Nordulaki

Nordulaki
Pronunciation	[[Help:IPA|[[norˈdu(ː)laki] [norˈdu(ː)laki ˈθarki]]]]
Created by	Lili21
Date	Oct 2017
Setting	Calémere
Ethnicity	Nordûlaki
Native speakers	290,000,000 (2312)
Language family	Evandorian languages Northern Evandorian Velken languages Old Nordûlaki Nordulaki
Official status
Official language in	Nordulik, Raxinara, Listord, Kerbellion, Sprêny, Peħlleit, Ferbêny, Alêig, Koitrûx, many others

Nordulaki, natively nordûlaki zarki [norˈdu(ː)laki ˈθarki], is an Evandorian language of the planet Calémere spoken most notably in the central-northern Evandorian country of Nordulik (nat. Nordûlik; Old Nordulaki: Nordoğlik) but also in many former colonies - for a total of 35 countries - around the planet.

Today, Nordulaki is the second most important and most spoken language in the Western world, after its western neighbor Cerian, and Nordulaki itself was the main diplomatic and scientific language of the world until half a century ago. It is the fourth most spoken language on the planet, after Cerian, Chlouvānem, and Spocian.

Nordulaki is a member of the Velken branch, a sub-branch of Northern Evandorian - which includes the Velken languages and Gathura at the northern end of the continent. Nordulaki's closest sibling is Spyŋun (Spigiħ in Nordulaki), spoken in its small southern neighbor Spyŋ, but both of them still have many similarities with the Landward Velken sub-branch to the east, which includes, most notably, Kalese; a noticeable distinction between Nordulaki and Spyŋun and the Landward Velken languages is the former two's complete lack of the aspectual distinctions that characterize the verbs in Landward Velken languages. Nordulaki is among the most isolating Evandorian languages, except for nouns - which display the typical Northern Evandorian trait of having evolved a genitive case, which Proto-Evandorian did not have.

External History

Even if I only started working on this version in October 2017, Nordûlaki is, together with Cerian, one of my oldest conlangs as far as its name is concerned - I first made two concountries named "Ceria" and "Nordulikh" in a map I made around 2007 or 2008. Ever since I began working on Calémere in 2014, I decided that those two countries were to be the most important countries of the Western world - I dare say Ceria is my conworld's England while Nordûlik is its analogue of France, though by their placement it'd be better to say that Ceria is the France-looking one and Nordûlik is more like Germany. Nordûlaki itself is among my favourite conlangs aesthetically - grammatically I did not have many definite inspirations, just some ideas I tried to use while in a grammar that made sense as an Evandorian language; aesthetically it's quite easy to notice the influence from Catalan.

Phonology

Phonemes given here are from Standard Evandorian Nordûlaki.

Consonants

→ PoA ↓ Manner	Labial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasals	m m		n n	ny ɲ
Plosives	p p b b		t t d d		k k g g
Affricates			ts ts it tʃ ig dʒ
Fricatives		f f	s s z θ x ʃ			h h
Laterals			l l	ll ʎ
Trill			r r
Approximants				j j	w w

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i î i (iː)		u û u (uː)
High-mid	ê e		ô o
Low-mid	e (é) ɛ		o (ó) ɔ
Low		a â a (aː)
u-Diphthongs	iu êu eu iʊ̯ eʊ̯ ɛʊ̯		ou au ɔʊ̯ ɑʊ̯
i-Diphthongs	êi ei ai eɪ̯ ɛɪ̯ aɪ̯		ui oi uɪ̯ oɪ̯
e-Diphthongs	ie ie̯		ue ue̯

The contrast between high-mid and low-mid vowels only exists in stressed syllables; a circumflex accent denotes the closer vowel, while the more open vowel is only marked with an acute in grammatical paradigms or if the accent is irregular (not on the penultimate).
The length contrast for the /i u a/ qualities (from Old Nordûlaki /eɣ oɣ aɣ/ respectively - /eɣ/ also from /øɣ/) is mostly gerontolectal and also only existing in stressed syllables, but still distinguished orthographically, both in minimal pairs (mir "shoe" (< ONor müre), mîr "palace" (< ONor möğru)) and in other words (notably Nordûlik (< ONor Nordoğlik) and nordûlaki (< nordoğlakki)).

Note that, orthographically, what appears to be an i-diphthong followed by t or g and either a consonant or nothing is not a diphthong but a sequence of a vowel plus an affricate, compare e.g. raitu /raɪ̯tu/ "flower" and prait /pratʃ/ (future particle).

Prosody

Stress

Stress is phonemic and usually on the penultimate syllable; if it appears on a previous syllable, it is marked orthographically. Except for monosyllables, words are never stressed on the last syllable if it is open. Stress is always marked orthographically with a circumflex accent if the stressed vowel is /e o/ or a (mostly historic) long vowel /aː iː uː/.

Morphology

Nouns

Nordulaki nouns are inflected for three cases - nominative (least marked), accusative, and genitive - and two numbers - singular and plural. As common among many Evandorian languages, many common nouns have two stems, with consonants that are not present in the least marked form that appear in the others. n-stems are particularly important to note as they're most commonly feminine nouns, but the gender-marking -n is often hidden in the nominative (dictionary) form. The Proto-Evandorian vowel harmony system survives in the accusative singular of a few nouns, as some have -uħ [-uç], while others have -eit [-etʃ].

Nouns in dictionaries are usually given with two principal parts, the nominative and accusative, as in reut, reutuħ (hawk) or sexki, sexkineit (city). Sometimes, however, only the nominative is included.

	Vowel stem reut, reutuħ (m) "hawk"		Consonant stem werz, werzeit (m) "boar"		n-stem paule, pauléneit (f) "girl"
	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Nominative	reut	reutor	werz	werzor	paule	paulénor
Accusative	reutuħ	reutorz	werzeit	werzorz	pauléneit	paulénorz
Genitive	reutux	reutorx	werzis	werzorx	paulénys	paulénorx

Nordulaki has grammatical gender, with a basic masculine/feminine distinction, and the notable feature (shared with Spyŋun and Gathura, but not Landward Velken languages) of having an animate/inanimate distinction in the plural, where animate nouns are still either masculine or feminine but inanimate nouns are, for matter of adjectival concordance, singular feminine - this is not shown on the nouns but on the adjectives (pluractional verbs used for them are still plural, however).

Example:

mêf neuk "beautiful dog" (masculine sg.)

paule neuken "beautiful girl" (feminine sg.)

fart neuk "beautiful hill (masculine sg.)

sexki neuken "beautiful city" (feminine sg.)

But:

mêfor neukor "beautiful dogs" (masculine sg. animate)

paulenor neuxnor "beautiful girls" (feminine sg. animate)

fartor neuken "beautiful hills" (masculine sg. inanimate)

sexkinor neuken "beautiful cities" (feminine sg. inanimate)

Verbs

	êit "to be"
Present	êit (êx)
Past	llenys
Future	êx prait