Egeriac language
Egeriac language | |
---|---|
Egeriac HeNozzani Eger | |
Ethnicity | Egeriac people |
Native speakers | 49,596,676 (2020) |
Language family | Notzel
|
Early forms: | Old Egeriac
|
CWS code | aaaaa |
The Egeriac language is a language spoken in Notzel.
Classification
The Egeriac language is a Notzel language, it is one of the north Notzel languages of the Notzel language family and is one of the two surviving languages of the north Notzel languages.
History
Phonology
Phonemes
Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Post-Alveolar/Palatal | Velar | Pharyngeal | Glottal | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | m | n | |||||
Plosive | p b | t d | k g | ʔ | |||
Fricative | f v | (θ) (ð) | s z | ʃ | (x) (ɣ) | ħ ʕ | h |
Approximant | l ɾ | j |
- [θ] [ð] [x] [ɣ] are allophones of /t/ /d/ /k/ /g/ respectively.
- geminated /ɾ/ is pronounced as the trilled /r/.
- The use of [θ] [ð] [ɣ] [ħ] [ʕ] is diminishing, in colloquial speech, [θ] [ð] [ɣ] [ħ] [ʕ] are often merged with [t], [d], [g], [x], [w] respectively.
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
Close | i (ɪ) | (ɨ) | u |
Mid | e | o | |
Open | ɛ | ɑ |
[ɪ] and [ɨ] are allophones of /e/. The pronounciation of /e/ varies between [e], [ɪ] and [ɨ], it is a subject of dialectic and even personal variations. In some dialects, /e/ has been merged with /ɛ/ or /i/.
Phonotactics
All syllables start with a consonant. Syllables that seem to start with a vowel actually start with the glottal stop.
Morphology and syntax
Morphology
The Egeriac language relies on the use of internal vowel changes alongside with affixes for certain grammatical functions. Some affixes also trigger internal vowel changes.
Nouns
Adjectives
Verbs
Derivational Morphology
Like all other languages, it is possible to form new words with existing morphemes in Egeriac. In Egeriac, new words can be derived from existing roots by affixation or internal vowel change. Compounding is less common and is generally restricted to the formation of nouns.
Syntax
Word Order
The word order features are listed below:
- Basic Word Order: Subject-Object-Verb(SOV)
- Adpositions are prepositions
- Conjuctions are in the initial position of the clause
- Demonstratives, articles, numerals precede the noun they modify; Adjectives, Possessors and Relative Clauses follow the noun they modify
The Egeriac language has SOV as the main sentential word order, and the order between the subject, the object and the verb is pretty rigid due to a lack of nominal case system; however, Egeriac word order shows a lot of syntactic features expected to VO languages like the tendency to use prepositions, the use of initial conjugations and relative clauses follow the head nouns, and the related Ajar language has VSO as the main word order. Therefore, there's a theory that the ancestor language of Egeriac had an VO word order, and its word order shifted to SOV due to contacts with Adzamic and Baredan languages.
Positions of Adverbial Phrases
Vocabulary
Most words in Egeriac are inherited from Old Egeriac; however, there are also some loanwords. Some loanwords have their vowels altered to fit in the morphology of Egeriac.