Lortho

Lortho ['loɾ.tʰo]
Spoken in:	Lamona Continent
Conworld:	Dhamashi, a circumbinary planet
Total Speakers:	~ 60,000,000
Genealogical classification:	Proto-Lamona    - Old Lortho       - Lortho          - ?
Basic word order:	Verb-Subject-Object
Morphological Type:	Agglutinating
Morphosyntactic Alignment:	Nominative-Accusative
Created by:
Brian Bourque	Conceived in 2003 Manifested in March 2016

Lortho 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. It is an agglutinating language with some minor fusional aspects.

The people (Kalanune) who speak Lortho live on Dhamashi, a circumbinary planet which has two natural satellites. The planet's surface has many similarities to Earth where it has oceans, mountains, deserts, and forests. The planet has three major continents: Mashonu, Kashti, and Lamona. The Kalanune live on Lamona.

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 extraterrestrial theme and requested a fictional script. The name of the race on this game is "Lortho" and thus the seed was planted. Brian 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. The language itself was not invented until the spring of 2016.

Much of the language stems from the languages that Brian knows, namely Persian, French, and Korean. Although the language is a priori, much of its construction resembles that of an Indo-European flavor; albeit unintentionally. The phonology is largely inspired by Persian (Farsi) in that each letter is strictly pronounced regardless of their position in the the syllable/word. The agglutinating aspect of the language was largely influence by both Hungarian and Finnish. The orthography was inspired by Central/East Asian orthographies which is further expounded below.

Another source of inspiration is Brian's daughter. Through her development of learning how to make speech sounds leading to coherent speech and communication, she "created" words to communicate her wants and needs. Some of these words found their way into the Lortho lexicon.

Kashti	Lamona	Mashonu
Dhamashi

Etymology of Lortho

Lortho is a combination of Lor, the god from which their story of life stems, and -tho, the inalienable form for the genitive case. It has since become a noun and can take other case endings (e.g. konpharin lorthome - I speak Lortho-ACC).

The mountain whence Lor is said to originate is called Malhi Dharakhi, "Great Mountain," and is located in the coastal mountain range on the west coast of Lamona.

Goals

The goal is to create the gradual progression of Lortho which will lead to the development of daughter languages and, eventually, create sister languages which have developed on different parts of the planet.

Phonology

Consonants

There are 18 consonants in Lortho and all are strictly pronounced the same regardless of placement.

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

Vowels

Monophthongs

	Front	Near- front	Central	Near- back	Back
Close	i u   o   ɛ ɑ
Near-close
Close-mid
Mid
Open-mid
Near-open
Open

Diphthongs

There are four diphthongs in Lortho: [aɪ], [eɪ], [aʊ], and [ɔɪ].

Phonotactics

Syllable Structure

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

• The syllables can be constructed as:
  • V
  • CV
  • CVV
  • VC
  • CVC
  • CVVC

Consonant Clusters

There are no consonant clusters allowed in onsets or codas; however, clusters formed from adjacent syllables (i.e. coda + onset) are allowed. These clusters are:

1. /nd/
2. /nk/ (with an allophone of [ŋk])
3. /np/ (with an allophone of [mp] e.g. the verb konpharo to speak)
4. /ns/
5. /pt/
6. /rt/
7. /sk/

Prosody

Stress

Stress in Lortho is handled as follows:

1. Stress is always on the penultimatae syllable of the root or infinitive except:
   • -n verbs will always receive stress on the final syllable of the infinitive or root.
   • Pluralized nouns will shift the stress to the penultimate syllable.
2. If the word is two syllables long, then the stress is on the first syllable.
3. Stress is neither given to prefixes nor suffixes.

Intonation

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Orthography

Writing System

The Lortho alphabet contains 21 letters, one of which is a vowel. The writing system behaves in a similar manner to an abugida; however, there are no conjunct consonants and vowels are given equal status as consonants. Ligatures are formed by consonant + vowel (other than the vowel [i]). Lortho's script was inspired by the Devanagari, Uchen, and Tengwar writing systems.

Lortho Alphabet

Vowels and Vowel Constructs

Monophthongs

Vowels (except [i]) are attached to the preceding consonant forming ligatures.

Lortho Vowels

Diphthongs

The diphthongs are written as seen below.

Lortho diphthongs

Word-Initial Vowels and Diphthongs

For word-initial vowels, the letter [i] will be used as the place holder (unless the [i] is the vowel) and the additional vowel will be added as one would on a consonant-vowel ligature.

Romanized Text

Since Lortho has its own script, a romanized version has been set up to make it easy to read and pronounce as shown in the tables below.

Consonants

IPA

dʰ

d

kʰ

k

lʰ

l

tʰ

t

pʰ

p

ʃ

s

n

nː

m

mː

h

b

f

ɾ

Romanization

dh

d

kh

k

lh

l

th

t

ph

p

sh

s

n

nn

m

mm

h

b

f

r

Monophthongs
IPA	i	ɑ	ɛ	u	o
Romanization	i	a	e	u	o

Diphthongs
IPA	aɪ	aʊ	ɔɪ	eɪ
Romanization	ai	au	oi	ei

Morphology

Nouns

Introduction

Nouns in Lortho have three distinct features:

1. They are one of three genders: masculine, feminine, or neuter
2. All nouns can be modified to denote case
3. All nouns end in a vowel (with few exceptions)

Gender

Masculine	Feminine	Neuter
-i dharakhi mountain	-u dhammu chair	-a hadikha country, land

Exceptions:

There there are a couple nouns that do not follow the above rules for gender (this will increase as Lortho's lexicon grows):

Masculine	Feminine	Neuter
tapas pasta		dhi water

Grammatical Case

Lortho has ten cases. The vowels in parentheses are added if the word ends in a consonant. The following word will be used for demonstration:

• kansaptha
  (n. neut.)

1. woods, forest

Case	Affix	Example	Translation
Nominative	-	kansaptha	woods, forest
Accusative	-me	kansapthame	forest (direct obj.)
Dative	-mela	kansapthamela	forest (indirect obj.)
Genitive1	-nau	kansapthanau	of the forest
Lative	-ina/ena	kansaptaina	in/into the forest
Ablative	-nat	kansapthanat	out of/from the forest
Allative	-dan	kansapthadan	to/towards the forest
Prolative	-dar	kansapthadar	through/via/by way of the forest
Instrumental	-len	kansapthalen	using the forest
Vocative	fa(l)-	fakansaptha	Hey, Forest!

¹ -nau is the alienable genitive whereas -tho is the inalienable genitive as seen in the endonym Lortho.

Possessive

The personal possessive is formed using a prefix which is gender and number specific. We will use the following word:

• dhammu
  (n. fem.)

1. chair, seat

Person	Singular			Plural
	masculine	feminine	neuter	masculine	feminine	neuter
1st person	nidhammu	nudhammu	-	nimadhammu	numadhammu	-
2nd person	lindhammu	lundhammu	-	nanidhammu	nanudhammu	-
3rd person	lidhammu	ludhammu	ladhammu	limidhammu	limudhammu	limadhammu

Pluralization

Each noun is pluralized by adding a suffix:

1. Feminine (-u) and Neuter (-a) nouns add the plural suffix -ne:
   • Examples:
   1. Feminine: kansaphu (n. fem) tree; pl kansaphune
   2. Neuter: hadikha (n. neut) land, country; pl hadikhane
2. Masculine nouns (-i):
   • Regular masculine nouns will add the infix -en- before -i:
   • Masculine nouns that end in -ni will add the infix -em-.
   • Examples:
   1. olakhi (n. masc) boat; pl olakheni
   2. phorenni (n. masc) peak, summit; pl phoɾennemi
   • If the noun ends in a consonant, the suffix -eni will be added:
   1. Example: tapas (n. masc) pasta; pl tapaseni

Personal Pronouns

	1SG	2SG	3SG	1PL	2PL	3PL
Masculine	hin	manni	i	minan	namin	nimi
Feminine	hun	mannu	u	munan	namun	nimu
Neuter			a		naman2	nima

² The 2nd person plural neuter, naman, is meant for addressing crowds or general audiences

Verbs

Introduction

Verbs are conjugated in gender and in number which are governed by the subject (written or implied). For the most part the conjugations are simple and are formed through agglutination; however, there are slight fusional changes that occur when denoting aspect.

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

The root is formed by subtracting the final "o."

	Present Tense
	konpharo [kon.'pʰɑ.ɾo] to speak root: konphar-
	Singular			Plural
	masc	fem	neut	masc	fem	neut
1st pers	konpharin	konpharun	-	konpharinan	konpharunan	-
2nd pers	konpharanni	konpharannu	-	konpharamin	konpharamun	-
3rd pers	konphari	konpharu	konphara	konpharimi	konpharimu	konpharima

-t verbs

The root is formed by changing the final "t" to a "d."

	Present Tense
	phramit ['pʰɾɑ.mit] to push root: phramid-
	Singular			Plural
	masc	fem	neut	masc	fem	neut
1st pers	phramidin	phramidun	-	phramidinan	phramidunan	-
2nd pers	phramidanni	phramidannu	-	phramidamin	phramidamun	-
3rd pers	phramidi	phramidu	phramida	phramidimi	phramidimu	phramidima

-n verbs

The root is the same as the infinitive.

	Present Tense
	shailan [ʃaɪ.'lɑn] to sit root: shailan-
	Singular			Plural
	masc	fem	neut	masc	fem	neut
1st pers	shailanin	shailanun	-	shailaninan	shailanunan	-
2nd pers	shailananni	shailanannu	-	shailanamin	shailanamun	-
3rd pers	shailani	shailanu	shailana	shailanimi	shailanimu	shailanima

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 [hɑɾ.'lɑn] to be root: harl-
	Singular			Plural
	masc	fem	neut	masc	fem	neut
1st pers	harlin	harlun	-	harlinan	harlunan	-
2nd pers	harlanni	harlannu	-	harlamin	harlamun	-
3rd pers	harli	harlu	harla	harlimi	harlimu	harlima

Moods

Indicative

The indicative mood is the simplest of the moods and requires no extra suffixes.

Imperative

The imperative form of the verb is simply the root with the vocative case (which can be either implied or explicit). Currently, this is still in development. I must discover the explanations of the imperative mood in first person plural and second person plural.

Examples:

1. famannu, konphar!
   • Hey you, speak!
2. fanamin, nathar namineme!
   • Hey you, be quiet! (lit. quiet yourselves)
3. fabrian, shailan!
   • Brian, sit!

Vocabulary:

1. konpharo (konphar-) v. to speak
2. natharo (nathar-) v. to quell, pacify
3. mannu pronoun you (fem. sing.)
4. namin pronoun you (masc. pl.)
5. shailan (shailan-) v. to sit
   

Subjunctive

The subjunctive mood has many different facets. For now, we will talk about wants/wishes.

In the present tense, the expression of want is done by using the verb hankhan to want + infinitive.

Examples:

• hankhan-in    kilikho kansaptha-me
want   -1MSG  see.INF forest.N -ACC
  I want to see (the) forest

Passive Voice

The passive voice is formed by adding the suffix -im after the root before any other additional suffixes. The passive voice does not apply to the present tense at this moment.

Example:

• madhit (madhid-) v. to give
  1. madhid-ikh-i    i       khanishu-me  u      -mela
give-  PST-3MSG PN.3MSG book.F  -ACC PN.3FSG-DAT
     He gave the book to her
     • The verb agrees with the subject he (i).
  2. madhid-im  -ikh-u    khanishu u      -mela
give  -PASS-PST-3FSG book.F   PN.3FSG-DAT
     The book was given to her
     • The verb agrees with book since there is no subject initiating the action; however, book is still affected by the action, hence the accusative case.

Negation

Negation is accomplished by adding the prefix dha(k)-. The phoneme /k/ is added before verbs with either initial vowel or initial /h/, which in turn morphs into /kʰ/.

1. konpharo (konphar-)
   to speak
   • konpharin
     I speak
   • dhakonpharin
     I do not speak, I am not speaking
2. hankhan (hankhan-)
   to want, wish
   • hankhanin
     I want
   • dhakhankhanin
     I do not want
3. artemit (artemid-)
   to continue
   • artemidin
     I continue
   • dhakartemidin
     I do not continue

Adjectives

Adjectives behave a little differently than most natural languages. All adjectives are roots since they must agree in gender with the noun which they modify. For placement, adjectives must be placed in front of the noun which they modify.

Syntax

Morphosyntactic Alignment

The morphosyntactic alignment of Lortho is Nominative - Accusative.

Word Order

The basic word order is 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, greatly diminishing the need for prepositions. In addition, below are the basic syntax rules for word order:

1. The word order changes to Subject-Verb-Object only in the vocative case.
2. Adjectives are placed before the noun.
   • Ordinal numbers are treated as adjectives (see below regarding word agreement)
3. Adverbs are placed after the verb.
4. Interrogatives (who, what, et al) are placed before the verb.
5. The question marker (represented in the Leipzig Glossing Rules as Q) is placed at the beginning of the sentence to denote a question.

Word Agreement

There are four basic rules which govern agreement between words:

1. Verbs must agree in gender and number with the subject (explicit or implied)
2. Cardinal numbers do not take case nor gender
3. Nouns are not pluralized when counted
   • kilikh-in   kansaphu-ne-me
see   -1MSG tree.F  -PL-ACC
     I see trees
   • kilikh-in   bon kansaphu-me
see   -1MSG two tree.F  -ACC
     I see two trees (lit: I see two tree)
4. Adjectives must agree with the noun which they modify in gender, but not in grammatical case nor number

Example texts

Grammar Samples

Examples of grammatical case, verb conjugation, and word order. Nominative Case thomid-a kansaptha live-3NSG forest.N The forest lives Accusative Case kilikh-in hin kansaptha-me see-1MSG PN.1MSG forest.N-ACC I see the forest Dative Case madhid-ikh-in hin ikhi dhammu-me i-mela give-PST-1MSG PN.1MSG chair-ACC PN.3MSG-DAT I gave a chair to him Genitive Case madhid-ikh-in hin ikhi dhalannu-me ni-dhammu-nalo u-mela give-PST-1MSG PN.1MSG one leg.F-ACC POSS.1MSG-chair-GEN PN.3FSG-DAT I gave a leg of my chair to her. Sublative Case kaura lharid-ikh-annu kansaptha-dan? Q run-PST-2FPL forest.F-SUBL Did you run into the forest? Ablative Case lharid-ikh-un-i-an kansaptha-nat run-PST-1MPL-PROG forest.F-ABL We were running out of the forest Allative Case kaura malar lharid-in-unan numa-dharati-dan? Q why run-PFV-1FPL POSS.1FPL-house.M-ALL Why have we run towards our house? Prolative Case lharid-in-i toshani kansaptha-danar run-PFV-3MSG dragon.M forest-PROL The dragon has run through the forest Instructive bilar-ikh-amin nani-dharati-me noima-len build-PST-2MPL POSS.2MPL-house-ACC wood.N-INST You built your house with (using) wood Vocative fa-toshani, dha-tumed-anni nukhimo hin-eme! VOC-dragon, NEG-able-2MSG destroy.INF PN.1MSG-ACC O dragon, you cannot destroy me!

Writing Samples

Text	Translation
konpharin lorthome	I speak Lortho

Text	Translation
kalanune denimanimu kalanune khonaminalo hana tomidikhimu ma kansapthaina	The people are known as people of the lanterns and they lived in that forest.

Text	Translation
lharidikhin kansapthanat hana tharnidikhin dharakhime. konpharinin toshanimela hana semanikhin, "hankhanin malhiro danadanar1." remedikhi toshani, "dhamalhirianni danadanar."	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 1This has been recently changed to -dar to reduce multi-syllabic affixes.

Folklore

The Unlucky Fox

Romanization: shadar lharane dasat dharakhinat harlikhi nuphi. khabalikhi nuphi dalhotamekhon dhaharlikha halhadar a. kilikhikhi ikhi molha kansapume. harlikha dirdhalama lidalhota mokansapoina. khar khesikhi nuphi kansapume denalikhu kansapu lukhothume hana tushadikhu khashume nuphinalo. tharikhu bonhan monu saurammu thasame nuphinalo.

IPA: ˈʃɑ.dɑɾ lhɑ.ˈɾɑ.nɛ ˈdɑ.sɑt dʰɑ.ˈɾɑ.kʰi.nɑt ˈhɑɾ.li.kʰi ˈnu.pʰi kʰɑ.ˈbɑl.ikʰ.i ˈnu.pʰi dɑl.ˈho.tɑ.mɛ.kʰon dʰɑ.ˈhɑɾ.li.kʰɑ ˈhɑl.hɑ.dɑɾ ɑ ki.ˈli.kʰi.kʰi ˈi.kʰi ˈmol.hɑ kɑn.ˈsɑ.pu.mɛ ˈhɑɾ.li.kʰɑ diɾ.dʰɑ.ˈlɑ.mɑ li.dɑl.ˈho.tɑ mo.kɑn.ˈsɑ.pɔɪ.nɑ. kʰɑɾ ˈkʰɛ.si.kʰi ˈnu.pʰi kɑn.ˈsɑ.pu.mɛ dɛ ˈnɑ.li.kʰu kɑn.ˈsɑ.pu lu.ˈkʰo.tʰu.mɛ ˈhɑ.nɑ tu.ˈʃɑ.di.kʰu ˈkʰɑ.ʃu.mɛ ˈnu.pʰi.nɑlo ˈtʰɑ.ɾi.kʰu ˈbon.hɑn ˈmo.nu saʊ.ˈɾɑm.mu ˈtʰɑ.sɑ.mɛ ˈnu.pʰi.nɑ.lo

Leipzig Gloss: shadar lhara-ne dasat dharakhi -nat harl-ikh-i nuphi ago.ADV year -PL beyond.ADV mountain.M-ABL be -PST-3MSG fox.M Once upon a time, there was the fox khabal-ikh-i nuphi dalhota-me -khon dha-harl-ikh-a halhadar a search-PST-3MSG fox.M food.N -ACC-but NEG-be -PST-3NSG much.ADJ PN.3NSG The fox searched for food, but there was not much of it kilikh-ikh-i ikhi molha kansapu-me see -PST-3MSG one huge-N tree.N -ACC It saw a huge tree harl-ikh-a dir -dhalam-a li -dalhota mo -kansapo-ina be -PST-3NSG SUPERL -good -N PN.POSS.3MSG-food.N that -tree.F -SUBL Its favorite food was in that tree khar khes -ikh-i nuphi kansapu-me denal-ikh-u kansapu lu -khothu-me hana tushad-ikh-u khashu-me nuphi-nalo when scratch-PST-3MSG fox.M tree.F -ACC close-PST-3FSG tree.F PN.POSS.3FSG-wall.F-ACC and bury -PST-3FSG head.F-ACC fox.M-GEN When the fox scratched the tree, the tree closed its wall (here it means bark) and buried (trapped) the fox's head thar-ikh-u bonhan mon -u saurammu thasa -me nuphi-nalo eat -PST-3FSG twenty other-F animal.F head.N-ACC fox.M-GEN Twenty other animals ate the fox's body

I know this story is a little morbid; however, I was compelled to write a backstory as to why in Lorthoan culture calling someone a "fox" is considered derogatory, as in someone who is utterly unlucky or who has amassed misfortune.

Resources

Linguistics

Endangered Alphabets - YouTube channel about 14 of the world's writing systems threatened with extinction
International Phonetic Alphabet
Glossika Phonics - YouTube channel for IPA pronunciation
NativLang - YouTube channel about the history of written and spoken language
Omniglot
Online Etymology Dictionary (English)
Reddit: Linguistics
Wikitongues - A not for profit YouTube project to help preserve the world's living languages
World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS)

Constructed Languages

Conlang Atlas of Language Structures (CALS)
Conlang Bulletin Board (CBB)
Conlang Critic - A YouTube vlogger who offers insight on conlangs
Conlang Mailing List
Conlang Relay Museum on CALS
Conlanging on Wikibooks
ConWorkShop - an online one-stop-shop for cataloging your conlang
Fiat Lingua - an online archive of conlang articles
Guide: Writing System - A guide on how to develop your own writing system
Language Creation Society (LCS)
LCS on YouTube
Reddit: Conlangs
Reddit: Neography (Constructed Scripts)
Speculative Grammarian - A satirical periodical on linguistics and conlangery
Zompist Bulletin Board (ZBB)

Lortho

Lortho on CALS
Lortho in the 24th Conlang Relay (8th Position)
Lortho on ConWorkShop
Lortho on FrathWiki
Lortho Lexicon
The World of Dhamashi (CBB)
The World of Dhamashi (Conworlds.fun)

Miscellaneous

Sajem Tan (Common Honey) Collaborative Conlang Discord Server
Brian on Instagram