Anbirese

Anbirese/Wordlist
Anbirese/Swadesh list
Anbirese/Names

Anbirese
Jeosgat Anbirjeom
Created by	IlL
Setting	Verse:Tricin
Language family	Quame Talmic Tigolic Anbirese

Anbirese (Anbirjeom /ànbirjəm/ [ànbírjəm]) is a major Talmic language descended from Tigol, inspired by Korean (particularly Sino-Korean), Swedish, and Irish. Compared to its relatives Skellan and Qenian, it has a relatively conservative verb system. On the planet of Tricin (Anbirese: i Smauk /i smauk/), it is an analogue of German in terms of influence. Anbirese is the official language of the Talman nation Anbir and of former colonies in Cualuav and Txapoalli; it is the second-largest Talmic language in terms of number of speakers. 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

Anbirese 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 Snachian 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

• flower: kadir
• ot, od > vat, vad
• Numbers: kjeom, tjeodeor, nask, dyv, solj, stam, rvað, lað, berb, ngjor, jachim, kne
• scaimh 'mountain' > skeγ
• obey < TELIC + 'listen' (like in Þiús'k)
• Conjunctions that take pronominal suffixes, like Arabic ʔinna and ʔanna (or maybe Bhlaoighne)
• Swadesh list
• Tigol > Anbirese sound changes

plus, Anbirese has "accusativus in infinitivo"!
le could be omitted before indefinite nouns in modern Anbirese
but Maith Sivy always used it
that's one way of distinguishing archaic from modern Anbirese
another could be the use of the pronoun 'fiar'
which in modern Anbirese 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-

Vowel reflexes:

• 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 eu eui
• ia ua uai > jeo veo vae

Phonology

Consonants

Radical consonants

• k χ ng /k x ŋ/
• kj χj ngj /tɕ ɕ ɲ/
• t þ n /t θ n/
• tj þj nj /tɕ ɕ ɲ/
• c /ts/
• p f m /f m/
• s sj h /s ɧ h/
• r l lj j /r ɴ̆ j j/

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

sj = sje, etc.

Lenited consonants

• g γ /g ɣ/
• gj γj /d͡ʑ j/
• d z /d z/
• dj zj /d͡ʑ ɹ/
• b v /b v/
• bj vj /bj vj/

Eclipsed consonants

• ng ngh /ŋ ŋʰ/
• nj njh /ɲ ɲʰ/
• n nh /n nʰ/
• m mh /m mʰ/

Vowels

i eu u e eo a o æ œ /i ɨ ü e ə~ʌ~ɔ a o~u ɛ~e ø/

Stress

Stress is weak to nonexistent in Modern Anbirese.

Pitch accent

Pitch accent is phonemic in Standard Anbirese, and often distinguishes different grammatical forms of the same word.

Each word has one of two possible pitch accents:

1. Rising (or low, or peaking): starts low and rises, peaks at the second syllable; unmarked
2. High: high and level, falls off word-finally, transcribed with an acute accent

For example:

• skaen /skěn/ (rising tone) = 'a friend (sg)'; n skaen /ən skěn/ = 'the friend'
• skáen /skén/ (high tone) = 'friends (pl)'; n skáen /ən skén/ = 'the friends'
• ael (rising tone) = 'loves (present tense)'
• áel (high tone) = 'loved (past tense)'

A handful of dialects lack pitch accent.

Intonation

• General fall: declarative clauses
• General rise: dependent clauses
• Interrogative: interrogative clauses

Orthography

Anbirese is written in the Talmic alphabet.

Vocabulary

Anbirese is about as purist as German, though it has a fair helping of Swuntsim loanwords. Anbirese vocabulary often uses compounding to disambiguate words that were made similar by dueum beopchik. Like in other Talman languages, academic vocabulary has more Tseezh and Windermere loans.

Morphology

Mutations

Like Qenian, Anbirese has lenition and nasal mutation.

Nouns

Definite article

Regardless of gender and number, the definite article is

• eo before nasals and resonants: eo mar [ə̀ mǎɾ] 'the tree'
• n before other consonants and before vowels: n keotir [ə̀n kə̀tɕîɾ] 'the flower'; n aveot [nàvə̂t] 'the book'

TODO: definite article mutations by gender

Definite article

	singular			plural
	m.	f.	n.	m.	f.	n.
nom.	eclipsis	lenition	no mut.	no mut.	no mut.	eclipsis

Plural nouns

A common way to pluralize nouns is by tone change. This is the default paradigm for loans.

• mar /mǎɾ/ [mǎɾ] = a tree
• már /máɾ/ [mâɾ] = trees

However, many plurals use suffixes or other changes:

• íms /íms/ [îms] = a loved one
• imseot /ǐmsət/ [ìmsə̂t] = loved ones (some dialects use ímseot)

Adjectives

Adjectives do not inflect at all.

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

TODO: degree words

Verbs

Verbs are conservative and similar to Cièdian, with synthetic forms instead of analytic constructions as in Skellan.

Split-ergativity

Anbirese has split-ergativity: perfective verbs display ergative alignment, and imperfective verbs have accusative alignment.

That is, the subject is marked with the preposition u for transitive verbs, and is unmarked for intransitive verbs. In the case of transitive verbs, the ergative marking occurs regardless of whether or not there is a direct object.

Examples:

Kabin u na.

eat.PRET ERG 1SG

'I have eaten.'

Kabin u na n sáeng.

eat.PRET ERG 1SG DEF bread

'I have eaten the bread.'

Eoseong eo már.

die.PRET DEF tree/PL

'The trees died.'

Farjeogin meo nókeol kaltan.

return.PRET 1PL.EXC.POSS dog/PL at_last

Our dogs finally returned.

Copula

Anbirese is zero copula in the present tense; ngu, si, jeo and thar can be used as present tense copulas.

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

Pronouns

na, skid, ngu, si, jeo, mekh, tid, skid, thar = I, you, he, she, it, we (exc), we (inc), you, they

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

Prepositions

• ljeo = accusative (ljeo + n > ljeon) (only used with definite nouns in modern Anbirese)
  • ljeo-na, (ljeo-s,) lj-u, l-i, lj-eot, lj-eom, ljeof, ljeok, ljur
• djeo = in, at (dze + i > dzen)
  • djeo-na, (deo-s,) dj-u, d-i, dj-eot, dj-eom, djeof, djeok, djur
• e = to, for
  • ena, (ephys), ephou, ephi, epheth, ephym, efe, ephyc, ephur

Syntax

Anbirese 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 ta (preposed) for imperatives and þri (preposed; from Tigol *ter ia- 'not once') otherwise.

Questions

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

Wishes/Jussive

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

Word order

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

Accusative with infinitive

The accusative particle ljeo 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 togn ljeo mrôd e slam aeb Inþár.

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 tjeo 'at':

tjeo h-argjeorn na ar i lóegu'm

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

when I was keeping watch on his things