User:Ceige/Lexember Language

Introduction

Influences include:

• Kiritimati (Christmas Island ala Kiribati)
• Japanese & Ainu
• Austronesian

Examples:

• Christmas > kirmat　｜　きりまっ、待
• Christian > kirsan　｜　きりさん、〜様
• Merry > mei, mai　｜　めい、まい、美

Sound Changes

• CLV > CVr
• -VF > -VP

Phonology

Consonants

Plosives

• p (b) t k (*g)

/b/ might only be allowed in VCV situations. Not sure if /g/ is allowed too. Likely heavy restrictions on their occurrence.

This would leave /t/ the sole plosive for its POA, which is explainable by the /t/ /d/ merger of English'. Dento-alveolars are also better represented elsewhere (fricatives and liquids)

/t/ may change to palato-alveolar in the environment of /i/, and from there it is tempting to mirror Japanese.

Fricatives

• (f) s h

/f/ might only be allowed in Cu situations

Sonorants

• m n y w r

/n/ is the only nasal allowed at the end of a syllable, leaving /m/ to join /w/ and /y/ as syllable-initial consonants only. In contrast, /r/ yields to /n/ or /Ø/ word initially.

Vowels

• a e i o u
• ai, au, ei, *ou

/ou/ is exceedingly rare, if even possible. /ei/ is increasingly marginalised by some speakers and can merge with /ai/ - for others, /ei/ survives. /au/ is often realised as [äo] or [ao], and /ai/ sometimes as [äɪ], [ɑɪ] or [ɑj]. This has led to the suggestion that /au/ be replaced with /ao/ and written as such, without mirroring that with <ae>

Vocabulary

Western Loans

Salient Examples

• Christmas -> kirmat
• Christian -> kirsan
• England -> Inan – Presumably Iran > Inon
• Britain -> Pirten, Birten
• Rabbit -> abi, nabi (bunny > bai?)

Obscure Examples

• sai (confident affirmative) < "safe to say", "savvy".
• kai (plural marker) < "guys" (-> mikai, yukai)
• niti (free, freedom) < "liberty"

Sino-Xenic loans

• dai (big) cf. Jp. dai
• hak (school) cf. Jp. gaku
• daihak (university) cf. Jp. daigaku