Anbirese

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Amphirese (amphirim /amphirim/) is a major Talmic language descended from Tigol, inspired by Welsh, Korean, Etruscan and Romani. Relative to Eevo, it has a relatively conservative verb system. On the planet of Tricin (Anbirese: i Samąx /i səˈmɔːx/), it is an analogue of German in terms of influence and grammar. It is inspired by Irish, Arabic, Persian, Polish, Romanian and German. Anbirese is the official language of the Talman nation Anvir and of former colonies in Cualuav and Txapoalli; after Eevo, it is the second-largest Talmic language in terms of number of speakers, though most modern speakers know Eevo. Like most modern Talmic languages, Anbirese is a descendant of Thensarian. Like with German, there is a Standard Anvirese 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.

This language 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 Bhlaoighne 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 Eevo's "English"), so I decided to revive this project as "Anvyrese" or "Anvirese".

Todo

cemph, tzath, nuthch, doiph, solitzh, ...

Phonology

Consonants

  • c g ch ŋ /k g kʰ ŋ/
  • t d th n /t d tʰ n/
  • tz dz tzh /ts dz tsʰ/
  • p b ph m /p b pʰ m/
  • f fh s sh (s̉) (s̃) h /f v~fʰ s z~sʰ ç ɕ h/
  • r l i /r L j/

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

Some consonants could be syllabic, namely m n ŋ l r.

Vowels

i u ou e y a o /i ɨ u e ə a o/

Stress

Stress is always initial.

Morphology

Mutations

Tumaka has no mutation; instead, former feminine nouns often begin in an aspirated consonant, as a result of lenition after the definite article. (cf. Eevo, where former feminine nouns begin in different consonants than former masculine nouns.)

Nouns

Nouns only have two states (absolute and construct) and two numbers (singular and plural). The usual affixes are:

  • plural absolute: -r
  • singular construct: -(y)th
  • plural construct: -(y)ph

e.g. cuthr 'flower', cuthryr 'flowers'; chufn 'woman', chufnyr 'women'.

Verbs

Tumaka verbs have two tenses (nonpast and past) and two aspects (imperfective and perfective). The imperfective-perfective distinction is characterized by the absolute-conjunct allomorphy inherited from Tigol. As in Slavic languages, the perfective form is often derived by adding a prefix, which causes the verb to take the conjunct form. Most Tumaka verbs thus have two principal parts: imperfective and perfective.

An example of the aspect allomorphy:

  • 'to tell': imperfective boŋi, perfective simŋi
  • 'to eat': imperfective cai, perfective iŋcu