Lortho

Introduction

Lortho (IPA:[ˈloɾ·tʰo]) is an a priori constructed language created by Brian Bourque in the beginning of 2003. It originally started as a prop for a strategy board game where only the script was created for aesthetics. Fast forward about 13 years and it has now evolved into a fusional-agglutinating language. The verbs are conjugated with suffixes and nouns are declined to denote case.

Inspiration

A friend was creating a board game similar to Risk; however, instead of taking place on Earth, this new game was to take place on an inter-planetary scale. The game creator wanted to develop an alien theme and requested a fictional script. The name of the race on this game is "Lortho" and thus the seed was planted. The author was unable to work on this piece for quite sometime until he joined the CONLANG mailing list and observed both seasoned and novice conlangers discussing all aspects of linguistics. Since then he decided to move forward and bring Lortho into fruition.

Another inspirational source is Brian's daughter. Through her development of learning how to make speech sounds leading to coherent speech, Brian found certain "words" to use in Lortho which he used to develop its phonology.

Setting

UNDER DEVELOPMENT

The people who speak Lortho live on a planetary system which orbits a binary star.

Phonology

Orthography

Writing System

The Lortho alphabet is an abugida. The writing system behaves in a similar manner to Devanagari; however, there are no conjunct consonants. Ligatures are only formed by the combination of consonants and vowels. This writing system was inspired by Devanagari, Tibetan, and Tengwar.

Lortho Alphabet

Vowels

The vowels are written similarly to the vowels seen in Devanagari.

Lortho Vowels

Sample Text

Below is a sample text with the conscript described above.

[konpʰɑɾin loɾtʰomɛ] I speak Lortho

Consonant Inventory

There are 21 consonants in Lortho and all are strictly pronounced the same regardless of placement.

	Bilabial		Labiodental		Alveolar		Postalveolar		Velar		Glottal
Plosive	p   pʰ	b			t   tʰ	d   dʰ			k   kʰ		ʔ
Nasal		m   mː			n   nː
Tap or Flap					ɾ
Fricative			f		s		ʃ				h
Lateral Approximant					l lʰ

Vowels and Diphthongs

Vowel Inventory

There are five vowels in Lortho and are strictly pronounced regardless of placement:

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Close-mid			o
Open-mid	ɛ
Mid			ɑ

Diphthongs

The following diphthongs exist in Lortho:

• [aɪ], [aʊ], [eɪ], [ɔɪ]

Syllable Structure

The syllable structure is (C)V(V)(C).

Prosody

Stress

There are a few rules that govern stress (with exceptions):

1. Stress is always on the second to the last syllable of the root or infinitive except:
   • -n verbs will always receive stress on the last syllable of the infinitive or root.
2. If the word is only two syllables long, then the stress is on the first syllable.
3. Stress is never given to prefixes or suffixes.

Intonation

Lortho is still in development and has not enough information to explain the rules of intonation.

Phonotactics

Consonant Clusters

Consonant cluster onsets and codas are not allowed; however, clusters are allowed in certain adjacent syllables (e.g. CVC.CVC).

Morphophonology

Still in development.

Morphology

Nouns

Introduction

Nouns in Lortho have three distinct features:

1. They are one of three genders: masculine, feminine, or neuter
2. All nouns are declined to denote case
3. All nouns end in a vowel

Masculine	Feminine	Neuter
-i	-u	-ɑ

Grammatical Case

Lortho has ten cases. The vowels in parentheses are added if the word ends in a consonant.

Case	Affix	Example	Translation
Nominative	-	kɑnsɑptʰɑ	woods, forest
Accusative	-(i)mɛ	kɑnsɑptʰɑmɛ	forest (direct obj.)
Dative	-(i)mɛlɑ	kɑnsɑptʰɑmɛlɑ	forest (indirect obj.)
Genitive	-(i)nɑlo	kɑnsɑptʰɑnɑlo	of the forest
Sublative	-ɪnɑ/-ɛnɑ	kɑnsɑptʰaɪnɑ	in/into the forest
Ablative	-(ɛ)nɑt	kɑnsɑptʰɑnɑt	out of/from the forest
Allative	-(ɛ)dɑn	kɑnsɑptʰɑdɑn	to/towards the forest
Prolative	-(ɛ)dɑnɑɾ	kɑnsɑptʰɑdɑnɑɾ	through/via/by way of the forest
Instructive	-(i)lɛn	kɑnsɑptʰɑlɛn	using the forest
Vocative	fɑ-	still in development

Personal Possessive Prefix

The personal possessive is formed using a prefix which is gender and number specific.

Person	Singular			Plural
1st person	ni-	nu-	-	nimɑ-	numɑ-	-
2nd person	lin-	lun-	-	nɑni-	nɑnu-	-
3rd person	li-	lu-	lɑ-	limi-	limu-	limɑ-

Pluralization

Each noun is pluralized by gender and in some cases, the plural ending is changed for ease of pronunciation.

1. Feminine nouns (-u): simply add the plural ending -nɛ.
   • Example: [kɑnsɑpʰu] (n. fem) tree; pl [kɑnsɑpʰunɛ]
2. Masculine nouns (-i): subtract the -i and add the plural ending -ɛni except :
   • Masculine noun roots that end in -n, the plural ending will be changed to -ɛmi.
   • Examples:
   1. [olɑkʰi] (n. masc) boat; pl [olɑkʰɛni]
   2. [pʰoɾɛnːi] (n. masc) peak, summit; pl [pʰoɾɛnːɛmi]
3. Neuter nouns (-ɑ): simply add the plural ending -nɛ (many neuter nouns are collective nouns such as [hɑmːunɑ] weather)
   • Example: [hɑdikʰɑ] (n. neut) land, country; pl [hɑdikʰɑnɛ]

Verbs

Introduction

Verbs are conjugated in gender and in number which are governed by the subject (written or implied).

Conjugation

Regular Verbs

There are three main verbs in Lortho: -o verbs, -t verbs, and -n verbs. The conjugation tables below show a preview of how the regular verbs conjugate in each category. Conjugation in other tenses includes more fusional aspects.

-o verbs

	Present Tense
	konpharo [kon.'pʰɑ.ɾo] to speak verbal root: konphar-
	Singular			Plural
	masc	fem	neut	masc	fem	neut
1st pers	konpharin	un	-	-inan	-unan	-
2nd pers	konpharanni	-annu	-	-amin	-amun	-
3rd pers	konphari	-u	-a	-imi	-imu	-ima

-t verbs

	Present Tense
	phramit ['pʰɾɑ.mit] to push verbal root: phramid-
	Singular			Plural
	masc	fem	neut	masc	fem	neut
1st pers	pramidin	-un	-	-inan	-unan	-
2nd pers	phramidanni	-annu	-	-amin	-amun	-
3rd pers	phramidi	-u	-a	-imi	-imu	-ima

-n verbs

	Present Tense
	shailan [ʃaɪ.'lɑn] to sit verbal root: shailan-
	Singular			Plural
	masc	fem	neut	masc	fem	neut
1st pers	shailanin	-un	-	-inan	-unan	-
2nd pers	shailananni	-annu	-	-amin	-amun	-
3rd pers	shailani	-u	-a	-imi	-imu	-ima

Irregular Verbs

Although labelled irregular, the verbs still have a regular feel in that they still use the same personal endings; however, the root is derived slightly differently. One example is the verb harlan.

	Present Tense
	harlan to be verbal root: harl-
	Singular			Plural
	masc	fem	neut	masc	fem	neut
1st pers	harlin	un	-	-inɑn	-unɑn	-
2nd pers	harlɑnːi	-ɑnːu	-	-ɑmin	-ɑmun	-
3rd pers	harli	-u	-ɑ	-imi	-imu	-imɑ

Adjectives

Adjectives behave a little differently from other words in that they:

1. must be placed in front of the noun which they modify
2. must agree in gender, but not in number or grammatical case

Syntax

Morphosyntactic Alignment

The morphosyntactic alignment of Lortho is Nominative - Accusative.

Word Order

Verb-Subject-Object (VSO). Lortho contains a lot of information in the verb and the noun or noun phrase. The verb is conjugated by person and gender and thus pronouns are largely unnecessary except for emphasis or clarification. The nouns are altered to denote case, removing almost entirely the need for prepositions.

Example texts

The people are known as people of the lanterns and they lived in that forest.

I ran out of the forest and climbed the mountain. I was speaking to the dragon and said, "I want to walk through here." The dragon replied, "You will not walk through here." Source: Brian's Instagram post

Other resources

Word Agreement

The three following rules govern agreement between words:

1. Verbs must agree in gender and number with the subject
2. Nouns are not pluralized when counted
3. Adjectives must agree with the noun in gender, but not in grammatical case or number