Íscégon

Íscégon
Pronunciation	[[Help:IPA|ˈkeːreʃuː iːsˈkeːguneːʋu]]
Created by	Lili21
Date	Mar 2017
Setting	Calémere
Ethnicity	Iscegons
Extinct	ca. 700
Language family	Evandorian languages Central Evandorian Íscégon

The Íscégon language, natively céresiú íscégunévu [ˈkeːreʃuː iːsˈkeːguneːʋu] (Cerian: esucéon, sérešu esucéoné; Besagren: issèu, cèrissu issèunu), is an Evandorian language, the main Classical language in the Western civilizations of Calémere.
First spoken in central Évandor, in present-day Northern Ceria, where it developed from Proto-Common Evandorian, it was the language spread across most of the continent by the ancient Íscégon Empire; for a long time after imperial times it still was the main language of culture of the whole continent and nowadays it still has - along with ancient Nivarese, the language of ancient Nivaren - an important role in learned terminology in all Evandorian civilizations and, through influence of Cerian (Ísc.: Ciairegiion; Cer.: Čérízon), a descendant of Íscégon which has become through colonization the lingua franca in most of Calémere, in most languages of the planet.

As a Central Evandorian language, Íscégon shares many features with Ancient Quanarian (like definiteness of nouns expressed in verbs, only found in Central Evandorian and in Auralic (Southern)) as well as with most other languages of the family (except for the most divergent ones like Holenagic and to a lesser extent the Northern Evandorian languages), like the two-gender system, the lack of verbs declining for person, and SVO word order. However, uniquely among Central Evandorian languages - but like most other languages in the family - it has lost the vowel harmony characteristic of Proto-Evandorian, in the Íscégon case for a large number of vowel changes, mergers, and insertions that disrupted the original vowel harmony (c.f. PEv *öfektem "tree" > Ísc. útin; PEv *ŋɨpɨrz "foot" > Ísc. núbres).

Phonology

Consonants

→ PoA ↓ Manner	Labial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasals	m		n
Plosives	p b		t d		k g	q
Fricatives		f	s				h
Approximants		ʋ		j
Trill			r
Lateral			l

Clusters of stop/fricative + /j/ often have varying results due to allophony (probably in Late Íscégon only (roughly after year 200)):

/pj bj fj/ → [pj bj fj]

/tj dj sj/ → [tʲ dʲ ʃ]

/kj gj/ → [tʃ dʒ]

/qj/ → [kʲ]

/hj/ → [ç]

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i iː		u uː
Mid	e eː		o oː
Low		a aː

Phonotactics

Íscégon phonotactics are rather simple, especially by Evandorian languages' standards, as the syllable structure is (C₁(C₂))V(C₃). C₁ may be any consonant; C₂ may be /r/, /ʋ/, or /j/ (but only after a stop or fricative (and /sr/ is not possible anyway)), or /s/ after one of /p t k/, and C₃ may be one of /m n s r l/. The vowel may be short, long, or a falling diphthong.
Íscégon phonotactics are one of the easiest noticeable differences with its most famous daughter language, Cerian, where the maximum syllable structure is strictly CVn — something that can often be easily seen by comparing an Íscégon word with its Cerian descendant, e.g. Isc. rípsercé and irnéma (both meaning "city") → Cer. refusécé (castle), ínéma (city).

Morphology

Nouns

Iscégon has two main regular noun declensions, with, however, lots of exceptions. The two declensions are somewhat predictable as they were simple regular agglutinating suffixes in Proto-Evandorian, and their divergence is the result of vowel harmony. Íscégon nouns decline for two numbers (singular and plural) and five cases: nominative, accusative, locative, ablative, and lative - the same stock as in reconstructed Proto-Evandorian and other ancient or conservative Evandorian languages (like Ancient Nivarese, Holenagic, and Gathura).
Note that the second declension has two different patterns for words with final -c or -g and those with all other (or no) consonants.

Many nouns are learned with two forms, as the nominative through sound changes has lost final consonants that reappear in other parts of the declension, namely:

• In all plural forms of the first declension;
• In lative singular and all plural forms except locative for the second declension.

Nouns with a final consonant even in the nominative (as útin in the table below) have identical nominative and accusative singular.

Example table (ructó < PEv *roktog ; útin < PEv *öfektem ; quolé < PEv *kweltek):

	First declension		Second declension		Second declension (-c, -g)
	ructó, ructog- "hawk"		útin/m- "tree"		quolé, quolec- "boar"
	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Nominative	ructó	ructogaur	útin	útimér	quolé	quolequer
Accusative	ructót	ructogót		útimét	quolét	quolequét
Locative	ructóduá	ructogórduá	útinduá	útimérduá	quoléduá	quolérduá
Ablative	ructógú	ructogórú	útingí	útimégí	quolégí	quolequégí
Lative	ructón	ructogórón	útinsin	útimésin	quolexin	quolequésin

In a historical perspective, it is interesting to note how, as the Íscégon cases were merged, different forms were used for different plurals. Cerian, for example, did not innovate any nominative plural (except for -oran indefinite from the noun ógoran "group"), but its oblique forms for both singular and plural continue the Íscégon lative. Besagren, on the other hand, which does not distinguish case anymore, generalized the plural of consonant-final stems including an -n as the majority of these had an n in Íscégon. Compare the words for "tree": útin became Cerian vútin, nom.pl. vútiné, but its Besagren translation (from the Late Íscégon diminutive útimítin, as the full cognate utzi "wood" is singularia tantum) is utzimìt, pl. utzimindè [utsimiˈɳɖɛ] — morphemically utzimìt-nè. Note, though, that consonant assimilations in Besagren often led to irregular plurals that have not been regularized, e.g. Ísc. báresi, báresiér "road(s)" > barisi [ˈbarisi], barissè [bariˈʃɛ] (cf. Cerian invariable bóši).

Verbs

[TBA] As for tenses, the Íscégon verb is only conjugated for four tense-aspect combinations, actually all (for most verbs) agglutinative: present, present continuous, past, and past continuous. The future tenses (future, future perfect, future continuous) are formed by the particle dion followed by a verb in either present, present continuous, or past.

The first - and the only productive - conjugation in Íscégon is the one that derives from back vowel stems and thus had back-vowel affixes in Proto-Evandorian.

bínuron (bínur-) "to do, make"	Active
	Indefinite	Definite
Present	bínur	TBA
Present Cont.	masbínur	TBA
Past	tobínur	TBA
Past Cont.	mastobínur	TBA

Auxiliary verbs

Íscégon had some auxiliary verbs, many of which are worth noticing because they developed into newer tense/aspect combinations in daughter languages.

• hegon (to put) becomes egon and, after a verbal noun (-os) takes a repetitive meaning, e.g. bínuros egon "to do over and over (pres.)". These forms eventually developed into the simple present (with a frequentative meaning, like in English, and displacing the original Íscégon unmarked present) in most daughter languages, e.g. bínuros egon → Cerian benureon (X do/does, c.f. masbínur → mábenú "X is/are doing"); Besagren binurreu (c.f. maxbinu).