Egeriac language

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Egeriac language
Egeriac
HeNozzani Eger
EthnicityEgeriac people
Native speakers49,596,676  (2020)
Language family
Notzel
  • North Notzel
    • Egeriac language
Early forms:
Old Egeriac
  • Egeriac language
CWS codeaaaaa

The Egeriac language is a language spoken in Notzel, it is the language of Egeriac people.

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 may have their vowels altered to fit in the morphology of Egeriac.

Some words in Egeriac

Personal Pronouns:

  • 1st person singular(I/me): ni
  • 2nd person singular(you(sg)): mi
  • 3rd person singular(he/she/it): ki
  • 1st person plural(we/us): neth
  • 2nd person plural(you(pl)): meth
  • 3rd person plural(they/them): heth
  • reflexive(self): demel

Interrogative pronouns:

  • who: mar
  • what: man
  • which: maz
  • where: manezed
  • when: makex
  • how: mach
  • why: mal
  • how much/how many: maza

Indefinite pronouns:

  • anyone/anybody: anvalan
  • anything: anvalzen
  • any: anval
  • someone/somebody: anan
  • something: anzen
  • everyone/everybody: imvalan
  • everything: imvalzen
  • every: imval
  • nobody: menan
  • nothing: menzen

Demonstratives:

  • this: ti
  • that: yo
  • these: tith
  • those: yoth
  • here: tin
  • there: yon

Numerals:

  1. one: ana
  2. two: avora
  3. three: mera
  4. four: zbada
  5. five: mev
  6. six: neva
  7. seven: brava
  8. eight: mrava
  9. nine: mitoza
  10. ten: nemba
  11. eleven: anemba
  12. twelve: avoremba
  13. thirteen: meremba
  14. forteen: zbademba
  15. fifteen: mevemba
  16. sixteen: nevemba
  17. seventeen: bravemaba
  18. eighteen: mravemba
  19. nineteen: mitozemba
  • twenty: namod
  • thirty: namod nemba (20+10)
  • forty: avara-mod
  • fifty: avara-mod nemba (40+10)
  • sixty: mera-mod
  • seventy: mera-mod nemba (60+10)
  • eighty: zbada-mod
  • ninety: zbada-mod nemba (80+10)
  • hundred: mevnez
  • thousand: blug
  • million: gozog
  • zero: men/menath

Egeriac is base-20 with 10 as a subbase for numbers below 100, base-10 for numbers larger than 100. Cardinal numbers precede the noun, ordinal numbers follow the noun.

Writing and literature