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) |
Evandorian languages
| |
| 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 of mine 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.
Orthography
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[1] tʃ ig[2] dʒ |
|||||
| Fricatives | f f | s s z θ x ʃ |
ħ ç | 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/.
Intonation
Phonotactics
Morphophonology
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, séxkineit (city). Sometimes, however, only the nominative is included.
| Vowel stem reut, reutuħ[3] (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 |
Some nouns, particularly those formed with certain suffixes (like -i ～ -in-), do not change their stress when declined, so that it is orthographically marked in derived forms. An example is sexki, séxkinor (city, cities)
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)
- séxkinor neuken "beautiful cities" (feminine sg. inanimate)
Verbs
| êit "to be" | |
|---|---|
| Present | êit (êx) |
| Past | llenys |
| Future | êx prait |