Zēsti

Zēsti
Rizzish
Ζήστι
A native Zēsti speaker.
Pronunciation	[ˈzɛːˌsti]
Created by	Jukethatbox
Native to	Chad
Language family	Indo-European Italic Latino-Faliscan Romance Italo-Western Western Romance Zēsti
Early forms	Proto-Indo-European Proto-Rizzish
Writing system	Greek alphabet
Sources	Spanish, French, Italian, Greek
Official status
Official language in	Chad
Recognised minority language in	Rizziconi Municipality in Italy
Regulated by	Rizzlers International

Zēsti(Ζήστι, pronounced [ˈzɛːˌsti]), a.k.a Rizzish(Ρίζι) is a Romance jokelang made to be as zesty as possible. It uses the Greek alphabet, which I personally consider the zestiest script of all time.

A signed version of Zēsti also exists, called Unspoken Rizz(ρίζις τασίτε).

Phonology

Orthography

The Zēsti alphabet is identical to the Greek alphabet, although pronunciation differs. For example, 〈Χχ〉(chi) is pronounced [ˈt͡ʃi], although the modern Greek pronunciation would be [ˈxi].

Zēsti alphabet

Alphabet	Aα	Ββ	Γγ	Δδ	Εε	Ζζ	Ηη	Θθ	Ιι	Κκ	Λλ	Μμ	Νν	Ξξ	Οο	Ππ	Ρρ	Σσς	Ττ	Υυ	Χχ	Φφ	Ψψ	Ωω
Romanisation	Aa	Bb	Gg	Dd	Ee	Zz	Ēē	Ðð	Ii	Kk	Ll	Mm	Nn	Xx	Oo	Pp	Rr	Ss	Tt	Yy	Çç	Ff	Psps	Õõ
IPA	a	bʱ	gʱ	dʱ	ε	z	e	θ	i	k	l	m	n	t͡s	ɔ	p	r	s	tʰ	u	t͡ʃ	fʰ	ps	o

Consonants

All plosives in Zēsti are aspirated depending on whether they are voiced or not, e.g. /tʰ/(unvoiced) or /dʱ/(voiced).

Prosody

Stress

Like in Greek, the tonos(´) is used to indicate where stress is placed, although by default stress is paroxytonic, meaning stress is placed on the penultimate syllable of a word.

Phonotactics

Most consonant clusters in Zēsti are identical to those in Greek, such as 〈γγ〉(transliterated as 〈gg〉in Latin) would be pronounced [ˈŋg], as well as 〈σς〉(transliterated as 〈ss〉) being pronounced /ʃ/. An example of this would be τέγγο(teggo), meaning "I have".

Vowel clusters are more unique, for example 〈αο〉or 〈αω〉(transliterated as 〈ao〉and 〈aõ〉respectively) are both pronounced [ə].

Morphology

Nouns

Grammatical gender

All nouns in Zēsti have a grammatical gender - either masculine or feminine. Masculine nouns tend to end in -o/-ω, while feminine nouns tend to end in -α, although they can be concretely identified by the article behind it, as seen in this table:

Articles

	Masculine	Feminine
Definite	ελ(λη)	λα
Indefinite	υν	ύνα

The alternate masculine definite article λη(lē) is used only as a direct object pronoun.
Example:
Τέγγο ασσέτερ ύν τελέ.(Téggo asséter úna telé, I bought a TV.)
Τέγγο λη ασσέτερ.(Téggo lē asséter, I bought it.)