Lenyan

Lenyan
leñ yen toynoqŭğ leñoqŭr
Pronunciation	[ˈleɲ jən ˈtɔjnɔqɯɣ] [ˈleɲɔqɯr]
Created by	Lili21
Date	Nov 2018
Setting	Calémere
Native to	Leñ-ṱef
Ethnicity	Leñ (leñoqŭroʻr)
Native speakers	12,500,000 (6424)
Language family	Kenengyry languages Southern Kenengyry Lenyan
Writing system	Chlouvānem script for Lenyan
Official status
Official language in	Leñ-ṱef

Lenyan, natively leñ yen toynoqŭğ or simply leñoqŭr, is a Calémerian language spoken on Márusúturon, belonging to the Kenengyry family (kinanğoʻrŭn yen toynoqŭğoʻr). It is the ethnic language of the Leñ people (leñ hol or leñoqŭroʻr) and the only official language in their nation state, Leñ-ṱef, situated on the coast of High and Little Ivulit (known in Lenyan as šağolqŭp yen doʻyor "the Gateway Sea" and qŭrŭmqey yen doʻyor "the Green Sea" respectively) just opposite Qualdomailor, roughly between 29º and 34ºN. It is one of the most divergent Kenengyry languages, the only one in the family not mutually intelligible with any other sister language. As such, it does not have features otherwise common in most languages of the family, such as phonemic vowel length, suffixed definite articles, or consonant gradation.

It is moderately known in the areas just outside the Leñ borders (Ebed-dowa to the north, Džemleštew to the west, and the Chlouvānem Inquisition (dioceses of Līnajaiṭa and Yultijaiṭa) to the south), but most Leny are proficient in the area's two main lingue franche, Soenjoan (in Leny soʻyŭnqa yen toynoqŭğ) used among Kenengyry peoples and more broadly Chlouvānem (cenavonŭm yen toynoqŭğ), the latter of which contributed to a huge amount of terminology to Lenyan, which is therefore included among the main Imuniguro-Xenic languages. It is spoken by about 12.5 million people, roughly 82% of which in Leñ-ṱef, with a further 12% in the Inquisition and the rest in other countries of the former Kaiṣamā, especially in the Kenengyry world.

External History

Lenyan is not one of the main languages of Calémere, though as one day I got an aesthetic inspiration from Uzbek and Chuvash, I decided to make something out of that and, as the Kenengyry languages are already aesthetically and historically close to Turkic (and Mongolic) languages, I decided to use that aesthetic for a divergent language in that family.

Phonology

Orthography

As all languages of those areas of Vīṭadælteh which were part of the former Kaiṣamā, Lenyan's native script has been, for the last 60 years, an adapted version of the Chlouvānem abugida, somewhat inspired by the already existant orthographies of other Kenengyry languages in the Chlouvānem script but for the most part natively decided by Leñ linguists. Chlouvānem loanwords are, in the most formal registers, written etymologically, as they are in Chlouvānem, while in less informal styles they are written according to Lenyan pronunciation.

Consonants

Lenyan has an average consonant inventory consisting of 23 phonemes, none of them particularly rare cross-linguistically:

→ PoA ↓ Manner		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular
Nasals		m m	n n	ñ ɲ
Plosives	Voiceless	p p	t t		k k	q q
	Voiced	b b	d d		g g
Affricates	Voiceless			c tʃ
	Voiced			j dʒ
Fricatives	Voiceless	f f	s s š ʃ ṱ θ		h x~χ
	Voiced		z z		ğ ɣ~ʁ
Laterals			l l
Trill			r r
Approximants				y j	v w1

1. In loanwords only.

Vowels

The vowel inventory of Lenyan consists of 9 monophthongs and four diphthongs, one of them only found in loanwords. All vocalic phonemes are oral.

	Front	Central	Back
High	i ü i y	ŭ ɯ	u u
High-mid	e ö e øː		oʻ o
Low-mid			o ɔ
Low		a a
Diphthongs	oy ɔʏ̯ aj ai̯ ej ei̯1		av au̯1

1. In Chlouvānem loanwords only.

Morphology

Nouns

Leny is much less inflected than most other Kenengyry languages. Leny nouns inflect for four cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, and dative, and two numbers, singular and plural. The nominative and accusative are identical except for vowel stems. Unlike most other Kenengyry languages, Leny has no consonant gradation.

Case	(singular) form	consonant stem buğlon, -m "house"	-a vowel stem doyla "fish"	Other vowel stem mayri, -e "woman"
Nominative	(lemma form)	buğlon	doyla	mayri
Accusative	-∅ (cons. stems) -r (vowel stems)	buğlon	doylar	mayrer
Genitive	-eni (cons. stems) -yni (vowel stems)	buğlomeni	doylayni	mayrini
Dative	-ːöf (cons. stems) -zöf (vowel stems)	buğlomnöf	doylazöf	mayrezöf

Plurals are formed by adding -öñ (cons. stems) or -jöñ (vowel stems) before the case ending, note that the plural genitive is -(j)öñŭni; e.g. buğlomöñ, buğlomön, buğlomöñŭni, buğlomöñöf, etc.

Vocabulary

Due to its vicinity with the Qualdomelic sphere, Lenyan has a number of Qualdomelic loans absent from other Kenengyry languages. Some examples:

• căjhdinar "favourite" > Leny. kŭyzinŭr
• γurăj "candle" > ğurŭy
• fẹctăs "window" > faktŭs
• whazor "music" > fazoʻr
• šlăwhelẹc "year" > šŭlfelak

Lenyan is also an Imuniguro-Xenic language, due to the high number of Chlouvānem loans in it, its use of Chlouvānem roots in order to coin new words, and its regular correspondences in sounds. Note that words given in this section are transcribed from Lenyan according to their pronunciation: in Lenyan, they are written as they are in Chlouvānem.

• saṃrasta "war" > sonrasta
• ñæltah "sister" > ñanta "peer"
• talša "novel" > tanša
• yaivcārṇātra "communism" > yaivŭcornotŭra
• murkadhānāvi "the Inquisition" > murkadonovi
• prauda "newspaper" > pŭravda
• Yunyalīlta > Yuñaninta
• Līlasuṃghāṇa > Qinasunğona
• Kaiṣamā > Kayšamo
• Kayāgaprika > Kayogapŭrika
• jålkha "cold" > joʻnha- "cryo-"