Lortho

Lortho ['loɾ.tʰo]
Spoken in:	Lamona Continent
Conworld:	Dhamashi, a circumbinary planet
Total Speakers:	~ 60,000,000
Genealogical classification:	Old Lortho - Lortho - ?
Basic word order:	Verb-Subject-Object
Morphological Type:	Agglutinating
Morphosyntactic Alignment:	Nominative-Accusative
Created by:
Brian Bourque	March 2017

Introduction

Lortho (IPA:[ˈloɾ·tʰo]) is an a priori constructed language created by Brian Bourque in the beginning of 2003. It originally started as a prop for a strategy board game where only the script was created for aesthetics. Fast forward about 13 years and it has now evolved into a agglutinating language with some minor fusional aspects. The verbs and nouns are modified with affixes.

Inspiration

A friend was creating a board game similar to Risk; however, instead of taking place on Earth, this new game was to take place on an inter-planetary scale. The game creator wanted to develop an extraterrestrial theme and requested a fictional script. The name of the race on this game is "Lortho" and thus the seed was planted. Brian was unable to work on this piece for quite sometime until he joined the CONLANG mailing list and observed both seasoned and novice conlangers discussing all aspects of linguistics. Since then he decided to move forward and bring Lortho into fruition.

Another inspirational source is Brian's daughter. Through her development of learning how to make speech sounds leading to coherent speech, Brian found certain "words" to use in Lortho which he used to develop its phonology.

Setting

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The people (Kalanune) who speak Lortho live on a circumbinary plant which has two natural satellites in an alternate universe. The planet's surface has many similarities to Earth where it has oceans, mountains, deserts, and forests. The planet has three major continents: Mashonu, Kashti, and Lamona. The Kalanune live on Lamona.

Even though there are two stars, neither one can be seen separate from one another during daylight hours. At dawn and dusk, however, both can bee seen due to light refraction through the world's atmosphere.


Kashti	Lamona	Mashonu
Dhamashi

Etymology of Lortho

Lortho is a combination of Lor, the god from which their story of life stems, and -tho, the archaic form for the genitive case. It has since become a noun and can take other case endings (e.g. konpharin lorthome - I speak Lortho-ACC).

The mountain from which Lor is said to originate is called Malhi Dharakhi, "Great Mountain," and is located in the coastal mountain range on the west side of Lamona.

Goals

The goal is to create the gradual progression of Lortho which will lead to the development of daughter languages and, eventually, create sister languages which have developed on different parts of the planet.

Phonology

Orthography

Writing System

The Lortho alphabet contains 21 letters, one of which is a vowel. The writing system behaves in a similar manner to an abugida; however, there are no conjunct consonants. Ligatures are formed by the combination of consonants and vowels (other than the vowel [i]). Lortho's script was inspired by the Devanagari, Uchen, and Tengwar writing systems.

Lortho Alphabet

Vowels and Vowel Constructs

The vowels are written similarly to the vowels seen in Devanagari. Each vowel (except [i]) are attached to the preceding consonant forming ligatures.

Lortho Vowels

Word-Initial Vowels and Diphthongs

For word-initial vowels, the letter [i] will be used as the place holder (unless the [i] is the vowel) and the additional vowel will be added as one would on a consonant-vowel ligature.

Consonant Inventory

There are 20 consonants in Lortho and all are strictly pronounced the same regardless of placement.

	Bilabial		Labiodental	Alveolar		Postalveolar	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	p pʰ	b		t tʰ	d dʰ		k kʰ
Nasal		m mː		n nː
Tap or Flap				ɾ
Fricative			f	s		ʃ		h
Lateral Approximant				l lʰ

Vowels

Monophthongs

There are five vowels in Lortho and are strictly pronounced regardless of placement:

Front

Near-front

Central

Near-back

Back

Close

i •

•

• u

•

• o

•

ɛ •

•

ɑ •

Near‑close

Close‑mid

Mid

Open‑mid

Near‑open

Open

Diphthongs

There are only four diphthongs in Lortho; one of which is a ligature:

Lortho diphthongs

Phonotactics

Syllable Structure

The syllable structure is (C)V(V)(C).

Consonant Clusters

There are no consonant clusters allowed in onsets or codas; however, clusters formed from adjacent syllables (i.e. coda + onset) are allowed. These clusters are:

/nd/
/nk/ (normally pronounced [ŋk])
/np/ (colloquially it is sometimes pronounced [mp] e.g. the verb konpharo to speak)
/ns/
/pt/
/rt/
/sk/

Prosody

Stress

Stress in Lortho is handled as follows:

Stress is always on the second to the last syllable of the root or infinitive except:
- -n verbs will always receive stress on the last syllable of the infinitive or root.
If the word is only two syllables long, then the stress is on the first syllable.
Stress is never given to prefixes or suffixes, except
- Pluralized nouns will move the stress to the second to the last syllable

Intonation

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Morphophonology

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Romanized Text

Since Lortho has its own script, a Romanized version has been set up to make it easy to read and pronounce as shown in the tables below. From here throughout the rest of this page, the romanized version will be used.

Consonants
IPA	dʰ	d	kʰ	k	lʰ	l	tʰ	t	pʰ	p	ʃ	s	n	nː	m	mː	h	b	f	ɾ
Romanization	dh	d	kh	k	lh	l	th	t	ph	p	sh	s	n	nn	m	mm	h	b	f	r

Monophthongs
IPA	i	ɑ	ɛ	u	o
Romanization	i	a	e	u	o

Diphthongs
IPA	aɪ	aʊ	ɔɪ	eɪ
Romanization	ai	au	oi	ei

Morphology

Nouns

Gender

Nouns in Lortho have three distinct features:

They are one of three genders: masculine, feminine, or neuter
All nouns are modified to denote case
All nouns end in a vowel

Masculine	Feminine	Neuter
-i dharakhi mountain	-u dhammu chair	-a hadikha country, land

Exceptions:

There there are a couple nouns that do not follow the above rules for gender (this will increase as Lortho's lexicon grows):

Masculine	Feminine	Neuter
tapas pasta		dhi water

Grammatical Case

Lortho has ten cases. The vowels in parentheses are added if the word ends in a consonant.

Case	Affix	Example	Translation
Nominative	-	kansaptha	woods, forest
Accusative	-(i)me	kansapthame	forest (direct obj.)
Dative	-(i)mela	kansapthamela	forest (indirect obj.)
Genitive	-(i)nalo	kansapthanalo	of the forest
Sublative	-ina/-ena	kansaptaina	in/into the forest
Ablative	-(e)nat	kansapthanat	out of/from the forest
Allative	-(e)dan	kansapthadan	to/towards the forest
Prolative	-(e)danar	kansapthadanar	through/via/by way of the forest
Instructive	-(i)len	kansapthalen	using the forest
Vocative	fa(l)-	fakansaptha	Hey, Food!

Personal Possessive

The personal possessive is formed using a prefix which is gender and number specific. We will use the following word:

dhammu n. fem. chair; plural dhammune

Person	Singular			Plural
	masculine	feminine	neuter	masculine	feminine	neuter
1st person	nidhammu	nudhammu	-	nimadhammu	numadhammu	-
2nd person	lindhammu	lundhammu	-	nanidhammu	nanudhammu	-
3rd person	lidhammu	ludhammu	ladhammu	limidhammu	limudhammu	limadhammu

Pluralization

Each noun is pluralized by adding a suffix:

Feminine nouns (-u): simply add the plural ending -ne.
- Example: kansaphu (n. fem) tree; pl kansaphune
Masculine nouns (-i): subtract the -i and add the plural ending -eni except :
- Masculine noun roots that end in -n, the plural ending will be changed to -emi.
- Examples:
1. olakhi (n. masc) boat; pl olakheni
2. phorenni (n. masc) peak, summit; pl phoɾennemi
Neuter nouns (-a): simply add the plural ending -ne (many neuter nouns are collective nouns such as hammuna weather)
- Example: hadikha (n. neut) land, country; pl hadikhane

Verbs

Introduction

Verbs are conjugated in gender and in number which are governed by the subject (written or implied). For the most part the conjugations are simple and are formed through agglutination; however, there are slight fusional changes that occur when denoting aspect.

Conjugation

Regular Verbs

There are three main verbs in Lortho: -o verbs, -t verbs, and -n verbs. The conjugation tables below show a preview of how the regular verbs conjugate in each category. Conjugation in other tenses includes more fusional aspects.

-o verbs

The root is formed by subtracting the final "o."

	Present Tense
	konpharo [kon.'pʰɑ.ɾo] to speak root: konphar-
	Singular			Plural
	masc	fem	neut	masc	fem	neut
1st pers	konpharin	konpharun	-	konpharinan	konpharunan	-
2nd pers	konpharanni	konpharannu	-	konpharamin	konpharamun	-
3rd pers	konphari	konpharu	konphara	konpharimi	konpharimu	konpharima

-t verbs

The root is formed by changing the final "t" to a "d."

	Present Tense
	phramit ['pʰɾɑ.mit] to push root: phramid-
	Singular			Plural
	masc	fem	neut	masc	fem	neut
1st pers	phramidin	phramidun	-	phramidinan	phramidunan	-
2nd pers	phramidanni	phramidannu	-	phramidamin	phramidamun	-
3rd pers	phramidi	phramidu	phramida	phramidimi	phramidimu	phramidima

-n verbs

The root is the same as the infinitive.

	Present Tense
	shailan [ʃaɪ.'lɑn] to sit root: shailan-
	Singular			Plural
	masc	fem	neut	masc	fem	neut
1st pers	shailanin	shailanun	-	shailaninan	shailanunan	-
2nd pers	shailananni	shailanannu	-	shailanamin	shailanamun	-
3rd pers	shailani	shailanu	shailana	shailanimi	shailanimu	shailanima

Irregular Verbs

Although labelled irregular, the verbs still have a regular feel in that they still use the same personal endings; however, the root is derived slightly differently. One example is the verb harlan.

	Present Tense
	harlan [hɑɾ.'lɑn] to be root: harl-
	Singular			Plural
	masc	fem	neut	masc	fem	neut
1st pers	harlin	harlun	-	harlinan	harlunan	-
2nd pers	harlanni	harlannu	-	harlamin	harlamun	-
3rd pers	harli	harlu	harla	harlimi	harlimu	harlima

Imperative

The imperative form of the verb is simply the root with the vocative case (which can be either implied or explicit).

Examples:

famannu, konphar!
- Hey you, speak!
fanamin, nathar namineme!
- Hey you, be quiet! (lit. quiet yourselves)
fabrian, shailan!
- Brian, sit!

Vocabulary:

konpharo (konphar-) v. to speak
natharo (nathar-) v. to quell, pacify
mannu pronoun you (fem. sing.)
namin pronoun you (masc. pl.)
shailan (shailan-) v. to sit

Adjectives

Adjectives behave a little differently from other words in that they:

must be placed in front of the noun which they modify
must agree in gender, but not in number or grammatical case

Syntax

Morphosyntactic Alignment

The morphosyntactic alignment of Lortho is Nominative - Accusative.

Word Order

Verb-Subject-Object (VSO). Lortho contains a lot of information in the verb and the noun or noun phrase. The verb is conjugated by person and gender and thus pronouns are largely unnecessary except for emphasis or clarification. The nouns are altered to denote case, removing almost entirely the need for prepositions.

Word Agreement

There are four basic rules which govern agreement between words:

Verbs must agree in gender and number with the subject (explicit or implied)
Cardinal numbers do not take case nor gender
Nouns are not pluralized when counted
- kilikh-in kansaphu-ne-me
  see -1MSG.PRS tree.F -PL-ACC
  I see trees
- kilikh-in bon kansaphu-me
  see -1MSG.PRS two tree.F -ACC
  I see two trees (lit: I see two tree)
Adjectives must agree with the noun which they modify in gender, but not in grammatical case nor number

Example texts


Text	Translation
konpharin lorthome	I speak Lortho


Text	Translation
kalanune denimanimu kalanune khonaminalo hana tomidikhimu ma kansapthaina	The people are known as people of the lanterns and they lived in that forest.


Text	Translation
lharidikhin kansapthanat hana tharnidikhin dharakhime. konpharinin toshanimela hana semanikhin, "hankhanin malhiro danadanar." remedikhi toshani, "dhamalhirianni danadanar."	I ran out of the forest and climbed the mountain. I was speaking to the dragon and said, "I want to walk through here." The dragon replied, "You will not walk through here."
Source: Brian's Instagram post

Resources

Linguistics

Endangered Alphabets - YouTube channel about 14 of the world's writing systems threatened with extinction
International Phonetic Alphabet
Glossika Phonics - YouTube channel for IPA pronunciation
NativLang - YouTube channel about the history of written and spoken language
Omniglot
Online Etymology Dictionary (English)
Reddit: Linguistics
Wikitongues - A not for profit YouTube project to help preserve the world's living languages
World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS)

Lortho

Introduction

Inspiration

Setting

Etymology of Lortho

Goals

Phonology

Orthography

Writing System

Vowels and Vowel Constructs

Word-Initial Vowels and Diphthongs

Consonant Inventory

Vowels

Monophthongs

Diphthongs

Phonotactics

Syllable Structure

Consonant Clusters

Prosody

Stress

Intonation

Morphophonology

Romanized Text

Morphology

Nouns

Gender

Exceptions:

Grammatical Case

Personal Possessive

Pluralization

Verbs

Introduction

Conjugation

Regular Verbs

-o verbs

-t verbs

-n verbs

Irregular Verbs

Imperative

Adjectives

Syntax

Morphosyntactic Alignment

Word Order

Word Agreement

Example texts

Resources

Linguistics

Constructed Languages

Lortho

Miscellaneous