Cerian

Cerian
Čérízon sérešu čérí
Pronunciation	[[Help:IPA|[[tʃeːˈriːzon] [ˈseːreʃu tʃeːˈriː]]]]
Created by	Lili21
Date	Mar 2017
Setting	Calémere
Ethnicity	Cerians
Native speakers	450,000,000 (2312)
Language family	Evandorian languages Central Evandorian Íscégon Cerian

Cerian — natively Čérízon [tʃeːˈriːzon] or sérešu čérí [ˈseːreʃu tʃeːˈriː] — is the main global lingua franca on the planet on Calémere, particularly in the nations of its Western Bloc, and its second-most spoken language by number of native speakers (after Chlouvānem). It is an Evandorian language belonging to the Central Evandorian branch, and one of the direct descendants of one of the two most important Classical language of the Calemerian Western civilization, namely Íscégon.

Native to the country of Ceria (Cer.: Čéría; Isc.: Ciairegiion) in the western part of Evandor, Cerian is the official language of seven countries in Evandor - Ceria, Šáritun, Vétaní, Čaga, Rogoma, Noméde Ínéma, and Sternia (Cer. Seténía - co-official with Majo-Bankrávian) - and 37 other countries around the planet. It is also a regionally recognized language in the Evandorian countries of Besagret, Helinetia, Ingvensia, Auralia and Nordulic (Cer.: Bésói, Helinétía, Envenšía, Órolía, Nódóle), and in many other countries of the planet, including even a few areas in the northwestern Chlouvānem Inquisition.

Phonology

Consonants

The consonant inventory among different Cerian dialects is fairly similar, with the most noticeable exception being Hilly Southeastern Cerian which are the only ones that didn't merge Íscégon /l/ into /r/ (the distinction is still kept everywhere in the spelling - e.g. áleron "road" /ˈaːreron/ even if 95% of the speakers merge them). Many Southern Cerian dialects (incl. e.g. Šáritúni Cerian) also have /dʒ/ instead of /ʒ/, as Old Cerian did.

→ PoA ↓ Manner		Labial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Alveolopalatal	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasals		m m		n n
Plosives	Voiceless	p p		t t			k k
	Voiced	b b		d d			g g
Affricates					č tʃ
Fricatives	Voiceless		f f	s s	š ʃ			h h
	Voiced		v v	z z	j ʒ
Trill				r-l r
Approximants		u w				i j

All consonants except voiced fricatives, approximants, /tʃ/ and /h/ can be geminated. Note, though, that /ʃ/ is only geminated in two words, the irregularly spelled ešečen /ˈeʃʃen/ and fášečen /ˈfaːʃʃen/, respectively the habitual and continuous forms of the present subjunctive of íso (to be) - which are used in order to form the subjunctive of all other verbs.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i í i iː		u ú u uː
Mid	e é e eː		o ó o oː
Low		a á a aː

Vowels are extremely varied in different Cerian dialects, with the long-short contrast being actually realized depending on dialect as a pure quantity one, a quality one, a hybrid quality-quantity, by having monophthongs vs. diphthongs, and with some possible mergers or (more rarely) splits. The phonemic representation given above is conventional and reflects the spelling as well as the underlying phoneme in most (not necessary all) Cerian dialects. For example, élógen "lamp" - phonemically represented as /eːˈroːgen/ is pronounced in different ways, including:

• Evandorian dialects: [e(ː)ˈroːgɐn] (Mánébodin Cerian or Standard Evandorian Cerian), [ɪːˈroːgɪn] (Čagan Cerian), [eə̯ˈʁɔːgən] (Central Coastal), [eˈlogɛn] (Hilly Southeastern - note the conservation of /l/), [(j)eːˈruːgʲən] (Šáritunen)
• Púrítonen dialects: [eɪ̯ˈrʊə̯gən] (NE Coastal Púrítonen), [ɛɪ̯ˈruːgen] (Inland Northern Púrítonen), [eɪ̯ˈʁoʊ̯gen] (Bénáteno Lake)
• Céránentian dialects: [eːˈɾoːgʲɪn] (Cánésen), [eˈruːgʲɪn] (Pásuone)

Some Cerian dialects from Evandor may have kept closer values to Íscégon, notably for example with /iː/ which became /e/ in most Cerian dialects (and is thus represented in the orthography). So for example Šáritunen Cerian speakers pronounce refusécé "castle" (Mán. Cer. [refuseːˈkeː]) as [riːpʉseːˈkeː] - a different development from Íscégon rípsercé. Similarly, rébé "stone" (< Ísc. rírbé) is [riːˈbeː] in Šárituni (St. Cer. [re(ː)ˈbeː]), and jéče "word" (< Ísc. giécí) is [dʒeːˈɕiː] (Mán. Cer. [ˈʒeːtʃɐ]).

Morphology

Nouns

Cerian nouns have lost most of the inflections of Íscégon, leaving only a predictable agglutinative pattern, regular for almost all nouns. Cerian nouns distinguish two cases - one called "nominative" (but also used as accusative), and an "indirect" (AKA oblique) case used after all prepositions and as the object of some verbs.
Nouns also distinguish between singular and plural, but the two forms are identical for all nouns ending in a vowel; to avoid ambiguity, Cerian has developed a marked plural (usually called the "indefinite plural") used when the plurality is important but not otherwise shown in a sentence. Every noun has the indefinite plural (which is completely regular), even nouns ending in -n which do mark plural normally. The indefinite plural, however, is never used in the indirect case, as indirect plurals are always marked.

The regular inflection of a Cerian noun is as follows:

	Vowel noun - rutó "hawk"			N-noun - vútin "tree"
	Singular	Plural	Pl. Indef.	Singular	Plural	Pl. Indef.
Nominative	rutó	rutó	rutóoran	vútin	vútiné	vútinoran
Indirect	rutón	rutóin		vútini	vútinen

Gender and Articles

Cerian has grammatical gender and two definite articles, one for each gender, used in the singular only (plural vs. plural indefinite inflection does the same effect in the plural). As in most Evandorian languages, -n is a marker of feminine gender, so that most nouns (not all) ending with that letter are feminine; those which end in vowels are usually masculine. Note that natural gender is prevalent, as shown e.g. by couplets such as "brother" and "sister" where the nouns have the "wrong" ending.
The masculine article is šo; the feminine one is šen.

Examples:

• Masculine nouns: šo rutó "the hawk"; šo sérešu "the language"; šo jéče "the word"; šo císenen "the brother".
• Feminine nouns: šen réboten "the price"; šen číečón "the flower"; šen putuánen "the wall"; šen ránéco "the sister".

Note that adjectives do not have gender in any way, and nouns which have the same form as an adjective may be used in either gender (prevalent in Púrítonen Cerian) or are feminine and have a marked masculine form (prevalent in most dialects). This is most notable with denonyms, as the corresponding adjectives usually end in -n. "Cerian" is an exception, as it has two forms (different from the adjective) in all dialects.

Examples:

• šo Čérízuo "the Cerian man"; šen Čérízen "the Cerian woman" (all dialects)
• čérízon "Cerian"; nódólénen "Nordulaki"; imúnigúronen "Chlouvānem" (all dialects)
• šo Nódóléo "the Nordulaki man", šen Nódólénen "the Nordulaki woman"; šo Imúnigúronno "the Chlouvānem man"; šen Imúnigúronen "the Chlouvānem woman". (Standard Evandorian Cerian; most dialects)
• šo Nódólénen, šen Nódólénen "the Nordulaki man/woman"; šo Imúnigúronen, šen Imúnigúronen "the Chlouvānem man/woman" (most Púrítonen Cerian dialects)

There are words that can be used in both genders - šo bésuon "the son" and šen bésuon "the daughter" is a notable example.

Pronouns

Cerian pronouns are simple, even though they are more complex than nouns, with four forms: nominative, accusative, genitive, and dative/oblique (post-prepositional).

Number	Person	Gender	Nominative	Accusative	Genitive	Oblique
Sing.	1st		fú	fe	ésuon	on
	2nd		sú	se	séšon	son
	3rd	Masc.	sá	uso	usáon	úsan
		Fem.	ízen	íne	insáon	insan
Pl.	1st		péru	pí	pérén	píren
	2nd		ríšu	re	ríšán	ríšun
	3rd	Masc.	súno	súnne	usúnnon	usúron
		Fem.	isún	isúre	isúnnon	isúron

The 2nd person plural pronoun is also used as a courtesy form, albeit Evandorian Cerian is becoming less formal and allowing the use of sú in more contexts. For example, in Ceria is normal to use the 2SG pronoun when talking to a shopkeeper - in most other Cerian-speaking countries this is usually frowned upon.

Genitive forms are adjectives and decline as such, cf. bícon ésuon esu ríté "my pen is blue", fú šoséreon ton bíconi rítéu ésuonno "I write with my blue pen".

Demonstratives

Cerian, as most Evandorian languages do, distinguishes between a series of "moving" demonstratives and a series of "static" demonstratives. Furthermore, it distinguishes between proximal and non-proximal demonstratives with, in the non-proximal, a further, more marked form, identifying a higher position. The "moving" series distinguishes number but not gender, while the "static" series is invariable.

		Static	Moving
			Singular	Plural
Non-proximal	Same height	éon that/those	aréso that one moving	aréjé those ones moving
	Higher	órion that/those one(s) up there	óriéso that one moving up there	oriéjé those ones moving up there
Proximal		pán this/these	péso this one moving	péjé these ones moving

Correlatives

Category ↓ / Type →	Proximal	Distal	Interrogative	Negative	Assertive exist.	Universal	Positive altern.
Attributive	(see previous table)		oguá? which (one)?	béo no	ásin some	fín every, all	ráze another
Thing			ogéme? what?	béme nothing	ásime something	fíme everything	rázime something else
Person			ogíro? who?	bíro no one	ásíro someone	fíro everyone	rázíro someone else
Time	rende now	donde then	ogunde? when?	bunde never	ó cójen ásinno sometime, somewhen	fínde always, everytime	ó cójen rázeu sometime else
Place	reta here	dota there	otta? where?	ó čadán béo nowhere	ásitta somewhere	fínta everywhere	ó čadán rázeu elsewhere
Manner	relin thus, hereby	dolin thereby	ogulin? how?	biázo linuo béo bulin (formal) no way	biázo linuo ásin somehow	biázo linuo fín everyway	biázo linuo ráze rázolin (formal) otherwise
Reason	in četánen pánno herefore	in četánen éonno therefore	ogóbu? why?	in četánen béo buóbu (formal) for no reason	in četánen ásinno ášóbu (literary) somewhy	in četánen fínno for every reason	in četánen rázeu rázóbu (formal) for another reason

Lative and ablative place correlatives are regularly analytic, with the prepositions nao (towards) (e.g. nao reta, nao dota, nao otta?, nao čadán béo...) and in (from) (e.g. in reta, in dota, in otta?, in čadán béo...) respectively.

Interrogative forms starting with v- were the most commonly used ones in Old Cerian, and are typical of Southern and Eastern Cerian dialects, but not found in the more spoken Western ones (including Mánébodin/Standard Evandorian Cerian), as well as in those spoken outside Evandor. Written Cerian in Šáritun, Vétaní, and Ingvensia uses the v-initial forms (e.g. voguá?, vogéme?, vogíro?...).

Adjectives

Cerian adjectives are morphologically simple, distinguishing case only. They can be classified in two ways depending on if they end in -n or a vowel.

• -n adjectives form their oblique form by adding -no, e.g. eréden "fourth" → erédenno.
• Vowel adjectives add an -u morpheme, which is, however, rarely seen as such:
  • -a and -e combine with the -u, forming -eu (-éu if the stem vowel is long), e.g. fúsuná "hot" → fúsunéu; ontére "big" → ontéreu.
  • -i becomes semivocalic, triggering the changes si → š, ci → č, and gi → j, e.g. méroni "sweet" → méroniu; pósi "easy" → póšu.
  • -u and -o become -ó (< pre-Cerian *ou), e.g. ramo "first" → ramó; čufutú "enough" → čufutó. Those that already end in -ó are practically invariable, e.g. egoró "ninth" → egoró.

Numbers

Numbers, in Cerian, are simple adjectives and only have two forms: cardinal and ordinal. As all Evandorian languages, and most Calemerian languages anyway, its counting system is decimal.

Digit	Cardinal	Ordinal
0	nóron (or norinon)	—
1	si	ramo
2	dédo	duro
3	ténse	ténon
4	éjan	eréden
5	qué	quéteren
6	suóša	suóšaten
7	curíse	curítéšen
8	šiló	šílen
9	egón	egoró
10	cótu	cótuni
11	cótasi	cótuni ramo
12	cótadédo	cótuni duro
13	cótaténse	cótuni ténon
14	cótaéjan	cótuni eréden
15	cótaqué	cótuni quéteren
16	cótasuóša	cótuni suóšaten
17	cótacuríse	cótuni curítéšen
18	cótašiló	cótuni šílen
19	cótaegón	cótuni egoró
20	dérecótu	dérecótuni
21	dérecótasi	dérecótuni ramo
30	técótu	técótuni
40	erícótu	erícótuni
50	quétocótu	quétocótuni
60	suóšótu	suóšótuni
70	curícótu	curícótuni
80	šícótu	šícótuni
90	egócótu	egócótuni
100	téčá	téčošon

Prepositions

Cerian uses only prepositions; most of them require the oblique case, but a few ones (notably, re) require the nominative. Many prepositions also have forms contracted with the articles:

Prepositions requiring nominative case:

• biázo – through
• den – about, concerning
• re – of

Prepositions requiring oblique case:

• bi – on
• in – from; made of

in+šo = ío, in+šen = íjen

• nao – towards
• ó – in, inside

ó+šo = očo, ó+šen = očen

• ton – with

ton+šo = tójo, ton+šen = tójen

• toro – to (dative)

toro+šo = tóšo, toro+šen = tóšen

Verbs

Cerian verbs may be said to be more morphologically complex than Íscégon ones, as grammaticalization added a completely new tense - the future - and a new aspect - the habitual. On the other hand, the older past continuous has been replaced in form by the shorter non-continuous past, as the two perfective tenses (future and past) are now analytic. On the other hand, the subjunctive of all verbs except "to be" (íso) is now analytically formed by the participle plus the subjunctive of íso. Note that the "present perfective" is semantically past, and the "past perfective" is a pluperfect.

Conjugation of "to be" (íso) — where two forms are given, the first is masculine and the other is feminine.

↓ Tense / → Aspect	Indicative			Subjunctive
	Habitual	Continuous	Perfective	Habitual	Continuous	Perfective
Present	ešon	esu	fedí esu	ešečen /ˈeʃʃen/	fášečen /ˈfaːʃʃen/	fedí fášečen
Past	esítin	sétu sétin	fedí sétu fedí sétin	ešoná	fáená	fedí fáená
Future	esínzión	zoníso zoníten	fedí zoníso fedí zoníten	ešizínon	díteníso díníten	fedí díteníso fedí díníten
Active participle	endáe		fedí
Verbal noun	íso
Informal imperative	enše
Formal imperative	enšečen

Note that the copula is usually esu, but ešon is used for gnomic, natural truths. As an example, "my pen is blue" is bícon ésuon esu ríté, but "the sky is blue" is šen gáteon ešon ríté. The habitual form is typically used with large, typically unchanging objects - the sky, the sea, trees, buildings... while the continuous is used mostly for small objects or temporaneous states (cf. ser vs. estar in Portuguese). When in doubt, however, use esu.
Note, however, that when "to be" is used in order to indicate possession, esu denotes alienable possession while ešon denotes inalienable.

Example conjugation of another verb - čéléton "to read" (stem čélét-):

↓ Tense / → Aspect	Indicative			Subjunctive
	Habitual	Continuous	Perfective	Habitual	Continuous	Perfective
Present	čéléteon	máčéléti	čéletí esu	čéletáe ešečen	čéletáe fášečen	čéletí fášečen
Past	čéletótín	sočéléti	čéletí sétu čéletí sétin	čéletáe ešoná	čéletáe fáená	čéletí fáená
Future	čélénzión	zončéléti	čéletí zoníso čéletí zoníten	čéletáe ešizínon	čéletáe díteníso čéletáe díníten	čéletí díteníso čéletí díníten
Active participle	čéletáe		čéletí
Passive participle	čéleté		čéletéco
Verbal noun	čéléton
Informal imperative	čéléše
Formal imperative	čéléšečen

Passive forms are formed by using the passive participles instead of the active ones; habitual and continuous indicative use the participles with the respective forms of íso (e.g. čeletótín → čéleté esítin, zončéléti → čéleté zoníso/zoníten).

Syntax

Sentence phrase

To have

The verb "to have" is usually translated by a dative construction, i.e. toro + oblique pronoun + íso (to be):

Torón ešon císenen. – I have a brother.

Toro cáruton ésuonno esu bénuo opéuso. – my uncle has a new car.

Vocabulary

The family

• Family: šo zómo
• Father: šo ófano; mother: šen méan
• Son/daughter: šo/šen bésuon
• Brother: šo císenen; sister: šen ránéco
• Husband: šo ótó; wife: šen čétíren
• Uncle: šo cáruto; aunt: šen cátézin

Basic vocabulary

• Boy: šo cúrasu (dial. also šo vajúni)
• Girl: šen ráginen (dial. also šen vajúnien)
• Friend: šo íporo (m), šen íporian (f)
• Man: šo iróčo; woman: šen térínan
• Pen: šen bícon
• School: šo comíbero
• Ship: šo gama
• Tree: šen tócoro
• to see: sítelon
• to eat: suóron
• to say: poédon
• to do: cáripon
• to sleep: ródónion
• to write: šoséron

Cardinal points

All of them are masculine (article šo), but the article is always omitted if used without an adjective:

• North: časúné
• South: quéšon
• West: uíra
• East: mutin