Dyrel

Background

Dyrel was created by Marlowe Clark.

Goals

My goal with Dyrel, by comparison to my first conlang ametdantar, was to create a language with a more developed conculture and conworld. Dyrel is a priori.

Setting

Dyrel is spoken in Dyrellion, a primarily human city-state situated on a plateau on top of a mountain overlooking the ocean to the west. Dyrellion is a constitutional monarchy with relatively laissez-faire policies. To the east is a forest, part of which is within the domain of Dyrellion, where the Gurim live, though some Gurim live inside Dyrellion proper. To the north and northwest are the elves and dwarves, who speak Natarye and Thurin respectively. To the northeast is another human kingdom, Xictor.

Inspiration

As with ametdantar, the Constructed Languages group on Facebook was my primary inspiration.

Phonology

Dyrel has a rather small phonology, consisting of only 14 phonemes -- 8 consonant phonemes and 6 vowel phonemes, though allophony produces between two and five additional phones depending on dialect.

Consonants

	Bilabial	Labio-dental	Alveolar	Palatal
Nasal	m		n
Plosive	p		(t) d
Fricative		v	s
Approximant			ɹ	(j)
Lateral app.			l	(ʎ)

1. [t] is an allophone of /d/ and occurs word-finally.
2. [j] is an allophone of /i/ that occurs in Low Dyrel following /l/.
3. /l:/, /l:+i/ or /l:+ɪ/ all merge to [ʎ] in High Dyrel.

Vowels

	Front	Near-front	Central	Back
Close	i			u
Near-close		ɪ
Close-mid	e		ɵ
Open	a

1. High Dyrel has three diphthongs, [aɪ], [ɵɪ], and [eɪ].

Phonotactics

/p/ occurs only in onset position, alone or as the first element in a cluster.
Onset clusters are /pɹ/ or /dɹ/.
Coda clusters are /l/ or /ɹ/ + any non-approximant consonant except /p/, including [lt] and [ɹt] word-finally.
Besides the [ʎ] merger, all homorganic clusters merge (consonants and vowels).
/ɪi/ and /iɪ/ merge to [i].

Orthography

Dyrel is mostly phonemic. Most graphemes are the equivalent of IPA. Non-IPA equivalents are listed here:

d = [t] word finally
r = /ɹ/
i = [j] (allophone; normally /i/)
y = /ɪ/
o = /ɵ/
ll, lli, lly = [ʎ]
ï = [ɪ̯] (in diphthongs)
' = [u] (marks the vocative case)

In Dyrel, in addition to case markers, case is usually indicated by placing an acute accent (´) over the first letter of the case marker.

Some orthographic rules apply only to High Dyrel. These are as follows:

Root-final orthographic l (/l/) is doubled before an element beginning with a vowel. This triggers the allophonic variant [ʎ].
Diphthongization is indicated by placing a diaresis over the second element in the diphthong, which is always /i/ (ï).

Grammar

Morphology

Dyrel is a largely isolating, but agglutinative language. Compounding occurs, however, compound words can contain a maximum of two roots.

Dyrel has seven cases:

1. Nominative (-ŕy)
2. Accusative (unmarked)
3. Construct State (unmarked)
4. Dative (-śa)
5. Instrumental (-ńe)
6. Genitive (-í)
7. Vocative ('-)

The plural of nouns and pronouns is indicated by the prefix i-.

Verbs inflect for person and aspect, but not tense (except future) or number. The infinitive is marked by eï- (Low Dyrel: e-). The prefixes indicating person are identical to the singular personal pronouns in their unmarked form, and are as follows:

1st person: ve
2nd person: su
3rd person common: ma
3rd person neuter: do

Tense/aspect:

perfect: al-
progressive: so-
future: sir-

Syntax

Default word order in Dyrel is SOV, but word order is relatively free because of the extensive case marking. Modifiers precede the element that they modify, except genitives, which follow their construct state referents. Elements in the construct state do not take the nominative case marker even if in the nominative; i.e. on veí "my house" regardless of whether it is the subject or an object.