Lefso

Modernized Lefso
レ中ソ
The official flag of the Lefso language
Pronunciation	[ˈlɛˑɸsoː]
Created by	Micor558
Date	2024
Setting	Kuril Islands
Native speakers	140 Speakers (2024)
Language family	Allavian Revolutionary Allavian Eupraric Scripting Lefso Scripting Modernized Lefso
Early forms	Allavian Eupraric-Japanese Scripting Archaic Lefso Early Lefso Middle Lefso Late Lefso Modernized Lefso; Archives I - II
Standard form	Lefso var. (Archive III / Navoc Hook)
Dialects	Kanje-Dominant Dialects ("Kanje", "Antarctic Lefso") Tonal-Dominant Dialects ("Lefse") Slavic-Leaning Dialects ("Rusiji") Japanese-Leaning Dialects ("Fukuse")
Writing system	Odinya, [w:Hiragana
Official status
Official language in	[United Colonies of Eupraria]
Language codes
CLCR	qle

Introduction

Modernized Lefso (Also: “Lefso”, “Bing bong”; Native: “レ中ソ”) is a constructed language spoken by less than 1,000 individuals, Modernized Lefso is recognized as the de facto and de jure official and national language of a micronation, The United Colonies of Eupraria.

Modernized Lefso was formed as a result of five factors.

1. The drift of English within Eupraria towards various creoles and dialects was known collectively as “Allavian”.
2. Euprarian natives liked how pilot pens (the number one selling pen in Eupraria) glided across paper when writing Japanese.
3. Eupraran natives began making authentic-sounding words from garbled results of Ceaser Cipher encrypted text.
4. During Regional War Two, Fascist Italy and the Four Square Council were influenced by Japan, which quickly affected the way Allavian was written and spoken.
5. Modernized Lefso is being changed due to constant Slavic or Japonic influence.

Modernized Lefso is quite volatile and known for being heavily influenced by Japonic and Slavic culture. Modernized Lefso is the most successful auxiliary language spoken and exchanged through Eupraria, with major influence outside these regions. Modernized Lefso is commonly spoken within spread-out pockets of land, which expand outwards - a process caused by colonialism and Euprarian imperialism.

Modernized Lefso remains the most influential conlang within the United Colonies of Eupraria, where its Sprachraum resides, Modernized Lefso has migrated out of Eupraria and formed various pidgins. Modernized Lefso was formed via constant contact with Japanese and dialects with Old Lefso, heavily influenced by Slavic languages - primarily Russian. Modernized Lefso exists on a dialect continuum with Older Lefso Varieties and Japanese.

Lefso is an agglutinative, synthetic, syllabic language with moderately complex phonotactics, phonemic vowel and consonant length, and a lexically significant pitch accent. Word order is normal subject-object-verb with grammatical particles (toppings) marking the grammatical function of words, with a topic-comment sentence structure. Phrases in Lefso are exclusively head-final and left-branching. The placement of particles is mixed, with some preceding information, while most succeed. Sentence-ending particles inflect emotional, emphatic qualities, make questions, or conclude lists. Nouns have no gender articles. Verbs are conjugated primarily for tense and voice, but not for person. Adjectives are also conjugated.

In Modernized Lefso, a unique symbol known as a “Lefse” is used to direct the tone, stress, and length of a sound in a phrase, which is what the name “Lefso” is derived from, evolved from the unification of the Hard Symbol (み - approximation), Soft Symbol (Ժ), Lenition Marking (て), and Elongation Marking (ラ) - along with tones that weren’t added until later on due to conflicting accents across all states who used Modernized Lefso as a de jure.

Modernized Lefso combines a Latin/Cyrillic/Katakana-themed abugida-alphabet (Odinya) and a modified Kanji system (Kanje) with the two Japanese writing syllabaries: Hiragana and Katakana (known under the common name “Kana”).

The flag of Modernized Lefso is a 13-pointed light yellow star positioned to “rise” above a blue rectangle with thin white on its top and bottom borders. Placed atop a red background with three uneven stripes of increasing darkness vis-a-vis distance to the top edge of the flag, and with four stars arranged in a small square-like shape on the top-left corner.

The red, white, and blue are the colors in the flag that also make up both the United Kingdom, Russia, and Japan (with just white and red); While the blue, white, and yellow are the colors in the flag that also make up the United Colonies of Eupraria–the country where it’s the de facto and de jure—also the birthplace of the language. The blue stripe with white along its top and bottom rim represents both an ocean, and a stripe of Norway–the country that celebrates with Lefse’s (the food that inspired the name of Modernized Lefso’s unique phonetic modifier character, thus the name of the Language itself). The 13-pointed Yellow star has many meanings. It’s most commonly seen as a depiction of a sun rising above an ocean; When paired with the red background, it resembles a sunrise. This showcases the meaning of Japan (Land of the Rising Sun). The star also acts as a reference to the Hatsune Miku song–Mesmerizer, which partly contributed to the Great Japonic Kick. The color of the star represents the sun at dusk, the star seen in Mesmerizer, and the exaggerated color of a Norwegian Lefse.

History

English to Proto-Allavian (2021 - 2022)

The earliest form of Modernized Lefso is Proto-Allavian or Old Allavian (2021 - 2022). Proto-Allavian developed from a set of English-Spanish pidgins, often grouped as Spanglish, and originally spoken within Aragonia’s bordering micronations, in the Overground Railroad Republic, and Nova Germany by Aragonia emigrants. From 2021 to 2022, Aragonian speakers emigrated outwards following the collapse of the Aragonian Economy. By mid-2021, the language had become dominant in Nova Germany and the Overground Railroad Republic, replacing the languages of Spanglish, Korean, and German. At this time, these dialects generally resisted influence from the then-local Korean and German languages. Proto-Allavian had been coined as a term originating from Allavian, the time of the languages’ modernization; coined due to the languages’ excessive use of the word “Alla”. Proto-Allavian may have a small amount of German stratum influence, however, this is unproven.

Proto-Allavian was divided into three dialects: The Aragonian dialects (North and South Aragonic) and the Trans-German dialect (Grellic). Through reforms of Marco Kalif in late 2021 following Regional War One - the collapse of the Aragonian economy; Proto-Allavian modernized slowly towards a more phonetically efficient language. A few short inscriptions from the early period following the modernization were written using Proto-Allavian’s modified Latin alphabet, now including the letters eñe <ñ>, and the modified Latin letters eth ⟨ð⟩, and ash ⟨æ⟩.

Following Regional War One, Proto-Allavian gradually modernized through intense language contact with English in some regions. Waves of emigrating Proto-Allavian speakers outwards toward Levocred County put Proto-Allavian into intense contact with English - the dominant language throughout all claimable land. Today, English and Russian are simply translated according to the constraints of the Odinya alphabet for most words within Modernized Lefso vocabulary. The center of Anglicized Proto-Alavian speech was the Levocred Midlands around Levocred and a large portion of conflicted land - Anglicized Proto-Alavian quickly spread in these regions due to Overground Railroad Republic propaganda and emigration.

Transition to Allavian (2022 - 2023)

Allavian is often arbitrarily defined as beginning with the conquest of Fascist Italy and the Four Square Council by Molly Hehman in late 2022. Still, it developed from early to mid-2023.

With the Italian conquest in late 2022, the now-Anglicized Proto-Allavian language was subject to another wave of intense contact, this time with the Japanese, influencing it as a superstrate. Japanese spoken by the elite in the now newly established Axis alliance eventually developed the Allavian language. Because Allavian was spoken primarily by conquested-residing areas, while everybody outside of the conquest continued speaking Allavian, the main influence of Allavian was the introduction of a wide range of loanwords related to politics, Japan, and pizza. Allavian also greatly simplified the noun system, probably to reconcile Japanese and Proto-Allavian, which were morphologically different but inflectionally the same. The distinction of genders was lost, and the instrumental case and use of the genitive case were also dropped.

Allavian began to rise in prestige, relative to the Japanese, during the reign of Benjamin Ingram. Around December of 2022, the Italian Court stationed in Elora began using Allavian in its official documents, and a new standard form of Allavian, known as the Italian Standard, developed from the dialects of Switzerland and the Levocred Midlands. In early 2023, Marco Kalif introduced the spyware radio to Eupraria and began publishing the 1st printed books, expanding the influence of this form of Allavian. Literature from the Allavian period includes the works of Benjamin Ingram and Stefan Martin.

Recovered paper documents originating from modern-day North Aragonian possessed the many grammatical features that a modern reader might find quaint or archaic - representing the distinct characteristics of Early Allavian.

Allavian to Eupraric-Greek Scripting (2023 - 2024)

Following the social collapse of many states following the Great Resignation, Eupraria established a council known as the “Cult of Anglisk”, allowing for Allavian’s linguistic influence to continue - to spreading within a confederacy known as the “Trinitos Union”. Up until Regional War One, The influence of the language began to die down, with most of the language being confined to a small corner, Following Regional War One was the enactment of a modified Ceaser Cipher as the Euprarian Encryption Method - this time borrowing the Allavian Alphabet.

Allavian development stops around this point. However, it’s included here since Lefso was directly based off Allavian via the usage of ceaser ciphers, which drifted slowly over time away from Allavian.

Through this period, it became a comical joke among those residing in Eupraria to find encrypted letters simply thrown out, leaving many to try and turn the encrypted jarble into foreign-like words - heavily influenced by the Allavian language; developing into the coined term Eupraric-Greek Scripting, despite not borrowing any Greek whatsoever. Eupraric-Greek Scripting rose in prestige, soon becoming the de facto language of Eupraria and quickly diverging into a wide range of dialects, known informally as the Linguistic Explosion.

As Eupraric-Greek Scripting developed, explicit norms for standard usage were published and spread through official media such as public education and state-sponsored publications. In late 2023, Marco Kalif published various works within Eupraric-Greek Scripting, which introduced standard spellings of words and usage norms. By early 2024, Within lands not under Eupraric claim, non-standard or lower class dialect features were increasingly stigmatized, leading to the quick spread of the prestige varieties among the middle classes.

The first usage of modern modifier characters (or at least their first form) dates back to around here, The first being a small tsu equivalent character, known as the “Veil”, followed by a projection marker (directs the reader to raise their voice) and an elongation marker.

Eupraric-Greek Scripting soon had more intense contact with the Japanese, via online media with Eupraria’s pilot pens being sold suddenly shooting up from how much people loved how Japanese characters were written with it. The language began adopting more and more Slavic and Japanese-like features, with the newly-established Slavic alphabet and Japanese-reading styled system looking nearly unintelligible to a Eupraric-Greek Scripted speaker; Eventually, the language took on the name Eupraric-Japanese Scripting - the language did not get far as Japanese had made its way into the Euprarian World Court, under Marco Kalif, a drastic reformation of the language was done, known as the Great Japonic Kick.

Archaic Lefso (2024)

Archaic Lefso is coined as an “Intermediate” Between Eupraric-Japanese Scripting and Early Lefso; Characterized by the Great Japonic Kick - a period of linguistic reforms of Allavian caused by a rapid influx of Japanese culture and language within Eupraria. During this period, mass hysteria spread due to heavy communication issues with Archaic Lefso, kickstarting modernization and the tug toward intelligibility.

Archaic Lefso had a 14-letter alphabet - which is heavily debated since no definite symbol was used for consonants, semivowels, or some modifier characters. “Y-” starting vowels were marked indicated with a quotation-shaped mark on the top-right side of a character - all vowels being A, E, I, O, and U; making A, E, I, O, U, Ya, Ye, Yi, Yo, and Yu the only defined characters, all being vowels. Due to the rapid influx of Japanese, the vowel inventory was replaced with Japanese, but contact with the English language caused some dialects to have pure and diphthong vowels.

Grammar was more simple. For a brief period, Russian modifier characters (soft/hard) were used (which removed the projection marker); These two were repurposed as Stress and Lenition - despite dropping, stressed characters were still referred to as “Hard” and characters impacted by Lenition were referred to as “Soft”. The veil was repurposed as an IPA-length extender. Also around this time, the Lefso modifier “Bow” originated from the “Cutter”, which functioned the same. However, the language remained completely unintelligible to native speakers due to its heavy reliance on modifier characters and disputed alphabet. Syntax remained SVO.

Development of the S/I Rule

Around this time, the S/I rule began to develop.

Letters were put into two types, I-Based, and S-Based. Vowels were read by starting at the top of the letter, and following it down. Consonants were S-based, read by starting at the left of the letter and going right. Due to this rule not being recognized until later on, “Ye”, “Yo”, and “E” were often mistaken for the Katakana Tsu (ツ), and Shi (シ). While the “O” was mistaken for either the Hiragana Shi (し) or Katakana Re (レ).

Early Lefso (2024)

Early Lefso was the 1st segment of Lefso Modernization, marked by the unification of modifier symbols and the formation of a stable alphabet. A complex grammatical system involving tones, length, and stress was introduced to accommodate the unintelligible text of Archaic Lefso. The principal worked around the idea that every character is an “occupied” Lefse and that a “Lefse” on its own is just a blank character - where a letter consisting of the “Stage” (Where a letter usually occupies), and the Director, which controlled Tone and Length. Two accessories could be added to the stage, a strikethrough the letter directed the stress of a letter and an indicator top-right of the stage indicating a preceding “Y” - only applying to vowels.

Length became an important factor of Lefso, driven by the “Director” and the Lefse; Who introduced glottal stops and extra-short sounds. Grammatical structure places length over tone, meaning one had to mark the length on a director, then use a toned-Lefse for every tone fluctuation onwards. The main difficulty with this was how ridiculously long it could get, so some dialects came up with various methods of dealing with this.

The methods of writing Lefso became more stable, with a widely agreed upon one known as “Odinya” rising to popularity. Which now included the consonants “B”, “D”, “T”, “F”, “G”, “K”, “M”, “N”, “Sh” “Zh”, “Shsh/Shch”, and “R”. Every consonant listed was mistaken for some sort of Japanese/Chinese character due to the growing similarities between the two languages, most notably with the Odinya letter F (中), which in Kanji is “Middle”. Despite stability, however, The symbols to define “Й”, “Ch”, “Ts”, and “Ы” were widely conflicted, majorly due to the developing S/I-Based rule.

Around this time, the soft and hard symbols were turned into a modifier character known as a “Bowl”, which strikes through characters, with the shape of the bowl determining stress or lenition.

Middle Lefso (2024)

Middle Lefso was marked by the adoption of the Toner ancestor, the “Balloon”, which was formed from one dialect using them to stack toners in a single symbol. A vowel mark was also added, placed at the top-left of a letter (two exceptions being the letters L and P, where the vowel mark was placed top-right. Although, these two were not added until later).

Middle Lefso quickly migrated out and became synonymously associated with Japanese, quickly boosting Japanese culture and expression. Middle Lefso kickstarted the formation of a diverse range of languages, many of which became incorporated with Middle and Modernized Lefso.

“Й”, “Ch”, “Ts”, and “Ы” were added - until Middle Lefso, every “L-” started sound was replaced with a “Y”, however, a letter for the letter “L” quickly spread through dialects, eventually, the Odinya alphabet was reformed to include the letters “L”, “La”, “Le”, “Li”, “Lo”, and “Lu”. Meanwhile, the usage and symbol of/for the letter “P” were hotly debated, with various interpretations fighting for dominance; The main one being the Cyrillic of said letter used inside of the Kanji letter for “Gate” (門) - known as “Isobars”, which were used to signify extra stress.

Late Lefso (2024)

Late Lefso was marked by major grammatical deformities driven by the push toward ease of reading and intelligibility. The most visually apparent difference is how it’s written and read - now top-to-bottom, right-to-left.

The most important reform was the addition of two new writing systems. “Odinya” - used for speech and physical communication, joined with another writing system, “Odinye” - used for online communication in Lefso. The two collectively were referred to as “Odin”, meaning “One”, and were used for native communication. Meanwhile, Lefso borrowed the extended Katakana alphabet; used for loanwords, names, onomatopoeia, and foreign transcriptions, known as “Forene”. A writing system, known as “Kanje”, which was born from a Lefso-Japanese pidgin, rose in dominance, consisting of a modified set of Kanji rules and radicals.

Late Lefso introduced more grammatical rules, with syntax shifting towards SOV, only using SVO for possessive cases. At the same time, a particle system was introduced, modified from Japanese particles. Instead of being referred to as “particles”, they were referred to as “toppings” - the most dominant being the “Dash”, used as a diphthong and for possessive cases. The “Balloon” was replaced with the “Toner” symbol, it had the same purpose - impact the entire phrase with a rising/falling tone until the next toner or glottal stop Lefse; The principle of when to used a toned Lefse and a toner is as follows: “A toner must be placed if the Character already has a length marking. Two toners cannot be next to each other, instead, a lefse is used. The same applies for a lefse, a toner is used. One must switch between the two if a sound fluctuates in tone.”

The “Tie” was added, which only affected the consonants “Sh”, “Shsh”, “Shch”, “Kh”, and “Zh”, turned into “S” (Sh, Shsh, Shch), “H” (Kh), and “Z” (Z), it was added as a little loop on the last stroke of a letter - and was derived from the “cutter” in Archaic Lefso. Meanwhile, a representative concept for the letter “P” was adopted, along with “Pa”, “Pe”, “Pi”, “Po”, and “Pu”. The Cyrillic letter “P” (vowel markings for Pa, Pe, Pi, Po, and Pu if needed) was used when in isobars, and was similar to the Katakana “Hi” when not.

The Lefso Modernizations

The Lefso Modernizations were a set of linguistic modernizations done under major Japonic influence, marked by the Great Vowel Declination, The Grammatical Slap, and the formation of Kanje and the Kanjik Restoration. Following modernizations, many European loanwords were introduced into Lefso, usually under a Slavic background. The Lefso Modernizations are split into three segments: Archive 1, Archive 2, and Archive 3.

The first Modernization–Archive 1; was marked by the Grammatical Slap–an informal name by Euprarian speakers that denoted the massive shift of grammatical structure within the language towards more Japanese-like grammatical structure, and away from Slavic influence. A notable modernization being the introduction of particles, which included both Hiragana and Katakana characters, however, these particles were used in a way English and Russian would use particles. Kanje around this time were stored in “resovoirs”, and were extremely unstable at the time.

A notable decline of consonant clusters became apparent within the language, most likely due to many words having consonant clusters removed.

The second Modernization–Archive 2; was marked by the Kanjik Restoration. Kanje was incredibly volatile, and broke communication across once mutual dialects, this was due to the unregulated use of Kanje, with no standard in place, over 31 Million Kanje were being used, with completely different Kanje for the same word across regions. The Kanjik Restoration was a set of efforts done amongst the people and Euprarian Government to repair and establish a feasible Kanje system, reservoirs were removed, and a mass ban on over 99.9% of all Kanje was enacted. The remaining Kanje were divided into “blocks”, and rules were defined on how to properly form Kanje.

The third Modernization–Archive 3; is marked by the merging of Odinya and Odinye, with Odinye being renamed the Odinye Exclusion Rule. Hiragana was added, however, it’s only used for conjugation reference.

History (As an Artlang)

Lefso during Sakoku (1603 - 1868)

The Tokugawa shogunate imposed a foreign policy act–Sakuko–a set of policies forbidding foreign parties from trading or entering Japan unless specified exemption. Russia sought expansion eastward, encountering the Ainu–inhabiting the Kuril Islands and portions of the Sakhalin Peninsula. At the time, Russia’s eastern expansion left a majority of territory uncharted; the Russian minister of the Marine directed the sloop–Diana, to explore the Southern Kuril and Shantar islands, and the Tartary coast. Golvonin was originally dispatched from Kronstadt to the northwest of the Pacific in 1807 to chart eastern Pacific territory.

A mass migration–known as the ‘Great Siberian Migration’, was the mass movement of Russian fur trappers through Siberia, ending up far east and settling within the Sakhalin Peninsula and the Kuril Islands. Some groups encountered Ainu people along the Kuril islands, known as Kurlies, who were eventually trapped on the island following the arrival of summer and the foreign policy–Sakoku–which caused fear among the arrivals of possible abduction or execution. Lefso was thought to have formed as a pidgin between Russian and various Kuril Ainu dialects by the acquisition of semantic meaning of words between the two languages by observation of the opposing groups’ non-verbal reaction and verbal usage, developing into a fledged creole that became the native tongue of second-generation offspring across the Kuril Islands.

The Japanese government–primarily the Matsumae clan, controlled areas bordering Ainu lands and mediated conflict between Ainu and Russians–often exploiting the Ainu for trade and defense; with the entirety of the Japanese government fearing Russian expansion (primarily due to growing Russian presence within Hokkaidō and Sakhalin–threatening Japanese territorial integrity and potential military incursion or colonialization of Japanese lands)–using the Ainu to monitor Russian activity. The shogunate discovered the presence of Lefso but chose not to assimilate it due to its advantageous position as a creole between Russian and Kuril Ainu dialects within the island chain–allowing the Japanese to use Lefso as a way to gather information about Russian interactions–relying heavily on Lefso-speaking Ainu intermediaries.

The Diana left Patropavlosk-Kamchatsky on the 25th of April through ice flows and entered the oceans from Avacha Bay on May 4th. Golvonin’s voyage succeeded several diplomatic incidents–including Saikokuta Kōdayū the expedition of Adam Laxman, and more recently–Chwostoff raiding Japanese and Kuril villages–including various Lefso-speaking islands without permission of the Tsardom. This led to the Japanese government’s sense of distrust towards Russia. The Diana soon sailed to the island of Iturup, making contact with a Lefso-speaking Ainu group–sent by the Japanese to investigate, Golvonin met with the Japanese military commander of the island and declared intentions of collecting wood and water; with the commander stating their distrust since the raidings preformed under Chwostoff. He agreed to send a letter to other commanders to permit access to supplies in ‘Oorbeetsch’.

Formation of Okinya

Around the time, Lefso had no official writing system, Kana, Cryllic, and Kanji were used to write Lefso, however, it wasn’t uniform, as Lefso existed as a dialect continuum up until modernizations, with higher-status dialects with Kana and Kanji becoming the predominant form of writing, however, the entirety of the Kuril Islands spoke ‘Lefso’ with a high degree of variation–caused by the major difference between Lefso, Japanese, and Russian. Native speakers of Lefso over time started adapting Kanji towards a pronunciation different from both Russian and Japanese, prompting the formation of Odinya. The formation of Odinya started with speakers using majorly Japanese characters (and some Cryllic ones) to represent individual Russian sounds, disregarding their original phonetic value and meaning, usually based upon their resemblance to Cyrillic characters–these were known as Okinya. Simplifications and modifications of these characters–often tailored to phonetic guidance, were made. Lefso at the time, was facing a progressive shift towards better communication with the Japanese primarily due to the ease and efficiency of Japanese and declining influence from the Russian side within the linguistic ‘tug of war’.

Cyrillic Sounds and their Japanese Orthographical Origins

! Russian Sound	Original Orthographic-Influential Japanese Character
А /a/	ア (Katakana, A)
Б /b/	矢 (Kanji, Lose)
В /v/	洗 (Kanji, Wash)
Г /g/	メ (Katakana, Me)
Д /d/	大 (Kanji, Big)
Е /ye/	シ (Katakana, Shi)
Ё /yo/	ツ (Katakana, Tsu)
Ж /zh/	山 (Kanji, Mountain)
З /z/	世 (Kanji, Generation)
И /i/	都 (Kanji, Metropolis)
Й /~y/	ナ (Katakana, Na)
К /k/	丰 (Kanji, Abundant)
Л /l/	カ (Kanji, Power)
М /m/	の (Hiragana, No)
Н /n/	の (Hiragana, No)
О /o/	し (Hiragana, Shi
П /p/	ひ (Hiragana, Hi)
Р /r/	光 (Kanji, Light)
С /s/	一 (Kanji, One)
Т /t/	允 (Kanji, Allow)
У /u/	へ (Hiragana, He)
Ф /f/	中 (Kanji, Middle)
Х /kh/	キ (Katakana, Ki)
Ц /ts/	上 (Kanji, Above)
Ч /ch/	匸 (Kanji, Dead)
Ш /sh/	一 (Kanji, One)
Щ /shsh/	二 (Katakana, Ni)
Ъ (hard)	み (Hiragana, Mi)
Ы /~ui/	ン (Katakana, N)
Ь (soft)	よ (Hiragana, Yo)
Э /e/	ノ (Katakana, No)
Ю /yu/	バ (Katakana, Ba)
Я /ya/	少 (Kanji, Small)

Russian Kuril Evacuation and Lefso Influence (1855)

Prior to the Meiji Era, Hokkaidō was called Ezochi–roughly translating to “land of the barbarians” or “the land for people who did not obey the government”. Ainu living within Hokkaidō were regarded as “inhuman and the inferior descendants of dogs” by Japanese settlers. The Japanese government implemented regular assimilation programs on the Ainu people within Hokkaidō, the Kuril Islands, and the southern Sakhalin Peninsula; such programs included the oppression of Ainu culture, language, and morals; including the Lefso language. Russians stayed within the Kuril Islands, learning Lefso to communicate with the rescued trapped Kuril Island inhabitants, who natively spoke Lefso. The development of tonal markers and Daitive pairs was made to help Russians better grasp the language and communicate with Lefso speakers. However, the Kanji system was heavily mistranslated, with Russians assigning meanings to Kanji based on their components instead of the many cultural tales behind each character. However, tensions were high, and writing was often riddled with fake Kanje, eventually forcing linguists to study patterns in Kanji (mistranscribed by English speakers as ‘Kanje’ by Russians, probably due to mistranslation from the Russian accent, however, was adopted as it humorously showed the similar but different meanings behind the two) and look for abnormalities in text. Russians began to affiliate the language with the Hokkaidō dog, soon becoming a topic of interest across Russia for being affiliated with an adorable companion, soon becoming a major secondary language, taught by some Russian schools. Lefso broke into two broad, geographical groups: Japonic Lefso and Eastern Lefso. Norwegians had deemed the Language “Lefso”, a play on their dish–Lefse, a flatbread, and how modifier characters and Hokkaidō dog pigments shared a similar resemblance to the dish. This was later adopted and used as the official internal and external language name.

Lefso Opression in Hokkaidō (1869 - 1899)

Japanese proponents argued the strategic move of annexing Hokkaido enhanced Japan’s influence to better negotiate with Western powers. Hokkaido was also used as a power buffer and was viewed as a land of abundant resources–coal, timber, fish, and fertile land, and also as a way for Japan to present itself to Western powers as modern and formal (as colonial expansion was viewed as a symbol of prestige). At the time, Hokkaidō was known as ‘Ezo’ (“land of the barbarians, land of the people who do not obey the government). The primary purpose of the Development was to secure Hokkaidō before the Russians extended beyond the Far East (Vladivostok). The Japanese failed to settle in the interior lowlands due to aboriginal resistance, later destroyed. Following the downfall, Japanese migration spiked due to the inspirational teachings of William S. Clark (who visited an agricultural college in Sapporo), with his parting words “Boys, be ambitious!” found on Hokkaidō buildings to this day. Population counts rise from 58,000 to 240,000 that decade. Japanese leaders drew inspiration from American settler colonialism during their American visits. Japanese colonial officials learned settler colonial techniques from imperial powers (mainly the United States). These tactics involved declaring large portions of Hokkaido as ownerless land, providing a pretext for the dispossession of the Ainu people. Japan established the Hokkaido Colonization Board in 1869, a year after the start of the Meiji era, to settle Japanese in Hokkaido.

Japanese settling and colonialization were also organized/supported by collaboration between the Japanese state and American experts. From 1870 to the 1880s, Japanese leaders placed efforts in Hokkaidō settling via migrating former samurai lords, retainers, and citizens (including farmers and peasants); providing “free” land (Land claimed terra nullis, which was still Ainu-occupied) and financial assistance. This transformation was facilitated with the expertise of American advisors who introduced various colonization technologies, transforming Hokkaido into land suitable for Japan's capitalist aspirations. The Ainu were heavily suppressed, with the Meiji government implementing land seizures and Japanese-biased land ownership laws, forcing many to flee. Following 1899– the Hokkaido Former Aborigines Protection Act, forced Ainu in Hokkaidō to flee toward mountainous regions, with some fleeing to the Sakhalin peninsula and entering the Russian Empire, the movement being deemed the Ainu Hokkaido Evacuation.

Lefso was considered under the broad umbrella of ‘Ainu languages’ and therefore heavily oppressed around this time. The Meiji government embarked on assimilation campaigns aimed not only at assimilating the Ainu but also at eradicating their language and culture. They were forced to take on Japanese names and language, and gradually saw their culture and traditions eroded. The Ainu were forbidden to speak their language and taught only Japanese at school. Facing pervasive stigma, many Ainu concealed their heritage. During both wars, Ainu were considered ‘Japanese’, and sent off into the military.

Japanese were evacuated from the Kuril Islands as the Soviets soon occupied the islands, claiming it. Reports of Hokkaidō dogs around the islands caused a secondary movement of adoption of the dogs, with some Lefso-speaking Soviets re-using the dogs to raise awareness about Eastern Lefso within Russia.

Lefso Restoration (1945 - 2024)

Following World War Two, The Hokkaidō Utari Association (now the Ainu Association of Hokkaido) was created, dedicated to promoting and raising awareness of traditions; demanding the removal of injustice and acts to be lifted. In the 1960s, the government aimed towards various welfare programs for Ainu living standards, employment, and education initiatives.

Lefso remains one of the most culturally preserved Ainu-related languages.

Phonology

CALS: Phonology

Caption text

WALS PROPERTY	LEFSO VALUE
Consonant Inventories	Moderately Large
Vowel Quality Inventories	Large (7 - 14)
Consonant-Vowel Ratio	Moderately High
Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives	In both plosives and fricatives
Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems	None missing in /p t k b d g/
Uvular Consonants	None
Glottalized Consonants	No glottalized consonants
Lateral Consonants	/l/, no obstruent laterals
The Velar Nasal	No initial velar nasal
Vowel Nasalization	Contrast absent
Front Rounded Vowels	None
Syllable Structure	Moderately Complex
Tone	Complex tone system
Fixed Stress Locations	No fixed location
Weight-Sensitive Stress	Unbounded: Stress can be anywhere
Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems	Long vowel or coda consonant
Rhythm Types	Undetermined
Absence of Common Consonants	All present
Presence of Uncommon Consonants	None

Modernized Lefso's phonology is the system of sounds used in Lefso pronunciation. Unless otherwise noted, this covers the Navoc Hook dialect.

There is no overall consensus on the number of phonemes–with at least 12 being registered. Phonetic length and tone are significant in the language (for vowels and consonants). Some consonant clusters exist but have dwindled in number following the Great Japonic Kick. Modernized Lefso has a very significant pitch accent, where the location or absence of a pitch modification may alter the word, usually marked “excessively”. For example, in khorosho, /khrosho↓/ (okay), and /khrosho↑/ (shotgun). Tone systems are complex and are often marked differently depending on context.

Phonotactics within Modernized Lefso is influenced by layers of English, Japanese, and Russian, causing a gradient of words to form across the language.

Lexical Strata

Modernized Lefso is a blend of linguistic vocabulary, and can be broadly divided into four categories based upon origin.

Odinji

Odinji describes all native Lefso words and loanwords preceding Middle Lefso.

Nihoji

Nihoji comprises all introduced loanwords of Japanese origin within succeeding timeframes of Middle Lefso, usually introduced within the Lefso Modernizations. Consonant clusters are heavily confined, with the presence of vowel harmony.

Rusiji

Rusiji comprises all introduced Russian loanwords within timeframes succeeding Middle Lefso. Consonant clusters are exceedingly common within this category.

Foreji

Foreji comprises all introduced loanwords that don’t fall into the prior two categories.

Consonants

	Bilabial	Labio-dental	Dental	Alveolar	Post-alveolar	Retroflex	Alveolo-palatal	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal	m			n
Plosive	(p), (b)			(t), (d)					(k), (g)		(ʔ)
Affricate				(t͡s), (d͡z)	(d͡ʒ)		(t͡ɕ), (d͡ʑ)
Fricative	(ɸ)	(f)		(s), (z)	(ʃ), (ʒ)	(ʐ)	(ʑ)	(ç)	(x), (ɣ)
Palatal app.								(j)
Central app.				(ɹ)*
Lateral app.			(l), (ɫ)
Trill				(r)
Flap or tap				ɾ

1. • conventionally transcribed as r
     • Usually only seen bound with vowels.

Various regions recognize different phonemes as consonants, the most common consensus being at least 15 consonants /m n p b k g ɸ z f s ɹ w dz x l /, these consonants are called golden consonants (Kinoji).

Voice onset time

Plosive aspiration of the consonants /p b d t/ can vary upon placement. For front-placed plosives of /p b d t/, these consonants remain tenuis unless marked otherwise via lenition, in which they turn aspirated. Aspiration also occurs for non-front-positioned /p b d t/ letters unless otherwise marked with stress. Lenition and Stress are both marked with bowls.

The /g/ plosive is almost exclusively aspirated unless marked otherwise via stress, in which it turns tenuis.

Lenition and Stress

Lenition and Stress are always marked with the usage of bowls. However, native patterns commonly emerge within Lefso. When the term “Stress” is referred to in Modernized Lefso, it’s a Stress Bowl modifier for a character, which can alter depending on emphatic inflection and character modification. Aspirated Plosives become tenuis, the /y/ component in a soft vowel is shortened and lowered in volume, and vowels are raised in volume and sometimes length–affecting /ɨ/ exclusively.

If a /kh/ has lenition applied during emphatic inflections, it becomes a uvular fricative; with voice depending on placement. Initial and Non-initial with a consonant succeeding component become voiceless, and Non-initial components with a vowel as a succeeding component become voiced, with a /r/ trill being used if placed succeeding said succeeding vowel component.

An initial or ending /f/ with stress during emphatic inflection may become a /ɸ/, however, for fast dialogue, it’s often ignored; with the /f/is inflected as a /ȹ/–the voiceless labiodental plosive–a sound not recognized by the International Phonetic Alphabet, but occasionally seen in Bantu languages, within Modernized Lefso, there is only one word that uses this character–(fu), transcribed as /ȹɯ̌ˑ/ ‘jet’ or ‘strong stream’, which differentiates from /fɯ̌ˑ/–the pronunciation for (不).

Lenition of an end-positioned /g/ during emphatic inflection may become a /ɣ/.

Allophony

Allophony describes how a single sound may be pronounced differently depending on placement and surrounding components of a word.

1. Plosives, especially /b/, /t/, and /d/; are weakened and more aspirated if placed toward the end of a word. However, stress in unchanged if present within a consonant cluster.

Sonorants may be partially devoiced if a voiceless consonant is present in the same syllable, often within a pitch-lowered segment of a word.

1. Alveolars are commonly retracted before /ɹ/.
2. The velar stops /k/ and /g/ advance further within the mouth before front vowels.
3. The voiceless billabial fricative /ɸ/ is more stressed if paired with an /u/ at the back of a word.
4. A voiceless /sh/ and /s/ may be partially voiced if succeeding a /e/ at the end of a word.
5. Sonorants are devoiced if the plosives /p b t/ precede.

Unstressed Syllables

Unstressed syllables can have a nucleus of any vowel present, However, Generally, certain vowel nuclei are used for unstressed vowels, such as:

1. [u], commonly perceived with a lowered tone when within an unstressed syllable. An example being bufofo.
2. An r-colored /a e i o u/ nucleus, these tend to be elongated and placed at the end of a word.
3. [ɨ], commonly perceived with a rising tone when within an unstressed syllable.
4. [ɯ̟], commonly seen with a preceding non-plosive consonants in syllables upfront.

Placement of syllables and pace of voice may effect the stress of syllables. A notable example being the voicing of /sh/ when placed at the end of a word (zh).

Vowels

Properties of Lefso's vowel monophthongs

IPA Symbol	Mouth	Location	Lips	Formant 1	Formant 2	Formant 2 - Formant 1	Vowel Origin
a	Near-Open	Front	Unrounded	265 Hz	920 Hz	655 Hz	English
ɛ	Open-Mid	Front	Unrounded	710 Hz	2,690 Hz	1,980 Hz	Russian
e	Close-Mid	Front	Unrounded	590 Hz	2,690 Hz	2,100 Hz	English
o	Close-Mid	Back	Rounded	865 Hz	2,820 Hz	1,955 Hz	English
ɪ	Near-Close	Near-Front	Unrounded	290 Hz	2,370 Hz	2,080 Hz	Russian
i	Close	Front	Unrounded	350 Hz	2,760 Hz	2,410 Hz	English
u	Close	Back	Rounded	265 Hz	540 Hz	275 Hz	English
ɨ	Close	Mid	Unrounded	340 Hz	1,300 Hz	960 Hz	Russian
ɯ̟	Close	Near-Back	Unrounded	340 Hz	1,410 Hz	1,080 Hz	Japanese

R-Colored Vowels

R-colored vowels are vowels affected by an /r/ via the third formant of the vowel dropping. An example being within /bird/, where intonation of /i/ is gradually lowered throughout the phrase.

R-colored vowels are usually only present for /a e i o u/, often during elongation via a Lefse.

Tone Usage and Lefse/Toner Formation rules

Tone is lexically significant in Modernized Lefso, often marked excessively by speakers. Tone is governed by three components: The director component of an Occupied Lefse, A Toner, and a Blank Lefse.

A Toner is similar to a Hiragana “Ku,” which was misinterpreted and borrowed from a Japanese Novel. This resulted in a dialect taking a major swing and repurposing the “Ku” as a Toner symbol, with the period turning into the indicator—it on the lower line meant a falling tone, and it placed on the higher line meant a rising tone.

The Lefse is considered the most important symbol. Consisting of a “Stage” (often occupied by a character) and a “Director,” an arrow-shaped item placed either center-top, bottom-right, or center-right. There are two types of Lefse: Blank and Occupied. A Lefse is every space possible where letters may take these up. Every Odinya character used in a sentence is considered an Occupied Lefse, as the letter (better in this context, “Sound Component), takes up the space of a Lefse, and the Director is positioned at the bottom-right of the character (with exceptions being la, le, li, lo, lu, pa, pe, pi, po, and pu). A Blank Lefse is a modifier character. It’s rare and is used for specific cases, such as:

A complicated sound with fluctuating tone, A toner, and Lefse must be used in alternation when doing so. Tone/Length marking at the end of a word. When a complicated sound requires more than one elongation/glottal stop marker. Altering the entire tone midway through a sentence, via duplicating the character.

A Lefse may only hold one director.

A Director shows what to do within a character. Pointing up or down indicates a rising or falling tone, while a left/right-oriented arrow indicates character elongation (left-facing), or shortening of aspiration or voice length. Sometimes marking a succeeding glottal stop. Tone markers alter everything after it (until the end of a word or another tone marker is used in said word).

The usage of Toners and Blank Lefses has varying influence on sounds depending on their placement and usage. A Blank Lefse, if used for tone, indicates that all components succeeding it must rise/fall in tone; exceptions being if it’s being alternated with a Toner for a complex tone, or if two Lefses are marked in the same direction downwards. A toner only affects its preceding character. When tone changes are marked, tone shifts 30 - 40% from its starting point. Aspiration is also affected by tone.

Writing Systems

Odinya

After the rapid modernization of Allavian, which deemed many characters obsolete, and moved many characters to other systems, the Odin writing system consists of 45 characters:

1. 5 singular vowels: / (a), J (e), I (i), し (o), \ (u) (respectively pronounced either [a], [e], [i], [o], and [u])
2. 5 non-singular vowels: /” (ya), J” (ye), I” (yi), し” (yo), \” (yu) (respectively pronounced either [ja], [je], [ji], [jo], and [jɯ] when unstressed, or [jeɪ], [jiː], [jaɪ], [joʊ], and [jjuː] when stressed.
3. 2 semivowels: Й, Ы (respectively pronounced as [j] and [ɨ]).
4. 15 single consonants: for example 先 (b), の (n), 中 (f).
5. 5 double consonants: for example 一 (Sh), 上 (Ts).
6. 10 consonant-vowel unions: for example び (pu), ガ (lu).
7. 5 modifier characters.

These are conceived as an 8x6 grid, as illustrated in the table below. All modifier characters are positioned outside of the grid.

Odinya Scirpt (Romaje - Character Approximation) - 金字門 (Kinjide) Format

Row 1	Row 2	Row 3	Row 4	Row 5	Row 6	Row 7
A (/)	E (J)	Й (十)	Lo (ガ)	Pa (び)	S: Cut	Ye (J”)
B (先)	F (中)	Zh (山)	Lu (ガ)	Pe (び)	T (尤	Yi (I”)
Sh (一)	G (χ)	L (カ)	M (の)	Pi (び)	Ts (上)	Yo (し”)
Sh(sh/ch) (=)	Kh/K (キ)	La (ガ)	N (の)	Po (び)	U (\)	Yu (\”)
Ch (匸)	H: Cut	Le (ガ)	O (し)	Pu (び)	V: Cut	Ы (ン)
D (え)	I (I)	Li (ガ)	P (ひ)	R (大)	Ya (/”)	Z: Cut

There are four types of vowels: Hard vowels, Soft vowels, Liquid vowels, and Extension Vowels. Hard vowels are the standard /a e i o u/ seen in most if not languages. Soft vowels consist of a preceding y, where a marking visually identified by a quotation mark-looking symbol located at the top-right of the character changes the vowel by adding a preceding “y” to the vowel, The addition of the y-marker is called “yittering”. Extension Vowels are mostly inferred by context unless marked.

Liquid vowels are the synonymous term for the semivowels й and Ы.

A process known as “vowel dragging” is commonly used for all characters (vowels included). In this process, a succeeding vowel is identified and marked at the top left of the character. However,for letters /l/ and /p/, they are placed on the top-right side. This is considered a major cultural nuance caused by the vast conflict over what symbol would take charge of the letter, and because it looked much better on the right.

The vowel dragging process leads many to the conclusion that Odinya is an abugida, however, Odinya contains individual vowels that do not have diacritic-counterparts in Yittering, leading to the consensus that Odinya is a gradient between an alphabet and abugida.

Stress is marked via a strikethrough-form Bowl that intersects the character. The type of strike indicates either added stress or lenition. In addition, vowel draggers may have strikethrough attached to them. A single line is lenition, and three lines on a vowel dragger are stressed. Tones are marked either via a Lefse or a Toner.

Odinye Exclusion Rule

The Odinye Exclusion is a cultural nuance used when writing in digital format. All Occupied Lefse’s are disregarded–all modifier characters used on an Occupied Lefse (excluding the Tie) are pushed to succeed the character in the following order.

(Vowel Dragging Vowel, Stress Marker, Toner, Lefse)

The Odinye Exclusion Rule is named after Odinye, a digital form of writing Odinya, however, eventually turned into a mannerism.

Hiragana

Hiragana is the second writing system of Lefso, it isn’t used within Modernized Lefso as in the manner of Odin. Hiragana is usually called “Obinya” in Modernized Lefso due to its major purpose as grammatical particles and conjugation, serving no purpose outside of these roles.

Katakana

Katakana is the third writing system of Odinya and was introduced via intense contact with the Japanese language. Used almost exclusively within quotation marks unless writing names, loanwords, transcriptions, or onomatopoeia. Katakana also has several letters that act as grammatical particles. Of the 48 Katakana syllabograms described above, only 46 are used in Modernized Lefso, and one of these is preserved for only a single use: wi and we are pronounced as vowels in Modernized Japanese and are therefore obsolete, supplanted by i and e, respectively - the same applies to Modernized Lefso. wo is now used only as a topping, and is normally pronounced the same as the vowel オ o. As a topping, it’s usually written as it would be in Hiragana (を) with the katakana form being nearly obsolete.

A small version of the Katakana ya, yu, or yo (ャ, ュ, or ョ, respectively) may be added to the Katakana ending in i. This changes the i vowel sound to a glide (palatalization) to a, u, or o, e.g. キャ (ki + ya) /kja/. The addition of the small y kana is called yōon.

A character called a sokuon, visually identical to a small tsu ッ, indicates that the following consonant is geminated (doubled). This is represented in romaje by doubling the consonant that follows the sokuon. In Katakana this is an important distinction in pronunciation; for example, compare サカ saka "hill" with サッカ Sakka "author". Geminated consonants are common in transliterations of foreign loanwords; for example, English "bed" is represented as ベッド (beddo). The sokuon also sometimes appears at the end of utterances, denoting a glottal stop. However, it cannot be used to double the na, ni, nu, ne, no syllables' consonants; to double these, the singular n (ン) is added in front of the syllable. The sokuon may also be used to approximate a non-native sound: Bach is written バッハ (Bahha); Mach as マッハ (Mahha).

Odin and Katakana both have elongation markings, however, Katakana does not use the Lefse mark (or any Odin-related marker at all) and instead uses a vowel extender mark, called a chōonpu ("long vowel mark"). This is a short line (ー) following the direction of the text, horizontal for locotexta (horizontal text), and vertical for odiverba (vertical text). For example, メール mēru is e-mail taken from the English word "mail"; the ー lengthens the e.