Soenjoan

Soenjoan
soenjŏŋ taŋhryjin soenjŏjin
Pronunciation	[ˈsoə̯njɔŋ ˈtaŋhrɯjin] [ˈsoə̯njɔjin]
Created by	Lili21
Date	Jun 2018
Setting	Calémere
Native to	Soenjŏ steppelands
Ethnicity	Soenjŏ (soenjajünin)
Native speakers	29,550,000 (6424)
Language family	Kenengyry languages Northern Central Kenengyry Soenjoan
Writing system	Chlouvānem script for Soenjoan
Official status
Official language in	Soenjŏ-tave

Soenjoan, natively soenjŏŋ taŋhryjin or simply soenjŏjin, is a Calémerian language spoken on Márusúturon. The most widespread of the Kenengyry languages (kenengyr taŋhrysüün), it is the ethnic language of the Soenjŏ people (soenjŏŋ khŏljin or soenjajünin) and therefore the official language of Soenjŏ-tave, a widely known common language among speakers of the Kenengyry family, and spoken natively by the large ethnic Soenjŏ minority in the Chlouvānem Inquisition. It is also one of the three working languages of the Eastern Bloc (together with Chlouvānem and Skyrdagor).

It shares most of the prototypical features of Kenengyry languages, such as a relatively large number of noun cases, a nominative-accusative alignment, and an agglutinative morphology. Vocabulary-wise, it has a large share of native Kenengyry roots and many of its forms have been borrowed into neighboring, related languages; however, a substantial portion of its lexicon, especially modern and formal, is Imuniguro-Xenic, i.e. composed of Chlouvānem borrowings or Soenjŏ-made words from Chlouvānem roots.

External History

Soenjoan is a language I had to detail as the most spoken in the area of the former Kaiṣamā, which is a pretty major area in Márusúturon and therefore needed something a bit more detailed than a simple naming language. Partly because of this area being inspired by Central Asia, I did not even try to hide neither the Turkic nor the Mongolian influences on it, but I was also inspired a lot by Finnish and a bit by Korean.

Phonology

Orthography

Soenjoan, like many languages of that area of Vīṭadælteh in the former Kaiṣamā, has been natively written in the last 60 years in an adapted version of the Chlouvānem abugida, with a few adapted glyphs to better accomodate Soenjŏ phonemes not found in Chlouvānem. 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 Soenjŏ pronunciation. As the romanization used here is a transliteration of the transcription into the Íscégon script as used in Ceria and Nordulik, such words are always written as "Soenjŏ-ified".

Transcribing Soenjoan according to Chlouvānem script rules, for instance, would lead to soenyåṃ taṃhrŭyin for soenjŏŋ taŋhryjin. Some scientific publications in the West, for the sake of consistency, transcribe Soenjoan this way, just as every other language written in the Chlouvānem script. This is also done in the rest of the Eastern bloc for transcriptions into the Skyrdegan and Qualdomelic scripts.

Consonants

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

→ PoA ↓ Manner		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasals		m m	n n		ŋ ŋ
Plosives	Voiceless	p p	t t		k k
	Voiced	b b	d d		g g
Affricates	Voiceless		c ts	č tʃ
	Voiced		dz dz	dž dʒ
Fricatives	Voiceless		s s š ʃ		kh x	h h
	Voiced		z z ž ʒ
Laterals			l l
Trill			r r
Approximants				j j	v w

Vowels

Soenjoan's vowel inventory consists of 16 monophthongs (7 long-short pairs and two lone qualities) and eight diphthongs, one of them only found in loanwords. All vocalic phonemes are oral.

	Front	Central	Back
High	i ü ii üü i y iː yː	y ɯ	u uu u uː
High-mid	e ee ö öö e eː ø øː		o oo o oː
Low-mid			ŏ ɔ
Low		a aa a aː
Diphthongs	ie ie̯ üö yø̯ aj ai̯ ej ei̯1	oe oe̯	uo uo̯ av au̯

1. In Chlouvānem loanwords only.

Soenjoan long vowels are mostly derived from consonant assimilation, and are not the continuation of Proto-Central-Kenengyry long vowels, which evolved into Soenjoan diphthongs (or ŏ); see e.g. the female proper name *Baalhane > Soe. Bŏlhŏne but in the close relative Kuyugwazian Baalhŭni; or also *leeta "milk" > Soe. liet, Kŭy. leet.

Morphology

Consonant reduction

A common morphophonological feature in many Kenengyry languages is consonant reduction after long vowels, quite similar to the phenomenon of consonant gradation in Uralic languages. In Northern Central Kenengyry languages, such as Soenjoan and Kuyugwazian, this process happened after long vowels (not short ones nor diphthongs, but after a short high vowel and a resonant) and only if followed by a vowel. While many of these triggering circumstances were later lost or modified, some inflections require a stem with a reduced consonant.
Two common examples of inflections using a reduced consonant are the accusative singular of most nouns and the definite suffix (article) -in:

• "milk (NOM), milk (ACC), the milk" – *leet, *leetɯr, *leet-indɯ > liet, liedyr, liedin (long vowel)
• "friend (NOM), friend (ACC), the friend" – *jurk, *jurkɯr, *jurk-indɯ > jurka, jurjaa, jurjin (high short vowel plus resonant; the inflection is an example of "hybrid inflection" in Soenjoan linguistics, i.e. a former consonant stem which was shifted to vowel stem but retaining the consonant alternation)
• "jug(NOM), jug (ACC), the jug" – *lata, *latar, *lata-indɯ > lŏta, lŏtaa, lateen (short vowel, therefore no consonant reduction. The a>ŏ change is another alternation, but regular and unrelated, peculiar to Soenjoan, cf. Kuyugwazian > lat, latŭr, latŭn).

Nouns

Soenjoan nouns are inflected, mostly agglutinatively, for eight cases and two numbers (singular and plural):

Note that in all forms where an alternative is given between -y- and -u-, the -u- one is used after labial consonants, the -y- one otherwise.

Case	(singular) form	consonant stem, no reduction bulym "house"	consonant stem with reduction liet "milk"	-a vowel stem jŏla "fish"	Other vowel stem mire "woman"
Nominative	(lemma form)	bulym	liet	jŏla	mire
Accusative	-yr/-ur (cons. stems) -ː (vowel stems)	bulymur	liedyr	jŏlaa	miree
Genitive	-yn/-n	bulymyn	liedyn	jŏlan	miren
Partitive	-a	bulyma	lieda	jŏlaa	mirea
Dative	-tüü	bulymtüü	lietüü	jŏlatüü	miretüü
Locative	-yryŋ/-uruŋ/-jyryŋ	bulymuruŋ	liedyryŋ	jŏlajyryŋ	mirejyryŋ
Prolative	-ur/-r	bulymur	liedur	jŏlar	mirer
Ablative	-vyšyl	bulymvyšyl	lietvyšyl	jŏlavyšyl	mirevyšyl

Some vowel stem nouns are actually former consonant stems and decline as such except for the accusative and partitive (where, however, they undergo consonant reduction): these are known as "hybrid declensions". One such noun is jurka "friend" = jurjaa, jurjyn, jurjaa, jurktüü, jurjyryŋ, jurjur, jurkvyšyl.

The nominative-accusative plural is formed by adding -üün (consonant stems) or -jün (vowel stems; but those in -e or -i have the consonant stem inflection which combines with the vowel to form -öö-), e.g. bulymüün, jurjüün "friends", jŏlajün, miröön.

The partitive plural is formed by adding -ulaa (transforming into -öölaa for -e and -i vowel stems), e.g. bulymulaa, jurjulaa, jŏlaulaa, miröölaa.

The plural forms of other cases are formed by adding -uu- (without consonant reduction!; -u- (-öö-) for vowel stems) and then the singular ending, e.g. bulymuun, bulymuutüü, jurkuujyryŋ, jŏlaur, miröövyšyl.