Hwnic

Todo: Type IPA symbols for the pronunciation in the infobox and the phonology on a library computer and email it over. Also, check and compare the written parts for inconsistencies.

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, such as ci ceqn "a specific pattern of excessive buying for the purposes 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.

The basic numerals are:

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

Higher numerals are compound words, formed with a special prefix at the beginning, followed by an enumeration of the digits. Which prefix to use depends on how many digits the number has:

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

For numbers with 10 digits or more, a scientific-notation-like system is used.

577 014, osugogisititleikulxaces

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.

Expressing grouping with to "multiplied by": xoqavu means 12 in no particular arrangement, bintoces means 3x4 arrangement, vutoos means 2x6 arrangement. The smaller number goes first. However, to say 1x12 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.

Example text

Rpadpa eqo seiqomiis nr eudnox nr cnosulil ln Qs u kiniup rambor ust velo qanan qamif fisnur lui Andacikat rt u Telvisn mxar ust u mncibok bimir

[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.

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
[-] 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

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.