Evonish

Evonish is a Germanic language of the Evonen language branch. It is based on General American phonology and uses grammar that descends far from Common Germanic, but in its own branch. The wordstock has many influences of Celtic languages, Slavic languages, and has a priori features. The elder form is the runic Old Evonish, which was less standardized but had featured greater morphology. The two languages split on 25 May 2012 and will differentiate more over time. The objectives of Evonish are:

• to reinstitute old features of Germanic
• to preserve Celtic vocabulary
• to eliminate any and all need for interpretation by context
• to create a left-hand friendly writing system

Tables are horizontally flipped intentionally.

Evonish '
Progress: 22%
Type
Fusional
Alignment
Nominative-Accusative
Head direction
Initial	Mixed		Final
Primary word order
Subject-verb-object
Tonal
No
Declensions
Yes
Conjugations
Yes
Genders
Common, Neuter
Nouns decline according to...
Case		Number
Definiteness		Gender
Verbs conjugate according to...
Voice		Mood
Person		Number
Tense		Aspect

Phonology

Aspiration is in free variation; it does not determine another phoneme. Palatalization has created related pairs of words with c, k, and x and is responsible for creating the /ʃ/ phoneme from /sk/. N is pronounced /ŋ/ before k while ng simplifies to /ŋ/. Æ-Tensing is a process by which the vowel /æ/ found in Evonish is raised and lengthened to produce /æ̝ˑ/ before a nasal consonant, yet this is merely an allophone and may be ignored.

Consonants

Parenthesis indicate allophones.

Bilabial	Labio-dental	Dental	Alveolar	Post-alveolar	Palatal	Labio-velar	Velar	Glottal
/m/			/n/				(ŋ)		Nasal
/p/ /b/			/t/ /d/				/k/ /g/	/ʔ/	Plosive
	/f/ /v/	/θ/ /ð/	/s/ /z/	/ʃ/ /ʒ/	/ç/		/x/	/h/	Fricative
		/ɹ/			/j/	/ʍ/ /w/			Approximant
		/ɾ/							Flap/Tap
			/l/						Lateral

Vowels

Parenthesis indicate allophones. The following table includes the rhotic vowels as well.

Front	Near-front	Central	Near-back	Back
/i/				/u/	Close
	/ɪ/		/ʊ/		Near-close
/e/, /e˞ː/				/o/	Close-mid
		/ə/			Mid
/ɛ/, /ɛ˞ː/		/ɝː/		/ʌ/ · /ɔ/, /ɔ˞ː/	Open-mid
/æ/ (æ̝ˑ)					Near-open
				/ɑ/, /ɑ˞/	Open

Writing

The writing system is from right to left.

Alphabet

The twenty-eight letter Evonish alphabet is a modified Latin alphabet that contains the following characters.

• a, p b, c, j, t, d, þ, ð, e, f, v, k, g, h, i, y, l, m, n, o, r, s, z, u, ƕ, w, x.

The IPA for Evonish is sorely out of date, and is subject to change soon.

Diacritics

Certain letters with the diaeresis will be used to express umlaut. The umlauts can be rewritten as the standard vowel with an e after. These can be entered with an international keyboard, or copied.

Digraphs

These represent further vowels otherwise impossible to write. aa - /a/, ee - /e/, ii - /i/, oo - /o/, uu - /u/, yy - /ai/

Pronouns

Personal pronouns feature a combination of the Germanic, h-stem, i-stem, and s-stem in third person. The sole relative pronoun is [TBD].

Person	Number	Nominative	Accusative	Genitive	Dative
First	Singular
	Plural
Second	Singular
	Plural
Third	Common
	Neuter
	Plural
Indefinite	Reflexive
Interrogative	Common
	Neuter

Determiners

The negative article is understood as indefinite; there is no negative definite article so the verb of the sentence is negated instead.

Determiners		Article			Demonstrative
		Definite	Indefinite	Negative	Proximal	Distal
Singular	Common
	Neuter
Plural	Common
	Neuter

Table of Correlatives

Lorem Ipsum.

Quantifiers

Lorem Ipsum.

Morphology

Adjective

Certain adjectives decline only in an attributive position; they do not in a predicative position. Cf. German die schwarze Magd vs die Magd ist schwarz. Some adjectives undergo umlaut, such as old, ölder, and öldest. Furthermore, there are many common affixes which form adjectives, whose list will be available in time.

• Comparative: -err
• Superlative: -est

Noun

Old Evonish contained two more cases and three genders. Their declension depends upon case, gender, and number. Gender is a special factor in Evonish; a word does not determine a gender, rather a selected gender determines a different word. For example, a stone in common gender may be an igneous rock while a stone in neuter may be a sedimentary rock. The plural genitive ending is used in compound words much like kennings.

Class I		Nominative	Accusative	Genitive	Dative
Singular	Common
	Neuter
Plural	Common
	Neuter
Class I		Nominative	Accusative	Genitive	Dative
Singular	Common
	Neuter
Plural	Common
	Neuter

Umlaut

Umlaut is a process that occured after Proto-Germanic. It has led to the vowel change of many words and often creates pairs of semantically and grammatically similar words. Occurrences:

• Certain plurals of strong nouns
• Genitive and dative singular of some nouns
• Second and third person singular indicative of some verbs
• Comparatives and superlatives
• Derivative verbs (of nouns)
• Causative verbs
• Abstract nouns with the -þ suffix
• Nouns with the -enn feminine suffix

Verb

Verbs or verb forms in quotes are either an English equivalent or a work in progress. The infinitives of the frequentative form are -eln and -ern; these can be made of many verbs. The infinitive form in Evonish is the lemma form of the verb, meaning it is the one used in dictionaries. The primary aspects are simple, perfect, progressive, habitual, and inchoative. Simple aspect is used for:

• Stative verbs
• Gnomic aspect

Further aspects are formed by nonstandard ways or purely by context.

Form	Suffix
Lemma	-en
Frequentative	-eln	-ern
Aspect	Main	Auxiliary
Habitual	infinitive	"to do"
Inchoative	supine	"to begin"
Perfect	past participle	"to have"
Progressive	present participle	"to be"
Tense	Person	Auxiliary
Future	First	"shall"
	Second	"will"
	Third	"go"

The particle [TBD] after the main verb negates the verb. The following table shows the conjugation of the verb fällen, a weak 1 class verb. The auxiliary verbs in the table are the verbs used with the participles to form two different aspects.

To fell - Weak (Class 1)
Nonfinite	Infinitive	fällen
	Gerund	fälling
	Supine	tofäll
Participle	Tense	Positive	Negative
	Present	fällend	nefällend
	Past	gefälled	unfälled
Mood	Tense	Singular	Plural
Indicative	Present	fälle	[TBD]
		fällest	[TBD]
		fälleþ	[TBD]
	Past	fälled	[TBD]
		[TBD]	[TBD]
		[TBD]	[TBD]
Subjunctive	Nonpast	fälle	fällen
	Past	fällde	fällden
Imperative	Present	fäll!	fälleþ!

Syntax

Comparisons

Comparative forms use the particle "ðann" followed by the noun(s) being compared to. Depending on that noun's case will determine which noun is first making the comparison. These can imply drastically different meanings, for example:

• "He ate pie quicker than I" would yield "than I ate pie" (in this example the compared noun is in the nominative).
• "He ate pie quicker than me" would yield "than he ate me" (in this example the compared noun is in the accusative).

Word Order

The standard word order is V2; when a phrase, clause, adverb, or adjective precedes the subject for emphasis, the second argument is always the verb. This can be demonstrated in the somewhat archaic or fanciful use "From the ground grew the tree." Word order is flexible due to conjugations however the primary form for independent clauses is Subject-Verb-Object. Questions without interrogative pronouns(yes or no) have verb first and subject second. Dependent clauses have a special word order:

• Subject
• Indirect Object
• Direct Object
• Instrument
• Verb.

Relative clauses follow the same pattern as independent clauses when appended to independent clauses and follow the dependent pattern when appended to a dependent clause.

Dictionary

Kinship
																					Grandmother		Grandfather				Grandmother		Grandfather
Uncles Wife		Uncle		Uncles Wife		Uncle		Uncles Wife		Uncle		Aunts husband		Aunt		Aunts husband		Aunt		Aunts husband		Aunt		Father		Mother		Uncles Wife		Uncle		Uncles Wife		Uncle		Uncles Wife		Uncle		Aunts husband		Aunt		Aunts husband		Aunt		Aunts husband		Aunt
Male Cousin		Female Cousin		Male Cousin		Female Cousin		Male Cousin		Female Cousin		Male Cousin		Female Cousin		Male Cousin		Female Cousin		Male Cousin		Female Cousin						Male Cousin		Female Cousin		Male Cousin		Female Cousin		Male Cousin		Female Cousin		Male Cousin		Female Cousin		Male Cousin		Female Cousin		Male Cousin		Female Cousin
										Twin Sisters Husband		Twin Sister		Little Sisters Husband		Little Sister		Big Sisters Huband		Big Sister		Wife		Self				Husband		Big Brother		Big Brothers Wife		Little Brother		Little Brothers Wife		Twin Brother		Twin Brothers Wife
										Niece		Nephew		Niece		Nephew		Niece		Nephew		Son		Daughter		Son		Daughter		Niece		Nephew		Niece		Nephew		Niece		Nephew

Example texts

Lorem Ipsum.