Anbirese

Anbirese/Wordlist
Anbirese/Swadesh list
Anbirese/Names

Amphirese (amphiriv /amphiriv/) is a major Talmic language descended from Tigol, inspired by Ancient Greek, Sino-Korean, Etruscan, Romani, and the Slavic languages. Compared to its relative Skellan, it has a relatively conservative verb system. On the planet of Tricin (Anbirese: i Smaouch /i smaukh/), it is an analogue of German in terms of influence. Anbirese is the official language of the Talman nation Amphir and of former colonies in Cualuav and Txapoalli; after Skellan, it is the second-largest Talmic language in terms of number of speakers, though most modern Amphirese speakers know Skellan. Like most modern Talmic languages, Anbirese is a descendant of Thensarian. Like with German, there is a Standard Anbirese and various regiolects.

Thanks in large part to the printing press, Modern Anbirese rapidly gained prominence over a larger area in Northern Talma and came to serve as a lingua franca for northern mainland Talma. Today, Anbirese still enjoys status as a "cultured" language and is one of the most widely taught foreign languages.

External history

Amphirese began as Tíogall, which was a thought experiment posing the question "What would Irish look like with umlaut instead of palatalization?". For a while it developed as an Irish-German hybrid. At one point I decided to remove all "giblangs" from modern Tricin, or languages with the aesthetics of one natlang (unless the premise was funny, like Bhlaoighne or Clofabosin). Since Tíogall was basically an Irish with German characteristics, it was abandoned. I still felt that Talmic languages needed somewhat more internal diversity (in particular, a "German" analogue to Skellan's "English"), so I decided to revive this project as "Anvyrese" or "Anvirese". One thing that was still nagging me was that the grammar was still too German for a country with a Germany-like history, so I decided to swap a minority Tigolic language "Tumaka" with "Anvirese", and this is the result.

Todo

• obey < TELIC + 'listen' (like in Þiús'k)
• Conjunctions that take pronominal suffixes, like Arabic ʔinna and ʔanna (or maybe Bhlaoighne)
• Numbers: cia, tzyth, nesch, doiph, solitzh, stav, roith, loith, barph, cheour, echi, crai
• Swadesh list
• Tigol > Amphirese sound changes
  • How do syllabic resonants arise?
  • e.g. imm- > syllabic nasal
  • car > cr 'person'
  • mh > fh
• gysph = narrow
• Some dialects are more Sino-Koreanish (more broad slender)
  • a e i o u > y jy ji u u
  • ai ei oi ui > e ji e i
  • á éa í(o) ó ú > a je ji o ou
  • ái éi ói úi éu > ai ji oi oui jaou
  • eá eó eói iú iúi > ja jo joi jou joui
  • ae ao aoi > e aou oi
  • ia ua uai > jia oua oui
  • jV changes the t series to the tz series - leaves other consonants unchanged in standard Amphirese

plus, amphirese has "accusativus in infinitivo"!
le could be omitted before indefinite nouns in modern amphirese
but scutzis always used it
that's one way of distinguishing archaic from modern amphirese
another could be the use of the pronoun 'fiar'
which in modern amphirese was completely replaced with 'scid'
ca-ephyth = of that
ca-leth = that (acc.)
ca-dzeth = in that; there
ma-, ca-, ta-, m-compounds: this, that, what, which
in that house = ca-dzen souar
or "dze cin souar"
both are valid
the first being more archaic

a verbalizer like -ować

• Verb prefixes:
  • ar-: on, at > ar-
  • (deut.) as-: telic > ys-
  • (prot.) de-, (deut.) do-: in, at > dze-, do-
  • é-: with, co- > e-
  • fin-/sin- = well, thoroughly > fin-
  • for-: causative, through > for-
  • (prot.) ful-, (deut.) fol-: around, back > fl-
  • imm-: immediately > im-, m-, n-, ŋ-
  • (prot.) gel-, (deut.) gol-: up, out > gol-
  • ro-: down > ro-
  • sol-: a causative > sol-
  • (prot.) su-, (deut.) so-: towards > su-
  • (prot.) sur-, (deut.) sor-: back > sor-
  • (prot.) u(cc)-, (deut.) oc-: from > oc-

Phonology

Consonants

• c g ch ŋ /k g kʰ ŋ/
• t d th n /t d tʰ n/
• tz dz tzh /ts dz tsʰ/
• p b ph m /p b pʰ m/
• f v s z (ś) (š) h /f v~fʰ s z~sʰ ç ɕ h/
• r l j /r ɴ̆ j/

At word-final position, the voicing distinction in unaspirated plosives is lost, and unaspirated plosives are unreleased.

Some consonants can be syllabic, namely m n ŋ l r.

Vowels

i u ou e y a o /i ü u e ə a o/

Diphthongs: ai au eu oi oui ia oua /ai au eu oi ui iə uə/

Stress

Stress is always initial.

Prosody

Anbirese has a distinctive intonation paradigm. It originates from discursive uptalk in older stages of the language, which has since generalized to all declarative sentences. A few accents, such as the Thumaca accent, do not use this pattern.

• In declarative sentences, the stressed syllable of the focus word (if there is no focused constituent, the last word) has a lower pitch than the immediately preceding syllable. ("...mid ꜜ LOW mid...")
• In interrogative sentences, the stressed syllable of the focus word has a higher pitch than the syllable immediately before. ("... mid ꜛ HIGH mid ... ?")
• In exclamations, the stressed syllable starts low and receives a rising intonation ("... mid ꜜ LOW-HIGH mid ... !"), possibly with a gradual drop to low pitch in the end. Angry or indignant questions also use an exclamatory intonation.

Morphology

Mutations

Unlike Tigol, Tumaka has no mutation; instead, former feminine nouns often begin in an aspirated consonant, as a result of lenition after the definite article. (cf. Skellan, where former feminine nouns begin in different consonants than former masculine nouns.)

Nouns

Nouns only have two states (absolute and construct) and two numbers (singular and plural). The usual affixes are:

• plural absolute: -r
• singular construct: -(y)th
• plural construct: -(y)ph

e.g. cythr 'flower', cythryr 'flowers'; chyvn 'woman', chyvnyr 'women'.

The definite article is always i, or in before a V or after a preposition.

Possessive suffixes: mar-na, mar-s, mar-ou, mar-i, mar-yth, mar-ym, mar-fe, mar-yc, mar-ur (or mar-thur)

Plural: mar-ph-yna, mar-ph-s, mar-ph-ou, mar-ph-i, ...

i marna = my tree

i cythr suvn-yna = my beautiful flower

Adjectives

Adjectives do not inflect at all.

Adverbs derived from adjectives are unchanged (as in German).

Verbs

Amphirese verbs have two tenses (nonpast and past) and two aspects (imperfective and perfective). The imperfective-perfective distinction is characterized by the absolute-conjunct allomorphy inherited from Tigol: As in Slavic languages, the perfective form is often formed by adding a prefix, which causes the verb stem to take the conjunct form. However, the perfective is sometimes marked with ablaut. Most Amphirese verbs thus have two principal parts: imperfective and perfective.

An example of the aspect allomorphy:

• 'to tell': imperfective boŋi, perfective simŋi
• 'to eat': imperfective dzecai, perfective ŋci

Past tense: usually -n (can be syllabic) (but sometimes ablaut?)

• 'to tell': imperfective boŋin, perfective smŋin
• 'to eat': imperfective dzecain, perfective ŋcin

Copula

Amphirese is zero copula in the present tense; fou, si, jy and thar can be used as present tense copulas.

The past tense copula is lathn and the infinitive is fath.

Pronouns

na, scid, fou, si, jy, mech, tid, scid, thar = I, you, he, she, it, we (exc), we (inc), you, they

There is also an archaic 2nd person singular pronoun fiar 'thou'.

Prepositions

• le = accusative (le + i > len) (only used with definite nouns in modern Amphirese)
  • le-na, (le-s,) l-ou, l-i, l-eth, l-em, lef, lec, lur
• dze = in, at (dze + i > dzen)
  • dze-na, (dze-s,) dz-ou, dz-i, dz-eth, dze-m, dzef, dzec, dzur
• e = to, for
  • ena, (ephys), ephou, ephi, epheth, ephym, efe, ephyc, ephur

Syntax

Amphirese is particularly rich in non-finite subordinate clause constructions, which may be used when English uses subordinate clauses with finite verbs.

Negation

The negation particle is da (preposed) for imperatives and tzin (preposed; from Tigol *ter ní- 'not once') otherwise.

Questions

Wh-words are fronted. Yes-no questions use a question particle sm (< Tigol is question particle + imb complementizer) before the sentence.

Wishes/Jussive

Wishes can be formed by using toumid (< Tigol tuabh mít 'who will grant') before a verb in the non-past tense.

Word order

Amphirese word order is primarily SVO, but may be VSO in more archaic or literary usage.

Accusative with infinitive

The accusative particle le can be used to introduce the subject of a dependent clause. The verb of the dependent clause is preceded by the particle e 'to'.

Na docn le mrothr e slav eph Intar.

1SG think.IPFV ACC apple-PL INF good to I.

I think Intar likes apples.

Preposition + verb clauses

A preposition may be used with a verb followed by a possessive suffix indexing the subject, as in Hebrew and Irish.

An example with dze 'at':

dze argiarna ar i loichou

at keep_watch.IPFV-1SG on DEF stuff-3SG.M

when I was keeping watch on his belongings