending in -ih or -īh (plus a few exceptional ones in -i)
• 5h: nouns ending in -a which have ablaut-conditioned variations in their stems in different cases

Dragon nouns - Kaṃšūlñī halenī

The first declension of dragon nouns is also the most common one for that gender. Like all other nominal declensions, the vocative is only distinct in the singular, and dual and plural have the same forms for translative, exessive, essive, dative, ablative, and locative.

1s	Singular	Dual	Plural	2s	Singular	Dual	Plural	3s	Singular	Dual	Plural	4s	Singular	Dual	Plural
Direct	prātas "wind"	prātudi	prāte		kældus "wax"	kældudi	kælduvī		kumis "bamboo"	kumidi	kumiye		haloe "name"	haloedi	halenī
Vocative	prātau	prātudi	prāte		kældu	kældudi	kælduvī		kumi	kumidi	kumiye		haloe	haloedi	halenī
Accusative	prātu	prātudau	prātānu		kældau	kældudau	kældūnu		kumiu	kumidau	kumiānu		halenu	haloedau	halenænu
Ergative	prāteṃs	prātudeni	prātān		kældoṃs	kældudeni	kældān		kumiei	kumideni	kumiān		halenei	haloedeni	halenān
Genitive	prāti	prātudais	prātumi		kældavi	kældudais	kældoumi		kumieyi	kumideis	kumiumi		halenies	haloedais	halenyumi
Translative	prātan	prātyoh	prātyoh		kældun	kældyoh	kældyoh		kumian	kumiyoh	kumiyoh		halenan	halenyoh	halenyoh
Exessive	prātat	prātyās	prātyās		kældut	kældyās	kældyās		kumiæt	kumiyās	kumiyās		halenat	halenyās	halenyās
Essive	prātą	prātvin	prātvin		kældęs	kældvin	kældvin		kumiæs	kumivin	kumivin		haleṃs	halemvin	halemvin
Dative	prātui	prātouti	prātouti		kældui	kældouti	kældouti		kumiui	kumievuti	kumievuti		halenui	halenouti	halenouti
Ablative	prātų	prātenīs	prātenīs		kældų	kældunīs	kældunīs		kumių	kumienīs	kumienīs		halenų	haleninīs	haleninīs
Locative	prāte	prātilīm	prātilīm		kælduve	kældilīm	kældilīm		kumie	kumiælīm	kumiælīm		halenive	haleṃlīm	haleṃlīm

Adjectives and adverbs

Adjectives, in Chlouvānem, are actually a subset of nouns which have different forms depending on gender. They can function as attributes to nouns, but they can also be used without any noun, usually replacing it (and taking its gender) as a means of anaphora. Adjectives decline much like nouns, except for a few small differences. Their dragon gender form, direct case, singular number, is the citation form.

Dragon gender (kaṃšūlñis)

There are three main adjectival declensions: -as, -us, and -is; a small subset of -es adjectives (mainly ordinal numbers) follows the -is pattern except for plural direct and vocative (having -eye instead of -ī) and having -e as a thematic vowel instead of -i before endings.
Translative, exessive, essive, dative, ablative, and locative forms are exactly the same as for nouns. Forms that are different from the nominal declensions are in bold:

1s	Singular	Dual	Plural	2s	Singular	Dual	Plural	3s	Singular	Dual	Plural
Direct	prātūkas "windy"	prātūkadi	prātūke		mālthus "last"	mālthudi	mālthuvī		tarlausis "scientific"	tarlausidi	tarlausī
Vocative	prātūka	prātūkadi	prātūke		mālthu	mālthudi	mālthuvī		tarlausi	tarlausidi	tarlausī
Accusative	prātūku	prātūkadu	prātūkānu		mālthau	mālthudau	mālthūnu		tarlausiu	tarlausidau	tarlausiānu
Ergative	prātūkai	prātūkaden	prātūkān		mālthoṃs	mālthudeni	mālthān		tarlausiei	tarlausideni	tarlausiān
Genitive	prātūkuyi	prātūkadais	prātūkumi		mālthuyi	mālthudais	mālthūmi		tarlausiai	tarlausideis	tarlausieis

Verbs - Daradhūvī

The Chlouvānem verb (daradhūs, pl. daradhūvī) is the most inflected part of speech; its most basic forms are fusional, but many more specific formations are more agglutinative due to their origin from old Proto-Lahob particles or participles.

The first and most important division we can find in Chlouvānem verbs is the distinction between exterior (kauyāva) and interior (nañyāva) verbs. This may at first seem a voice system, but it must be distinguished from the true voices in Chlouvānem conjugation. The difference between them is mostly lexical: native grammarians distinguish exterior verbs as describing "activities or states that involve interactions with outside the self", and interior verbs as affecting principally the self. Exterior verbs are those we could most easily compare to active verbs in English, while interior verbs are a somewhat "catch-all" category including many distinct meanings, most notably middle-voice, reflexive and reciprocal ones but also all adjectival verbs as well as peculiar and somewhat independent meanings for some verbs. As many verbs can be conjugated both as exterior and as interior; they often have differences in meaning - e.g. gṇyauke means “to give birth” as exterior and “to be born” as interior.

Potentially every Chlouvānem verb, no matter if exterior or interior, has a causative conjugation which is considered an inflection and not a derivation, even if the meanings may vary: mišake is an extreme example as each form has a different meaning (with particularly interior forms having many meanings) - non-causative exterior mešu "I am seen", interior mešaleah "I know; I see myself"; and causative exterior maišaxhā "I am shown", interior maišalxheah "I learn; I show myself (trans.)".

Chlouvānem verbs also conjugate for five voices, each one putting one of five different core elements as the direct-case argument, usually for means of topicalization or definiteness; they reflect the Austronesian-type morphosyntactical alignment of the language. The five voices are, for exterior verbs:

• patient-trigger or patientive (unmarked);
• agent-trigger or agentive;
• benefactive-trigger or simply benefactive;
• antibenefactive-trigger or simply antibenefactive;
• locative-trigger or simply locative.

Interior verbs only have four voices, as they do not have an agentive voice; the patientive, unmarked voice, is here called common voice. There is also an instrumental form, but it is independent of voice despite having much in common with them.

Chlouvānem verbs also conjugate for five different tense-aspect combinations: three imperfective ones - present, imperfect, and future - and two perfective ones - perfect and aorist; two other tenses are built periphrastically (pluperfect and future perfect). Tenses are the “basic unit” verbs conjugate in: all tenses conjugate for nine persons (1st-2nd-3rd in singular, dual and plural; note though that 3rd singular and 3rd plural are identical in the perfect).</ br> Clitic pronouns may be added to specify other arguments - e.g. mešėça "he sees" + -æl (clitic 1sg acc.) > mešėçæl "he sees me" - equivalent to læl mešėça.

However, the most complex part of Laceyiami verbs is the mood. Chlouvānem is particularly mood-heavy and its concept of mood is quite broad, conjugating verbs in what are called primary moods and secondary moods; a single verb form may have a single primary mood but up to two secondary moods. 

The ten primary moods are:

• indicative - the realis mood;
• imperative - used for giving orders or commands;
• desiderative - used to express a desire or will (e.g. I want to X);
• necessitative - used to express need or obligation (e.g. I have to X);
• potential - used to express the ability to do something (e.g. I can [= am able to] X)
• permissive - used to express the permission to do something (e.g. I can [= I’m allowed to] X)
• optative - used to express wishes or hopes;
• propositive - used to express proposals (e.g. let’s X; why don’t you X);
• hypothetical - used to express things that may happen or might have happened;
• subjunctive - used to express general advices (jussive use), purpose (supine use), and also syntactically conditioned by some particles.

The eight secondary moods are:

• five of them express evidentiality, namely: certainty (also energetic mood), deduction, dream, specifically invented situation, and hearsay (also inferential mood);
• interrogative, used for questions;
• two consequential moods: one expressing cause (e.g. “because X”), the other opposition (e.g. “although X”).

Chlouvānem verbs also has a non-finite form (the -ke form, called infinitive hereafter) and a small number of preverbal modifiers that add a particular meaning to the verb.

Finally, Chlouvānem has a large number of attributive and adverbial participles, with forms for most voices and tenses and a distinction into modal adverbs, homofocal gerundives and heterofocal gerundives.

Numerals - Mālūye

Chlouvānem has a decimal numeral system which has however a base-5 sub-base for some numbers (mainly 5 and 11-19) and a base-20 borrowed one for the tens.

Numbers have six different forms: cardinal, ordinal, collective, distributive, adverbial/multiplicative, and fractionary. Cardinal 1, 2, and 3 are adjectives, as are all ordinal and collective ones; 1-4 have separate adverbial forms, while all other ones have an invariable adjective used as multiplicative and a derived adverb used as adverbial. All distributive, fractionary, and cardinal (except 1-3) numbers are invariable.

Digit	Cardinal	Ordinal	Collective	Distributive	Adv./Multiplicative	Fractionary
0	ajrā	(ajrāyendes)	(ajrājes)	(ajrauṣā)	(lājrā)	—
1	leil leilum leila	lahīlas	leilajāsis	leiluṣā	leilaϑit / lāleil (lāleilum, lāleila)	leilaskā
2	dani danīm danīh	hælinaikas	daniajāsis	daniṣā	daniϑit / lādani (lādanīm, lādanīh)	danīrṣkā
3	tarvas tarvam tarvė	tarvendes	tarvajāsis	tarvuṣā	tarvaϑit / lātarvas (lātarvam, lātarvė)	tarveṃskā
4	nahoê	nahėbindes	nahėñjāsis	nahėbuṣā	nahėbāϑit / lānahoê	nahėbiṃskā
5	švā	švājindes	švāyajāsis	švauṣā	lāšvā	švajiṃskā
6	tulū'a	tulū'endes	tulū'ajāsis	tulū'uṣā	lātulū'a	tulū'eṃskā
7	chīka	chīkendes	chīkajāsis	chīcuṣā	lāchīka	chīkeṃskā
8	teitė	teitendes	teitajāsis	teiteṣā	lāteitė	teiteṃskā
9	moja	mojendes	mojajāsis	mojuṣā	lāmoja	mojeṃskā
10	na'ikām	na'ikāmindes	na'ikāñjes	na'ikāṃṣā	lāna'ikām	na'ikāmiṃskā
11	lelišvatī	lelišvatīlindes	lelišvatījes	lelišvatīṣā	lālelišvatī	lelišvatīliṃskā
12	danešvatī	danešvatīlindes	danešvatījes	danešvatīṣā	lādanešvatī	danešvatīliṃskā
13	tarošvati	tarošvatīlindes	tarošvatījes	tarošvatīṣā	lātarošvatī	tarošvatīliṃskā
14	nahėšvatī	nahėšvatīlindes	nahėšvatījes	nahėšvatīṣā	lānahėšvatī	nahėšvatīliṃskā
15	švāmašvatī	švāmašvatīlindes	švāmašvatījes	švāmašvatīṣā	lāšvāmašvatī	švāmašvatīliṃskā
16	tulūšvatī	tulūšvatīlindes	tulūšvatījes	tulūšvatīṣā	lātulūšvatī	tulūšvatīliṃskā
17	chīcæšvatī	chīcæšvatīlindes	chīcæšvatījes	chīcæšvatīṣā	lāchīcæšvatī	chīcæšvatīliṃskā
18	teitašvatī	teitašvatīlindes	teitašvatījes	teitašvatīṣā	lāteitašvatī	teitašvatīliṃskā
19	moješvatī	moješvatīlindes	moješvatījes	moješvatīṣā	lāmoješvatī	moješvatīliṃskā
20	ekāma	ekāmendes	ekāmajāsis	ekāṃṣā	laikāma	ekāmeṃskā

Using numerals

Cardinal numerals may be used in two ways, depending on whether emphasis is given to the number or to the thing counted.

• In the most common use, the counted thing is emphasized: the numeral is put before the noun and the noun is always singular (except for "two", see below) plus the appropriate case: e.g. leilum yujam (a lotus flower); danīh māra (two mango fruits); tarvas haloe (three names), lelišvatī ñaiṭa (eleven stars), and so on.
• If emphasis is given to the number, then the counted thing comes first, and, if it should be in direct, ergative, or accusative case, it is in genitive singular instead; the semantic direct, ergative, or accusative case is taken by the numeral itself if it is one, two, three, or compounds. Examples: yujami leilum (one lotus flower), māri danīh (two mango fruits), halenies tarvas (three names), ñaiṭi lelišvatī (eleven stars). In other cases, the noun follows the semantic case (but is always singular anyway), e.g. marti tarvė (three cities) but marte tarviyė (in the three cities).
• "Two" may be used with either singular or dual number: danīh māra or māri danīh are both as correct as danīh māradi and māradais danīh - note that the dual number alone, without the numeral, has the same meaning. Outside of literary texts, it is however more common to specify "two" with the numeral.