Moon Draconic

Moon Draconic
Ratihomer
Created by	Madoka
Date	2022
Setting	Alt-Earth
Ethnicity	Sky Dragonborns Humanoids
Native speakers	15,000,000 (2023)
Language family	Basaric Languages Proto-Draconic Old Draconic Moon Draconic
Official status
Official language in	Kingdom of Draconia

Introduction

Goals

Moon Draconic is my third attempt in making an actual conlang. This time I really tried my best following steps I myself organised. The language is for a project I'm trying to create!

Setting

Moon Draconic is spoken by the north inhabitants of the Kingdom of Draconia, which is the most populated area of the kingdom excluding the capital, Irisamu. In older books, the Moon Draconic was considered a dialect of it's sister language, Sun Draconic, just incorporated into one language named Draconic. With recent investigations and social, cultural movements, Moon Draconic gained independence from it's southern counterpart.

Phonology

Consonants

→ PoA ↓ Manner		Labial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Alveolopalatal	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasals		m m		n n
Plosives	Voiceless	p p		t t			k k
	Voiced	b b		d d			g ɡ
Affricates	Voiceless				tsh tʃ
	Voiced				dzh dʒ
Fricatives	Voiceless		f f	s s	sh ʃ		x x		h h
	Voiced		v v	z z	zh ʒ
Approximants							w w
Tap or flap				r ɾ
Lateral Approximants				l l

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i i		u u
Mid	e e		o o
Low		a ɐ

Phonotactics & Syllables

Syllabic Structure

The permissible syllable structures in Moon Draconic is (C)V(C), means a syllable may consist of:

• CV: Consonant followed by a vowel.
• V: A single vowel
• CVC: Consonant, vowel, and consonant.

Forbidden combinations include:

• VC: Vowel followed by a consonant
• VV: Two consecutive vowels, meaning that there are no hiatus nor diphtongs in Moon Draconic.

The onset in Moon Draconic syllables can be branched, but it is very restritive, this situation only happens when a plosive or the labiodental fricatives (/f/, /v/) are followed by the alveolar tap (/ɾ/). Codas in Moon Draconic cannot be branched and only a few set of consonants can fullfil the spot of coda:

• The two palatal fricatives: /ʃ/, /ʒ/
• The labio-velar approximant: /w/
• The alveolar lateral approximant: /l/
• The alveolar tap: /ɾ/

Stress

Stress in Moon Draconic is fixed and generally falls on the last syllable of a word. In cases when the word has its last syllable with coda, the stress moves to the penultimate syllable.

Phonological Rules

Moon Draconic also has several phonological rules that affect the pronunciation of certain sounds based on their position within a word or in relation to neighboring sound: this include Allophonic Variations and Vowel Shifts with Stress.

Allophonic Variation:

• [l] → [ɫ]: The lateral /l/ becomes velarized [ɫ] when it occurs in the coda position.
• [ʃ] → [s]: The voiceless postalveolar fricative /ʃ/ changes to the voiceless alveolar fricative [s] if it is in the coda position and the following word starts with a vowel or a voiceless consonant.
• [ʒ] → [z]: The voiced postalveolar fricative /ʒ/ changes to the voiced alveolar fricative [z] if it is in the coda position and the following word starts with a vowel or a voiced consonant.
• [ɾ] → [ʀ~ʁ]: The alveolar tap /ɾ/ becomes a uvular trill or fricative [ʀ~ʁ] when it occurs in the onset position and is the first syllable of the word.

Vowel Shifts with Stress

• /ɐ/ → /a/: /ɐ/ shifts to /a/ when stressed.
• /e/ → /ɛ/: /e/ shifts to /ɛ/ when stressed.
• /o/ → /ɔ/: /o/ shifts to /ɔ/ when stressed.

Orthography

Moon Draconic uses three scripts: latin alphabet, cyrilic alphabet and the draconic alphabet. In Draconic's history, most of it's texts were written in the Draconic Alphabet. Only with the contact with the humans and the latin alphabet in the XVIII Century that draconic started to be written in latin alphabet. Later, in the XIX Century with the approach to the Russian Empire, Draconic started to be written in Cyrilic as well. Cyrilic became the official script between 1880-1990, with the coming back to the Draconic script as official in 1990 with the complementary of Latin and Cyrilic.

Order	Draconic Alphabet	IPA	Cyrilic Alphabet	Latin Alphabet
1		ɐ	А а	A a
2		p	П п	P p
3		b	Б б	B b
4		f	Ф ф	F f
5		v	В в	V v
6		m	М м	M m
7		e	Е е	E e
8		i	И и	I i
9		h	Һ һ	H h
10		d	Д д	D d
11		s	С с	S s
12		ɾ	Р р	R r
13		n	Н н	N n
14		k	К к	K k
15		l	Л л	L l
16		ɡ	Г г	G g
17		t	Т т	T t
18		o	О о	O o
19		x	Х х	X x
20		u	У у	U u
21		z	У у	U u
22		w	З з	Z z
23		ʃ	Ш ш	Sh sh C c (PC)
24		ʒ	Ж ж	Zh zh J j (PC)
25		tʃ	Ч ч	Tsh tsh Q q (PC)
26		dʒ	Џ џ	Dzh dzh Y y (PC)

Grammar

Nouns

Nouns in Moon Draconic inflect in number and case. There's no grammatical gender. The declension is divided in two: nouns that end in vowel, nouns that end in consonant in coda position. The four cases that exist are the following:

• Nominative: doesn't suffer morphological changes, it indicates the subject
• Accusative: it is used on nouns to showcase the direct object, it is also showcases obliques that are near, inside or in the future
• Dative: it is used on nouns to showcase the indirect object, it is also showcases obliques that are away, outside or in the past
• Genitive: used to express possession, use

	ome = animal		belmil = brain
	singular	plural	singular	plural
Nominative	ome	ome-ome	belmil	belmil-belmil
Accusative	omer	ome-omer	belmiler	belmil-belmiler
Dative	omepur	ome-omepur	belmilepur	belmil-belmilepur
Genitive	omesu	ome-omesu	belmilesu	belmil-belmilesu