Chlouvānem
Chlouvānem, natively Chlouvānaumi dældā ("language of the Chlouvānem people"), is the most spoken language on the planet of Calémere (Lac.: Liloejāmna). It is the official language of the Chlouvānem land (Chlouvānaumi bhælā), and a lingua franca in many areas of the eastern part of the continent of Evandor. Despite the fact that local vernaculars in most of the Chlouvānem lands are in fact daughter languages of Chlouvānem or creoles based on it, the Chlouvānaumi dældā is a fully living language as every Chlouvānem person is bilingual in it and in the local vernacular, and in fact in the last half century the Chlouvānem language itself has been replacing some vernaculars as internal migrations have become more and more common. About 1,4 billion people on the planet define themselves as native Chlouvānem speakers, more than for any other Calémerian language.
External History
Chlouvānem is the ninth radically restructured version of Laceyiam; I started creating it in late November 2016 as I found some parts of my conworld which were too unrealistic to work - and as such by changing the whole conworld I had to change the language. I took that opportunity to change some things in the grammar that, while I liked them and they worked well, I wanted to do in some different way — mainly this arises from my love of more complex inflection patterns. As such, compared to Laceyiam, Chlouvānem has much more influences from Sanskrit and Lithuanian (which always were my main influences anyway); other natlangs that influenced me a lot are Russian, Latvian, Icelandic, Proto-Indo-European, (Biblical) Hebrew, Latin, and Japanese. Still it is an a priori language and, despite having much in common with all of these (particularly with the IE ones), is also strikingly different (the Austronesian morphosyntactic alignment, morphological expression of evidentiality and more broadly the particular emphasis on moods probably being the most noticeable things). Moreover, I tried to create a language very different from my native language (Italian) while keeping many - not so apparent - similarities.
The morphology of Chlouvānem is very different from Laceyiam, though many words are still the same (like smrāṇa (spring), junai (foot), jāyim (girl), saṃhāram (boy)).
As I mentioned before, Chlouvānem is the latest version of the conlang for my main conculture. I started sketching conlangs back when I was 9 or 10 but only started interesting myself into linguistics seven years later - in 2014 - and since then I started doing more "serious" conlangs (the earlier ones were more like relexes of my native language, Italian). Ideally, Chlouvānem is the refined version of all of these languages, but except for a few recurring words (like maila (water) or hulyn (woman)) it is only comparable to those languages I have been creating since July 2015.
Chlouvānem is mainly thought for my conworld, but more than any other conlang of mine it is quite on the border between an art- and a heartlang.
Phonology
Orthography
Consonants
Chlouvānem has a large consonant inventory, with 55 different consonants, divided into seven categories: labials, dentals, palatalized dentals, retroflexes, palatals, velars, and laryngeals.
Labials | Dentals | Palat. dentals | Retroflexes | Palatals | Velars | Laryngeals | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasals | m mʲ | n | nʲ | ɳ | ɲ | ŋ | N* |
Unvoiced stops | p pʰ | t̪ t̪ʰ | tʲ tʲʰ | ʈ ʈʰ | k kʰ | ʔ | |
Voiced stops | b bʱ | d̪ d̪ʱ | dʲ dʲʱ | ɖ ɖʱ | g gʱ | ||
Unvoiced affricates | t̪͡s̪ t̪͡s̪ʰ | t͡sʲ t͡sʲʰ | c͡ɕ c͡ɕʰ | ||||
Voiced affricates | d̪͡z̪ d̪͡z̪ʱ | d͡zʲ d͡zʲʱ | ɟ͡ʑ ɟ͡ʑʱ | ||||
Sibilant fricatives | s | sʲ | ʂ | ɕ | |||
Non-sibilant fricatives | f v | θ | ɦ | ||||
Approximants | ð̞ | ɻ | j | ʀ ʀʲ ɴ̆ ɴ̆ʲ |
Vowels
Prosody
Stress
Intonation
Phonotactics
Morphophonology
Morphology
Nouns - Halenī
The Chlouvānem noun (haloe, pl. halenī) is highly inflected: it declines for three numbers (singular, dual, plural), and eleven cases (direct, vocative, accusative, ergative, genitive, translative, exessive, essive, dative, ablative, and locative). Nouns also have grammatical gender, being divided in three classes (called dragon, lotus, and parrot based on nouns included in them[1]).
Gender
Genders and declensions are dependent on the form of the noun. Due to the prevailing endings in direct case, dragon nouns are also called the s-class; lotus nouns the m-class; and parrot nouns the h-class:
Dragon nouns (kaṃšūlñī halenī):
- 1s: nouns ending in -as or -ās
- 2s: nouns ending in -us or -ūs
- 3s: nouns ending in -is or -īs
- 4s: nouns ending in -oe /ˈɔə̯/
Lotus nouns (yujamñī halenī):
- 1m: nouns ending in -am, -em, -ām, -ėm, or any vowel plus -n
- 2m: nouns ending in -um or -ūm
- 3m: nouns ending in -im or -īm
- 4m: nouns ending in -ai
Parrot nouns (geltařñī halenī):
- 1h: nouns ending in -a, -ah, -ā, or -āh
- 2h: nouns ending in -ė, -eh, or -ėh (and a few exceptions in -oê /ɔˈɛ/)
- 3h: nouns ending in -uh or -ūh
- 4h: nouns ending in -ih or -īh (plus a few exceptional ones in -i)
- 5h: nouns ending in -a which have ablaut-conditioned variations in their stems in different cases
Dragon nouns - Kaṃšūlñī halenī
The first declension of dragon nouns is also the most common one for that gender. Like all other nominal declensions, the vocative is only distinct in the singular, and dual and plural have the same forms for translative, exessive, essive, dative, ablative, and locative.
Case | Singular | Dual | Plural |
---|---|---|---|
Direct | prātas "wind" | prātudi | prāte |
Vocative | prātau | prātudi | prāte |
Accusative | prātu | prātudau | prātānu |
Ergative | prāteṃs | prātudeni | prātān |
Genitive | prāti | prātudais | prātumi |
Translative | prātan | prātyoh | prātyoh |
Exessive | prātat | prātyās | prātyās |
Essive | prātą | prātvin | prātvin |
Dative | prātui | prātouti | prātouti |
Ablative | prātų | prātenīs | prātenīs |
Locative | prāte | prātilīm | prātilīm |
Case | Singular | Dual | Plural |
---|---|---|---|
Direct | kældus "wax" | kældudi | kælduvī |
Vocative | kældu | kældudi | kælduvī |
Accusative | kældau | kældudau | kældūnu |
Ergative | kældoṃs | kældudeni | kældān |
Genitive | kældavi | kældudais | kældoumi |
Translative | kældun | kældyoh | kældyoh |
Exessive | kældut | kældyās | kældyās |
Essive | kældęs | kældvin | kældvin |
Dative | kældui | kældouti | kældouti |
Ablative | kældų | kældunīs | kældunīs |
Locative | kælduve | kældilīm | kældilīm |
Case | Singular | Dual | Plural |
---|---|---|---|
Direct | kumis "bamboo" | kumidi | kumiye |
Vocative | kumi | kumidi | kumiye |
Accusative | kumiu | kumidau | kumiānu |
Ergative | kumiei | kumideni | kumiān |
Genitive | kumieyi | kumideis | kumiumi |
Translative | kumian | kumiyoh | kumiyoh |
Exessive | kumiæt | kumiyās | kumiyās |
Essive | kumiæs | kumivin | kumivin |
Dative | kumiui | kumievuti | kumievuti |
Ablative | kumių | kumienīs | kumienīs |
Locative | kumie | kumiælīm | kumiælīm |
Case | Singular | Dual | Plural |
---|---|---|---|
Direct | haloe "name" | haloedi | halenī |
Vocative | haloe | haloedi | halenī |
Accusative | halenu | haloedau | halenænu |
Ergative | halenei | haloedeni | halenān |
Genitive | halenies | haloedais | halenyumi |
Translative | halenan | halenyoh | halenyoh |
Exessive | halenat | halenyās | halenyās |
Essive | haleṃs | halemvin | halemvin |
Dative | halenui | halenouti | halenouti |
Ablative | halenų | haleninīs | haleninīs |
Locative | halenive | haleṃlīm | haleṃlīm |
Adjectives and adverbs
Verbs
Pronouns
Numerals - Mālūye
Chlouvānem has a decimal numeral system which has however a base-5 sub-base for some numbers (mainly 5 and 11-19) and a base-20 borrowed one for the tens.
Numbers have six different forms: cardinal, ordinal, collective, distributive, adverbial/multiplicative, and fractionary. Cardinal 1, 2, and 3 are adjectives, as are all ordinal and collective ones; 1-4 have separate adverbial forms, while all other ones have an invariable adjective used as multiplicative and a derived adverb used as adverbial. All distributive, fractionary, and cardinal (except 1-3) numbers are invariable.
Digit | Cardinal | Ordinal | Collective | Distributive | Adv./Multiplicative | Fractionary |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
0 | ajrā | (ajrāyendes) | (ajrājes) | (ajrauṣā) | (lājrā) | — |
1 | leil leilum leila |
lahīlas | leilajāsis | leiluṣā | leilaϑit / lāleil (lāleilum, lāleila) |
leilaskā |
2 | dani danīm danīh |
hælinaikas | daniajāsis | daniṣā | daniϑit / lādani (lādanīm, lādanīh) |
danīrṣkā |
3 | tarvas tarvam tarvė |
tarvendes | tarvajāsis | tarvuṣā | tarvaϑit / lātarvas (lātarvam, lātarvė) |
tarveṃskā |
4 | nahoê | nahėbindes | nahėñjāsis | nahėbuṣā | nahėbāϑit / lānahoê | nahėbiṃskā |
5 | švā | švājindes | švāyajāsis | švauṣā | lāšvā | švajiṃskā |
6 | tulū'a | tulū'endes | tulū'ajāsis | tulū'uṣā | lātulū'a | tulū'eṃskā |
7 | chīka | chīkendes | chīkajāsis | chīcuṣā | lāchīka | chīkeṃskā |
8 | teitė | teitendes | teitajāsis | teiteṣā | lāteitė | teiteṃskā |
9 | moja | mojendes | mojajāsis | mojuṣā | lāmoja | mojeṃskā |
10 | na'ikām | na'ikāmindes | na'ikāñjes | na'ikāṃṣā | lāna'ikām | na'ikāmiṃskā |
11 | lelišvatī | lelišvatīlindes | lelišvatījes | lelišvatīṣā | lālelišvatī | lelišvatīliṃskā |
12 | danešvatī | danešvatīlindes | danešvatījes | danešvatīṣā | lādanešvatī | danešvatīliṃskā |
13 | tarošvati | tarošvatīlindes | tarošvatījes | tarošvatīṣā | lātarošvatī | tarošvatīliṃskā |
14 | nahėšvatī | nahėšvatīlindes | nahėšvatījes | nahėšvatīṣā | lānahėšvatī | nahėšvatīliṃskā |
15 | švāmašvatī | švāmašvatīlindes | švāmašvatījes | švāmašvatīṣā | lāšvāmašvatī | švāmašvatīliṃskā |
16 | tulūšvatī | tulūšvatīlindes | tulūšvatījes | tulūšvatīṣā | lātulūšvatī | tulūšvatīliṃskā |
17 | chīcæšvatī | chīcæšvatīlindes | chīcæšvatījes | chīcæšvatīṣā | lāchīcæšvatī | chīcæšvatīliṃskā |
18 | teitašvatī | teitašvatīlindes | teitašvatījes | teitašvatīṣā | lāteitašvatī | teitašvatīliṃskā |
19 | moješvatī | moješvatīlindes | moješvatījes | moješvatīṣā | lāmoješvatī | moješvatīliṃskā |
20 | ekāma | ekāmendes | ekāmajāsis | ekāṃṣā | laikāma | ekāmeṃskā |
Particles
Syntax
Constituent order
Noun phrase
Verb phrase
Sentence phrase
Dependent clauses
Example texts
Other resources
- ^ Dragon is kaṃšūs, lotus is yujam, and parrot is geltah.