Cyrmanian

Cyrmanian (Kyrmi) is a distant relative of Bearlandic. It is notable for having few inflections (though the ones it has are rather irregular) and a system of consonant mutations.

Phonology

Consonants

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Lateral	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m /m/	n /n/				ng /ŋ/
Stop	p b /p b/	t d /t d/				k g /k g/
Fricative	f v /f v/	th dh /θ ð/	s z /s z/	lh /ɬ/		ch g /x ɣ/	h /h/
Other		r /r/		l /l/	j /j/

/ɣ/ only occurs as a result of consonant mutation.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i î /i~ɪ iː/	u û /ʉ~ɵ ʉː/	ŷ ŵ /ɯː uː/
Mid	e ê /ɛ eː/	y /ə/	o ô /ɔ oː/
Low		a â /a aː/

There are also several diphthongs.

	i	ə	u
a	ai /ai/	ae /æe/	ao /ɑo~ɒo/
e	ei /ei/
i		îa /iə/	yw /ɪu~əu/
o		ôa /oə~ʊə/
u	uy /ʊi~əi/

Mutations

There are three or four different types of consonant mutation, which are summarised in the table below.

Base consonant	Lenition	Nasalisation	Fortition
p	f	m
t	th	n
k	ch	ng
b	v	m	p
d	dh	n	t
g	g /ɣ/	ng	k
v		m	f
dh		n	th
z			s
h			h/ch
m	v
r			ch
l			lh

An empty cell indicates no change. Consonants not included in this chart do not mutate at all.

In a few instances, a special variant fortition occurs which only affects h, r and l. Note that h is not affected by the normal fortition.

Words triggering lenition, nasalisation, normal and special fortition are marked with ^{L N S R} respectively. Words which trigger nasalisation acquire an n at the end when followed by a word beginning with a vowel; similarly, words which trigger fortition acquire an s are the end under the same conditions.

Nouns

Nouns are inflected solely for number. The singular is unmarked, while the plural can be marked in a variety of ways.

The most regular way of forming plurals is by adding -ar. This suffix also forms the plurals of loanwords.

• chîach "beard" -> chîachar "beards"
• vorot "word" -> vorotar "words"

Many native nouns have irregular plurals which involve changes within the root. Most of those irregular plurals end in -r.

• bŵch "bird" -> bŵgar "birds"
• chys "goat" -> chŷr "goats"
• ruyd "brother" -> rîar "brothers"
• tynych "village" -> tingir "villages"

Nouns ending in -r tend to form plurals by vowel change alone, or by vowel change combined with the addition of an extra vowel (usually i) at the end.

• hever "fish" -> hevir "fish"
• air "year" -> îar "years"
• jevir "girl" -> jôari "girls"

Some nouns not ending in -r also form their plurals this way.

• hîad "hand" -> heiri "hands"
• vaira "bear" -> vâri "bears"

Lastly, some nouns have plurals ending in -n.

• aoth "language" -> aothin "languages"
• hyz "foot" -> hŷn "feet"

Articles

The articles are a^N (indefinite singular) and da^L (definite), the latter of which sometimes becomes a or na. There is no plural indefinite article.

Adjectives

Adjectives follow nouns. If the noun ends in a consonant and the adjectives begins with a consonant, they may be linked by the linking particle y.

• vaira gâvor "strong bear"
• mîar y gâvor "strong man"

Pronouns

	Subject	Emphatic	Object	Possessive
1sg	i	maN		maS
2sg	zi	zaN		zaS
3sg masculine	moN			moS
3sg feminine	chu			chuS
1pl	ao		os	oS
2pl	hidhe		hodhe	hoS
3pl	mine			miS

Note that ma, za and mo can only trigger nasalisation on verbs and the definite article.

Other pronouns include the demonstrative/relative y, which becomes yn when followed by a vowel-initial word, and which can be combined with the spatial adverbs îaz "here" and hîaz "there".

Numerals

1. aon
2. hyw
3. chai
4. îar^R
5. hî
6. eiz
7. seiv
8. avŵr^R
9. naivi
10. tôar

Îar and avŵr lose their final -r if the following noun undergoes mutation.

• îar pînir "four children" but îa chîar "four brothers"

Verbs

Verbs distinguish two morphological tenses, present and past. The formation of the past tense is extremely irregular and sometimes even looks suppletive. The most common pattern consists of a circumfix i-t, possibly accompanied by a vowel change.

• tel "count" -> itelt "counted"
• lhyw "sleep" -> ilhôat "slept"

Sometimes the final -t surfaces as a th or dh instead.

• gaeth "remove" -> igôath "removed"
• seidh "know" -> isôadh "knew"

Sometimes the initial consonant changes.

• derys "drink" -> idhôat "drank"
• kuyz "see" -> ichût "saw"

Some verbs beginning with a vowel are prefixed with z- instead of i-.

• aid "eat" -> zaith "ate"

A few verbs have seemingly suppletive past-tense forms.

• ilais "run" -> iflîath "ran"
• fŵ "make" -> uyda "made"
• serei "fight" -> ichrît "fought"

An -n is added to verb forms ending in a vowel if the following word begins with a vowel.

• uyda mo "he made" but uydan i "I made"
• serei da vîar "the man fights" but serein a vîar "a man fights"

Verb forms which end in a voiceless coronal consonant trigger fortition of the pronoun zi, after which the final consonant of the verb is dropped.

• idhôat i "I drank" but idhôa si "you drank"
• lai zi "you want" but ilei si "you wanted"

Those same verb forms also cause the definite article da to drop its initial d, but in this case the final consonant of the verb remains.

• âz da fîn "the child speaks" but ziget a fîn "the child spoke"

Sometimes the first and second person singular sound identical. In those cases it is common to add an emphatic pronoun before the verb.

• derys i "I drink" and dery si "you drink" -> ma nerys i "I drink" and za nery si "you drink"

Word order

The basic word order is VSO.

Sample

Main page: Literature:The North Wind and the Sun#Cyrmanian

Ichrît a Nuyf y chi Norot au d'Aoz yn aomi dhet a mi gâvor, au ilôat a mîar y lhi ngaofar ûn. Ziget mine y mo net y mi gâvor, isôadh yn uyda mo na vîar yn igôath a chaofar.

The North Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the strongest, and then a man wearing a warm cloak came. They said that the one who could make the man take off his cloak was the strongest.