Croissant is the ancestor of the Zoomic language family spoken on the planet Rulak. It's meant to be French gibberish with retroflexes.
Introduction
Phonology
The same as French, but with three additional retroflex consonants: ṭ /ʈ/, ḍ /ɖ/ and ṇ /ɳ/.
Orthography
Written like French.
Consonants
Vowels
Prosody
Stress
Intonation
Phonotactics
Morphophonology
Morphology
Nouns
Croissant nouns have two cases: nominative and genitive. Nouns ending with consonants use this paradigm:
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | - | -o |
| Genitive | -e | -ɑ̃ |
For example,
| riège (wood) | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | riège | riègeau |
| Genitive | riègé | riègent |
(Croissant final -ent is always pronounced.) Nouns ending with vowels use the same paradigm, but with an intrusive t:
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | - | -to |
| Genitive | -te | -tɑ̃ |
For example,
| crus (grass) | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | crus | crûteau |
| Genitive | crûté | crûtant |
Verbs
Verbs don't inflect for number or person.
| gauṇe 'to love' | Indicative | Subjunctive |
|---|---|---|
| Present | gauṇe | gauṇement |
| Past | dégauṇe | dégauṇement |
| Future | gauṇé | gauṇaise |
Non-finite forms
- Imperative: gauṇier!
- Infinitive: gauṇesse
- Verbal noun: gauṇerre (genitive form: gauṇerez)
Pronouns
Unlike in English, there are no accusative forms of pronouns in Croissant.
| Pronoun | Nominative | Genitive |
|---|---|---|
| I | le | lé |
| you | lin | (lun)né |
| he / she | fuis | (fui)sé |
| we | leman | lemé |
| you folks | sonc | sonché |
| they | fuille | fuillé |
| this | jus | jusé |
| these | juseau | jusant |
| that | honne | honné |
| those | honneau | honnant |
| that over there | ṇeux | ṇeusé |
| those over there | ṇeuseau | ṇeusant |
| who (interrogative) | tris | trisé |
| who (plural) | trisau | trisent |
| what | treux | treusé |
| what (plural) | treusau | treusent |
Syntax
Croissant is an almost exact relex of English.