Nousuerian

Nousuerian (Nousuerian: nusveska; French: nousuédois; Swedish: nusveska) is a constructed, a posteriori language in the North Germanic family of languages, descended from the Old Norse language. Most of the vocabulary of Nousuerian is directly borrowed from the French language. With the Nousuerian language comes an alternate history of the places in which it developed and is spoken; namely, the real-life Faroe Islands.

Nousuerian
nusveska
Pronunciation	[[Help:IPA|nu'sveskə]]
Created by	--
Setting	Nousueria
Native speakers	66,000 (2011)
Language family	Indo-European Germanic North Germanic East Scandinavian Continental Scandinavian Old Swedish Modern Swedish Nousuerian
Dialect	N/A
Official status
Official language in	Kingdom of Nousuerian Isles
Recognised minority language in	France, Sweden
Regulated by	Det Nusveska Spròkets Monakakademi (The Royal Academy of the Nousuerian Language)

Introduction

Nousuerian (in Nousuerian: nusveksa [nusveskə] or det nusveska spròket [de nusveskə sprɔke]) is a North Germanic language spoken in the Kingdom of Nousuerian Isles. It is spoken by about 66,000 people, a majority of whom live in the Kingdom. Nousuerian is a member of the Scandinavian family and shares a common ancestor with contemporary Swedish. Nousuerian is a descendant of Modern Swedish, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in the Nousuerian Isles at the time. Nousuerian has also heavily borrowed vocabulary from French with whom the islands have a strong, shared ancestral, linguistic and cultural past.

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Phonology

Consonants

Most consonants in Nousuerian have English equivalents; namely, b, d, f, g, h, k, l, m, n, p, s, t and v.

Other required a bit of practice for native English speakers:

• j is pronounced like y in yard
• r is pronounced like a Spanish r, as in rojo

Consonant Clusters

Normally, consonant clusters are pronounced simply as a combination of the two sounds:

• nusveska

However, there are certain consonant clusters which are pronounced is a very particular way.

Written As	Pronounced As
rn	ɳ
rt	ʈ
rd	ɖ
rl	ɭ
rs	ʂ or ʃ
tj	ɕ or ʃ
sj	ɧ or ʃ

As seen in the table above, there are three different combinations which could be represented by the sound [ʃ]. These differences in pronunciation will allow you to be understand by a native speaker of Nousuerian and is generally accepted. They are generally maintained solely for orthological reasons. However, there are some cases of classicism in which the "correct" or "elite" pronunciation would be the first example, while the "vulgar" or "common" pronunciation would be the second.

Vowels

Nousuerian vowels, like Spanish or Italian, are always pronounced as they are written.

• A is pronounced [a] as in English ‘father’ or Spanish ‘adiós’
• E is pronounced [e] as in French ‘été’ or Italian ‘prego’
• I is pronounced [i] as in English ‘bee’ or Spanish ’ir’
• O is pronounced [o] as in English ‘open’
• U is pronounced [u] as in English ‘doom’ or ‘moon’
• È is pronounced [ɛ] as in English ‘pen’ or ‘best’
• Ò is pronounced [ɔ] as in English ‘Oscar’ or ‘operate’
• Y is pronouns [y] as in French ‘plus’ or Swedish ‘byxor’
• EU is pronounced [ø] as in French ‘peu’

Diphthongs

When i or u precede another vowel, they form a diphthong with [j] or [w], respectively. If a diphthong precedes an n at the end of a word, it is not nasalised. However, this is not applied whenever the letter j appears before a nasalised vowel at the end of a word.

Examples

• avion (airplane) is pronounced [af.'jon]
• moien (average) is pronounced [mo.'jen]
• lujen (away from) is pronounced [lu.'jɛ̃]
• seduisan (attractive) is pronounced [se.dwi.sɑ̃]

Nasal Vowels

There are only four vowels in Nousuerian which have a nasalised variant. It should be noted that they are only nasalised when at the end of a word.

Written As	Pronounced As
an	ɑ̃
en	ɛ̃
on	ɔ̃
un	œ̃

Prosody

Stress & Intonation

One syllable and non-compounds are stressed on the final syllable. Compounds are double stressed; they have a falling tonal stress on the first syllable of the first word and a rising tonal stress on the last syllable of the second word. When one is inflected, the stress stays on the same syllable, so the endings aren't stressed.

Sentence Stress

When the subject of a sentence is a noun, it is stressed. Pronouns, however, are unstressed. When the object is a noun, it is also stressed. Pronouns, like subjects, are normally unstressed. Object pronouns, however, are stressed when they are at the beginning of the sentence. For contrast, objects are stressed. When there is a verb but no object, the verb is stressed. However, when there is an object, the verb is unstressed. This also applies to verb complements, which are stressed while the verb isn’t. For contrast, verbs are stressed. Adverbials are usually stressed whether first or last in the sentence.

Word Stress

Word stress is found only in words that have sentence stress.

• Non-compounds – these words are pronounced monosyllabically.
• Compounds – these words have a stress on each of the parts of the compound, but the melody of each part is different. The first stress has a falling pitch and the last stress has a rising pitch.