Moshurian

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Moshurian
uthilikh
Uthilikh-in-alphabet.png
The Moshurian endonym(uthilikh) written in Moshurian script.
Pronunciation[ˈuðˌilix]
Created byJukethatbox
SettingRadael
Native toMoshurian Empire
EthnicityMoshurians, Kă people
Native speakers~450,000,000 (400 UH)
Yeldhic
  • Tiachbric
    • Týbric
      • Moshurian
Early forms
Kóftąbriác Yeldha
  • Proto-Tiachbric
    • Proto-Týbric
      • Early Moshurian
        • Ancient Moshurian
          • Middle Moshurian
Standard form
Taráhus Moshurian
Dialects
  • Taráhus dialect(Taráhuir gugtui)
  • Oalan dialect(Oalanir gugtui)
  • Loïha dialect(Loïhir gugtui)
  • Odezyë dialect(Odezyir gugtui)
  • Far East dialect(Dmuriékhir gugtui)
  • Sépenzg dialect(Sépenzgir gugtui)
  • Moshurian alphabet
  • Moshurian Romanisation
Official status
Official language in
Moshurian Empire
Iśatúr Confederacy
Recognised minority
language in
Eastern Gegfen Alliance
Regulated byMinistry of Linguistic Regulation
Moshurian-speakers.jpeg
Map of Moshurian speakers. Dark green represents a Moshurian-speaking majority and light green represents a significant minority.
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Moshurian(uthilikh) is a Týbric language spoken in mostly Talkoch. It is the most spoken language in Talkoch, and also has significant minority communities on Etzeán Island and the Eastern Gegfen Alliance, also called the Dmuriékh(lit. "far away east"). It is the sole official language of the Moshurian Empire, and is thoroughly used administratively and academically in the Moshurian Empire, no matter what one's mother tongue is.

Their exonym of Moshurian comes from a nomadic legend of the god of travel and nomads, Dündŵęk, who traveled to Tuloor Lake(the homeland of the Moshurians) in search of an inn to rest. The Moshurians had plenty of inns(möşhüř as they are called in Ancient Yeldha), and Dündŵęk was finally able to rest. After departing, he thanked the Moshurians, and later mentioned them to the other gods as simply möşhüřiànöřmà, or "inn people". This exonym stuck within nomadic circles, who then passed the exonym to the more settled peoples of Talkoch.

It is one of the only surviving languages indigenous to the Munsanukh Valley, which is generally considered, alongside Tuloor Lake, to be the birthplace of the Moshurian race, culture and language.

Phonology

Orthography

The Moshurian alphabet, with phonemic pronunciation.

Moshurian has its own script that is read right-to-left, top-to-bottom. Each symbol can be easily deciphered by simply looking at how high or low the symbol is. If the symbol goes down below the line on the paper, it is a consonant.

The origin of the Moshurian alphabet is heavily debated. According to the Gécheb Bizörith, the Moshurian alphabet was designed by a secret society called Akhakuöm, who took inspiration from the Tiragii military cuneiform. Eventually after the bust of Akhakuöm by the Moshurian state, the script was changed to fit the standard Moshurian dialect and re-issued as the government Moshurian alphabet.

In the Sóvók religion, one of the books in the Idērigidwi claims that a man named Udeldoi presented a script to the king of Moshuria so as to record military victories for propaganda.

Both of these interpretations are considered simply as urban legend, as orthographic analysis of the Izkanà(one of the earliest Moshurian documents) by calligraphers showed that the early Moshurian alphabet had many similarities with the logographic Oalanii[1] script, which may have influenced Munsanukh orthographies as a whole.

In fact, the glyph for /b/ may be descended from the Oalanii glyph for the word *ʔbVn, meaning "tree", which influenced its shape.

Consonants

Consonant phonemes
Labial Dental Alveolar Post-
alveolar
/
palatal
Retroflex Velar Glottal
Nasal m n ŋ
Stop p b t d  k ɡ
Affricate t͡ʃ
Fricative ɸ ð s z ʃ ʒ x h
Approximant j
Lateral l
Flap ɽ

Vowels

Vowel phonemes
Front Near-front Central Back
Close i y u
Near-close ɪ
Close-mid e ø o
Mid ə̃
Open-mid ε
Open a ɑ

Prosody

Stress

Stress in Moshurian is paroxytonic, meaning stress is placed on the penultimate syllable of a word, e.g. zazuŋ, pronounced [ˈzaˌzuŋ], or uthilikh, pronounced [ˈuð.ilix].

Phonotactics

Syllables in Moshurian typically follow the pattern of (C)V(C), or (consonant)-vowel-(consonant).

Morphology

See also: Moshurian/Swadesh list.

Tenses

In Moshurian, there are four main tenses- the present, the future, the far future and the simple past. To indicate that a phrase is in a certain tense, an indicator is used just before the object, e.g. öş gersetigéd kestolék(I built a house).

Tense indicators
Present Future Far Future Simple Past
(uź) ïş ïşé öş

The present tense indicator, , is used like a natural in music. By default, no indicator is used to indicate the present in a non-contextual sentence, but as indicators are continuous, meaning that if an indicator is placed then all succeeding sentences will be in the indicator's tense until a new indicator appears, may be needed to clarify that a sentence does not follow the tense of the previous sentence.
Example: öş abáragéd udubék. budur ibiş. - I went to the park. It was[2] great.
ös abáragéd udubék. budur ibiş. - I went to the park. (The park) is great.

Nouns

Nouns in Moshurian have two forms: the infinitive and the accusative. The infinitive, like with verbs, is essentially the raw form of the noun, with no suffixes. The accusative is the infinitive + the suffix -géd, and is used when a verb is acting upon an object in a sentence. There are some exceptions, such as nouns who's infinitive end with /ŋ/, such as zazuŋ, and in this case the suffix changes from -géd to -éd.

Verbs

Verbs in Moshurian are inflected by default with the infinitve suffix -omh, and then the root of the verb (e.g. dáfhér in dáfhéromh, to eat) is inflected with a different suffix depending on the pronoun.

Suffixes
Singular Plural
Infinitive -omh
First person -ék(-ïk) -ékeŋ(-ïkeŋ)
Second person -ot -(o)tuŋ
He -eź -iŋź
She -aş -aŋéş
They -iş -éiméş

Example: ché dáfhérék, er dáfhérot.(lit. no eat-1.SG, but eat-2.SG.)

Syntax

Constituent order

Moshurian uses an OSV(object-subject-verb) sentence structure.

Noun phrase

  1. Sögéd kél mosok dáfhéréiméş.
    grass-ACC PL cow(PL) eat-3PL.
    Cows eat grass.

In this sentence, sögéd is the object, mosok is the subject, and dáfhéréiméş is the verb with inflection. In noun phrases, Moshurian still uses the object-subject-verb structure.

Verb phrase

See also:Verbs.

Imperative

  1. sögéd duà ché dáfhér!
    grass-ACC IMP no eat.ROOT!
    Do not eat the grass!

In imperative verb phrases, the imperative indicator, duà, is put before the verb, as ché is still considered, at least grammatically, part of the verb when present. Additionally, verbs take on their root form, as opposed to their infinitive form in said sentence type.

In this sentence, sögéd is the object, and the verb is dáfhér. The subject does not appear and is instead implied to be the recipient of the imperative phrase.

Sentence phrase

Example texts

Other resources

  1. ^ Oalanii is an archeological term used to describe the Proto-Taskaric inhabitants of what is now the city of Oalan. Although the Oalanii had their own script, no surviving documentation mentions their actual endonym, so they are called the Oalanii after the city where the first archeological remains of ancient Oalan were found.
  2. ^ Note the continuous past tense.