Riukish

Riukish
Ribnú
Pronunciation	[riβnʉː]
Created by	Aenil2
Date	2024
Setting	Conworld
Native speakers	L1 : 600 (1872 CC) L2 : 3200
Language family	Isolate Riukish
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-2	brn

Riukish (autoglossonym: Ribnú; Riukish : [riβnʉː]) is a minority language spoken in Lincai (Riukish : Ricda [ricð̞ä]), province in which the majority language is Makari. Riukish is a language isolate, as it is not related to any languages known in the Ragian subcontinent, place where the Proto-Kinavel language evolved. One of the hypothesis about the provenance of Riukish is that merchants from Kalari brought their language to Lincai, around 900 years ago.

Gramatically speaking, Riukish is a fusional language, even though verbs can be considered as agglutinative. It has a split-ergative alignment, with case depending entirely on verb voices, a concept that Riukish makes extensive use of.

Etymology

Following the previous hypothesis, the language name could come from the Early Kalari word «Rŭivnĭu» /rʷiβnʲu/ which, at that time, meant "story, novel". In the now extinct Kalari language, that word became «Ruivnu», and meant "tongue"

Phonology

Consonants

The following table is Riukish consonant inventory. It is composed of 19 phonemes, 5 of which being approximants and 5 of them being fricatives according to the traditional pronunciation.

Consonants
	Labials	Alveolars	Dorsals
Nasals	m /m/	n /n/	ng /ŋ/
Plosives	p /p/	t /t/	c /c/, k /k/
Fricatives	f /ɸ/	s /s/	z /ç/, x /x/, h /h/
Approximants	v /β̞/	d /ð̞/, l /l/	g /ɰ/, w /w/
Trills	b /ʙ̥/	r /r/

Notes :

• In the "neo-phonology", the approximants /β̞/, /ð̞/ and /ɰ/ are pronounced /β/, /ð/ and /ɣ/
• /c/ and /ç/ can be pronounced /kʲ/ and /ʃʲ/

Vowels

There are 9 vowels in Riukish, 8 of which form short-long pairs :

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i,í /iː/	ú /ʉː/	u /u/
Mid	e /e̞/, é /ɛ̝:/		o /o̞/
Open	á /æ:/	a /ä/	ó /ɒ:/