Avendonian

Avendonian
avendoniano
Pronunciation	[[Help:IPA|[[[IPA for Avendonian|[avendoˈni̯ano]]]]]]
Created by	S.C.
Native to	Avendonia
Language family	Indo-European Germanic West Germanic part. Elbe Germanic Pre-Avendonian creole Avendonian
Early form	Old Avendonian
Standard form	Central Avendonian dialect
Dialects	North Adriatic (nordadriatico) Alpine (alpino) High Burgundian (ocburgundico) Low Burgundian (lagburgundico) Genoese (genoico)
Official status
Official language in	Avendonia
Approximate borders of Avendonia

Avendonian (autoglossonym: avendoniano; Avendonian: [avendoˈni̯ano]) is a West Germanic language, with strong influence of Vulgar Latin. It is the result of a prolonged contact among members of both regions, after West Germanic merchants began travelling to and from the Western Roman Empire. These connections—and the conquest by the Germanic tribes of the northern skirts of the Roman Empire—slowly formed a creole for mutual communication. Eventually, permanent settlements were established in what would become modern-day Avendonia, where Avendonian is primarily spoken, with official status.

While its vocabulary derives for the most part from Proto-Germanic, Latin influence is most notable in its phonology and its grammar.

Etymology

The language name derives directly from the country it is spoken in, Avendonia. It makes reference to the Roman description of the Avendonian peoples, which were settled west of Rome; in the direction of the setting sun. Ultimately from Proto-Germanic *ēbanþs (“evening”), it came to mean “sunset people” or “people of the setting sun”.

Orthography

The Avendonian alphabet consists of 18 letters, five of which are vowels and 13 consonants. There are no diacritics, and contractions make use of the apostrophe to mark vowel omission.

Letters of the Avendonian alphabet
Aa	Bb	Cc	Dd	Ee	Ff	Gg	Ii	Ll	Mm	Nn	Oo	Pp	Rr	Ss	Tt	Uu	Vv

Non-native letters such as J, K, Q, Z, etc. may occur in some foreign words or proper nouns, chiefly in toponyms and given names. Yy is part of the alphabet of the Burgundian dialects of Avendonian, like in dydere.

The letters correspond almost one to one to their pronunciation. The Avendonian orthography is considered a shallow or phonetic, as opposed to deep orthographies like French's. The orthography features that do not follow the correspondance are:

• The letters ⟨c⟩ and ⟨g⟩ make the sound /t͡ʃ/ and /d͡ʒ/, respectively, if followed by ⟨e⟩ or ⟨i⟩. Examples: cicare /t͡͡ʃiˈkare/, geldo /ˈd͡ʒeldo/.
• ⟨t⟩ in the combination ⟨ti⟩ makes the sound /t͡s/. Example: tite /ˈt͡site/.
• The combination ⟨gn⟩ makes the sound /ɲ/, as in Italian or Spanish ñ. Example: gnagare /ɲaˈgare/.
• ⟨i⟩ in intervocalic position or word-initially turns into the semivowel /j/. Examples: iaro /ˈjare/, bluiare /bluˈjare/.
• The digraph ⟨sc⟩ before front vowels (i.e. ⟨i⟩ and ⟨e⟩) makes the sound /ʃ/. Example: sciio /ˈʃijo/.
• The digraph ⟨ch⟩ makes the sound /k/, and it is only found in loanwords.

Phonology

Consonants

Consonant phonemes

	Labial		Dental/ alveolar		Post- alveolar/ palatal		Velar
Nasal		m		n		ɲ		(ŋ)
Stop	p	b	t	d			k	ɡ
Affricate			t͡s		t͡ʃ	d͡ʒ
Fricative	f	v	s		ʃ
Approximant						j
Lateral				l
Trill				r
Flap				(ɾ)

Notes:

• As stated in §Orthography, /k, g, sk/ palatalize to /t͡ʃ, d͡ʒ, ʃ/ before front vowels /i, e/.
• When followed or preceded by a vowel but not word-initially, /i/ shortens and forms a diphthong with the adjacent vowel. Examples: sigie /ˈsid͡ʒi̯e/, perstelitio /persteˈlit͡si̯o/.
• [ɾ] is a permissible allophone of /r/ in fast speech.
• [ŋ] is an allophone of /n/ before velar stops /k, g/, both intra- and intersyllabically, although the former can only happen in the Low Burgundian dialect.
  Examples: drincare /driŋˈkare/, anguste /aŋˈguste/, Low Burgundian clang /klaŋg/ (standard clango).

Vowels

Vowel phonemes

	Front		Central	Back
Close	i	(y)		u
Close-mid	e			o
Open	a

Notes:

• /y/ is native to the Burgundian dialects, evolved from Proto-Germanic *iu which merged with /i/ in the rest of dialects.
• /e, o/ may be realized as [e̞, o̞].

Prosody

Avendonian is strictly paroxytonic, meaning words always receive stress on their second-to-last syllable.

spraca (SPRA-ca) /ˈspra.ka/, ordo (OR-do) /ˈor.do/, bucaria (bu-CA-ria) /bu.ˈka.ri̯a/, etc.

Monosyllabic words like blio have the stress in their only syllable, but it is weaker than those in polysyllabic words, unless emphasized. Enclitic and other unstressed personal pronouns do not affect stress patterns:

elpare-te, /el.ˈpa.re‿te/ and not /el.pa.ˈre‿te/

Longer words (4 and more syllables) may receive a secondary stress in the fourth-to-last syllable (i.e. two syllables before the main or primay stress):

sobgrundsporvego /sob.ˌgrund.spor.ˈve.go/, surstopitio /ˌsur.sto.ˈpi.t͡si̯o/