Hololang

Hololang
Holo
Pronunciation	[[hɔ.lɔː]]
Created by	Madoka
Date	Aug 2021
Setting	Alt-Earth
Ethnicity	HoloCouncil
Native speakers	5 (2021)
Language family	FFC0CB Hololive Related Languages Hololang

Introduction

Goals

The goal of this artlang is to create a fun and simple experiment, making the members of HoloCouncil actually react to it and maybe create a memrise course when everything is 100% ready to be launched.

To Do List

• Lexicon
• Translation of texts

Setting

Hololang is the language that used to be spoken by the members of the HoloCouncil (if you know the Hololive english second generation), since they have been here on the universe before the appearance of the human race and therefore the surgiment of human language. This is the language that was used during the meetings of the Council.

Phonology

Consonants

→ PoA ↓ Manner		Labial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Alveolopalatal	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasals		m m		n n		ny ɲ	ng ŋ
Plosives	Voiceless	p p		t t			c k q kʷ
	Voiced	b b		d d			g ɡ
Affricates	Voiceless			ts ts	ch tʃ
	Voiced			dz dz	dj d͡ʒ
Fricatives	Voiceless		f f	s s	sh/ss ʃ				h h
	Voiced		v v	z z	j ʒ			rr ʁ
Approximant						y j
Trill				r r
Tap or flap				<r ɾ>
Lateral Approximants				l l		ly ʎ

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i i		u u
Mid	e ɛ		o ɔ
Low	a a

Orthography

Hololang's orthography is very recent since it was mostly a spoken language before the existence of the writing systems, after observing the humans for hundred of times, HoloCouncil adopted the Latin alphabet as the main script for the language. The graphemes of each phoneme are written in bold on the respective tables, but the things that grab attention are mostly the voiced postalveolar fricative being written as j and the voiced palatal approximant being written as y. The voiceless velar plosive is normally written as c but in loan words it is written as k. The voiceless postalveolar fricative has two written methods, one when this phoneme is at the beginning of a word sh and the other when the sound is found at the middle or end of a word ss.

Letter Names and pronunciations

Letter	Name (in IPA)	Sound (in IPA)	English equivalent
a	ā (/a:/)	/a/	a as in hat
b	bē (/bɛ:/)	/b/	b as in aback
c	cē (/kɛ:/)	/k/	k as in bake
ch	chē (/tʃɛ:/)	/tʃ/	tch as in batch
d	dē (/dɛ:/)	/d/	d as in dive
dz	dzā (/dza:/)	/dz/	Polish dz as in dzwon
e	e (/ɛ:/)	/ɛ/	e as in bed
f	ef (/ef/)	/f/	f as in fine
g	eg (/eg/)	/g/	g as in go
h	hā (/ha:/)	/h/	h as in honey
i	ī (/i:/)	/i/	ee as in free
j	jē (/ʒɛ:/)	/ʒ/	si as in vision
k	kapā (/kapa:/)	/k/	k as in bake only appears in loanwords
l	el (/el/)	/l/	l as in line
ly	lyī (/ʎi:/)	/ʎ/	Portuguese lh as in ralho
m	mā (/ma:/)	/m/	m as in mine
n	nā (/na:/)	/n/	n as in nice
ng	ēng (/ɛ:ŋ/)	/ŋ/	ng as in sing
ny	nyī (/ɲi/)	/ɲ/	Spanish ñ as in español
o	ō (/ɔ:/)	/ɔ/	o as in not
p	pē (/pɛ:/)	/p/	p as in pill
q	qī (/kʷi:/) qē (/kʷɛ:/)	/kʷ/	labialized /k/
r	rā (/ra:/) arā (/aɾa:/)	/r/ /ɾ/	Spanish rr as in perro Spanish r as in caro
rr	tvuārrū rā (/tvua:ʁu: ra:/)	/ʁ/	German r as in rost
s	esē (/ɛsɛ:/)	/s/	s as in song
ss sh	tvuārrū esē (/tvua:ʁu: ɛsɛ:/) shā (/ʃa:/)	/ʃ/	sh as in sheep
t	tē (/tɛ:/)	/t/	t as in ten
ts	tsā (/tsa:/)	/ts/	German z as in zeit
u	ū (/u:/)	/u/	oo as in boot
v	vē (/vɛ:/)	/v/	v as in vine
y	yaī (/jai:/	/j/	y as in yes
z	zē (/zɛ:/)	/z/	z as in zoo

Diacritics

The macron (ˉ) is the only diacritic used in Hololang and it's only used on vowels, its function is to increase the lenght of the vowel sound.

Phonotactics

Most of the consonant clusters are allowed in Hololang. Other rules that apply to Hololang:

• r becomes ɾ between vowels or between a plosive and a vowel
• Vowels get longer when placed at the end of a word, in a diphthong or between a vowel and a nasal consonant for example in the words vē vɛː (english: we), sofēng sɔfɛːŋ (english: seven) and Havaī havaiː (english: Hawaii}}
• In cases where the last syllable ends in "n" or "m", the vowel that is before this sound becomes nasalized and longer.

Example: mūmān mu:.mã: (civilization)

• s becomes ʃ at the end of the last syllable

Morphology

There are cases but the words doesn't suffer change. Hololang doesn't have a grammatical gender.

Nouns

Nouns deflect on number,singular and plural, and degree (augmentative, normal and diminutive)

	kores = planet			rozē = rose
	Augmentative	Normal	Diminutive	Augmentative	Normal	Diminutive
Singular	koresān	kores	koresīn	rozēnyān	rozē	rozeīn
Plural	koresāns	koress	koresīns	rozēnyāns	rozes	rozeīns

Nouns are divided in three families: common, colective and proper.

Common Nouns

Common nouns are the only nouns that can inflect in degree. It includes all nouns (including the abstract ones, which are the exception to the degree inflection).

Proper Nouns

Only words that use the upper case (or not) orthographically. They describe people, gods, pets, countries, geographical or astronomical places nouns.

Collective Nouns

This type of nouns are done from the common nouns, using the prefix joī-. Only nouns that describe things that can be grouped have a collective noun form.

Pronouns

Personal and Possessive pronouns are related to each other they only inflect in person.

		Personal		Possessive
1SG		mā		moī
2SG		tī		tuī
3SG		jaī		jaī
1PL		vē		venyī
2PL		tiss		tissuī
3PL		jaīs		jaīs

There's also the demonstratives, the relatives and the indefinites

Demonstrative Pronouns

		Proximal	Distant
Singular		djā	tsā
Plural		djas	tsas

Relative Pronouns

Refering to People	qāng
Refering to Living Things	qāny
Refering to Things	qām
Refering to Places	qarū
Refering to Time	qacē
Refering to Possession	qatsī

Interrogative Pronouns are based on the relative pronouns.

Indefinite Pronouns

				All	Part of	Any	No
People				chāmal	chānil	chānyol	charraj
Living Things				rūmal	rūnil	rūnyol	rurraj
Things				rīmal	rīnil	rīnyol	rīrraj
Places				qāmal	qānil	qānyol	qārraj
Time				nyēmal	nyēnil	nēnyol	nyerraj

Articles

		Singular	Plural
Definite		yā	lyā
Indefinite		yas	lyas

Verbs

for list of verbs check Hololang/Verbs

There are 5 tenses in Hololang: present, past, future, neutral and infinitive. The later one usually appears in negative and imperative sentences. Neutral tense has a gnotic aspect, using this tense normally refers to a absence of time. The verb used in the examplification is tēnē (to have)

	Present	Past	Future	Gnotic/Neutral
mā	terō	terrū	terā	tēnē
tī	tetos	tēnyus	teras	tess
jaī	tesō	tēnyū	terāng	tes
vē	tefos	tehus	tedjas	tedzē
tiss	tefoīss	tehuīs	tedjaīs	tedzes
jaīs	tetoīs	tēnyuīs	teraīs	tez

Adjectives

for list of adjectives check Hololang/Adjectives

Adjectives inflect in number, degree and politeness. The following table showcases the inflection of three adjectives by degree and politeness.

	bōnyij = beautiful, handsome		niēsij = nice		vīnij = thin
	Complimentary	Pejorative	Complimentary	Pejorative	Complimentary	Pejorative
Normal	bōnyij	habōnyij	niēsij	haniēsij	vīnij	havīnij
Comparative	bōnyān	habōnyān	niēsān	haniēsān	vīnān	havīnān
Superlative Relative	bōnyoqū	habōnyoqū	niēsoqū	haniēsoqū	vīnoqū	havīnoqū
Superlative Analytic	bōnyetsū	habōnyetsū	niēsetsū	haniēsetsū	vīnetsū	havīnetsū
Superlative Synthetic	bōnyirrēn	habōnyirrēn	niēsirrēn	haniēsirrēn	vīnirrēn	havīnirrēn

Note that habōnyij is an adjective in his insult form, doesn't mean "ugly" it means "beautiful" in an evil/pejorative manner.

Contraditory Prefix

a- is the prefix used to give the opposite of the mentioned adjective. The following table will showcase three adjectives on the normal degree and complimentary manner with the contraditory prefix.

Original Adjective	Contraditory	Meaning
bōnyij	abōnyij	'not beautiful'
niēsij	āniēsij	'not nice'
vīnij	avīnij	'not thin'

Note that "abōnyij" can mean "ugly" but the literal/most used meaning is "not beautiful". In pejorative manner, the prefix becomes before the pejorative prefix. For example:
bōnyij (beautiful, complimentary) -> abōnyij (not beautiful, complimentary)
habōnyij (beautiful, pejorative) -> ahabōnyij (not beautiful, pejorative)

Exceptions

The adjectives like bōnē (good), malē (evil, bad), ricō (rich), paūbris (poor) doesn't have a regular degree format and doesn't have a contraditory form.

Adjective Subclasses

• Qualifying - give a quality to the subject
• Numeral - check the number table (ordinal section)
• Relative / Relational - establishes a relationship

A relational adjective comes from an already exisisting name, using the suffix -n, in names that end in consoant the suffix changes to -ēn. Examples:

labū (lip) -> labūn (labial)
corpū (body) -> corpūn (body)
kores (planet) -> koresēn (planetary)

Nationalities are the most known example of relational adjectives

Adverbs

for list of adverbs check Hololang/Adverbs

Most of the adverbs come from adjectives, to know which adverb you are looking at, you need to understand the suffixes for formation of adverbs. Adverbs are, like adjectives, flexible by degree but only in the superlative, there's no comparative degree in adverbs.

Adverbs formation from adjectives

In order to create an adverb, the adjective in case must be:

• in the Normal or Superlative degree;
• in the Complimentary form;
• without the contraditory preffix

bōnyij (beautiful) can be used to form an adverb, meanwhile abōnyij (not beautiful) cannot be used neither ahabōnyij or habōnyij (pejorative forms of beautiful and not beautiful).

After checking this, we need to check the suffix of the adjective in order to classify the sub-class, if the adjective ends in -ij then we have a qualifying adjective. If the adjetive ends in -n we have a relational adjective, if we have an ordinal numeral (a numeral which suffix is -īng) then we have a numeral adjective.

Qualifying Adjectives Adjective Adverb Meaning bōnyij bōnyidjī beautifully niēsij niēsidjī nicely vīnij vīnidjī thinly

Numeral Adjectives Adjective Adverb Meaning tvuīng tvuīnyī secondly foīng foīnyī thirdly utajīng utajīnyī hundrethly

Relational Adjectives Adjective Adverb Meaning labūn labūng labially corpūn corpūng bodily koresēn koresēng planetary

Exceptions

Adjective	Adverb	Meaning
bōnē	bōnēdjē	goodly
malē	maledjē	evilly, badly
ricō	ricodjū	richly
paūbris	paūbrisijī	poorly
ōnyīng	ōnyīngī	firstly
īnfussīng	īnfussēny	infinitely order
nān	nānej	negatively
shān	shānej	affirmatively, certainly

Adverb Subclasses

There are 4 subclasses of adverbs, those 4 subclasses are based on the adjective-adverb relation. The subclasses are:

• Qualifying adverbs - adverbs that came from qualifying adjectives;
• Numeral adverbs - adverbs that came from ordinal numerals / numeral adjectives;
• Relational adverbs - adverbs that came from relative / relational adjectives;
• Special adverbs - Umbrella term for all adverbs that doesn't come from an adjective.

Special Adverbs

The special adverbs are a very large subclass, they include the:

• Time adverbs
• Place adverbs
• Negation / Affirmation / Doubt adverbs
• Quantity adverbs (quantifierial adverb)

Quantity adverbs express quantitiy.

ēm means normal quantity and it's the initial word for the rest of the quantity adverbs. Starting with bigger quantities, if you want to say more/plus you say ēmān, but if you want to say plus in maths or hours you say pus which is also on this sub-subclass. If you want to say much/ a lot/quite you say ēmānī and if you want to say too much you say ēmānidjī. With fewer quantities, if you want to say less/minus you say ēmī, note that in maths or hours case, for saying minus you say mipus which is also a word of this sub-subclass. If you want to say few/little bit you say ēmij and if you want to say none/very little bit/very few you say ēmijī.

Time adverbs express timelines, normally related with numerals (check numerals table on day and month).

This adverbs are stricly related to the verbal tenses, the presence of one of these adverbs can help the speaker in choosing the proper verbal tense.

Place adverbs express location, this adverbs replace the need of prepositions.

Normally these adverbs are used to give directions or to locate something in the universe.

NAD (negation, affirmation, doubt) adverbs are used to express the respective ideas mentioned, negation adverbs are the triggers for negative sentences.

The negation adverbs are: nān (no), nānyer (never), nānej (negatively).
The affirmation adverbs are: shān (yes), sānyer (right, correct), shānej (affirmatively, certainly).
The doubt adverbs are: yān (maybe), yānjer (probably), yānjerij (possibly).

Prepositions

Hololang doesn't have prepositions. Pronouns, adverbs and relational adjectives are replacements

Numerals

Numerals are an extra word class, there are several suffixes for the meaning of the numeral. There's the cardinals, the ordinals, the multiplicatives, the dividers, the days, the months.

						Cardinal	Ordinal	Multiplicative	Divider	Day	Month
0						zerō	zeroīng	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
1						ōny	ōnyīng	ōnyarrū	ōnyirā	ōnyidraī	ōnyimōnf
2						tvū	tvuīng	tvuārrū	tvuīrā	tvuīdraī	tvuīmōnf
3						tarē	tareīng	tareārrū	tareīrā	tareīdraī	tareīmōnf
4						fō	foīng	foārrū	foīrā	foīdraī	foīmōnf
5						siqē	siqeīng	siqeārrū	siqeīrā	siqeīdraī	siqeīmōnf
6						shiz	shizīng	shizarrū	shizirā	shizidraī	shizimōnf
7						sofēng	sofēngīng	sofēngarrū	sofēngirā	sofēngidraī	sofēngimōnf
8						hutā	hutaīng	hutārrū	hutaīrā	hutaīdraī	hutaīmōnf
9						nīnē	nīneīng	nīneārrū	nīneīrā	nīneīdraī	nīneīmōnf
10						taj	tajīng	tajarrū	tajirā	tajidraī	tajimōnf
11						tajōny	tajōnyīng	tajōnyarrū	tajōnyirā	tajōnyidraī	tajōnyimōnf
100						ōnyitaj	ōnyitajīng	ōnyitajarrū	ōnyitajirā	ōnyitajidraī	N/A
1000						utaj	utajīng	utajarrū	utajirā	N/A	N/A
∞						īnfuss	īnfussīng	N/A	N/A	īnfussidraī	īnfussimōnf

Syntax

Constituent order

The normal word order for a sentence in Hololag is SOV. In interrogative and negative sentences this changes to a OSV order. Sentences of commands and requests are in SOV excluding negative commands.

Negative Sentences

Negative sentences follow an OSV order. In negation, verbal tenses happen to change. Normally it only happens with the Neutral tense. But:

• Neutral tense will always change into Infinitive
• Future tense might change into Present tense if only the speaker is sure that the action in the future won't really happen

Orders/Requests - Imperative Sentence

There's no imperative mode for the verbs in Hololang, the infinitive is used to give orders. SOV order except negative order or requests (interrogative orders), that is the OSV order.

Give me diamonds! - moī djaīmōnes derē!
Can you give me diamonds? - djaīmōnes moī derē?

Trivia

The names of the members of HoloCouncil means their element in Hololang, of course the name in English and in Holo might be completly different:

Hololang	IPA	Meaning	Council Name
hacoūs	ha.kou:ʃ	"chaos"	Hakos Baelz
mūmān	mu:.mã:	"humanity, civilization"	Nanashi Mumei
qorrī	kʷɔ.ʁi:	"time"	Ouro Kronii
sāna	sa:.na	"space, universe"	Tsukumo Sana
seres	sɛ.ɾɛʃ	"nature"	Ceres Fauna

Vocabulary & Sentences

for list of basic sentences check Hololang/Basic Sentences
for list of some vocabulary check Hololang/Basic Vocabulary