Řeuŋnie

Ouřefr /ˈəʊr̝ɛfə/ (Ourefŕnie cítnŕ /əʊr̝ɛfəɲeː tsijʔtnɐː/) is an Idavic language belonging to the Nabŋaic branch. It is inspired by Czech, Dutch, Cantonese, and Japanese (but mainly by the first two). It is the most widely spoken Nabŋaic language and is related to Nabbrzé, which is the Mandarin/Russian counterpart.

Ouřefr is the international lingua franca in its home world. It is native to the island nation of Ouřefie, where it evolved in isolation from other Nabŋaic languages, and is also official in the large continental country of Lo'eďeu, and thus has some accentual variation.

Unlike Nabbrzé, Ouřefr has more loans from the classical language Netagin, a fellow Idavic language.

todo

Diachronics

1. OSL
2. Czech-like depalatalization and hard/soft vowel splits
3. Palatalization-dependent GVS, then another depalatalization?
4. Old Ouřefr ć dź ś ź merge into c dz s z
5. n- > l- (unless assimilating)

Test

Woeŋanies uistřivt melouk lo vahrádyvijŋ, ar mezryz woþmyce bacirňr řeunie aš ŋávej těmzánisie. Evloedr wie doezanejne hář, po ryhoteuŋ.

Phonology

"Czech with more vowels and simpler phonotactics" or "Play up the Dutch in Czech"

Consonants

		Labial		Dental	Alveolar		Palatal(ized)		Velar		Laryngeal
Nasal		m /m/			n /n/		nj /ɲ/		ng /ŋ/
Plosive		p /p/	b /b/		t /t/	d /d/	tj /c/	dj /ɟ/	k /k/	g /g/	' /ʔ/
Fricative		f /f/	v /v/	þ /θ/	s, š /s/	z, ž /z/		ř /ʒ/	ch /x/
Affricate					c, č /ts/
Trill					r /r/
Approximant		w /w/			l /l~ɫ/		j /j/				h /ʕ/

m n ŋ can be syllabic; when syllabic they are written ḿ ń ŋ́ and have the same length as long vowels.

Voiceless stops are unaspirated as in Dutch and Czech.

Obstruent voicing assimilation as in Slavic.

Glottal reinforcement, but no gemination

/l/ has the same l~ɫ allophony as in RP; vocalization of dark L possible

Realizing /c ɟ ɳ/ as [tʲ dʲ nʲ] is a feature of sung Ouřefr.

ř is pronounced like the Czech ř in dialects or certain posh accents. The same dialects keep ć ś ź distinct, whereas the standard language no longer does.

Notes on consonant diachronics

Like Nabbrzé, Ouřefr shows debuccalization of Proto-Nabŋaic *g to h /ʕ/; compare Dutch and Czech. Proto-Nabŋaic *b has shifted to v while it stayed as /b/ in Nabbrzé. /p b g/ are loan phonemes.

Proto-Nabŋaic *ɬ has shifted to þ /θ~ð/.

Proto-Nabŋaic *ť ď has shifted to c z.

Vowels

Ouřefr vowel orthography is more conservative, and reflects a shift similar to the Great Vowel Shift (cf. Common Czech and Dutch), which also affects loanwords borrowed before the shift.

a e/je i/y o u á é í/ý ó ú ae eu/ui ie oe ou ŕ /ɐ ɛ ɪ ɔ ɵ aː ɛː ɛɪ~ɪj ɔː yː~ʉː ae œː ɪː oː~uː əʊ~əʏ ɜː/

Closer allophones [ɪj~eɪ] of /ɛɪ/ are more common after palatals /c ɟ ɲ/.

• je i ie í eu are palatalizing; all other orthographic vowels are nonpalatalizing.
  • For C = b p v f, Cje Ceu Cí denote /Cjɛ Cjœː Cjɛɪ/; mje meu mij denotes /mɲɛ mɲœː mɲɛɪ/.
  • For C = d t n, Cje Ci Cie Cí Ceu denote /ɟ c ɲ/ + vowel.
• ó mostly occurs in loanwords from Netagin.

Notes on vowel diachronics

Ouřefr has lost Proto-Nabŋaic vowel length. Pre-Proto-Nabŋaic i u e a ī ū ē ā become e o e a i y ě o when not lengthened. Unlike in Nabbrzé, some vowel devoicing has occurred (cf. Japanese), which gave Ouřefr more consonant clusters.

Long vowels result from open-syllable lengthening (OSL): **čettijn > *četijn; **četijn > *čétijn. OSL occurred before the devoicing, making the Ourefr distribution of long vowels somewhat similar to Czech.

Modern ie ý/í oe ú result from older 'ää ý/í ó ú. Old Ouřefr u, ú has shifted to i, ij after soft consonants j č ž š ň *ľ ř.

Palatalizing eu /œː/ is common in native words. Common sources are:

• Old Ouřefr /æː/ before velars or /l/: for example, reuŋ /rœːŋ/ 'wind' comes from Old Ouřefr řa̋ŋ < PNab *rěŋu < PId *rēŋu.
• Old Ouřefr long /juː/, coming from PId /ew/ or /iw/.

Non-palatalizing ui /œː/ comes mostly from historical *ujV or loanwords.

Most speakers today are in the process of merging /ɜː/ into á /aː/.

As suggested by the spelling, ŕ /ɜː/ comes from syllabic r; they are cognate to Nabbrzé -arz/-árz.

ae mostly comes from historical aje or awe.

Suprasegmental pharyngealization

Non-initial h /ʕ/ is realized as suprasegmental pharyngealization which acts on a syllable level: vowels in affected syllables are lengthened, lowered, and pharyngealized, and the syllable gains a rising or falling tone. For example,

• Vh# or VhC indicates a falling tone: ftoh 'riverbank' is read as [ftɔ̂ˤː].
• VhV indicates a rising tone, and only the first V affects the vowel value: ksaha 'stranger' is read as [ksǎˤː].

Historically hard-soft vowel pairs

• hard y ~ soft i
• hard u ~ soft i
• hard a ~ soft ě
• hard ý ~ soft í
• hard á ~ soft ie/eu
• hard ou ~ soft eu
• hard ui ~ soft eu
• hard oe ~ soft ie
• hard ú ~ soft í

Long vowels result from OSL ćettijn > cetijn; ćetijn > cétijn

Morphology

Inflectional morphology is Slavic and Germanic-inspired; clitics and syntax are Japanese-inspired

Nouns

Ouřefr nouns are classified into two genders: animate and inanimate, and they inflect for case. Similarly to Slavic languages, the case affixes are fusional, encoding both case and number.

The inflectional cases are as follows. Other grammatical relations are expressed using postpositions and clitics.

• nominative (Japanese ga)
• accusative (Japanese wo)
• genitive (Japanese no)
• dative (Japanese ni)
• allative (Japanese e)
• comitative/"and" (Japanese to)
• instrumental/locative (Japanese de)

Declension classes

The declension classes are:

• -a declension (usually animate)
• -e declension (usually animate)
• -aw/-ui- (verbal nouns)
• hard consonant declension (usually inanimate)
• soft consonant declension (usually inanimate, but default for loans ending in a consonant)
• Inanimate vowel nouns (default for loans ending in a vowel; historically nouns ending in -g)
• -ŕ declension
• -ýn/-ín declension (adjectival noun)
• -é/-ie declension (adjectival noun)

There are more declension classes than in related languages such as Nabbrzé; this is because of vowel changes after soft consonants and subsequent depalatalization.

eřeha (a) 'bear'

• nom: eřeha, eřehu
• acc: eřeze, eřehý
• gen: eřehu, eřehý
• dat: eřehy, eřehas
• all: eřehet, eřehas
• ins/loc: eřezel, eřehata
• com: eřehuf, eřehaf

roustje (a) 'puppy'

• nom: roustje, rousti
• acc: rousti, roustí
• gen: rousti, roustí
• dat: rousti, roustjes
• all: roustet, roustjes
• ins/loc: roustil, roustjeta
• com: roustif, roustíf

loef (i) 'bridge'

• nom = acc: loef, lofa
• gen: lofy, lofý
• dat: lofy, loefs
• all: lofet, loefs
• ins/loc: lofel, loefta
• com: lofyf, lofýf

hŕþo "corner"

• nom = acc: hŕþo, hŕþoga
• gen: hŕþoj, hŕþojí
• dat: hŕþoj, hŕþós
• all: hŕþót, hŕþós
• ins/loc: hŕþojel, hŕþóta
• com: hŕþojf, hŕþojíf

• ksúv (i) 'tool':
• nom = acc: ksúv, ksúve
• gen: ksúvi, ksúví
• dat: ksúvi, ksúvs
• all: ksúvet, ksúvs
• ins/loc: ksúvil, ksúvta
• com: ksúvif, ksúvíf

wecsaw (i) 'action'

• nom = acc: wecsaw, wecsui
• gen: wecsui, wecsají (pronounced like "wecsaji")
• dat: wecsui, wecsuis
• all: wecsuit, wecsuis
• ins/loc: wecsuil, wecsuita
• com: wecsuif, wecsuif/wecsajíf (pronounced like "wecsajif")

Verbs and adjectives

vej- for negation; generally like Korean, except verbs also inflect for the animacy of the subject.

get hard and soft stems (cf. different "theme vowels" for Japanese verb forms)

Conjugation classes:

• -as verbs
• -is verbs
• -es/-ěs verbs
• -s verbs
• irregular: "to do" (added to foreign words to verb them)
• irregular: "to be (copula)"
• irregular: "to exist"

Derivational morphology

Native

• -oelie '-ess'
• -ytj/-itj/-tje diminutive
• -ech/-ch verbal noun
• -vŕ patient
• -fa agent
• -koek instrument
• -ář diminutive
• -yCe/-iCe (C = redup) diminutive; not very productive
• -ngoeh abstract noun
• -myc (soft) abstract noun

Syntax

Lifted from Korean and Japanese.

Poetry

Poetic forms are influenced by Netagin; piyyut-like rhyming (i.e. last syllables agree) is the most common way to rhyme two words.

Sample text

UDHR

Tkanje ḿbeukuna héčti kfa botsíní vo, oedḿŋohil ze wakŕvil páčta navŕsínís. Ḿbeukýna toudžḿnil rachúbiníl ze mačídil sfáším vo, iezoer oŋužeuv nama jŕmi ŋ́kru-teušimi wášil wecsáš hoekách čienis.