Hwnic

Hwnic
isloxvn
Pronunciation	[ɨ́sɫø̠xʋń̩]
Created by	SN2rname
Date	2024
Language family	language isolate Hwnic

Hwnic is an a priori semi-naturalistic agglutinative language. It attempts to broadly delineate what natural languages might look like in the future, influenced by sources as diverse as Internet slang, mathematical notations, and programming languages.

Overview

Hwnic is a pitch-accent language. The continuants may be syllabic. Syllable structure is (C)(C)V(C)(C), with most word roots taking the form of C(C)V. Connected speech is subject to a set of more complex rules involving use of non-modal phonation.

Hwnic is written with the Latin alphabet. For most consonants, there is a one-to-one correspondence of sound to spelling. For vowels, however, spelling rules are more varied. Some particles also have unexpected pronunciations. Therefore Hwnic orthography is not entirely phonetic. The first letter of the first word in a sentence is capitalized, but native Hwnic names of people and places are not capitalized. Unfamiliar loanwords and technical jargon are in title case. Acronyms and proper nouns retain their capitalization as in the source language. Hwnic can be written with no punctuations other than spaces, where particles and capitalization are employed to denote quotation, change of topic, intonation, and so on; however, an English-like pattern of punctuation is also possible.

The grammar of Hwnic is mostly simple and straightforward. Word order is SOV, but sentences may show up as OV due to pro-drop. Nouns are not declined, but may take affixes that denote number, negation, state, or property. Verbs are conjugated to person, number, and sometimes mood; an auxiliary verb can show tense, aspect, and animacy/volition.

The lexicon of Hwnic is based on concrete concepts. Simple concepts like body parts are covered in a single word, while complex concepts like types of animals may have a two-name system. The lexicon is currently incomplete.

Phonology

Phonemes

	Labial	Coronal	Dorsal	Gutteral
Nasal	m	n	ɲ
Plosive	p b	t d	k g	q
Fricative	f v	s z	c	x ɣ
Affricate		t͡s
Liquid	(v)	ɾ	(j)
Lateral		l

• Among the continuants, /n/, /r/, and /l/ are sometimes syllabic. /m/ and /z/ are syllabic in a handful of words and affixes.

	Front	Center	Back
Close	i	ʉ	ɯ
Close-mid		o
Open-mid		ə
Low		a

• Vowels often lack front-back contrast, and vowels tend to assimilate to consonants and not the other way around.

The phonetics of Hwnic is not as clean as the tables of phonemes might suggest. /c/ has 4 allophones and /g/ has 3. Vowel combinations can have unexpected pronunciations. Word-initial /o/ sometimes comes from syllabic /l/, and this /l/ is restored when placed after a vowel sound as well as giving the vowel a rising tone, and so on.

Morphology

Nouns

Nouns are not declined based on grammatical roles. Nouns may be split into two categories, namely those singular by default, often solitary, unique, or abstract, and those plural by default, often gregarious or measured by amount (such as uncountable nouns in English). When the usage indicates a different number than the default or when specification is desired, a suffix of number may be attached to the noun to express a wide range of meanings, such as -il "linear arrangement of", -ij "grouping of", -is "member of", -ik "small amount of".

A noun may be preceded by a particle that may express determinate/indeterminate, figurative/literal, and general/specific. Although the particle corresponds to the determiner in English, in Hwnic it is frequently seen as part of the noun, where certain combinations may have idiomatic meanings in certain contexts, such as ci ceqn "a specific pattern of excessive buying for the purpose of obtaining collectibles".

Numerals

Hwnic uses Arabic numerals. Previously the numbers 5, 6, 7 and 9 were made up by other numbers, but their names were shortened as inspired by East Asian counting systems.

Number	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
Pronunciation	kul	xa	vu	bim	ces	gis	os	it	cu	den

Numerals above 10 are formed with a special affix at the beginning, followed by an enumeration of the digits. Which prefix to use depends on how many digits the number has. Additionally, lei is inserted every three digits as the digit separator, written as a space. The numerical dot is rap.

Number of digits	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
Prefix	xoq	xem	rea	ran	osugo	itugo	cuugo	denugo

Large numerals can have a scientific-notation-like system. The affix is added at the end instead, and digits are enumerated from least significant to most significant. Unspecified digits are zeros, but note that trailing zeros can be significant.

577 014, osugogisititleikulxaces

3.141 59, binrapxacesxaleigisden

6.02×10^23, oskuvuugoxoqubim

1/2 leci OR xalecipu; 3/4 binlecipces; where leci means "part" and the word means "three out of four parts", and thus both are cardinals.

Hwnic has a unusual way to express grouping with to "multiplied by": xoqavu means 12 in no particular arrangement, bintoces means 3×4 arrangement, vutoos means 2×6 arrangement. The smaller number goes first. However, to say 1×12 or 12 objects filed in one row, it would not be *xatoxoqavu, but rather with a collective suffix. A row of 12 apples (oqul) would be xoqavu oqulil.

Lexicon

The lexicon is built around nouns. Generally, a nominal concept is expressed with a single word. Many scientific words are borrowings or calques from English, but also combined into one word and reordered, as in Axtosugul "covert aggression".

The lexicon has a wealth of words related to geometry, set theory, graph theory, and other concepts from mathematics and computer science. In fact, the terms for some everyday items are formed with a geometry term denoting its shape and a part denoting its function.

On the other hand, the lexicon lacks specific words (other than calqued scientific names) for many plants and animals. In Hwnic, "daffodil", "chrysanthemum", and "osmanthus" are all isalbunr "conspicuous flower". Some recognizable species may have unique names, such as isalibordal "rose; poet's flower". This is because flowers have become rare as a result of ecological events, and any allegorical or cultural meanings have been taken up by other terms.

Example texts

Babel text

Qs nj ciq b orkoasu velo isloxait bizitsnsui arleg

and LOCV context GEN world-whole ACC-and language-single speak-nominalizer-common be.3Pl.PST.GNO

Qs toi rt todosrilovarn qoro Miufshinar qozorn ust nct onspern

and happen-3N TEM from_west-move.3Pl they ACC plain-Shinar find.3Pl then this-LOC settle.3Pl

Qs e ptopo bizirn xopinc yza nozn u qiq myzon ust uoro saqezon xasrfn

and DAT each_other say.3Pl quote go EXCLM ACC brick make.HORT then they-ACC bake.HORT thoroughly

Qs u qiq e gida u Bitumen e cesble fozorn

and ACC brick DAT stone ACC tar DAT mortar use.3Pl

Qs bizirn xopinc yza nozn velocti udn blboc eoro varozon bict jesti nr mbo xojid lnu Could be more agglutinative

and say.3Pl quote go EXCLM ACC-and-to_be city tower we-DAT build.HORT this-GEN top-to_be LOC heaven reach.3N FUT.STATE

Qs labasyizon xne xersyireis lnu nr mbextignorkoasu

and be_famous.HORT lest be_scattered.3Pl.SUBJ FUT.STATE LOC spreading-surface-earth-whole

Qs Fnri uilnd ti mxazitblboc cit ci qmocqoxn varorn lsvo Need a better way of expressing verb+direction

and the_Lord come_down.3N REL sight-tower this the children-of-man build.3Pl PST.PFV

Fnri bizid xopinc mxazon ci qoxnzngu irn boqro isloxait in ust uctsmy lectn

the_Lord say.3N quote look.HORT the people-united be_property.3Pl they-GEN language-singular be_property.3N and this-ACC-do.3Pl PRES.INCHO

Cit rt zand pndirka lqn cit srdri boqro

now TEM nothing restrained-NEG be_property.3I this imagined_thing-instance they-GEN

Yza zinbn iyzon ust u isloboqro ubocnezon ti pimuk u bizit ptopo rotarnq

go EXCLM go_down.HORT then ACC language-they-GEN confound.HORT REL purpose ACC speech each_other understand.3Pl.NEG

hence the_Lord ABL thence LOC spreading-surface-earth they-ACC scatter.3N PST.PFV then city-not build.PARTI stop.3Pl

hence the name it-GEN Babel be_eqivalent.3N because_of confounding ABL the_Lord ACC language-earth-all

ABL thence scatter.3N the_Lord they-ACC LOC spreading-surface-earth-whole

Notes for Babel text

• This text has not been fully checked for consistency yet and may contain minor errors.

Text 2024014 and glossing

Rpadpa eqo seiqomiis nr eudnox nr cnosulil ln

grandfather DAT-PRON.3SG farm.SING LOC countryside LOC vicinity-river be.3N

Qs u kiniup rambor ust velo qanan qamif fisnur lui

and ACC category-vegetables grow.3SG and ACC-and geese duck herd.3SG PRES.CONT

Andacikat rt u Telvisn mxar ust u mncibok bimir

time-leisure TEM ACC television watch.3SG and ACC neighbors chat_with.3SG

"[My] grandfather has a farm in the countryside near a river. He grows vegetables and keeps geese and ducks. In [his] spare time, he watches the television and chats with [his] neighbors."

Notes

• LOC, ACC, DAT all refer to particles.
• Hwnic is head-final. The broadest category comes first and the most specific comes last. This order applies to qualifier sequences, compound words, and more.
• Nouns are not declined, but a particle may fuse with certain pronouns and other particles.
• Most nouns are by default plural, and the suffix -is makes a noun singular.
• There is only one locative particle, nr. To express "near somewhere", for instance, it would be nr cnos[somewhere], where cnos means "vicinity" by itself. Similarly, there is only one temporal particle, rt.
  • Justification for this design choice (and others below) will be presented later.
• Qs is a particle that only indicates the start of a sentence where the subject pronoun is dropped.
• The "and ACC-and": the former is a conjunction that forms the parallel structure; the latter marks a list of items, in the form of "and X Y Z ..." until the next verb or particle.
  • The latter "and", elo, is further fused with the accusative particle u, and here it means the accusative particle applies to each item in the list.
• The tense-aspect auxiliary verb is flexible: it can govern a full sentence, as shown here, or apply only to the one verb before it.
• A single concept corresponds to a single word, which is common in agglutinative languages. In this example, "chat with" corresponds to bimi and "spare time" corresponds to andacikat, both single words.