Biscayan

Not to be confused with the Biscayan dialect of Basque.

Biscayan la ljengüa bisguena
Type
Synthetic
Alignment
Nominative-accusative
Head direction
Initial	Mixed		Final
Primary word order
Subject-verb-object
Tonal
No
Declensions
Yes
Conjugations
Yes
Genders
2
Nouns decline according to...
Case		Number
Definiteness		Gender
Verbs conjugate according to...
Voice		Mood
Person		Number
Tense		Aspect

Latin League

General information

The Biscayan language (Biscayan: la ljengüa bisguena, pronounced [la ˈʎɛŋgwa bizˈgɛna]) is a Romance language spoken in the south-west of France and northern Spain. The language holds no official status in either France or Spain. As of 2009 there are 412,301 native speakers of Biscayan.

The language has two numbers, singular and plural; two genders, masculine and feminine; and two cases, nominative and oblique.

Phonology and orthography

See also: IPA for Biscayan

As Biscayan is a Romance language its phonology and orthography are rather similar to that of languages such as French, Catalan or Venetian. However, the orthographical representation of the phonemes /ɲ/ and /ʎ/ as "nj" and "lj" is unusual for Romance languages. This is thought to be due to the creation of ligatures of "n" and "l" with "i" which resembled "nj" and "lj". These were then abandoned in favour of the current orthography.

Alphabet

Biscayan alphabet

A a	B b	C c	D d	E e	F f	G g	H h	I i	J j	K k	L l	M m
[a]	[be]	[se]	[de]	[ɛ]	[ɛf]	[ge]	[aʃ]	[i]	[ʒe]	[ke]	[ɛɫ]	[ɛm]
N n	O o	P p	Q q	R r	S s	T t	U u	V v	W w	X x	Y y	Z z
[ɛn]	[o]	[pe]	[ku]	[ɛɾ]	[ɛs]	[te]	[u]	[ve]	[ve dyplo]	[ʃe]	[i gɾɛk]	[zɛd]

• The italicised letters are only used in foreign words, such as place names.

Consonants

Consonant chart

	Bilabial	Labio-dental	Alveolar	Post-alveolar	Palatal	Labio-palatal	Labio-velar	Velar	Uvular
Nasal	m		n		ɲ			ŋ
Plosive	p b		t d					k g
Fricative		f v	s z	ʃ ʒ					ʁ
Affricate			t͡s d͡z	t͡ʃ d͡ʒ
Approximant					j	ɥ	w
Flap or tap			ɾ
Lateral			l		ʎ			ɫ

Graphemes

Grapheme		IPA	Notes
B	b	[b]	-
C	c	[k], [s]	[k] before "a", "o" and "u"; [s] before "e" and "i"
Ç	ç	[s]	used instead of "c" before "a", "o" and "u"
D	d	[d]	-
DS	ds	[d͡z]	-
DX	dx	[d͡ʒ]	-
F	f	[f]	-
G	g	[g], [ʒ]	[[g] before "a", "o" and "u"; [ʒ] before "e" and "i"
GU	gu	[g]	used instead of "g" before "e" and "i"
GÜ	gü	[gw]	-
J	j	[ʒ]	-
L	l	[l], [ɫ]	word final and preconsonantal /l/ is realised as [ɫ]
LJ	lj	[ʎ]	-
M	m	[m]	-
N	n	[n], [ŋ]	/n/ is realised as [ŋ] before /k/ and /g/
NJ	nj	[ɲ]	-
P	p	[p]	-
QU	qu	[k]	-
QÜ	qü	[kw]	-
R	r	[ɾ], [ʁ]	/ɾ/ becomes [ʁ] when word initial
RR	rr	[ʁ]	-
S	s	[s], [z]	"s" is pronounced [z] when intervocalic and preconsonantally syllable final
SS	ss	[s]	used intervocalically instead of "s"
T	t	[t]	-
TS	ts	[t͡s]	-
TX	tx	[t͡ʃ]	-
V	v	[v]	-
X	x	[ʃ]	-
Z	z	[z]	-

Vowels

Vowel chart

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i y		u
Close-mid	e ø		o
Mid		ə
Open-mid	ɛ œ		ɔ
Open	a

Graphemes

Grapheme		IPA	Notes
A	a	[a]	-
À	à	[a]	used to distinguish homophones and stress
E	e	[ɛ], [ə]	[ɛ] when stressed and [ə] when unstressed
È	è	[ɛ]	used to distinguish homophones or stress
Ê	ê	[ɛ]	used to distinguish homophones
É	é	[e]	-
ER	er	[e]	-
EU	eu	[œ]	-
EÛ	eû	[ø]	-
I	i	[i], [j]	[j] when post-consonantal
Ï	ï	[j]	used word initially or intervocalically
O	o	[o]	-
Ò	ò	[ɔ]	-
Ô	ô	[ɔ]	used to distinguish homophones or stress
OE	oe	[œ]	-
U	u	[u]	-
Ü	ü	[u], [w]	used to distinguish homophones or stress; [w] when post-consonantal or word initial
Û	û	[y]	-
Ù	ù	[y], [ɥ]	used to distinguish homophones or stress; [ɥ] when post-consonantal

Word stress

In Biscayan word stress normally falls on the penultimate syllable. If this is not the case stress is usually marked with an accent. For example:

• "òvô" is pronounced /ɔˈvɔ/, however if it were spelt "òvò" it would be pronounced /ˈɔvɔ/.

It is also important to note that when "é" appears only once it a word it is the stressed syllable, however, if it occurs more than once then stress patterns as normal.

• "révoluciò" is pronounced /ˈʁevolusjɔ/.
• "préférir" is pronounced /pɾeˈfeɾir/.

Use of capital letters

Capital letters are used sparingly in Biscayan. Unlike in English they are not used for "eù" ("I"), days of the week, months of the year or nouns or adjectives of nationalities and language. As in English they are not used for adherents of non-partisan ideologies but they are used for adherents of religions.

• "lûndia" ("Monday")
• "eûgustò" ("August")
• "lo Païo euscaro" ("the Basque Country")
• "on'inglès" ("an Englishman")
• "on'indu" ("a Hindu")

They are however used for countries, places and religions themselves as well as given names.

• "França" ("France")
• "Tolosò" ("Toulouse")
• "Islàm" ("Islam")
• "Matieu" ("Matthew")

Grammar

Case system

Like all Romance languages, Biscayan is descended from Vulgar Latin and as a remnant of this has retained a weak case system. There are just two cases, the nominative and the oblique. The collapse of cases into the oblique means that declensions, moreover nominal declensions, can be unpredictable and this has resulted in several declension paradigms. Personal pronouns have retained more of the case system, with most having distinct accusative and dative forms.

Nominative

The nominative case (Biscayan: lo cas nòminativ, [ˈlo ˈkas nɔmiˈnativ]) marks the subject of a verb or the predicate noun or adjective. It is also used to simply name an object and is the dictionary form of the noun.

Oblique

The oblique case (Biscayan: lo cas oblìc, [ˈlo ˈkas oˈblik]) is used to mark the object of either a verb or a preposition, that is something that is in the oblique case cannot be the subject of a verb.

Articles

Definite

Gender →	Masculine			Feminine
Case ↓	Singular	Plural	Partitive	Singular	Plural	Partitive
Nominative	lo, el	los	dellos	la, l'	les	delles
Oblique	le, el	elos	dellos	le, l'	eles	delles

• Italicised articles are prevocalic variants.

Indefinite

	Masculine			Feminine
	Singular	Plural	Partitive	Singular	Plural	Partitive
Nominative	ono, on'	onos	dos	ona, on'	onas	das
Oblique	uno, un'	unos	des	una, un'	unas	des

• Italicised articles are prevocalic variants.

Nouns

Gender

Nominal gender is usually distinguished by ending. Masculine nouns normally end in a consonant, "o" (and accented variants), "e" (and accented variants) and "u". Feminine nouns usually end in "a" (and accented variants) but may also end in "e" (and accented variants). Words ending in "i" are also usually masculine.

• "ljeon" (m, "lion")
• "papago" (m, "parrot")
• "caribu" (m, "caribou")
• "monja" (f, "mountain")
• "serpe" (m, "snake"); "serpe" (f, "snake")

The feminine versions of nouns are usually produced from the masculine by adding "a" or thus replacing the terminating vowel.

• "cano" (m, "dog");"cana" (f, "bitch")
• "catto" (m, "tom-cat"); "catta" (f, "she-cat")
• "filjo" (m, "son"); "filja" (f, "daughter")
• "sinjor" (m, "mister"); "sinjora" (f, "missus")

Declensions

First declension

First declension nouns end in consonants.

Translation →	seed		root
Case ↓	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Nominative	sem	semus	radiç	radiçus
Oblique	seme	semes	radice	radices

• Note the mutation of "ç" to "c" before "e" when "radiç" is declined.

Second declension

Second declension nouns end in "a", "à" or "é".

Translation →	language, tongue		brotherhood
Case ↓	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Nominative	ljengüa	ljengüi	fratronité	fratroniti
Oblique	ljengüé	ljengüis	fratronita	fratronitas

Third declension

Second declension nouns end in "o" (and accent variants) or "u" (and accent variants),.

Translation →	bird		fish
Case ↓	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Nominative	eûço	eûços	denò	denòs
Oblique	eûce	eûces	dene	denes

Translation →	owl		road
Case ↓	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Nominative	ibu	ibus	rû	rûs
Oblique	ibeu	ibeus	reû	reûs

Fourth declension

Fourth declension nouns end in "i".

Translation →	zombie
Case ↓	Singular	Plural
Nominative	zombi	zombe
Oblique	zombé	zombés

• Note that the stress in "zombi" shifts when oblique.

Irregular nouns

There are a number of irregular nouns in Biscayan. There are, however, also many which are not completely irregular, for example, they may be of mixed declension pattern.

Common irregular nouns:

• "abric" (m, "cloak")
• "òs" (m, "bone")
• "té" (m, "tea")
• "xa" (f, "tea")
• More to come...

Adjectives

Declensions

First declension

First declension adjectives end in "o" (and accented variants) in the nominative masculine singular.

Translation →	public
Gender →	Masculine		Feminine
Case ↓	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Nominative	pûblico	pûblicos	pûblica	pûblic
Oblique	pûbliqui	pûbliquis	pûblique	pûbliques

• Note the mutation of "c" to "qu" before "i" and "e" in order to keep the /k/ sound.

Second declension

Second declension adjectives end in "e" (and accented variants) in the nominative masculine singular.

Translation →	some
Gender →	Masculine		Feminine
Case ↓	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Nominative	alqué	alqués	alqué	alqués
Oblique	alqui	alquix	alqui	alquix

Adverbs

Manner

In Biscayan, adverbs of manner are formed simply, much as in English. Adjectives that in "o" replace this with "emente" while adjectives that end in "e" simply add "mente". These roughly correspond to the English "ly".

• "rapido" /ʁaˈpido/ ("quick"); "rapidemente" /ʁapidəˈmɛntə/ ("quickly")
• "pûblico" /ˈpybliko/ ("public"); "publiquemente" /publikəˈmɛntə/ ("publicly")
• "feminino" /ˈfɛminino/ ("feminine"); "femininemente" /fɛmininəˈmɛntə/ ("femininely")

There are however some exceptions to this rule and the majority are shown below.

Pronouns

Personal

Singular

Case ↓	1st person	2nd person	3rd person masc	3rd person fem
Nominative	eù	tù	elè	ela
Accusative	me	te	lò	là
Dative	mi	ti	lé	lé
Reflexive	me	te	se	sa
Disjunctive	ïo	to	elè	ela

Plural

Case ↓	1st person	2nd person	3rd person masc	3rd person fem
Nominative	nòs	vòs	elès	elas
Accusative	nòs	vòs	lòs	las
Dative	nosso	vosso	lés	lés
Reflexive	no	vo	se	sa
Disjunctive	nosi	vosi	elès	elas

Vocabulary

Contionary

Biscayan:

• nouns
• verbs

Example texts

• The North Wind and the Sun (Lo Vetò do Norte é lo Solò)