Nanyse

Nanyse is my first and only conlang. Although this is far from its first incarnation, I'm hoping to use this version of my project in a science-fiction novel I'm working on. The language, and the culture of those humans who speak it, was created gradually over time as native speakers from different points in Earth's history were kidnapped and forced to work with speakers from other cultures and languages. I'd call the end result - this current incarnation of my conlang - a macro-pidgin, but in the story there are over 14 million native speakers. I hope you enjoy watching me struggle with creating this language. Please, don't hesitate to send any questions my way - especially if I've slipped up and forgotten my own rules or spellings. Thank you for your attentions!

Nanyse
Иφчψѣɔ
Pronunciation	[/nʌ.nɪ.sɛ/]
Created by	–
Native to	Dumun Territories
Native speakers	14,854,447 (2013)
Language family	Multiple Nanyse
Early form	Proto-Nanyse
Dialects	Ohi Kote Jara Yrem
Official status
Regulated by	The Academy of Unu

Introduction

Nanyse is the native language of the Ubaneb Dumun and the official language of trade in the known nabdetam. It is an a posteriori language, with reported origins in ancient Sumerian, Hittite, and Chinese, and employs alphabetic orthography, as well as agglutinative grammar. Nanyse is a consonantic language that lightly stresses the last syllable and doesn't use tones. It's also accusative and inflecting. There four recognized dialects of Nanyse and, of them, the Ohi dialect is considered to be the official pronunciation.

Phonology

The Nanyse alphabet is composed of 52 symbols, with separate symbols denoting either the upper or lower case forms of 26 different sounds. Due to the difficulties of learning the native alphabet, and the relatively wise-spread use of the Roman alphabet on Kisar, it is the Roman alphabet that is used to teach new comers the written form of Nanyse. The native alphabet will be described in another article.

Alphabet

Names

Am

Æp

El

Yc

Is

Ot

Um

Har

Bat

Din

Fæ

Gan

Jen

Ci

Kap

Lun

Mos

Nem

Pan

Rom

Xo

Sel

Vas

Tro

Was

Zap

Upper Case

A

Æ

E

Y

I

O

U

H

B

D

F

G

J

C

K

L

M

N

P

R

X

S

V

T

W

Z

Lower Case

a

æ

e

y

i

o

u

h

b

d

f

g

j

c

k

l

m

n

p

r

x

s

v

t

w

z

Vowels

	Front	Near-front	Central	Near-back	Back
Close	i		ʉ		u
Near-close	ɪ				ʊ
Close-mid			ɵ		o
Mid			ə
Open-mid	ɛ				ʌ
Near-open
Open	a

Monophthongs

Monophthongs are pure vowel sounds. Nanyse has four of these: A[ʌ], E[ɛ], Y[ɪ], and U[ʉ]

Diphthongs

Diphtongs are two vowel sounds occurring in the same syllable. Nanyse has three of these: Æ[ɛɪ], I[aɪ], and O[oʊ]

Consonants

	Bilabial	Labio-dental	Dental	Palato-Alveolar	Alveolar	Alveolol-Palatal	Post-alveolar	Retroflex	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m				n				ŋ
Plosive	p / b				t / d				k / g
Affricate				tʃ / dʒ	dz	ʥ
Fricative		f / v	θ / ð		s / z		ʃ / ʒ		x	h
Approximant					ɹ				w
Lateral app.					l			ɭ

Pronunciation

In Nanyse, consonants are pronounced as follows:

H[h] - B[b] - D[d] - F[f] - G[g] - J[dʒ] - C[tʃ] - K[k] - L[l] - M[m] - N[n] - P[p] - R[ɹ] - X[ʃ] - S[s] - V[θ] - T[t] - W[w] - Z[z]