Chlouvānem

Chlouvānem
Pronunciation	[[Help:IPA|c͡ɕʰɴ̆ɔʊ̯ˈʋaːnaʊ̯mʲi dæɴ̆ˈdaː]]
Created by	Lili21
Date	Dec 2016
Setting	Calémere
Ethnicity	Chlouvānem
Native speakers	1,450,000,000 (4E 133)
Language family	Lahob Chlouvānem
Official status
Official language in	lands of the Inquisition, Mǎng Tì pọk, Brono
Regulated by	Inquisitorial Office of the Language (dældāyi flušamila)

Chlouvānem, natively Chlouvānaumi dældā ("language of the Chlouvānem people"), is the most spoken language on the planet of Calémere (Chl.: Liloejāmna). It is the official language of the Inquisition (murkadhāna) and its country, the Chlouvānem land (Chlouvānaumi bhælā), and a lingua franca in many areas of the eastern part of the continent of Evandor. Despite the fact that local vernaculars in most of the Inquisition are in fact daughter languages of Chlouvānem or creoles based on it, the Chlouvānaumi dældā is a fully living language as every Chlouvānem person is bilingual in it and in the local vernacular, and in fact in the last half century the Chlouvānem language itself has been replacing some vernaculars as internal migrations have become more and more common. About 1,4 billion people on the planet define themselves as native Chlouvānem speakers, more than for any other Calémerian language.

External History

Chlouvānem is the ninth radically restructured version of Laceyiam; I started creating it in late November 2016 as I found some parts of my conworld which were too unrealistic to work - and as such by changing the whole conworld I had to change the language. I took that opportunity to change some things in the grammar that, while I liked them and they worked well, I wanted to do in some different way — mainly this arises from my love of more complex inflection patterns. As such, compared to Laceyiam, Chlouvānem has much more influences from Sanskrit and Lithuanian (which always were my main influences anyway); other natlangs that influenced me a lot are Russian, Latvian, Old Norse (and to a lesser extent also Danish and Icelandic), Proto-Indo-European, (Biblical) Hebrew, Latin, and Japanese. Still it is an a priori language and, despite having much in common with all of these (particularly with the IE ones), is also strikingly different (the Austronesian morphosyntactic alignment, morphological expression of evidentiality and more broadly the particular emphasis on moods probably being the most noticeable things). Moreover, I tried to create a language very different from my native language (Italian) while keeping many - not so apparent - similarities.
The morphology of Chlouvānem is very different from Laceyiam, though many words are still the same (like smrāṇa (spring), junai (foot), jāyim (girl), saṃhāram (boy)).

As I mentioned before, Chlouvānem is the latest version of the conlang for my main conculture. I started sketching conlangs back when I was 9 or 10 but only started interesting myself into linguistics seven years later - in 2014 - and since then I started doing more "serious" conlangs (the earlier ones were more like relexes of my native language, Italian). Ideally, Chlouvānem is the refined version of all of these languages, but except for a few recurring words (like maila (water) or hulin (woman)) it is only comparable to those languages I have been creating since July 2015.

Chlouvānem is mainly thought for my conworld, but more than any other conlang of mine it is quite on the border between an art- and a heartlang.

Phonology - Yuiçtarlā

Consonants - Hīmbeyuiçai

Chlouvānem has a large consonant inventory, with 52 different consonants, divided into seven categories: labials, dentals, palatalized dentals, retroflexes, palatals, velars, and laryngeals. The Chlouvānem term for "consonant" is hīmbeyuiça, a compound of hīmba (colour) and yuiça (sound).

	Labials	Dentals	Palat. dentals	Retroflexes	Palatals	Velars	Laryngeals
Nasals	m mʲ	n	nʲ	ɳ	ɲ	ŋ	N*
Unvoiced stops	p pʰ	t̪ t̪ʰ	tʲ tʲʰ	ʈ ʈʰ		k kʰ	ʔ
Voiced stops	b bʱ	d̪ d̪ʱ	dʲ dʲʱ	ɖ ɖʱ		g gʱ
Unvoiced affricates		t̪͡s̪ t̪͡s̪ʰ	t͡sʲ t͡sʲʰ		c͡ɕ c͡ɕʰ
Voiced affricates		d̪͡z̪ d̪͡z̪ʱ	d͡zʲ d͡zʲʱ		ɟ͡ʑ ɟ͡ʑʱ
Fricatives	f	s	sʲ	ʂ	ɕ		ɦ
Approximants	ʋ				j		ʀ ʀʲ ɴ̆ ɴ̆ʲ

There are only a few instances of consonant allophony, mostly due to the large number of phonemic consonants. The following ones apply to standard Chlouvānem:

• All dentals are allophonically palatalized before /i iː i̤/, thus the palatalized/plain contrast is neutralized there.
• Coda /ʀ/ is diphthongized to [ɐ̯].
• /N/ has two different realizations depending on context: [ɴ] before other laryngeals, and nasalization of the preceding vowel anywhere else.
• Word-final /n/ is realized as [ŋ] after high vowels, and as vowel nasalization after the other ones.
• Nasals, except /ŋ/ before non-velars and /N/ before non-laryngeals, assimilate to the PoA of the following consonant, except /j/.

Vowels - Camiyuiçai

The vowel inventory of Chlouvānem is fairly large too, consisting of 25 phonemes: 14 monophthongs, 9 diphthongs, and 2 syllabic consonants.
Phonetically, there are also nasal vowels, but they are phonemically /VN/ or (word-finally) /Vn/ sequences. On the contrary, breathy-voiced vowels may phonetically surface as [Vh] or [Vχ] in some contexts (most notably before stops) in some pronunciations — e.g. tąkis /tɑ̤kis/ (a kind of herb) pronounced in Cami as [ˈtaxkʲis].

The term for vowel is camiyuiça, from cami (great, large, important) and yuiça (sound), as these sounds are necessary in building syllables.

	Front	Central	Back
High	i iː i̤		u uː ṳ
High-mid	e eː e̤
Low-mid	ɛ		ɔ
Low		a aː	ɑ̤
Diphthongs	aɪ̯ eɪ̯ eɐ̯ a̤ɪ̯ e̤ɪ̯	ɔə̯	aʊ̯ ɔu̯ a̤ʊ̯
Syllabic consonants		ʀ̩ ʀ̩ː

Allophones of vowels in standard Chlouvānem rarely diverge much from their IPA representation; as Chlouvānem (and most of its descendants, which are the true native languages for the majority of Chlouvānem speakers) are syllable-timed languages, vowels are barely (if at all) reduced in unstressed syllables. The most notable differences are two:

• /ɛ/ lowers to [æ] before /ʀ/;
• /u/ is moderately fronted - usually to [ʉ] - after palatalized consonants and /j/.

Phonotactics

The maximum possible syllable structure is ｢[((C1)C2)C3]｣(j)V｢(C4(C5))｣.

The nucleus is formed by V - which can be any vowel, diphthong, or syllabic consonant - and an optional preceding /j/.
The onset may contain up to three consonants: C3 is notated differently because phonetically there always is one, as phonemically vowel-initial syllables are always pronounced with a preceding [ʔ]. Any consonant bar /N/ can appear in this position; C2 can be any other consonant except aspirated or breathy-voiced stops (with a single exception) or /ʔ/, but, if C3 is a stop, no stop can be in this position. If C3 is /ɴ̆/ , then C2 may be /c͡ɕʰ/. C1 may be a sibilant, or a nasal agreeing in PoA with the following consonant.

In codas, C4 may be may be any consonant except /ʔ c͡ɕ ɟ͡ʑ/ or all aspirated or breathy-voiced stops. C5 may be /n m s/, or also one of /t d k g/ if C4 is one of /ɴ̆ ʀ/.

In absolute word-final position, only C4 is possible, and the only possible consonants are /m n p t tʲ k s sʲ ɦ ɴ̆ ɴ̆ʲ/.

Morphophonology

Vowel alternations

Ablaut

Chlouvānem morphology uses a system of ablaut alternations in its vowels, most notably for some verbs, for the ablauting declension of nouns (5h), and for many derivations. Every normal ablaut pattern has a base grade (the one given in citation forms), a middle grade, and a strong grade.
The patterns of regular ablaut are the following:

• i-ablaut: base i or ī — middle e — strong ai
• u-ablaut: u/ū — o — au
  • u>i-ablaut: u/ū — i — au
• ṛ-ablaut: ṛ — ar — ār

A few roots have the so-called inverse ablaut, where the vowels get simplified in the middle grade, and there is no strong grade:

• i-type inverse ablaut: base ya (or ьa) — middle i
  • ei-type inverse ablaut: base ei — middle i
• u-type inverse ablaut: base va — middle u

Lengthening

Lengthening alternations, which originate in Proto-Lahob, substitute a vowel with its lengthened form. There are many apparently irregular cases, due to the huge vowel shifts that happened between Proto-Lahob (PLB) and Chlouvānem. Note that PLB *î represents /ɨ/ or /ɨ̯/.
Lengthening as a type of vowel alternation is the so-called diachronic lengthening, as the results are largely determined by what those vowels were in PLB:

• a → ā
  • a → ū (PLB *o → *ō)
• i → ī
  • i → æ (PLB *ej → *ēj)
  • i → au (PLB *aî → *āî)
• u → ū
• e → ьa (PLB *e → *ē)
  • e → ai (PLB *aj → *āj)
• o → au (PLB *aw → *āw)
  • o → ei, but → ou after l (PLB *ow → *ōw)
• æ → ьau (PLB *ew → *ēw)
• oe → ai (PLB *oj → *ōj)
• ṛ → ar

Another, different type of lengthening, is synchronic lengthening, which is a saṃdhi change; it only applies to a, i, u, ṛ, and e, turning them into ā, ī, ū, ṝ, and ė respectively.

Consonant alternations

Palatalizations

Palatalization in morphemes (noted as ь) produces different results depending on the preceding consonant:

• If the preceding consonant has a phonemic palatalized counterpart, the result is the palatalized consonant (e.g. /t/ + ь → /tʲ/)
• Velars shift to palatals (e.g. k + ь → c);
• h + ь → š
• The glottal stop remains unchanged;
• All other consonants get a /j/ glide (written y).

Internal saṃdhi

Note: for simplicity, ь will be treated as a stand-alone consonant in all the following examples.

Saṃdhi assimilations are fairly straightforward, and usually it’s the second consonant in a row the one that matters. The most basic rules are:

• Nasals assimilate to the PoA of any following consonant except for y (no assimilation occurs) and s (all become ṃ, phonetically realized as vowel nasalization).
• All stops assimilate in voicing to a following stop; if the first one is aspirated, then aspiration shifts to the second one. Dentals also assimilate to adjacent (preceding or following) retroflexes.

In stop saṃdhi, a few further changes apart from basic voicing and retroflex assimilation occur. Note that any such combination also applies to aspirated stops and, for dentals, palatalized ones; ç as a second member behaves like t. In voiceless stops:

-pṭ- → -fṭ- ; -pc- → -ṃc-
-tp- → -tt- ; -tc- → -cc- ; -tk- → -kt-
-çp- → -sp- ; -çṭ- → ṣṭ- ; -çc- → -cc- ; -çk- → -sk-
-ṭp- → -ṭṭ- ; -ṭc- → -cc- ; -ṭk- → -kṭ-
-cp- → -cc- ; -ct- → -kt- ; -cṭ- → -ṣṭ- ; -ck- → -šk-
-kp- → -pp- ; -kc- → -cc-
Doubled stops and the combinations -pt-, -pk-, -çt-, -kt-, and -kṭ- remain unchanged.

Voiced stops mostly mirror voiceless assimilations (again, x behaves like d when second member; doubling saṃdhi already applied - all nasal + stop clusters are underlyingly a geminate stop):

-bḍ- → -ṇḍ- ; -bj- → -ṃj- ; -bg- → -lg-
-db- → -nd- ; -dj- → -ñj- ; -dg- → -gd-
-xb- → -nx- ; -xḍ- → -ṇḍ- ; -xj- → -ñj- ; -xg- → -lg-
-ḍb- → -ṇḍ- ; -ḍj- → -ñj- ; -ḍg- → -gḍ-
-j + any other stop, also aspirated ones → -jñ-
-gb- → -mb- ; -gj- → -ñj-
Doubled stops become a nasal+stop sequence; -bd-, -xd-, -gd-, and -gḍ- remain unchanged.

h, wherever it is followed by a consonant (apart from ь), disappears, leaving its trace as breathy-voiced phonation on the preceding vowel (e.g. maih-leilė → mąileilė). Vowels change as such:

• i, ī → į
• u, ū → ų
• e, ė, æ, ea → ę
• all other monophthongs, or oe → ą
• ai, ei, au → ąi, ęi, ąu respectively.

Sibilants trigger various different changes:

• Among themselves, -s s- remains ss (but simplified to s if the latter is followed by a consonant other than y or ь), but any other combination becomes kṣ (e.g. naš-sārah → nakṣārah).
• ṣ, if followed by a dental stop, turns it into ṭ or ṭh according to aspiration (e.g. paṣ-dhokam → paṣṭhokam).
• s or š plus any voiced stop, or ṣ followed by any non-dental voiced stop, disappear but synchronically lengthen the previous vowel (e.g. kus-drāltake → kūdrāltake).
• Dental stops followed by s become the corresponding affricate (e.g. prāt-skaglas → prāçkaglas), while when followed by ṣ or š the result is a palatal affricate (e.g. prāt-ṣveya → prācveya).

Note that the two roots lih- and muh- behave, before consonants (with a few exceptions, e.g. the verbal infinitive), as if they were *lis- and *mus-.

If the first sound which undergoes saṃdhi is already part of a cluster, a few more assimilations may occur. In a nasal-stop + stop sequence, usually the first stop gets cancelled, but nasals do not assimilate entirely to the stop:

• m becomes ṃ;
• lin the clusters lk(h) or lg(h) does not assimilate; the spelling changes to ll;
• n and ṇ become [ŋ], spelled ll (but l before velars);
• ñ does not assimilate at all.

Note that the combinations -mpt-, -mpk-, -nçt-, -lkt-, -lkṭ-, -mbd-, -nxd-, -lgd-, and -lgḍ- all remain unchanged; doubled stops are degeminated (like -mpp- > -mp-).

If the sound before the stop sequence is l or r, nothing happens and assimilations are normal. If the sound is a sibilant (note that they cannot precede voiced stops), assimilations are normal except for any sibilant + -çp- which becomes -sp-; in the other clusters where the stop or affricate would become a sibilant (-çṭ-, -çk-, -cṭ-, and -ck-) the preceding vowel undergoes synchronic lengthening if possible.

More complex clusters are avoided by means of epenthetic vowels.

Doubling saṃdhi

In a few cases of consonant doubling due to saṃdhi, there are irregular results:

• -y y- → -jñ-
• -v v- → -gv-
• -r r- → -rl-
• any doubled voiced stop (also due to assimilation of other stops) → homorganic nasal + voiced stop (e.g. -b b- → -mb-)

Epenthetic vowels

Epenthetic vowels are usually discussed together with saṃdhi. They are often used in verbal conjugations, as no Chlouvānem word may end in two consonants. The epenthetic vowel used depends on the preceding consonant:

• u is inserted after labials;
• e is used after retroflexes (except ṣ), r, and h;
• a is used after ʔ;
• i is used after all other consonants

The only exception to this rule is root-final -mn (only appearing in the two roots pumn- and yemn-) where the n becomes a and no other epenthetic vowel is inserted.

Writing system - Jīmalāṇa

Chlouvānem has been written since the late First Era in an alphabet called Chlouvānaumi jīmalāṇa ("Chlouvānem alphabet", the noun jīmalāṇa is actually a collective derivation from jīma "character"), developed with influence of the script used for the ancient Kūṣṛmāthi language, which, however, was an abugida. The orthography for Chlouvānem represents how it was pronounced in Classical times, but it's completely regular to read in all present-day local pronunciations. The Chlouvānem alphabet is actually a defective script, at least in normal writing, as the phoneme /a/ is usually not written. It can be written with a diacritic sign, but this is only done in books aimed at children or language learners, in dictionaries, or in some rare cases where disambiguation is necessary, as two following letters may represent either a consonant cluster or there could be an /a/ between them; word-initial /a/ is however written with the character that represents the glottal stop otherwise. To make some examples, in the Chlouvānem script a word like marta "city" is written <mrt>, while avyāṣa "time, moment" is written <ʔvyāṣ>: Chlouvānem speakers are however able in the vast majority of cases to tell which word is meant due to context. Note that, however, the letter <a> is a proper letter of the alphabet, usually written as <ʔ> with the <a> diacritic.

The romanization used for Chlouvānem avoids this problem by giving each phoneme a single character or digraph, but it stays as close as possible to the native script. Aspirated stops and diphthongs are romanized as digraphs and not by single letters; geminate letters, which are represented with a diacritic in the native script, are romanized by writing the consonant twice - in the aspirated stops, only the first letter is written twice, so /ppʰ/ is <pph> and not *<phph>. The following table contains the whole Chlouvānem alphabet as it is romanized, following the native alphabetical order:

Letter	m	p	ph	b	bh	f	v	n	t	th
Sound	/m/	/p/	/pʰ/	/b/	/bʱ/	/f/	/ʋ/	/n/	/t̪/	/t̪ʰ/
Letter	d	dh	ç	çh	x	xh	s	ṇ	ṭ	ṭh
Sound	/d̪/	/d̪ʱ/	/t̪͡s/	/t̪͡sʰ/	/d̪͡z/	/d̪͡zʱ/	/s/	/ɳ/	/ʈ/	/ʈʰ/
Letter	ḍ	ḍh	ṣ	ñ	c	ch	j	jh	š	y
Sound	/ɖ/	/dʱ/	/ʂ/	/ɳ/	/c͡ɕ/	/c͡ɕʰ/	/ɟ͡ʑ/	/ɟ͡ʑʱ/	/ɕ/	/j/
Letter	k	kh	g	gh	ṃ	ʔ	h	r	l	ь
Sound	/k/	/kʰ/	/g/	/gʱ/	/N/	/ʔ/	/ɦ/	/ʀ/	/ɴ̆/, /ŋ/	/ʲ/
Letter	i	ī	į	u	ū	ų	e	ė	ę	o
Sound	/i/	/iː/	/i̤/	/u/	/uː/	/ṳ/	/e/	/eː/	/e̤/	/ɔ/
Letter	æ	a	ā	ą	ai	ąi	ei	ęi	ea	oe
Sound	/ɛ/	/a/	/aː/	/ɑ̤/	/aɪ̯/	/a̤ɪ̯/	/eɪ̯/	/e̤ɪ̯/	/eɐ̯/	/ɔə̯/
Letter	au	ąu	å	ou	ṛ	ṝ
Sound	/aʊ̯/	/a̤ʊ̯/	/ɔ/ (see below)	/ɔʊ̯/	/ʀ̩/	/ʀ̩ː/

Some orthographical and phonological notes:

• /ŋ/ is written as <l> before <k g kh gh n>; <ll> before other consonants; and <nll> intervocalically. Note that in many local varieties <lk lkh lg lgh> are actually [ɴq ɴqʰ ɴɢ ɴɢʱ], with the stop assimilating to <l> and not vice-versa, and thus analyzed as /ɴ̆k ɴ̆kʰ ɴ̆g ɴ̆gʱ/.
• /ts/ is written as <ts> in desiderative mood stems when arising from the addition of /s/ to a root ending in a dental consonant.

Letter names are formed following these simple rules, which depend by phoneme type:

• Voiceless unaspirated stops and fricatives are phoneme + /uː/ (pū, tū, fū, sū...) except for <ʔ> which is aʔū. Voiceless aspirated stops are phoneme + /au̯/ (phau, thau...).
• Voiced unaspirated stops and fricatives are phoneme + /iː/ (bī, vī, dī...), while aspirated ones use /ai̯/ (bhai, dhai...). This latter diphthong is also used for yai, hai, and lai.
• Nasals and <r> use /ei̯/ (mei, nei, rei...), but <ṃ> is, uniquely, nālkāvi.
• Short unrounded vowels are vowel + /t/ + vowel (iti, ete...); short rounded ones have /p/ instead of /t/ (upu, opo).
• Long vowels are vowel + /n/ if unrounded (īn, ėn, ān), or /m/ if rounded (ūm). Oral diphthongs all have diphthong + /m/ + first element (aima, eime...).
• Breathy-voiced vowels are vowel + /ɦ/ + vowel (įi, ųu, ęe, ąa). Breathy-voiced diphthongs are diphthong + /ɦ/ + oral second element (ąihi, ęihi, ąuhu).

o and å

In today's standard Chlouvānem, the letters o and å are homophones, being both pronounced /ɔ/: their distribution reflects their origin in Proto-Lahob (PLB), with o deriving from PLB *aw and *ow, and å from either *a umlauted by a (lost) *o in a following syllable, or, most commonly, from the sequences *o(ː)wa, *o(ː)fa, *o(ː)wo, or *o(ː)fo.

Most Chlouvānem sources, however, classify å as a diphthong: Classical Era sources nearly accurately describe it as /ao̯̯/, later monophthongized to /ʌ/ or /ɒ/ and merged with /ɔ/ - in fact, most daughter languages have the same reflex for both o and å.

It should be noted that in the present day a spelling-based difference between those two letters is becoming more common: in Līlasuṃghāṇa å is increasingly often /oː/, and this is spreading in many other areas - due to mass media influence, there's not a true areal pattern; while it is spreading faster in major urban areas (e.g. in Cami, about 3500 km away from Līlasuṃghāṇa) not all of them do, including some of the closest ones (e.g. Līṭhalyinām, 450 km south of the capital).

Main article: Chlouvānem morphology

Chlouvānem morphology is complex and synthetic, with a large number of inflections. Six parts of speech are traditionally distinguished: nouns, adjectives, verbs, pronouns, numerals, and particles.

Syntax

Constituent order

Like most other Lahob languages, the preferred word order in Chlouvānem is SOV, and the language is almost completely head-final. The word order could however be better defined as topic-comment, but in less common styles it is perfectly possible, thanks to case inflections, to greatly deviate from this standard order.

The subject - whatever agrees with the verb - is usually the topic, but there can be another explicitely stated topic (denoted by the particle mæn) which gets precedence on the subject (triggered by the verb), as in the third of the following examples:

• yąloe lilie ulguta - The food has been bought by me. (food.DIR.SG. 1SG.ERG. buy.PERF-3SG.EXTERIOR.PATIENT.)
• lili yąlenu ulgutaṃça - I have bought food. (1SG.DIR. food-ACC.SG. buy.PERF-1SG.EXTERIOR-AGENT.)
• liliā ñæltah mæn yąloe lilie ulguta - My sister, I bought the food [for her]. (1SG.GEN. sister.DIR.SG. TOPIC. food.DIR.SG. 1SG.ERG. buy.PERF-3SG.EXTERIOR.PATIENT.)

Noun phrase

Stative cases as nominal tense

The three stative cases of Chlouvānem (translative, exessive, essive) express nominal tense in certain situations, most notably in copulative sentence, where the translative case conveys a future meaning and the exessive a past one:

• lili rahėllilan — I am a will-be-doctor = I am studying in order to become a doctor
• liliā kaleya mæn gu ninejñairau ša nanū aveṣyotāran lallāmahan camimurkadhānan gyirāsi — as for my best friend, I could not believe it, that she was the Great Inquisitor-elect (note the use of the highly respectful (not translated) formula "Her Most Excellent Highness, the Great Inquisitor").
• tami tamiāt šulañšenat — he is her former husband.

The expression of tense is also notable when the expression of state refers to a cause; this is particularly common with the exessive and essive cases:

• saminat tamiā hañiliritь — having been a child (lit. "as a former child", "from being a child"), (s)he remembers that.
• lūlunimartyęs nunūt dældāt tarliru — being from Lūlunimarta, I understand that language. Note that nunūt dældāt here is exessive case but only because it's an argument of the verb tṛlake, without implying tense.
• buinān saminye pa maišaxhātça — as he's going to be a father (lit. "as a will-be-father"), he's learning about children.

Note that, like for participles, tense is relative to the main verb.

Verb phrase

Positional verbs

Positional verbs are among the most complex features of Chlouvānem grammar. In order to build verbs such as "to stay", "to be seated", and "to lie", Chlouvānem uses a base which is then prefixed with a locative particle, building verbs meaning "to stay on", "to stay under", "to stay in", and so on. There are 26 prefixes for each of the three verbs:

Prefix	To stay (-tiā/-tim)	To be seated (-vāst)	To lie (-ūlg)
Generic position (ta-)	tatiāke (tatimu; tatimau; taʔatimum)	tavāske (tavāstu; tavāstau; tostim)	tolge (tolgu; tolgau; tavūlgam)
On(to), above (ān-)	āntiāke	āmvāske	anūlge
Under, below (šu-)	šutiāke	šuvāske	šūlge
In the middle of, between (khl-)	khlatiāke	khluvāske	khlūlge
Together with, among (kus-)	kustiāke	kusvāske	kusūlge
Within inside (glь-)	glitiāke	glivāske	gliūlge
Near (mū(g)-)	mūtiāke	mūgvāske	mūgūlge
Far (bog-)	bogdiāke	bogvāske	bogūlge
Physically attached; mounting an animal/a bike (tad-)	tandiāke	tadvāske	tadūlge
Hanging from; upside down (smi-)	smitiāke	smivāske	smiyūlge
In(to), inside (na(ñ)-)	natiāke	navāske	nañūlge
Outside, outwards (kau-)	kautiāke	kauvāske	kavūlge
Opposite to; somewhere else (viṣ-)	viṣṭyāke	viṣvāske	viṣūlge
Around (kami-)	kamitiāke	kamivāske	kamyūlge
Behind (prь-)	pritiāke	privāske	priūlge
In front of (mai-)	maitiāke	maivāske	mayūlge
In a corner; on a border; at the limits of (vai-)	vaitiāke	vaivāske	vayūlge
Next to; alongside (šr-)	šṛtiāke	šṛvāske	šrūlge
In the center of (lū(s)-)	lūtiāke	lūvāske	lūsūlge
On the left (vyā-)	vyātiāke	vyāvāske	vyolge
On the right (jlь-)	jlitiāke	jlivāske	jliūlge
Facing; towards (keil-)	keiltiāke	keilvāske	keilūlge
Facing inside (na-kel-)	nakeltiāke	nakelvāske	nakelūlge
Facing outside (kau-kel-)	kokeltiāke	kokelvāske	kokelūlge
Near to the center (mū-lū(s)-)	molūtiāke	molūvāske	molūsūlge
Far from the center (bog-lū(s)-)	boglūtiāke	boglūvāske	boglūsūlge

These basic forms have static meanings, and are always intransitive exterior verbs.
Their causative forms translate the English verbs "to put", "to seat" and "to lay" respectively, and are transitive when exterior and intransitive (middle) when interior. Verbs equivalent to English to remain are formed by attaching these prefixes to the verb lįnake for the analogues of -tiā/-tim (e.g. tatiāke → lįnake; āntiāke → āṃlįnake; šutiāke → šulįnake and so on), while for the others (to remain seated; to remain lying) the construction lįnake + positional infinitive is used.

These verbs all use two different place arguments: actual position, which requires locative case, and relative position, requiring exessive case. The latter often denotes non-inclusion in the mentioned place. Some examples:

1. jñūmat jlitimu.
   tree-EX.SG. stand.right.of.IND.PRES-1SG.EXT.PATIENT.TRG.
   I'm standing to the right of the tree.
2. domañe vaivāstu.
   room-LOC.SG. be.seated.in.corner.IND.PRES-1SG.EXT.PATIENT.TRG.
   I'm sitting in a corner of the room.
3. domanat vaivāstu.
   room-EX.SG. be.seated.in.corner.IND.PRES-1SG.EXT.PATIENT.TRG.
   I'm sitting in a corner outside the room.
4. jñūmat ūnime priūlgu.
   tree-EX.SG. street-LOC.SG. lie.behind.IND.PRES-1SG.EXT.PATIENT.TRG.
   I'm lying in the street, behind the tree.

Positional prefixes as derivational affixes

Positional prefixes are commonly used as derivational affixes, often with only a figurative representation of the positional meaning. Some examples:

• mai- (in front of) is often used for something done in advance, or to someone.
• ān- (above) and na(ñ)- (in, inside) may be used as intensives (but cam- is more common) or inceptives.
• šu- (down, below) (and also kau (outside), especially for states) may be used with a terminative meaning.

The root męlь- (to give) is a good example for this: from the basic verb męlike we can find derivations such as primęlike (to give back (exterior), to return (interior)), maimęlike (to prepare), āmmęlike (to dedicate oneself (mentally) to), namęlike (to dedicate oneself (physically) to), or šumęlike (to renounce). An inceptive/terminative pair is pugle (to sleep) → nampugle (to fall asleep) and kaupugle (to wake up).

Motion verbs

[section still to be expanded]

Along with positional verbs, motion verbs are another complex but essential part of Chlouvānem grammar. Motion verbs can be monodirectional or multidirectional, and all verbs come in pairs, each member of a pair being used in different contexts.
The motion verbs of Chlouvānem are:

Meaning	Monodirectional verb (root)	Multidirectional verb (root)
to go, to walk	flulke (flun-)	peithake
to go with a vehicle (trans.) (except small boats, bikes, and airplanes)	vaske	pūrṣake
to ride, to mount (trans.)	TBA	TBA
to go towards, to be directed to (mono) to move (multi)	TBA	TBA
to run	mṛcce	mālchake
to swim	lįke	lærṣake
to fly	mugdhe (mudh-)	mordhake
to float in the air to go with a balloon or zeppelin	yaṃške (yaṃš-/iṃš-)	einerke
to float on water to go with a small boat, to row	TBA	TBA
to run (e.g. river, water)	TBA	—
to roll	pṝke	pārlake
to climb	TBA	TBA
to jump	mųke	mårṣake
to fall	TBA	—
to lean (trans.)	dhāke (edhā-)	yachlake
to carry (trans.)	dumbhake	dårbhake
to pull (trans.)	TBA	TBA

Monodirectional verbs are used when there's movement in a single direction, or when the destination is the focus of the verb:

• jāyim tarlāmahui fliven - the girl walks to school.
• keikui vasau - I went to the park [using a vehicle].
• liliā ñæltai kitui jaje janāyų iliha - my sisters have swum home in the igarapé from the port.

This last example shows all three cases used for location complements: dative (in lative use) for directions (= tarlāmahui, keikui, kitui), locative for where the action takes place (jaje), and ablative for origins (janāyų).

Multidirectional verbs have different uses:

• Generic or habitual actions:
  • jāyim tarlāmahui peithė - the girl regularly walks to school.
  • saminą liliā ñæltai jaje lærṣāli - when they were children, my sisters regularly swam in the igarapé.
• Movement inside a specific location (in locative case, or expressed through locative trigger voice), without any specified direction:
  • marte peithamui - we walk around the city.
  • jaja lærṣėpan - as for the igarapé, someone is swimming in there.
• Gnomic or potential meanings:
  • gūṇai mordhyąt - birds [can] fly.
  • spragnyæh lalāruṇai tarvė lilu en nanū dårbhyątça - large lalāruṇai can carry more than three people.
• (in the aorist or perfect) completed movements: movement to a place and then returning back.
  • liliā buneya galiākinu mordhitь - my older sister went to Galiākina by plane [and came back].
  • liliā buneya galiākinu mudhitь - my older sister went to Galiākina by plane [but she's still there {or at least she was at the time relevant to the topic}].

Except for this last meaning, multidirectional verbs are never used in the perfect.
In auxiliary constructions, monodirectional verbs are never used as habituals (infinitive + ñeaʔake), while multidirectional ones are never used as progressives (p.part + gyake):

• liliā buneya galiākinu mordhake ñeaʔitь - my older sister regularly went to Galiākina by plane.
• liliā buneya galiākinu mugdhyąça mitь - my older sister was flying to Galiākina.

Origin prefixes

Positional prefixes are used with motion verbs in order to more specifically state direction; as they get a directional meaning, most of these prefixes also have a corresponding origin prefix:

"Lative" prefix	"Ablative" prefix	Meaning
ta-	tes-	Generic direction
ān-	yana-	Above
šu-	šeis-	Under
khl-	kelь-	In the middle of, together with
kus-	cis-	In a group; among
glь-	gin-	Within inside
mū(g)-	meak-	Near, close
bog-	biš-	Far
tad-	tais-	Attached to; on an animal
smi-	šñe-	Hanging
na(ñ)-	neni-	Inside
kau-	kuvi-	Outside
viṣ-	vyeṣa-	Opposite; somewhere else
kami-	kæli-	Around
prь-	priš-	Behind
mai-	mīram-	In front of
vai-	viye-	In a corner
šr-	chir-	Next to
lū(s)-	rīs-	In the center
vyā-	veši-	Left
jlь-	jelši-	Right
bac-	—	Avoiding
gala-	hilæ-	Through

As expected, dative case is used for destination and ablative for origins, e.g. jñūmui prifliven - (s)he goes behind the tree; lālia ñæltah kitų meakfluṃsusah - my sister is walking from somewhere near home.
Prefixes may be combined in order to form more specific meanings, like bacmūgmṛcce meaning "to run nearer while avoiding something". A verb like this has two arguments, a true direction (denoted by mūg-, near) and a relative position (bac-, avoiding); the first one is in the usual dative case, while the latter is in the exessive, e.g. sāmiåh kitui nanāt ūnimat bacmūgamṛcim - I ran nearer to your home while avoiding that street.

Dependent clauses

Conditional sentences

Chlouvānem grammar distinguishes three basic types of conditional sentences, two of them with two tenses, the other one with three. They are distinguished by the use of different moods and tenses:

• Factual conditional: statement expressing an implication; the if-clause is in hypothetical imperfective, the main in indicative present. If the action took place in the past, then the if-clause is in hypothetical perfective and the main in indicative aorist:
  • yālvoe nakitatṛ tæyālvė - if you put sugar [in it], [it] becomes sweet.
  • ilėnimartui mordhānça chlouvānami bhælė moçi - if you flew to Ilėnimarta, you've been in the Chlouvānem lands.
• Predictive conditional: statement expressing something that will become true if certain conditions are met. Three tenses are distinguished:
  • Past, if the condition has been met in the past, then the statement either is now true or is about to be true; the if-clause is in hypothetical perfective and the main in indicative present: drānçaçait flundām yųlumbuça - if you have done it, we [two] go eat.
  • Present, if the condition is being fulfilled and the statement will become true in the future; the if-clause is in hypothetical imperfective and the main in indicative future: draçaçait fluniṣṭām yųlumbuça - if you do it, we [two]'ll go eat.
  • Future, if the condition will be met in the future. This is often accurately translated as "when... then..."; the if-clause is in hypothetical perfective and the main in indicative future: drānçaçait fluniṣṭām yųlumbuça - when you will have done it, we [two]'ll go eat.
• Hypothetical conditional: hypothetic and often counterfactual statement, distinguishing two tenses:
  • Non-past, typically used for completely unreal statements whose implications would be active in the present or in the future; both clauses are in the hypothetical mood, the if-one in the either aspect and the main in the imperfective, usually divided by mārim if they're in the same aspect (here meaning "then"): rahėlliląs gyatiam mārim dadarasyasusat tṛlirtam - if I were a doctor, I would know what's to be done // rahėlliląs gyāttiam dadarasyasusat tṛlirtam - if I had been a doctor, I would know what's to be done.
  • Past, used for implications which could have been true in the past but weren't; both clauses are in hypothetical perfective, usually divided by mārim: rahėlliląs gyāttiam mārim dadarasyasusat tṛlertiam - if I had been a doctor, I would have known what had to be done.

Vocabulary

Honorific words and vocatives

(to be expanded)

Verbs with suppletive honorific forms

Unless differently specified, if no honorific form is given, the generic form is used; if no humble form is given, the honorific form is used.

English	Generic verb	Honorific	Humble
to be	gyake	sæglake	jīveke defective; uses gyake for non-indicative forms
to do, act, make	dṛke	—	chlašake
to create, make	āndṛke dṛke pājunāke (obsolete, literary)	āthārke
to ask	muṣke	—	yacce or muṣke chlašake; in a few specific forms yacce chlašake
to receive (and derivatives)	yoṭṭe	kvælke	combake

Nouns with suppletive honorific forms

English	Generic noun	Honorific	Humble
wife	laleichim	faitlañši	either, depending on context
husband	rūdakis	šulañšoe	either, depending on context
mother	meinā	nāḍima	either, depending on context
father	buinā	tāmvāram	either, depending on context
request, question	muṣas	—	icūm
receiving	yoṭa	kvælas	combas

Territorial subdivisions of the Inquisition

Note: text in this section is a stub, to be expanded soon

The Chlouvānem lands are a huge territory with three major levels of local administration: the diocese, the circuit, and the parish. The generic term for "territorial subdivision" is bhælālaukas.

The highest level is the diocese (juṃšañāña), comparable to a federate state; their head is a bishop (juṃša). Many dioceses in an area with shared economical and cultural characteristics are grouped in an administrative unit called tribunal (camimaivikā), which intervenes in common regional economic planning and is as well an important statistic unit.
Some dioceses consist of two separate administrative units with a single religious head - these are mostly newer developments, where effectively a new "state" has been created for all matters except the most strictly religious ones. Depending on the diocese, these separate units may be called province (ṣramāṇa) - for larger but less densely populated areas - or quaestorship (loṭikam) - for smaller, mostly urban areas. Quaestorships are a special kind of administrative division, as they are only divided in municipalities, but they are normally counted as cities statistically - for example the capital city of the Inquisition, Līlasuṃghāṇa, is listed as the nation's largest city, with 29.8 million inhabitants - there is however no such entity as the city of Līlasuṃghāṇa, but only its quaestorship.

The next local level is the circuit (lalka), whose denomination changes in some dioceses — including hālgāra (district) and others — without major differences in competences (though it should be noted that competences of circuits or equivalent administrations are not centralized, but defined by the diocese or province).

The lowest level of local administration is the "municipality" one — whose names are in most dioceses either parish (mānai), city (marta), or sometimes village (poga). The distinction between them is mostly of population, with municipalities above a certain population (in many dioceses 70,000 people) being considered cities. The distinction between villages and parishes is more blurry and varies more between each diocese, with villages usually being independent municipalities whose populations are either very small in size compared to nearby ones, or located in sparsely populated areas.
Clusters of nearby mid-small parishes often form an entity called inter-parish territory (maimānāyuseh ṣramāṇa), sharing between them some basic services like recycling, local transport, or fire protection.

While the lowest independent division is the parish (including cities and villages), a minor area in a parish may be recognized as a hamlet (mūrė) (note that some dioceses use the term for village (poga) instead), which for cities is usually a borough (martauseh poga, literally "urban village"). Note that cities may also have hamlets: boroughs are usually defined as such if many of them form a large contiguous urban area; smaller inhabited places in rural areas administered by a city are still hamlets.

Large uninhabited or extremely sparsely populated areas are often not assigned to any municipality, but are administered by the circuit and defined as an extra-parish territory (šrimāṇāyuseh ṣramāṇa).

Example texts

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 1

yaiva leliė mānįs kūmarāmpūrḍayāvipeimāmitęs no gṇyāvirųt. taṃšān teskilyāvu nakeltārlāmiu no uñyąppan sama demi ñæltaikęs glikædadarasyirųt.

(Standard): [ˈʝai̯ʋa ɴ̆eˈɴ̆ʲeː maːˈnʲi̤s ˌkuːmaʀaːmpuːɐ̯ɖaˌjaːʋipei̯ˈmaːmʲite̤s nɔ ˈgɳjaːʋiʀṳt | tãˈɕãː teskiɴ̆ˈjaːʋu nakeɴ̆taːɐ̯ˈɴ̆aːmʲu nɔ uˈɲjɑ̤ppã sama ˈdemʲi ɲæɴ̆tai̯ˈke̤s gɴ̆ʲikɛdaˈdaʀasjiʀṳt]

all.DIR. person.DIR.PL. freedom-ESS.SG. right-dignity-equality-ESS.SG. and. be.born-IND.PRES.3P.INTERIOR.PATIENT. | 3P.PARROT.DIR. reason-ACC.SG. conscience-ACC.SG. and. be.IND.PRES.3P.EXTERIOR-LOC. and. REFL.DIR. brotherhood-ESS.SG. BENEF-behave.NECESS-PRES.3P.INTERIOR.