Chlouvānem: Difference between revisions

|nativename      = chlǣvānumi dældā

|pronunciation = [c͡ɕʰɴ̆ɛːˈʋaːnumʲi dɛɴ̆ˈdaː]

|states (state) = lands of the [[Verse:Chlouvānem Inquisition|Inquisition]] (Murkadhāni babhrām)

|region        = Eastern third and most of the South of the continent of Greater Evandor

|speakers      = {{formatnum:1450000000}}

|familycolor  = #E4CEFA

|fam1          = [[Lahob languages|Lahob]]

|creator      = [[User:Lili21|Lili21]]

|created      = Dec 2016

|script        = Chlouvānumi jīmalāṇa

|agency        = Inquisitorial Office of the Language (dældi flušamila)

'''Chlouvānem''', natively '''chlǣvānumi dældā''' ("language of the Chlouvānem people"), is the most spoken language on the planet of [[Verse:Calémere|Calémere]] (Chl.: ''Liloejāṃrya''). It is the official language of the Inquisition (''murkadhāna'') and its country, the [[Verse:Chlouvānem Inquisition|Chlouvānem lands]] (''chlǣvānumi babhrām''<ref>Commonly ''murkadhāni babhrām'' “Land of the Inquisition”, officially referred to as ''chlǣvānumi murkadhāni babhrām'' “Land(s) of the Chlouvānem Inquisition”) </ref>), the main lingua franca across vast areas of Márusúturon - most importantly Brono, Fathan, Qualdomailor, and all other countries of the former Kaiṣamā, and, due to cultural exchanges and influences in the last seven hundred years, also a well known language in Greater Skyrdagor.<br/>It is the [[Verse:Yunyalīlta|Yunyalīlti religion]]'s liturgical language.

The language currently known as Chlouvānem was first attested about 2400 years ago in documents from the Lällshag civilization, as the language of a [[Lahob languages|Lahob-speaking]] people that settled in the southern part of the Lāmiejāya-Lāmberah plain, particularly near Lūlunīkam Lake. Around year 4000 of the Chlouvānem calendar (itself an adaptation of the Lällshag one), the ''Chlamiṣvatrā'', the great Prophet of the Yunyalīlta, lived and taught her doctrine in the Chlouvānem language, paving the way for it to gain the role of most important language and lingua franca in the at the time massively linguistically fragmented lower Plain. While the Chlamiṣvatrā's language is what we now call "Archaic Chlouvānem" (''chlǣvānumi sārvire dældā''), most of the Yunyalīlti doctrine as we now know it is in the later stage of Classical Chlouvānem (''chlǣvānumi lallapårṣire dældā''), a koiné developed in the mid-5th millennium. Since then, for nearly two millennia, this classical language has been kept alive as the lingua franca in the Yunyalīlti world, resulting in the state of diglossia that persists today.

Despite the fact that local vernaculars in most of the Inquisition are in fact daughter languages of Chlouvānem or creoles based on it, the ''chlǣvānumi dældā'' is a fully living language as every Chlouvānem person is bilingual in it and in the local vernacular; in the last half century there have been instances where the classical language itself has been replacing some vernaculars due to internal migrations, both forced and voluntary ones. About 1,4 billion people on the planet define themselves as native Chlouvānem speakers, more than for any other Calémerian language.

Chlouvānem (not counting separately its own daughter languages) is by far the most spoken of the [[Lahob languages]] (more than 99.98% of Lahob speakers), and the only one of the family to have been written before the contemporary era. It is, however, the geographical outlier of the family, due to the almost 10,000 km long migration of the Ur-Chlouvānem from the Proto-Lahob homeland at the northern tip of Evandor. Chlouvānem, due to its ancientness, still retains much of the complex morphology of Proto-Lahob, but its vocabulary has been vastly changed by language contact, especially after the Chlouvānem settled in the Plain, where they effectively became a métis ethnicity by intermixing with neighboring peoples. Still, it is possible to find lots of cognates between it and its distant relatives, even with the same meanings, like the words for "lake" (''gērisa'', cf. Łaȟoḇszer ''hetłi'', < PLB *gegriso) or "worm" (''tūlum'', exactly the same as PLB *tūlum, cf. Łaȟ. and Łokow ''toł'') - or even how one of the Tundra Pwaɬasd-speaking tribes is known as ''gěɬowupěn'', which has exactly the same origin (and meaning - "golden clan") as the word ''chlǣvānem''.

==External History==

''Chlouvānem'' is what I - ''[[User:Lili21|lilie21]]'' - consider my main conlang, as it is the spiritual descendant of all conlangs I've created focussing the most on. Actually my earliest conlangs were not really conlangs, just some strange-sounding, often natlang-mimicking relexes of Italian; it was only when I was 17 that I found myself randomly reading about Ancient Greek online and that ignited in me the flame of love for linguistics - after a few months, I discovered conlanging sites and started making conlangs that were actually something more worthy of the name of "conlang", i.e. made starting from even the slightest hint of linguistic knowledge, and therefore not a relex (by the way, the first conlang I did this way was ''Valdimelic'', which is in some way echoed in [[Qualdomelic]]).

With time, the spiritual ancestors of Chlouvānem eventually became more and more fixed at least on certain, basic characteristics (e.g. the use of Austronesian alignment, or some 90% of the phonemic inventory), but I was refining those languages more and more every version.<br/>

Chlouvānem itself 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, together with ''Persian'', my main influences anyway); other natlangs that influenced me a lot are ''Russian'', ''Adyghe'', ''Latvian'', ''Old Norse'', ''Old Church Slavonic'', ''Proto-Indo-European'', ''(Biblical) Hebrew'', ''Latin'', and ''Japanese'', while its actual in-world use is inspired by ''Arabic''. 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... oh, and the duodecimal number system, obviously). Moreover, I tried to create a language divergent from general Western European IE languages while keeping many - not so apparent - similarities, and, most importantly, I always tried not to just copy features from natlangs, but adapt them in some way, so that the influence is crystal clear but the actual feature works in a somewhat different way. I don't know if I've always succeeded in doing this, but at least this was - and still is - one of my main guidelines.<br />

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)). The name of the people in the language itself used to have ''-ou-'' too, but then I changed historical phonology just enough that it caused that to become ''-ǣ-''. Still I kept ''-ou-'' in the English name as I had used it too much and for too long in order to change it so easily.

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.

Chlouvānem as spoken today is the standardized version of the literary language of the mid-5th millennium ''Lāmiejāya'' plain, the one in which most sacred texts of the Yunyalīlta are written. Since then, the language has been kept alive for more than 1500 years and counting in a diglossic state with many descendant and creole languages developing in the areas that gradually came under Chlouvānem control, and Classical Chlouvānem is in fact [[Verse:Chlouvānem Inquisition#Chlouvānem ethnicity|a major defining factor of Chlouvānem ethnicity]], enabling the existence of a single cultural area spread across half a continent despite the individual areas each having their own vernaculars.

[[File:Lahob languages.png|thumb|Distribution of the [[Lahob languages]] in Evandor and Márusúturon. Areas speaking Chlouvānem languages are lilac.]]

It’s not easy to define “dialects” for Chlouvānem, due to this history: all true dialects of Chlouvānem eventually developed into distinct vernaculars, and today’s regional variations are as such defined as “pronunciations” of Chlouvānem, in some cases moderately divergent from the standard one. Chlouvānem sources refer to them as ''babhrāyāṃsai'' “land-sounds”, but they do not only vary in pronunciation. Each major geographic area of the [[Verse:Chlouvānem Inquisition|Inquisition]] has its own pronunciation; present-day standard Chlouvānem is based on the pronunciation in the city of Līlasuṃghāṇa around year 6350, but the local pronunciation has somewhat diverged, so that the city where the traditional pronunciation is closest to the standard is Galiākina, some 300 km further west.

Local pronunciations are typically divided in six major groups by geographic areas:

* Jade Coast, Rainforest, and Eastern Plain (''lūṇḍhyalēnei nanayi no naleidhoyi no''), including pronunciations of the eastern part of the Lāmiejāya plain, the Jade Coast, and its interior (the main Chlouvānem heartlands and the northern parts of the rainforest). Standard Chlouvānem is one of these.

* Western Plain and Sand Coast (''samvāldhoyi chleblēnei no''), including the whole western part of the Lāmiejāya plain and the Sand Coast in the central-western Inquisition.

* Far Eastern (''lallanaleiyutei''), including the Far Eastern part of the Inquisition (both mainland and insular); the dioceses of the so-called Near East are frequently considered a transitional zone between this and the Eastern Plain pronunciation group.

* Eastern (''naleiyutei''), in the Chlouvānem East (the former Toyubeshi area).

* Northeastern (''kehamnaleiyutei''), in the Northeast of the Inquisition; note that the most remote areas (the far northern taiga and the insular part), due to continuous and relatively recent immigration, have a pronunciation still closer to Standard Chlouvānem.

* Western (''samvālyutei''), in the Western dioceses and in the coasts of the desert. As these were formerly Dabuke areas, they use distinctly more Dabuke terms than all other speakers.

Areas that do not fit in any of these groupings are often recent colonizations (or “Chlouvānemizations”), like e.g. the northern coast on the Skyrdegan Inner Sea, that do not have a truly distinct pronunciation, being a mix of speakers from different areas and tending to be very close to Standard Chlouvānem.

Local vernaculars of the Inquisition (''babhrāmaivai'', sg. ''babhrāmaiva'', literally “land word(s)”) are, linguistically, the daughter languages of Classical Chlouvānem. They are the result of normal language evolution with, in most areas, enormous influences by substrata.

Actually, only a bit more than half of the Inquisition has a vernacular that is a true daughter language - most areas conquered in the last 600 years, thus since the late 6th millennium, speak a creole language, where lexicon is almost completely Chlouvānem but grammar still shows huge semplifications and analytic constructions and some traits odd for Chlouvānem and those languages that developed in the heartlands. Most of the Eastern languages, however, are thought to have origined as creoles.

The main division for local vernaculars - or Chlouvānem languages - is the one in groups, as few of them are standardized and large areas are dialect continua where it is extremely difficult to determine which dialects belong to a particular language and which ones do not. Furthermore, most people speak of their vernacular as “the word of [village name]”, and always refer to them as local variants of the same Chlouvānem language, without major distinctions from the national language which is always Classical Chlouvānem<ref>It's just as if speakers of Parisian French, Florentine Tuscan and Carioca Brazilian would still say they spoke dialects of (Classical) Latin.</ref>. Individual “languages” are thus simply defined starting from the diocese they’re spoken in, so for example the Nanašīrami language includes all dialects spoken in the diocese of Nanašīrama, despite those spoken in the eastern parts of the diocese being closer to those spoken in Takaiyanta than to the Nanašīrami dialect of Līlasuṃghāṇa - which has, however, lots of common points with the Lanamilūki Valley dialects of Talæñoya to the south.<br/> Note that the word ''maiva'', in Chlouvānem, only identifies a language spoken in a certain area which is typically considered to belong to a wider language community, independent of its origin. It does not have any pejorative meaning, unlike examples like e.g. ''lingua'' vs. ''dialetto'' in Italian.

The main divisions are:

* Eastern Plain/Jade Coast (''naleidhoyi lūṇḍhyalēnei no maivai'') — spoken in most of the Lāmiejāya Plain, in the Jade Coast and its interior, and the northern part of the southern rainforest;

* Western Plain (''samvāldhoyi maivai'') — spoken in the westermost parts of the Lāmiejāya Plain;

* Jungle Language (''nanaimaiva'') — spoken throughout the southern rainforest, as well as most of Vāstarilēnia diocese;

* Northern Plain (''kehaṃdhoyi maivai'') — spoken in the northern part of the Lāmiejāya Plain (the upper basin of the Lāmberah river);

* Near Eastern (''mūtiānaleiyutei maivai'') — spoken in the Near East, or the parts of the Central East west of the Kārmādhona mountains;

* Far Eastern (''lallanaleiyutei maivai'') — spoken in the Far East (east of the Kārmādhona mountains) and in the eastern islands;

* Kaṃsatsāni (''kaṃsatsāni maivai'') — spoken in the historic region of Kaṃsatsāna (the Eastern Tribunal);

* Sand Coast (''chleblēnei maivai'') — spoken on the Sand Coast (west of the Lāmiejāya plain), from Yūgarthāma and Nanyådajātia to the northernmost part of Vāstarilēnia to the south.

* Hæligreiši-Mbusakitvi (''hæligreiši-mbusakitvi maivai'') — taking their name from the two extremes, Hæligreišijātia in the east (on the eastern coast of the Bay of Salt) and Mbusakitva diocese in the west. They share many traits with the Western creoles further west, but unlike them, which were Chlouvānem-Dabuke creoles, the Hæligreiši-Mbusakitvi arose from contact between Chlouvānem and speakers of Raina languages (ultimately related to Dabuke ones) that had colonized those coasts from Védren before them.

* Hålvareni (''hålvareni maivai'') — various creoles spoken in the dioceses of the Hålvaren Plateau (Mārmalūdven, Kayūkānaki, Doyukitama, and Teliegāša);

Many other areas, most notably the former Skyrdegan and Bronic lands (dioceses of Hivamfaida and Maichlahåryan), the far Northeast (the Hokujaši and Aratāram islands and Kēhamijāṇa), and the Northwest do not have a local vernacular, due to Chlouvānem presence there being recent (especially for Hivamfaida and Maichlahåryan) and those areas being either previously almost uninhabited (the far Northeast and the Northwestern deserts) or with lots of different ethnicities (the coastal Northwest). The main vernaculars that are actually languages that do not have Chlouvānem origin (and are commonly referred to as ''dældā'' instead of ''maiva'') are:

* Basaumi (''Bazá''), the most spoken, in the ethnic diocese of Tūnambasā, the westernmost on the mainland, where it is the native language of 78% of all inhabitants. Also the official language in the neighboring country of Ênêk-Bazá;

* Hūnakañumi (''Huwən-aganь-sisaat''), in the mountainous areas of Hūnakañjātia ethnic diocese in the Near East (note that most of the diocese, including the city of Līlekhaitē, 10th largest in the Inquisition, mostly speaks the local Near Eastern language, derived from Chlouvānem)

* Kotayumi (''kotaii šɔt''), in a few mountain villages in Kotaijātia ethnic diocese, Southern Far East;

* Tendukumi (''tənduk sisod'') in Tendukijātia ethnic diocese, Southern Far East — by percentage of people in its native area, it is the third most spoken (after Bazá and Tapirumi), being the native language of 29% of people there, though it is the least populated diocese in that area;

* Niyobumi (''niyyube sesath'') in the mountains and hills of the ethnic diocese of Niyobajātia, Southern Far East.

* Tanomali (''nzɛk pɔb'') on Tanomaliē island, the southernmost of the Eastern Islands;

* Nalakhojumi (''üj nolomħoj'') in the western half of the ethnic diocese of Nalakhoñjātia, Eastern tribunal. Notably, the main urban area, the city of Lānita, is almost entirely Chlouvānem-speaking;

* Halyaniumi (''üš hælyaney'') in most of the ethnic diocese of Halyanijātia, Northern tribunal. Note that the southermost part of this diocese has never been Halyaniumi-speaking;

* Kūdavumi (''kowdao hüüj'') in the ethnic diocese of Kūdavīma, Northern tribunal;

* Cathinumi (''čathinowtawkow'') in the ethnic diocese of Seikamvēyeh, Northern tribunal - also the official language in the bordering country of Nēčathiwēyē as well as in Čiwēynac;

* Daheliumi (''dæhæng pop'') in the ethnic diocese of Dahelijātia, Northern tribunal, mostly in rural villages. It is only the third most spoken language in the diocese, after Chlouvānem and [[Skyrdagor]];

* Kūliamumi (''kūlyam ɣozár'') in the ethnic diocese of Kūliambārih, Near West;

* Tapirumi (''tafhirengguk'') in the northern part of the diocese of Tapirjātia, Northwest. It is especially common in the northern part, in and around the city of Imēla and by the Maëbian border (note that Tapirumi and the Maëb language are mutually intelligible), but almost nonexistant in the southern part, including the capital, Tohailena;

It should be noted, however, that all of these languages except for Tanomali are spoken in ethnic dioceses and are in official use there, with a number of L2 speakers far greater than natives due to diocese-wide teaching of them during most school years in all but a few schools.

 

Note that this list does not include more limited minority languages, such as the use of [[Evandorian languages]] in Northwestern dioceses, like [[Cerian]] in Ārūpalkvabī, [[Nordulaki]] in Yultijātia and [[Auralian]] in Tapirjātia - all of them mostly used by urban older speakers only. There are also completely foreign languages spoken by immigrants; studies show that ''Hālʾọgbi'', a Spimbrionic language from the continent of Ogúviutón, has nearly a million speakers (L1 or other L2 Ogúviutónians) in the Inquisition.

Chlouvānem is phonologically very conservative from Proto-Lahob as it has not had a lot of changes - however, those few it had have had the effect of strongly raising the total number of phonemes, developing a few distinctions that, while not rare themselves, are rarely found all together in the same language. For example, the combination of the distinction between /Cʲ/ and /Cj/ and between /CV CʱV CV̤ CʱV̤/ means that the following sequences are all potentially contrastive: /da dʱa da̤ dʱa̤ dʲa dʲʱa dʲa̤ dʲʱa̤ dja dʱja dja̤ dʱja̤/.

 

Chlouvānem has a large consonant inventory, with 48 different consonants, divided into seven categories: labials, dentals, palatalized dentals, retroflexes, palatals, velars, and laryngeals. The Chlouvānem term for "consonant" is ''hīmbeyāṃsa'', a compound of ''hīmba'' (colour) and ''yāṃsa'' (sound). The following table organizes consonants by their behaviour - thus, for example, the treatment of the phonetic affricates /c͡ɕ(ʰ) ɟ͡ʑ(ʱ)/ as stops.

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;" |

| '''''m''''' m<br/>'''''mь''''' mʲ || '''''n''''' n^{<small>4</small>} || '''''nь''''' nʲ || '''''ṇ''''' ɳ || '''''ñ''''' ɲ || ''l'' [ŋ～ɴ]^{<small>5</small>} || '''''ṃ''''' ɴ^{<small>6</small>}

# Realized as [ŋ] word-finally after high monophthongs (/i iː i̤ u uː ṳ/) and as vowel nasalization after the others, including diphthongs.

# The realization of the sequences orthographically marked as '''lk lkh lg lgh''' varies regionally and, therefore, the '''l'''-phoneme can in these contexts be realized as either [ŋ] or [ɴ]. In most local Chlouvānem pronunciations, these sequences are [ŋk(ʰ) ŋɡ(ʱ)] but, in areas including notably Līlasuṃghāṇa, most of the southern Jade Coast, and the South, they are [ɴq(ʰ) ɴɢ(ʱ)].

# /ɴ/ contrasts with other nasals only before non-labial voiced stops, where it is realized as nasalization of the preceding vowel.

# /ɦ/ and /ħ/ do not contrast word-finally, and word-final '''h''' represents /ħ/. In the Chlouvānem script, word-final '''h''' is actually a different glyph, even if considered a variant of normal, /ɦ/-representing, '''h'''.

# /ɴ̆/ is the conventional representation for this sound, which may also be transcribed as a prenasalized uvular [ᴺɢ̆] or epiglottal [ᴺʡ̆] flap.

 

/j/ and /ʋ/ are often deleted before /i iː i̤/ or /u uː ṳ/ respectively, e.g. in ''yinām'' /jinaːm/ [inaːm] (protection, refuge) or ''vurāṇa'' /ʋuʀaːɳa/ [uʀaːɳa] (a kind of small-sized reptile)<ref>Many pronunciations, including the common Līlasuṃghāṇi and Galiākñi ones, keep /ʋ/ word-initially in words like ''vurāṇa''. It does however fall in other widespread pronunciations like in most of the Far East, including Cami, as well as parts of the Jade Coast like in Līlta and Ilēnimarta.</ref>. This also leads to phonetic hiatuses, like in ''Kāyīchah'' /kaːjiːc͡ɕʰaħ/ [kaːiːc͡ɕʰaħ] (an insular diocese between Mārṣūtram and Vedren) or the common given name ''Martayinām'' /maʀtajinaːm/ [maɐ̯ta.inaːm].<br/>

 

 

/ɴ̆/'s realization is usually uniform across the Chlouvānem-speaking world. However, in the Near and Southern Far East, it is often denasalized to [ɢ̆] after stops. The occurrence of this process varies even for a single speaker, but it's more common in the area around Līlikanāna.

===Vowels - Camiyāṃsai===

The vowel inventory of Chlouvānem is fairly large too, consisting of 24 phonemes: 15 monophthongs, 7 diphthongs, and 2 syllabic consonants.<br/>

Phonetically, there are also nasal vowels, but they are phonemically /Vɴ/ or (word-finally) /Vn/ sequences. On the contrary, breathy-voiced vowels may phonetically surface as [Vh] or [Vχ] in some contexts (most notably before stops) in some pronunciations — e.g. ''tąkis'' /tɑ̤kis/ (a kind of herb) pronounced in Cami as [taxkʲis].

The term for vowel is ''camiyāṃsa'', from ''cami'' (great, large, important) and ''yāṃsa'' (sound), as these sounds are necessary in building syllables.

| '''''i''''' i<br/>'''''ī''''' iː || || '''''u''''' u<br/>'''''ū''''' uː

! <small>Br.-voiced</small>

! rowspan=2 | High-mid !! <small>Oral</small>

| '''''e''''' e<br/>'''''ē''''' eː || ||

! <small>Br.-voiced</small>

| '''''æ''''' ɛ<br/>'''''ǣ''''' ɛː || || '''''o-å'''''^{<small>1</small>} ɔ

# In modern Chlouvānem, the distinction between '''o''' and '''å''' is purely orthographical.

# Chlouvānem '''a''' is a central vowel and is better transcribed as [ä]. However, for simplicity's sake, it will always be transcribed, phonemically and phonetically, as /a/ [a] hereafter.

Chlouvānem vowels have very little allophony, always having values pretty close to their IPA representations' usual positions in the vowel trapeze. As Chlouvānem (and most of its descendants, which are the true native languages for the majority of Chlouvānem speakers) is a syllable-timed language, and stressed and unstressed syllables are barely (if at all) distinguished, unstressed vowel reduction is basically nonexistent.<br/>The most notable instances of vowel allophony are:

* /ɛ ɛː/ lower to [æ æː] before /ʀ/ - e.g. ''kauchlærīn'' [kaʊ̯c͡ɕʰɴ̆æʀʲiːŋ] "professor";

* /ɔ/ is realized as a mid or, for some speakers, high-mid vowel ([o̞] or even [o]) when preceding any of '''l lь r rь c ch j jh''' - e.g. ''jålkha'' [ɟ͡ʑo̞ɴ̆qʰa～ɟ͡ʑo̞ɴ̆kʰa] "cold". It is also realized as [oː] (high-mid and long) word-finally. This is, however, rare, mostly only found in borrowings or Eastern toponyms - e.g. ''Paramito'' [paʀamʲitoː] (a city in the Far East);

* /u/ is moderately fronted - usually to [ʉ] - after palatalized consonants and /j/ (explaining why /y/ or similar vowels are usually borrowed as /ju/ or /ʲu/) - e.g. ''yutia'' [jʉtʲa] "area, direction"

The variants of Chlouvānem spoken by the Chlouvānem minorities in Kŭyŭgwažtov, Soenyŏ-tave, and other countries of the former Kaiṣamā have acquired, through language contact, the front rounded vowels /y ø/ - they are present in loans from the majority languages of those areas (cf. in Kŭyŭgwaž Chlouvānem ''köndegura'' /køndeguʀa/ "mountain road", ''nüvka'' /nyʋka/ (a typical dish) < Kŭy. ''köndŭgŭr'', ''nüvŭk''; the latter is known as ''niuvka'' /nʲuʋka/ in the Inquisition), as well as in peculiar sound changes from the standard pronunciation (Kŭy.Chl. /y/ for standard /ju/ and /ʲu/, e.g. ''yutia'' "area, direction" /(j)ytʲa/).

* ''dilṭha'' "desert" [ˈdʲiɴ̆ʈʰa]

* ''švaghṛṣṭrausis'' "tunnel" [ˌɕʋagʱʀ̩ˈʂʈʀaʊ̯sʲis]

* ''švaghṛṣṭraustammikeika'' "tunnel railway station" [ˌɕʋagʱʀ̩ʂʈʀaʊ̯sˌtammʲiˈkeɪ̯ka]

====Intonation====

===Phonotactics===

The maximum possible syllable structure is ^｢[((C1)C2)C3]_｣(j)V^｢(C4(C5))_｣.

 

The nucleus is formed by '''V''' - which can be any vowel, diphthong, or syllabic consonant - and an optional preceding /j/.<br/>

The onset may contain up to three consonants: '''C3''' is notated differently because phonetically there always is one, as phonemically vowel-initial syllables are always pronounced with a preceding [ʔ]. Any consonant bar /N/ can appear in this position; '''C2''' can be any other consonant except aspirated or breathy-voiced stops (with a single exception) or /ʔ/, but, if C3 is a stop, no stop can be in this position. If C3 is /ɴ̆/ , then C2 may be /c͡ɕʰ/. C1 may be a sibilant, /ʋ/, or a nasal agreeing in PoA with the following consonant. Note that '''ss-''', '''vv-''', '''ll-''' and '''lьl-''' are all valid onsets under these rules.

 

In codas, '''C4''' may be may be any consonant except /ʔ c͡ɕ ɟ͡ʑ/ or all aspirated or breathy-voiced stops. '''C5''' may be /n m s/, or also one of /t d k g/ if C4 is one of /ɴ̆ ʀ/.

In absolute word-final position, only C4 is possible, and the only possible consonants are /m n nʲ p t tʲ ʈ k s sʲ ħ ʡ ɴ̆ ɴ̆ʲ/. Interjections are an exception, as some other consonants are found there, e.g. ''hār!'' "ouch!" [ɦaːɐ̯] /ɦaːʀ/.

Chlouvānem morphology uses a system of ablaut alternations in its vowels, most notably for some verbs, for the ablauting declension of nouns (5h), and for many derivations. Every normal ablaut pattern has a base grade (the one given in citation forms), a middle grade, and a strong grade.<br/>

The patterns of regular ablaut are the following:

* ''i-ablaut'': base '''i''' or '''ī''' — middle '''e''' — strong '''ai'''

* ''u-ablaut'': '''u'''/'''ū''' — '''o''' ('''ą''') — '''au'''

** ''u>i-ablaut'': '''u'''/'''ū''' — '''i''' — '''au'''

* ''ṛ-ablaut'': '''ṛ''' — '''ar''' — '''ār'''

A few roots have the so-called ''inverse ablaut'', where the vowels get simplified in the middle grade, and there is no strong grade:

 

 

 

 

 

Vowel saṃdhi in vowel-ending verbal roots has a few extra rules — see [[Chlouvānem/Morphology#Vocalic_stems|Chlouvānem morphology § Verbs § Vocalic stems]].

 

====Consonant alternations====

 

''Note:'' for simplicity, '''ь''' will be treated as a stand-alone consonant in all the following examples.

 

 

In stop saṃdhi, a few further changes apart from basic voicing and retroflex assimilation occur. Note that any such combination also applies to aspirated stops and, for dentals, palatalized ones. In voiceless stops:

 

-'''ṭp'''- → -'''ṭṭ'''- ; -'''ṭc'''- → -'''cc'''- ; -'''ṭk'''- → -'''kṭ'''-<br/>

 

Voiced stops mostly mirror voiceless assimilations (doubling saṃdhi already applied - all nasal + stop clusters are underlyingly a geminate stop):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chlouvānem has been written since the early 5th millennium in an abugida called ''chlǣvānumi jīmalāṇa'' ("Chlouvānem script", the noun ''jīmalāṇa'' is actually a collective derivation from ''jīma'' "character"), developed with influence of the script used for the ancient Kūṣṛmāthi language. The orthography for Chlouvānem represents how it was pronounced in Classical times, but it's completely regular to read in all present-day local pronunciations.

 

{| class="wikitable"

| '''Letter''' || '''m''' || '''p''' || '''ph''' || '''b''' || '''bh''' || '''f''' || '''v''' || '''n''' || '''t''' || '''th'''

| '''Sound''' || /m/ || /p/ || /pʰ/ || /b/ || /bʱ/ || /f/ || /ʋ/ || /n/ || /t̪/ || /t̪ʰ/

| '''Letter''' || '''d''' || '''dh''' || '''s''' || '''ṇ''' || '''ṭ''' || '''ṭh''' || '''ḍ''' || '''ḍh''' || '''ṣ''' || '''ñ'''

| '''Sound''' || /d̪/ || /d̪ʱ/ || /s/ || /ɳ/ || /ʈ/ || /ʈʰ/ || /ɖ/ || /ɖʱ/ || /ʂ/ || /ɳ/

| '''Letter''' || '''c''' || '''ch''' || '''j''' || '''jh''' || '''š''' || '''y''' || '''k''' || '''kh''' || '''g''' || '''gh'''

| '''Sound'''  || /c͡ɕ/ || /c͡ɕʰ/ || /ɟ͡ʑ/ || /ɟ͡ʑʱ/ || /ɕ/ || /j/ || /k/ || /kʰ/ || /g/ || /gʱ/

| '''Letter''' || '''ṃ''' || '''ɂ''' || '''h''' || '''r''' || '''l''' || '''ь<ref>Romanized as '''i''' before vowels</ref>''' || '''i''' || '''ī''' || '''į''' || '''u'''

| '''Sound'''  || /ɴ/ || /ʔ/ || /ɦ/ || /ʀ/ || /ɴ̆/, [ŋ] || /ʲ/ || /i/ || /iː/ || /i̤/ || /u/

| '''Letter'''  || '''ū''' || '''ų''' || '''e''' || '''ē''' || '''ę''' || '''o''' || '''æ''' || '''ǣ''' || '''a''' || '''ā'''

| '''Sound'''  || /uː/ || /ṳ/ || /e/ || /eː/ || /e̤/ || /ɔ/ || /ɛ/ || /ɛː/ || /a/ || /aː/  

| '''Letter''' || '''ą''' || '''ai''' || '''ąi''' || '''ei''' || '''ęi''' || '''oe''' || '''au''' || '''ąu''' || '''å''' || '''ṛ'''

| '''Sound'''  || /ɑ̤/ || /aɪ̯/ || /a̤ɪ̯/ || /eɪ̯/ || /e̤ɪ̯/ || /ɔə̯/ || /aʊ̯/ || /a̤ʊ̯/ || /ɔ/ _{<small>(see below)</small>} || /ʀ̩/

| '''Letter''' || '''ṝ''' || || || || || || || || ||

| '''Sound'''  || /ʀ̩ː/ || || || || || || || || ||

|} -->

 

* /n/ [ŋ] is written as '''l''' before '''k g kh gh n'''. Note that in many local varieties '''lk lkh lg lgh''' are actually [ɴq ɴqʰ ɴɢ ɴɢʱ], with the stop assimilating to '''l''' and not vice-versa, and thus analyzed as /ɴ̆k ɴ̆kʰ ɴ̆g ɴ̆gʱ/.

* '''l''' is ''lǣlas'' and '''r''' is ''rairas''. '''ṃ''' is, uniquely, ''nālkāvi'' and the palatalizing sign is called ''hærūñjīma''.

* Breathy-voiced vowels are vowel + /ɦ/ + vowel + s (''įis'', ''ąas'', ''ųus'', but ''ęas''). Breathy-voiced diphthongs are diphthong + /ɕ/ + ''as'' (''ąišas'', ''ęišas'', ''ąušas'').

In today's standard Chlouvānem, the letters '''o''' and '''å''' are homophones, being both pronounced /ɔ/: their distribution reflects their origin in Proto-Lahob (PLB), with '''o''' deriving from PLB *aw and *ow, and '''å''' from either *a umlauted by a (lost) *o in a following syllable, or, most commonly, from the sequences *o(ː)wa, *o(ː)fa, *o(ː)wo, or *o(ː)fo.

Most Chlouvānem sources, however, classify '''å''' as a ''diphthong'': Classical Era sources nearly accurately describe it as /ao̯/, later monophthongized to /ʌ/ or /ɒ/ and merged with /ɔ/ - in fact, most daughter languages have the same reflex for both '''o''' and '''å'''. A few grammarians think that '''å''' was originally the long version of '''o''', but this hypothesis is disputed as '''å''' does not pattern with the other long vowels (e.g. '''o''' does not lengthen into it because of synchronic lengthening; also it is grouped with diphthongs in the alphabetic order instead of coming just after '''o''', as other long vowels do). Some kind of distinction in the pronunciations of Classical Chlouvānem must have been preserved until early modern times, as both are found in adapting foreign words - usually '''å''' transcribes more open vowels than '''o''' - cf. the two [[Holenagic]] loanwords ''Hålinaika'' (Holenagica) - with '''å''' for [ɔ] - and ''lopyun'' (ṅoifṅ, a vodka-like Holenagic spirit) - with '''o''' for [o].

A spelling-based pronunciation distinction (with '''å''' being [ɔ] and '''o''' being [o(ː)]) has been recently spreading among young speakers in the large metropolitan areas of the Jade Coast.

* Even if the Chlouvānem script uses scriptio continua and marks minor pauses (e.g. comma and semicolon) with a space between the sentences and a punctuation mark with following space, every word is divided when romanized, including particles. The only exceptions to this are compound verbs, which are written as a single word nevertheless (e.g. ''yųlakemaitiāke'' "to be about to eat" '''not''' *yųlake maitiāke). English punctuation marks are used in basic sentences, including a distinction between comma and semicolon. In longer texts, particularly in the "examples" section, ''':''' will be used to mark a comma-like pause (a space in the native script) and '''।।''' will be used for a full-stop-like pause (written very similarly to ।। in the native script).

The Chlouvānem script is almost entirely composed of curved lines as, initially, it was written on leaves with reeds (''ħålka'', pl. ''ħålkai'') or brushes (''lattah'', pl. ''lattai''). With the invention, in the late 5th millennium, of paper (traditional Chlouvānem paper or ''mirtah'' is handmade by fibres from various types of wooden bushes; traditional papermaking is still important today as formal handwritten documents are usually written on traditional paper), the use of reeds or brushes often became region-dependant; the reeds of the ''ñagala'' plant became the dominant writing tool in most of the plains, as this plant abundantly grows by the river shores; in the Jade Coast, brushes (whose "hair" are actually fibres of wetland plants such as the ''jalihā'') were preferred.<br/>

Today, pens (''titeh'', pl. ''titiai'') are the main writing tool together with graphite pencils (''bauteh'', pl. ''bautiai''). Non-refillable dip pens were the first to be introduced - an Evandorian invention that was "seized" by the Chlouvānem during the early 7th millennium occupation of Kátra, a Nordûlaki colony on Ogúviutón - and with the advent of industrial papermaking they became more and more popular; fountain pens were evolved from them first in Nivaren, and in 6291 (3785₁₂) the first fountain pen manufacturer in the Inquisition opened. Ballpoint pens are, on Calémere, a much recent invention, and first appeared in the Inquisition about forty years ago. They are still not used as much as fountain pens when writing on normal paper.<br/>

 

''→ Main article: [[Chlouvānem/Morphology|Chlouvānem morphology]]''

==Syntax==

Like most other Lahob languages, the preferred word order in Chlouvānem is SOV, and the language is almost completely head-final. The word order could however be better defined as ''topic-comment'', but in less common styles it is perfectly possible, thanks to case inflections, to greatly deviate from this standard order.<br/>

Note that Chlouvānem terminology typically distinguishes topics as ''aplidra caṃginutas'' vs. ''gu aplidra caṃginutas'' (or also ''tadgerenei aplidra caṃginutas'' or ''daradhāve aplidra caṃginutas''), translated here as "explicit topic" and "unmarked topic" (or "voice-marked topic" or "verb-marked topic") respectively. Explicit topic (''aplidra caṃginutas'') is understood as a topic marked by the particle ''mæn''.

The '''subject''' - whatever agrees with the verb - is usually the topic, but there can be an explicit topic which gets precedence on the subject (i.e. the "unmarked topic" triggered by the verb), as in the third of the following examples:

* ''yąloe lį ulguta'' - The food has been bought by me. (food.<small>DIR.SG</small>. <small>1SG.ERG</small>. buy.<small>PERF</small>-<small>3SG.EXTERIOR.PATIENT</small>.)

* ''lili yąlenu ulgutaṃte'' - I have bought food. (<small>1SG.DIR</small>. food-<small>ACC.SG</small>. buy.<small>PERF</small>-<small>1SG.EXTERIOR-AGENT</small>.)

* ''liliā ñæltah mæn yąloe lį ulguta'' - My sister, I bought the food [for her]. (<small>1SG.GEN</small>. sister.<small>DIR.SG</small>. <small>TOPIC</small>. food.<small>DIR.SG</small>. <small>1SG.ERG</small>. buy.<small>PERF</small>-<small>3SG.EXTERIOR.PATIENT</small>.)

 

====Use of the topic====

The '''topic''' is explicitely marked with ''mæn'' if it does not coincide with the subject and does not have any syntactical role in the sentence. Some common structures where explicit topics are always used rank among the most basic sentences:

* ''lili mæn māmimojendeh liven'' "I am 21 (19₁₂, Chlouvānem age)/20 years old (English age)"<ref>Chlouvānem age reckoning counts the number of the ongoing year, not how many years have passed - thus a newborn is in its first year, and a 20-years-old is in its twenty-first year.</ref>, glossed: <small>1SG.DIR</small>. <small>TOPIC</small>. nineteenth₁₂.<small>DIR.SG</small>. go.<small>MONODIR-IND.PRES.3S.EXTERIOR.PATIENT</small>.

 

** ''rūdakis mæn tēt tadadrā lili mæn yąlē'' - main interpretation: "as for the husband, he [=someone else, could be the husband's husband] has cooked for him, but it is me who eats" // other possible interpretation: "as for the husband, he [=as before] has cooked him, but it is me who eats / and I eat him [=either of them]".

** ''rūdakis mæn tadadrā sama lili yąlute'' "[my] husband has cooked, and I eat" - unlike in the sentence where "lili" is the topic, here it's explicit that the husband cooked for the speaker. The sentence ''lili mæn rūdakei tadadrā sama yąlute'' may be interpreted with the same meaning, but the topics are different: with the previous one, the conversation is supposed to continue about the husband; in the second one, it's all about the speaker. Note that the agent-trigger voice in the second verb is of vital importance: the sentence ''lili mæn rūdakei tadadrā sama yąlu'' means "it is me my husband has cooked, and [now] he eats me".

*** Another possible interpretation of ''lili mæn rūdakei tadadrā sama yąlute'' is "[my] husband has cooked for me, and now I eat", which is the same as ''lili rūdakei takædadrā sama yąlute'', but the latter is a plain neutral statement.

 

Topics also mark context: as a good example, the Chlouvānem translation of Schleicher's fable begins as: ''yanekai mæn bhadvęs udvī emibe voltām mišekte, ūtarnire cūllu khuliu, sūrṣire ūtrau dumbhivu no, lilu kimęe dumbhivu no''. Here "horses" is the topic and has no syntactical role in the sentence, as the subject is the agent ''voltām'' (sheep) and the three objects are the patients ''khulias'' (the pulling one) and two different ''dumbhivas'' (the carrying one). The topic makes it clear that these latter are nouns referring to horses - it would still be grammatical to use [...] ''khuliu yaneku, sūrṣire ūtrau dumbhivu yaneku no, lilu kimęe dumbhivu yaneku no'', but the sentence would sound strange to Chlouvānem ears - compare the possible English translation "[...] a sheep saw one horse that was pulling a heavy wagon, one horse that was carrying a big load, and one horse that was carrying a man quickly".

 

 

* ''lili mæn lunai tadarē'' "I'm preparing tea", topicalized, clearly answers a question like ''yananū ejulā darire?'' "what's going on here?".

* With a question like ''yananū sąi darē?'' "what are you doing?", both become synonyms as they introduce the new topic ''lili'' (due to the previous one being ''yananū?'' because of patient-trigger voice); the same question in agent-trigger voice, ''sāmi yananūyu darite?'', would be answered with the non-topicalized form.

 

* A different solution is to mark indefiniteness: this is commonly done by using either ''emibe'' "one" or, in colloquial speech, ''sorasmā'' "some kind of".

 

Chlouvānem as spoken in the area around the mid-course of the Lāmiejāya river (the central Plain: roughly the whole of the diocese of Raharjātia, most of Jolenītra, Daikatorāma, Vādhātorama, and Namapleta, and parts of Mūrajātana, Perelkaša, Ryogiñjātia and far northern Sendakārva) does have a definite article used with non-topicalized arguments, which is actually the repurposed archaic demonstrative ''ami'' (still used as "this" in Archaic Chlouvānem). It declines for case, but not number, mostly following the pronoun declension (that is, exactly as ''tami'' without the initial ''t-'' except for the accusative (''amu'') and ergative (''amye'')).

 

====Stative cases as nominal tense====

The three stative cases of Chlouvānem (translative, exessive, essive) express nominal tense in certain situations, most notably in copulative sentence, where the translative case conveys a future meaning and the exessive a past one:

* ''lili rahēllilan'' — I am a will-be-doctor = I am studying in order to become a doctor

* ''liliā kaleya mæn gu ninejñairau ša nanū aveṣyotārire lallāmahan camimurkadhānan gīti'' — as for my best friend<ref>''kaleya'' actually is a "spiritual friend", which has a religiously charged meaning</ref>, I could not believe it, that she was the Great Inquisitor-elect <small>(note the use of the highly respectful (not translated) formula "Her Most Excellent Highness, the Great Inquisitor")</small>.

* ''tami tamiāt šulañšenat'' — he is her former husband.

The expression of tense is also notable when the expression of state refers to a cause; this is particularly common with the exessive and essive cases:

* ''saminat tamiā ḍhuvah'' — having been a child <small>(lit. "as a former child", "from being a child")</small>, (s)he remembers that.

* ''lūlunimartyęs nunūt dældāt tarliru'' — being from Lūlunimarta, I understand that language. Note that ''nunūt dældāt'' here is exessive case but only because it's an argument of the verb ''tṛlake'', without implying tense.

* ''bunān samin pa maišildete'' — as he's going to be a father <small>(lit. "as a will-be-father")</small>, he's learning about children.

Note that, tense is relative to the main verb.

====Miscellaneous uses of cases====

'''Purpose''' may be expressed not only with a subjunctive verb, but also with either a translative or a dative noun.<br/>
Translative case is used generally with a purpose directly affecting the trigger:

: '''''murkadhānan''' kaminairīveyu.'' "I am studying [in order to become] an Inquisitor."

: ''tąsь lā '''nadaidanan''' peithegde.'' "(s)he is going out with him/her to get to know him/her."

Dative case is used generally when the purpose is something else, or is the result of a subsequent (unstated) action:

: ''maivnaviṣye '''maivasām''' khloyute.'' "I am searching in the dictionary [in order to find] the words."

: ''kǣɂūvai '''mayābyom''' rāmiāhai.'' "Plums are harvested for wine." (Wine is not the direct result of harvesting, thus dative is used instead of translative).

'''Ablative case''' is used in order to state comparisons:

: ''dāneh '''dulmaidanų''' nanū lalla.'' "Dāneh is taller than Dulmaidana."

: ''naniā ñæltah '''tąu''' chlǣcæm pūnē.'' "Your sister works better than him/her."

: ''nenē naviṣya '''yaivų''' nanū ñæñuchlire.'' "This book is the most beautiful." (literally "more beautiful than all")

: '''''kairų''' hånyadaikirek.'' "(s)he was happy for love."

: '''''maidaudių''' ḍūkirek.'' "(s)he died because of his/her ambition."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

: train_station.<small>DIR.SG</small>. <small>1SG.ERG</small>. eat-<small>IND.PERF.3S.EXTERIOR-LOC</small>. , then. that.<small>DIR</small>. train.<small>DIR.SG</small>. arrive-<small>IND.FUT.3S.PATIENT.EXTERIOR</small>.

: I will have [already] eaten at the station when the train arrives.

 

 

A notable exception to this use is with so-called “chained actions”, when the second one is a direct consequence of the first and the first one is usually still ongoing; the second one is therefore only a momentane happening inside the broader context of the first, and thus the choice between present and past is once again dependent on the impact on the present. Note that in such cases the two verbs are usually connected with ''no'' instead of ''sama''. Compare:

 

: ''marte mīmišviyek kite lįnek no'' - "(s)he kept being seen in the city, and [therefore] remained at home" ((s)he has since gone out of home).

 

In narrative, it is common to use the perfect for a completed action and the (aspectless) past for an action that begins immediately after (examples taken from the excerpt "[[#A_festive_day|A festive day]]", among the example texts on this page):

: ''tainā mæn yanelīsa pārṇami nacu ilakakte nainęs lā ħuldek'' - "Tainā came out_PERF [of the washing room], got dressed_PERF for the day, [and] played_PAST with Naina"

 

 

: ''yąlenų ānat kārvātiu valdånьdrūyi.'' "after a meal you ought to burn <small>(lit. "to turn on")</small> incense<ref>Burning incense after meals is a common tradition across most of the Chlouvānem world.</ref>."

 

: ''ħildenī āndṛke munati ejulā kaminairīveyu.'' "I study here in order to be able to create games."

 

Verbs like ''lelke'' (to choose <small>(stem: ''len-'')</small>), its synonym ''vāgdulke'' <small>(''vād-kul-'')</small>, or ''mulke'' (to know how to <small>(stem: ''mun-'', highest grade ablaut in the present)</small> can use invariably the subjunctive or the infinitive; usually, the subjunctive is used when there is a stated subject that is different from an impersonal phrase:

 

 

 

! "Lative" prefix !! "Ablative" prefix !! Meaning

| ta- || tų- || Generic direction

| ān- || yana- || Above

| šu- || šer- || Under

| khl- || kelь- || In the middle of, together with

| gin- || ją- || In a group; among

| nī- || ani- || Within inside

| ū(b)- || yom- || Near, close

| bis- || bara- || Far

| tad- || tasi- || Attached to; on an animal

| įs- || hos- || Hanging

| na(ñ)- || neni- || Inside

| kau- || kuvi- || Outside

| viṣ- || vyeṣa- || Opposite; somewhere else

| kami- || kįla- || Around

| prь- || paro- || Behind

| mai- || mīram- || In front of

| vai- || vea- || In a corner

| sāṭ- || ṣlū- || Next to

 

 

 

Arguments usually change from the non-prefixed forms: for example ''vaske'' (to drive) is transitive and its patient is the means of transport, while the patient of ''khlavaske'' (to go with [by vehicle]) is the person with whom the agent goes.

 

 

{| class="wikitable"

| Any clothing bandaged around the body, plus most things worn around the trunk<br/><small>(Most generic verb, but does not cover all other meanings)</small> || kamikyāke || kįlakyāke || ''ukyā'' "trunk"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

: ''plutu ītulom '''prituremęlia''' lila'' - the person for whose misfortune the bag has been given back to the thief

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

: [[w:Carthago delenda est|Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.]] (literally: "last [but not least], I think: "Carthage must be destroyed")

 

 

{| class="wikitable"

! English !! Generic verb !! Honorific !! Humble

| to be || gyake || sæglake || jīveke<br/><small>defective; uses ''gyake'' for non-indicative forms</small>

| to do, act, make || dṛke<br/>jilde<ref>Mostly "to do", "to act".</ref> || — || rowspan=2 | chlašake

| to create, make || āndṛke<br/>dṛke<ref>Translation for some of the more idiomatic meanings of English "to make".</ref><br/>pājunāke <small>(obsolete, literary)</small> || āthārke

| to ask || muṣke || pṛdhake || yacce<br/><small>or ''muṣke chlašake''; in a few specific forms ''yacce chlašake''</small>

| to suggest, advise || smārṣake || — || tittake

| to receive<br/>(and derivatives) || yoṭṭe || kvælke || combake