Loshi

Introduction

Setting

Loshi (Loshi: ელსი /ˈiʃi/) is a Locian language spoken primarily in Loshaith (Loshi: ელოსჯაჯდ /iʔɔˈʃɛːð/), being the official language of the country. It's closest relatives are its sister language Rozian, and its daughter language Irocian. Loshi is spoken by roughly 10-12 million people in Loshaith alone, with another 5 million speakers in its extended territories who use the language for business and commerce.

Typology

Loshi is a primarily agglutinative language with some synthetic tendencies. Nouns decline for 11 cases (Nominative, Accusative, Genitive, Dative, Possessive, Instrumental), 3 numbers (Singular, Dual, and Plural), and can be either animate or inanimate. Animacy is primarily semantically based, however the semantic reasoning is not always intuitive to L2 speakers. (ოკალნ okán "egg" is animate, but გნიჯოკ níoki "claw" is inanimate), and it can be used to distinguish meaning: ჯოკ äk can mean either "human, person, individual", or "body, corpse, cadaver" depending on whether it is declined as animate or inanimate. Verbs decline for aspect, mood, person, number, and animacy. Morphologically verbs behave in a very agglutinative fashion, with each category pairing with a single morpheme.

Phonology

Orthography

Loshi uses a variant of the Latin Alphabet, and with some exceptions, Loshi has a shallow orthography on par with Spanish.

Alphabet

Letter	Name	Name IPA	IPA
a	Ani	[ɐɲ]	[ɐ]
b	Bani	[pˀɐɲ]	[pˀ]
g	Gani	[kˀɐɲ]	[kˀ]
d	Däni	[tˀɛɲ]	[tˀ]
e	Eni	[eɲ]	[e]
i	Ini	[iɲ]	[i]
k	Kani	[kɐɲ]	[k]
l	Laz	[ɫɐʃ]	[ɫ]
n	Ná	[nɑː]	[n]
o	Oni	[ɔɲ]	[ɔ]
p	Pá	[pɑː]	[p]
s	Sani	[sɐɲ]	[s]
t	Tá	[tɑː]	[t]
z	Zani	[ʃɐɲ]	[ʃ]
ä	Äni	[ɛɲ]	[ɛ]
ë	Ëni	[ɛɲ]	[ɛ]

Consonants

Categories	Bilabial	Dental	Alveolar	Post-Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Nasal	/m/		/n/		/ɲ/
Stop	/p /pˀ/		/t/ /tˀ/			/k/ /kˀ/
Fricative	[f] [v]	[θ] [ð]	/s/	/ʃ/	[ç] [ʝ]	/x/ [ɣ]
Lateral			/l/		/ʎ/

Allophony

    1. /n/ is realized as [ŋ] before /k/ or /x/ and [ŋˀ] before /kˀ/, but [ŋ] before [ɣ]. 

• კუნკუშ kunkuz [kuːŋkuːʃ]

• შტუნკ ztunk [ʃtuːŋx]

• ბანგოდ bangod [pˀɐŋˀkˀɔð]

• ლჯასაანგ ljäsáng [ʎɛˈsɑːŋɣ]

    2. /n/ is realized as [m] before [ɔ uː p ɸ] and as [ɲ] before [i iː].

• ნიკუტლეშ nikutlëz [ɲiˈku:tlɛʃ]

• მიინოტ mínot [ˈmiːmɔθ]

• გიტჯატანპ gitätamp [kˀitɛtɐmɸ]

    3. /p t k pˀ tˀ kˀ/ in coda position are realized as [ɸ θ x β ð ɣ], respectively.

• ლოკნაგ loknag [ɫɔx.nɐɣ]

• მიპ mip [miɸ]

• შტაატ ztát [ʃtɑːθ]

• ჯაკიდ äkid [ɛkið]

• სუბ fub [ɸuːβ]

    4. Following /i iː/, /k kˀ/ are realized as [ç ʝ], respectively.

• ჯოგიგ egig [ekˀiʝ]

• ტატიკ tatik [tɐtiç]