Besagren
| Besagren | |
|---|---|
| besodxun cerissu besodxun | |
| Pronunciation | [beˈsaddʒi ˈkeruʃu beˈsoddʒun] |
| Created by | Lili21 |
| Date | Sep 2017 |
| Setting | Calémere |
| Native to | Western Evandor (Besagren Plateau) |
| Ethnicity | Besagrens |
| Native speakers | 62,000,000 (2312) |
Evandorian languages
| |
Besagren (natively (cerussu) besodxun [(ˈkeruʃu) beˈsoddʒun]) is an Evandorian language of the planet of Calémere (Bes.: Caemmiri [kaˈemmiri]), belonging to the Central Evandorian branch, one of the various modern descendants of Íscégon (Bes.: isseun or cerussu issèunu), the most important classical language in Western Evandorian civilization. It has therefore many similarities with the planet's main lingua franca, Cerian (Bes.: charredxeu), a fellow Íscégon descendant, even if the two languages are not mutually intelligible.
Besagren is spoken by around 62 million people, mostly in Besagret ([beˈsag(g)ret]) but also in a few former Besagren colonies in Púríton and Ceránento, as well as among descendents of Besagren immigrants to other former colonies of Western powers.
External history
Besagren is one of the Calémerian languages I have passed more sketches for before deciding which aesthetic to use. The earliest version was rather seseo-Spanish-sounding, but I didn't really like having a language in the far western part of a continent supposed to feel like Europe with an aesthetic based on such a famous language from far western Europe. My second version was more Romanian-inspired, and I quite liked it - but then I came up with the idea for the current aesthetic, which I like even more: you might notice it is heavily inspired by Sardinian (with some very small traces of Sicilian and even Ligurian). I quite like how Besagren turned out to be, as it is phonologically as divergent as Cerian from Íscégon, but in two different ways (e.g. Besagren does not have the strict tendence towards CVn syllables that Cerian has, but did rework the consonant system to a greater extent).
Phonology
Orthography
Consonants
| → PoA ↓ Manner |
Labial | Labiodental | Alveolar | Alveolo-palatal | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasals | m m | n n | |||||
| Plosives | p p b b |
t t d d |
(dd ɖɖ) | c k g g | |||
| Affricates | tz ts z dz |
ch tʃ dx dʒ |
|||||
| Fricatives | f f | s s | ss ʃ x ʒ |
||||
| Approximants | i j | u w | |||||
| Trill | r r (l l) |
A few notes about consonants:
- /l/ is limited to a few reborrowings from Íscégon or borrowings from other languages with that sound (e.g. Nordulaki, Auralian, or Nivarese). Many speakers merge it with /r/, especially in colloquial registers.
- The /rr/ sequence is always pronounced [rʒ] (e.g. irraima "city" [irˈʒajma]) and some linguists analyze it as being /rʒ/.
- The contrast between /s/ and /ʃ/ is neutralized before other consonants, with the only phone used in that context being [ʃ] (e.g. urrustu "hawk" [urˈʒuʃtu]).
- Dento-alveolar /d/ and retroflex /ɖ/ are sometimes said to be allophones of the same phoneme, with [ɖɖ] being geminate /dd/, as geminate [dd] only occurs as part of intervocalic /dʒ/ (e.g. Charredxì "Ceria" [tʃarʒedˈdʒi]). The [ɖ] sound also never occurs outside of [ɖɖ] and [ɳɖ] - the latter being the usually realization of /nd/, e.g. Ebandu "Evandor" [ˈebaɳɖu]. However, both [d] and [ɖɖ] may occur word-initially (cf. ddun [ɖɖun] "mouth" and dassu [ˈdaʃu] "nine"), and therefore some linguists consider them to be different phonemes.
Vowels
Besagren has a traditional five-vowel system. [ə] also appears as a phone, but it is considered only an epenthetic vowel arising allophonically in certain phonemic combinations (e.g. before nC- initial clusters).
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i | u | |
| Mid | e | o | |
| Low | a |