Moshurian

Moshurian
uthilikh
The Moshurian endonym(uthilikh) written in Moshurian script.
Pronunciation	[ˈuð.ilix]
Created by	Jukethatbox
Setting	Radael
Native to	Moshurian Empire
Ethnicity	Moshurians
Native speakers	410,000,000 (400 UH) L2: 40,000,000
Language family	Yeldhic Paleoyeldhic Tulooric Moshurian
Early forms	Kóftąbriác Yeldha Proto-Tulooric Early Moshurian Ancient Moshurian Middle Moshurian
Standard form	Taráhus Moshurian
Dialects	Taráhus dialect(Taráhus gugtui) Oźmaneli dialect(Oźmaneli gugtui) Oalan dialect(Oalan gugtui) Loïha dialect(Loïha gugtui) Odezyë dialect(Odezyë gugtui) Far East dialect(Dmuriékh gugtui) Sépenzg dialect(Sépenzg gugtui)
Writing system	Moshurian alphabet
Official status
Official language in	Moshurian Empire Iśatúr Confederacy
Recognised minority language in	Eastern Gegfen Alliance
Regulated by	Ministry of Linguistic Regulation
Map of Moshurian speakers. Dark green represents a Moshurian-speaking majority and light green represents a significant minority.

Moshurian(endonym: uthilikh; Moshurian: [ˈuðˌilix]) is a Tulooric language spoken in mostly Talkoch. It is the most spoken language in Talkoch, and also has significant minority communities on Etzeán Island and the Eastern Gegfen Alliance, also called the Dmuriékh(lit. "far away east"). It is the sole official language of the Moshurian Empire, and is thoroughly used administratively and academically in the Moshurian Empire, no matter what one's mother tongue is.

Philologically, the language is of the Yeldhic language superfamily, which also includes languages like Ilda and Barbuz. Within the superfamily, it is of the Paleoyeldhic branch: a deviation of Proto-Yeldhic spoken by the first Proto-Yeldhic farmers in the fertile Ulmic Crescent and around the rivers of Zád and Pêrush. The Moshurians are of a Paleoyeldhic origin, and are most likely ethnically related to the β-Paleoyeldhics, who advanced south into the wider Tarám River Basin and settled in the temperate Munsanukh Valley and the coast of Tuloor Lake, where the split between the Tulooric branch of languages, of which Moshurian is part of, and the Najmunsaic branch of languages, of which Aquq and Hátuli is part of, occured around 3000 UH.

It is one of the only surviving languages indigenous to the Munsanukh Valley, which is generally considered, alongside Tuloor Lake, to be the birthplace of the Moshurian race, culture and language.

Usage

In the Moshurian Empire

Moshurian is the official language of the Moshurian Empire, and 98% of Moshurian speakers live in the Empire. However, demographically speaking, the Moshurians make up a much less impressive 43.6% of the total Moshurian Empire population, with other important ethnic groups including the Mezcoi in the Mezco Delta at 24.1% of the population and the Arnic people, although the majority live in the Moshurian vassal of Arnah, make up about 11.7% of the population and that number shoots up to 21.9% of the population if one includes Arnah.

Though the 394BH Ethnic Minority Media and Information Transmission Bill legally mandates media to be translated into the majority language of any prefecture, Moshurian-majority prefectures are still the most economically developed and powerful, so many still learn Moshurian as a second language for work in these Moshurian-majority regions.

As of 400 BH, there are 40,000,000 people who speak Moshurian as a second language out of a total speaker base of 450,000,000, or about 8.88% of the total Moshurian speaker population.

In the Iśatúr Confederacy

The Iśatúr Confederacy, a tribal federation comprising mostly of tribes that speak Ossic languages, has a significant minority of Moshurian speakers in the south of the country, dating back to the Moshurian Empire's colonial efforts to "Moshurianise" the Empire from 96 BH-370 BH.

About 84,000 people of the total population of 5,000,000 in the Confederacy spoke Moshurian in 400 BH, or around 1.98% of the population.

In Gegfen

In the Far East of Birnu, a region called Gegfen is home to about 40,000 "Far East" Moshurians. Why they speak Moshurian so far away from Moshuria itself is a mystery, as the region was never occupied by the Moshurian Empire.

Their dialect differs very little from mainland Taráhus Moshurians; see §Far East dialect.

Origin

Ancestors

Comparative morphology

		Early Moshurian	Old Moshurian	Middle Moshurian	Modern Moshurian
Word	"cow"	*mosuk	mosuk	musuk	mosok
	"eye"	*faleH	felekh	fale	fáli
	"grass"	*syö	siu	soi	sö
	"emotion"	*mḗHwēg	meşek	màfhek	mufhe
	"Moshurian"	*uðileH	uthilikmöim	uthilikmui	uthilikh/uthilikmë

Early Moshurian

Early Moshurian, also alternatively called Proto-Moshurian, is the earliest form of the Moshurian language, although it is still only hypothesised, as Moshurian was not recorded until Old Moshurian. Most of Early Moshurian's vocabulary is instead comparatively reconstructed from later forms of Moshurian, as well as earlier proto-languages like Proto-Tulooric and sometimes as far back as Proto-Yeldhic.

Iki-Duki's law

In the transistory period between Early and Old Moshurian, the /Hw/ sounds found in Early Moshurian post-alveolised to become /ʃ/ in Old Moshurian. This sound change, which seems to only have occured in Moshuric and Aquqi derivations, is often known in Radael linguistic areas as Iki-Duki's law, as it was first hypothesised by a Kutic nomadic linguist called Iki-Duki, who studied phonological differences between his native Kutic and Moshurian. Although Iki-Duki's most famous contribution to the linguistics community was his classification of Kutic as part of the at the time still considered areal language family Ebró, his findings later snowballed into further study into other Moshuric languages and his hypothesis.

The law was first attested by Arnic linguist Môhwod ða-Téfir himself, and one of his first of many contributions to the linguistic community.

Old Moshurian

Old Moshurian is the oldest orthographically attested ancestor of Moshurian. Its oldest known written work is the Māgiswāska Kovinās("Magistrates' Jurisdiction"; Old Moshurian: TàGevoch Kominazà; Modern Moshurian: TaMamidakh Kominaz), a document that was originally written in Ilda but translated into Old Moshurian.

Old Moshurian is also the primary appearance and attestation of Iki-Duki's law. Compare Early Moshurian *mḗHwēg and Old Moshurian meşek.

Roōka's law

Roōka was another linguist who studied Moshuric sound changes, and he hypothesised and attested his own law of Moshuric sound changes, in which inset /ʃ/ allophones labialised to become Middle Moshurian /ɸ/.

Roōka's law was preserved into most dialects of Modern Moshurian, though the Sépenzg dialect still preserved Old Moshurian phonology, though strangely the morphology has stayed on course with other Modern Moshurian dialects.

Middle Moshurian

Middle Moshurian, also called Classical Moshurian, is the most recently spoken ancestor of Moshurian. Its development saw the emergence of the standard written Moshurian script, which developed from the Bone-etch script used by the Bâ(Modern Moshurian: Bákh) clan of Northern Maranösia.

It differs from Modern Moshurian by how many more final consonants there are on nouns. In Modern Moshurian, many final velar plosives were dropped, such as in Middle Moshurian màfhek turning into Modern Moshurian mufhe.

Endonym

The Moshurian endonym, uthilikh, is most likely derived from Moshurian mythology, in which the god of creation's daughter, Khaurnán, sent her son, Uthiliran, to lead the Moshurian people. Etymologically, the word is probably derived from the Proto-Yeldhic word *ułiqʷ, which most likely meant "small lake" or "pond", possibly referring to Tuloor Lake, which is deduced to be the Moshurian homeland.

Exonym

Their exonym of Moshurian comes from a nomadic legend of the god of travel and nomads, Dündŵęk, who traveled to Tuloor Lake(the homeland of the Moshurians) in search of an inn to rest. The Moshurians had plenty of inns(möşhüř as they are called in Ancient Yeldha), and Dündŵęk was finally able to rest. After departing, he thanked the Moshurians, and later mentioned them to the other gods as simply möşhüřiànöřmà, or "inn people". This exonym stuck within nomadic circles, who then passed the exonym to the more settled peoples of Talkoch.

Phonology

Orthography

The Moshurian alphabet, with phonemic pronunciation.

Moshurian has its own script that is read right-to-left, top-to-bottom. Each symbol can be easily deciphered by simply looking at how high or low the symbol is. If the symbol goes down below the line on the paper, it is a consonant.

The sound /h/ is represented with the〈kh〉glyph, and the /ɸ/ sound is represented by the 〈fh〉dipthong, transcripted as ⟨fkh⟩.

Origin

The origin of the Moshurian alphabet is heavily debated. According to the Gécheb Bizörith, the Moshurian alphabet was designed by a secret society called Akhakuöm, who took inspiration from the Tiragii military cuneiform. Eventually after the bust of Akhakuöm by the Moshurian state, the script was changed to fit the standard Moshurian dialect and re-issued as the government Moshurian alphabet.

In the Sóvók religion, one of the books in the Idērigidwi claims that a man named Udeldoi presented a script to the king of Moshuria so as to record military victories for propaganda.

Both of these interpretations are considered simply as urban legend, as orthographic analysis of the Izkanà(one of the earliest Moshurian documents) by calligraphers showed that the early Moshurian alphabet had many similarities with the logographic Oalanii script, which may have influenced Munsanukh orthographies as a whole.

The glyphs for /b/ comes from Oalanii *ʕbạn, while the glyph for /d/ comes from Oalanii *dḕmsir.

Abjad form

The Moshurian alphabet can be written in an abjad form, although this is mostly used by Kutic traders who adapted the Moshurian alphabet to a structure similar to their own native Kutic script, which itself is an abjad.

The form mostly follows the rules of the Kutic abjad, such as no inset vowels being represented, although the glyphs for ⟨a⟩ and ⟨á⟩ are used in an onset position.

The Moshurian Empire does not officially recognise the abjad form, and even in traditionally Kutic-dominated territories, such as along east to west trade routes, children are taught the alphabetical form of the script when learning Moshurian.

Consonants

Consonant phonemes

	Labial		Labiodental		Dental		Alveolar		Post- alveolar/ palatal		Retroflex/ velar		Glottal
Stop/ Affricate	p	b					t	d	t͡ʃ		k	ɡ
Nasal		m						n				ŋ
Fricative	ɸ		f		(θ)	ð	s	z	ʃ	ʒ	x		h
Approximant										j
Lateral								l
Flap												ɽ

Vowels

Vowel phonemes

	Front		Near- front	Central	Back
Close	i	y			u
Near-close			ɪ
Close-mid	e	ø			o
Mid				ə̃
Open-mid	ε
Open	a				ɑ

Prosody

Stress

Stress in Moshurian is paroxytonic, meaning stress is placed on the penultimate syllable of a word, e.g. zazuŋ, pronounced [ˈzaˌzuŋ], or uthilikh, pronounced [ˈuð.ilix].

Phonotactics

Syllables in Moshurian typically follow the pattern of (C)(C)V(V)(C)(C).

Morphology

See also: Moshurian/Swadesh list.

Loanwords

Despite Moshurian being the dominant Yeldhic language by far, with basically every other language in Radael borrowing at the very least some words from Moshurian, it may come as a surprise that despite this, Moshurian has borrowed many, many words from all kinds of languages throughout its history.

Ilda's influence

Moshurian has borrowed thousands of words from Ilda, mostly regarding medical and scientific studies. Some examples include:

Medical terms

• zudözaba from Ilda sudusāpas, "tibia"
• milindya from Ilda milendia, "coronary heart disease", lit. "vein(mileni) disease(dio)"
• sagindya from Ilda sagindia, "leukemia"
• ranoskoi from Ilda ranoscan, "medication"
• sespid from Ilda sāspidi, "nurse"
• ustrim from Ilda ustrēm, "doctor"

Non-medical terms

• safhilon from Ilda saphilon, "philosophy"
• istakon from Ilda istāklon, "strategy/military strategy"
• makistu from Ilda machirstun, "administration(archaic term)"
• irkiman from Ilda irkimano, "regulation(s)"
• meşasel from Ilda meswasālia, "physics and chemistry"(considered the same subject in Ilda)
• estanik from Ilda estāniki, "geology"

Verbs

Verbs in Moshurian are inflected with the infinitive suffix -omh, and then it can be further conjugated based on pronoun.

Suffixes

	Singular	Plural
Infinitive	-omh
First person	-ék(-ïk)	-ékeŋ(-ïkeŋ)
Second person	-ot	-(o)tuŋ
He	-eź	-iŋź
She	-aş	-aŋéş
They	-iş	-éiméş

Example

Suffixes

		Singular	Plural
Infinitive		dáfhéromh
First person		dáfhérék	dáfhérékeŋ
Second person		dáfhérot	dáfhérotuŋ
Third person	He	dáfhéreź	dáfhériŋź
	She	dáfhéraş	dáfhéraŋéş
	They	dáfhériş	dáfhéréiméş

Numerals

Numerals in Moshurian are labelled as cardinal by adding the suffix -i to a number.

Moshurian	English
iyg	one
oyamö	two
tikré	three
igoyà	four
tikoyam	five

Pronouns

Demonstrative

Demonstrative pronouns

English translation	Pronoun
this	gá
that	gánué
these	gáloŋ
those	gánuéloŋ

Personal

Personal pronouns in Moshurian are, for the most part, identical to their verb inflections.

Personal pronouns

	Singular	Plural
First person	ék	ékeŋ
Second person	ot	otuŋ
He	eź	iŋź
She	aş	aŋéş
They	iş	éiméş

Possessive

Possessive pronouns in Moshurian are identical to personal pronouns, except that they add the prefix ta- before the personal pronoun.

Possessive pronouns

	Singular	Plural
First person	taék	taékeŋ
Second person	taot	taotuŋ
He	taeź	taiŋź
She	tayaş	tayaŋéş
They	taiş	taéiméş

The exceptions to this rule are the male third person possessive pronoun, where the prefix tay- is used instead because the personal pronouns begin in a-.

Syntax

Constituent order

Modern Moshurian uses an OSV(object-subject-verb) sentence structure.

Verb order

In Moshurian, in the event of two verbs, the first, "initiating" verb(V₁) is conjugated based on the context, while the second(V₂) is in infinitive. However, many Moshurian speakers, especially in Maranösia, do not conjugate the second verb in infinitive, which is a defining feature of the region's vernacular.

Noun-adjective order

Noun-adjective order is free, though most people put the adjective following the noun.

Cases

Moshurian has three noun cases: the nominative, the accusative and the genitive. The nominative is not indicated, while the accusative is indicated with a -géd/-éd suffix for all nouns but pronouns and the suffix -e for pronouns. The genitive case is indicated with the prefix ta-.

		Nominative	Accusative	Genitive
Noun	Consonant-ending	-	-éd	ta-
	Vowel-ending		-géd
Pronoun			-e

Particles

Tense particles

In Moshurian, there are four main tenses- the present, the future, the far future and the simple past. To indicate that a phrase is in a certain tense, a particle is used just before the object, e.g. öş gersetigéd kestolék(I built a house).

Tense particles

Present	Future	Far Future	Past
(uź)	ïş	ïşé	öş

The present tense particle, uź, is used like a natural in music. By default, no particle is used to indicate the present in a non-contextual sentence, but as particles are continuous, meaning that if a particle is placed then all succeeding sentences will be in the particle's tense until a new particle appears, uź may be needed to clarify that a sentence does not follow the tense of the previous sentence.
Example: öş abáragéd udubék. budur ibiş. - I went to the park. It was great.
ös abáragéd udubék. uź budur ibiş. - I went to the park. (The park) is great.

Other particles

• ché - negative particle, roughly translates to no/not/non- in English.
• duà - imperative particle, indicates a sentence is imperative. Can also mean the adjective "imperative" in general, though most speakers differentiate the two meanings by using duànaga for the latter meaning.

Noun phrase

Sögéd kél mosok dáfhéréiméş.

grass-ACC PL cow(PL) eat-3PL.

Cows eat grass.

In this sentence, sögéd is the object, mosok is the subject, and dáfhéréiméş is the verb with inflection. in noun phrases, Moshurian still uses the object-subject-verb structure.

Verb phrase

See also:Verbs.

sögéd duà ché dáfhér!

grass-ACC IMP no eat!

Do not eat the grass!

In imperative verb phrases, the imperative particle, duà, is put before the verb, as ché is still considered, at least grammatically, part of the verb when present. Additionally, verbs take on their root form, as opposed to their infinitive form in said sentence type.

In this sentence, sögéd is the object, and the verb is dáfhér. The subject does not appear and is instead implied to be the recipient of the imperative phrase.

Dialects

Standard dialect

The standard dialect of Moshurian is, according to the Ministry of Linguistic Regulation(MLR), officially the Taráhus dialect spoken in the capital, although Tárahus is so large that several districts have developed their own dialects, many of which who are vastly different from each other, so it is still unclear on which is considered the standard within the family of Taráhus dialects.

Inner Taráhus dialect

The Inner Taráhus dialect is generally considered by Moshurian linguistics to be what the MLR constitution means in the line:

"[...] The dialect spoken around the capitol and the [MLR] shall be considered the dialect to be used for the transmission of necessary information to Moshurian citizens. For non-Moshurian areas of the Empire, the standard [dialect] of the most prominent non-Moshurian language shall be used to convey said information."

However, this quote can be considered quite vague, as the MLR and the wider capitol has changed location many times in Taráhus. One year, the MLR headquarters was located in the district of Oźmaneli, where a borderline unintelligible dialect of Moshurian is spoken, and, for that year, the bizarre Oźmaneli dialect was considered the standard, causing great confusion to non-Oźmanelis.

Oźmaneli dialect

The Oźmaneli dialect is a dialect spoken in the inner city district of Oźmaneli. It has garnered much attention from linguists, as its pronunciation is widely different from typical pronunciation.

Additionally, it is the only dialect to utilise the zero copula, an effect where the verb "to be" is not used in a statement, e.g. instead of "I am tired" it would be "I tired".

Phonetic differences

In general, the pattern seems to be that voiceless consonants tend to get voiced, but this is not always the case.

• /ŋ/ is pronounced [ɳ] or [ɟ]
• /x/ is pronounced [ɣ]
• /ð/ is pronounced [θ]
• /b/ is sometimes pronounced [ʙ] before a /ɽ/.
• Speaking of /ɽ/, it is pronounced [ɬ]

Morphological differences

• mosok ⇒ Oźmaneli mudźuk.
• pusadi ⇒ Oźmaneli bsédodifh.
• uthilikh ⇒ Oźmaneli utuɟul.
• surus/zazuŋ ⇒ Oźmaneli şild/soéş.

Oźmaneli rhyming slang

Very similar to Cockney rhyming slang in London, Oźmaneli has its own rhyming slang, that often leaves many non-Oźmanelis stringed(confused).

• abaza(football) rhymes with dzul iz upaza(colour and shape) → dzul
• zebatalomh(confuse) → usuŋtua sibatal(stringed instrument) → usuŋtua

Oalan dialect

The Oalan dialect is the specific dialect of Moshurian spoken in the city of Oalan and its surrounding suburbs. Although not as dissimilar from the standard as the Oźmaneli dialect, and having relatively few morphological differences, phonologically it differs quite a bit, and is thus often considered by those from Taráhus as an "uneducated" and "rural" dialect, although this interpretation is obviously considered quite offensive by Oalanians, who in return see the Taráhusians as "egotistic bourgeois moral absolutists", or just "rich assholes" for short. Perhaps not so coincidentally, the local branch of the Moshurian Socialist Party often use rich Taráhusians as scapegoats in economic troubles, and are thus quite popular in the region.

Phonological differences

• Glottal or velar fricatives(/h/ or /x/) surrounded by vowels are either not pronounced or non-syllabic.
  • Middle Moshurian ukhalan → (possibly) Oalan
• Initial /u/ is pronounced [o] or [ɔ].
  • uthilikh /ˈuð.ilix/ → othilih [ˈoθ.ilih]
• Final /x/ is pronounced [h] or not at all
  • semikh → semï/semih
• Final unrounded vowels are rounded.
  • asti /asti/ → astï [asty]
• Voiced fricatives at the end of syllables, unless velar or glottal and the next phone is a vowel, are unvoiced.
  • eźir /ɛˈʒiɽ/ → eşir [ɛˈʃiɽ]

Loïha dialect

The Loïha dialect is the dialect of Moshurian speakers who reside in the Golden Plain. Loïha is possibly the most distinct but still intelligible dialect of Moshurian. This is because there are very few morphological differences, but quite large sound changes.

Notably, the Loïha dialect can be split into two groups: the Western and Eastern dialects. Western Loïha tends to be a bit more distant from the standard, whereas Eastern is the opposite. However, what is universal across both dialects is that glottal stops are incorporated in everyday speech.

Sound changes

• From /ð/ → [θ](Western) or [ð](Eastern)
• From /x/ → [ʁ](Western) or [χ](Eastern)
• In diphthong C̥V → /ʔV/.

Odezyë dialect

The Odezyë dialect is phonetically not very different from standard Moshurian, but it does have a bizarre mannerism that cannot be found in any other dialect- that being the suffix -áktu. It is placed directly after any sort of proper noun, including names. The origin of this is heavily debated- although the most prominent theory claims that it may come from the Aquq genitive suffix -et’ḛ.

Far East dialect

The entire existence of the Far East Moshurians(Dmuriékh; Moshurian: [dˈmuɽi̯ˌex]) is shrouded in mystery, but they seem to speak a certain dialect of Moshurian that only slightly varies from the standard Taráhus dialect.

Phonological differences

• /u/ → [ʊ] or [ɯ] in some cases
• [VN] → [Ṽ].

Sépenzg dialect

Morphologically speaking, the Sépenzg dialect does not differ much from other Moshurian dialects, though phonologically, there is one major difference: Roōka's law did not occur in the dialect, and to this day the /ɸ/ allophone is still pronounced /ʃ/.

The Sépenzg dialect is an example of "regressive phonology" in Yeldhic languages, where a register or dialect of a language is isolated from a major sound change or sound changes. There is also "regressive morphology", where a dialect does not experience morphological change that other dialects did. Though this is significantly rarer in Yeldhic languages, it can be found in some Misunic languages, and is often what leads to the diversion of languages.