Nevesh language
| Neviran | |
|---|---|
| Modern Neviran | |
| Native speakers | 200 million? (no date) |
| Language family | Ekuo-Lahiri
|
| Official status | |
| Official language in | Nevira |
| CWS code | nva |
Background
Modern Neviran, also known as Standard Neviran and frequently simply called Neviran, is a prominent language in Ekuosia with at least 90 million native speakers and an additional approx. 100 million second-language speakers, mostly within the country of Nevira, where it is the official language. It is an Ekuo-Lahiri language, therefore related to the Adzamic languages and, more distantly, to the Lahiri languages. Like other Ekuo-Lahiri languages, it is a direct-inverse animacy hierarchy language. As with its closer Adzamic cousins, it has a robust consonant inventory including ejectives.
Phonology
Consonants
| Bilabial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m m: | n n: | |||||
| Plosive | Plain | p b | t d | c | k g | q ɢ | |
| Geminate | b: | t: d: | c: ɟ: | k: | q: | ||
| Ejective | p' | t' | c' | k' | q' | ||
| Fricative | ɸ β | θ ð | s s: z | ç ʝ | ɣ | ||
| Approximant | ɹ | j | ɰ | ||||
| Trill | r | ||||||
| Lateral app. | l l: | ||||||
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | ʉ | u | |||
| Mid | ɛ | ə | o | |||
| Open | a | ɒ | ||||
Phonotactics
Orthography
Neviran uses [Neviric, probably] script.
The romanization is IPA-based, except for:
- /C:/ CC
- /C'/ Ċ
- /ɢ/ gg
- /ɸ β/ f v
- /θ ð/ ŧ đ
- /ç ʝ/ ś ź
- /ɣ/ x
- /ɹ r/ r rr
- /j ɰ/ y w
- /ʉ ə/ ü ö
- /ɛ/ e
- /ɒ/ a
Grammar
Morphology
The morphology of nouns is fairly simply, as they encode only animacy, number, and state (possessed/ non-possessed). This occurs in a fused suffix.
Verbs are much more complicated, encoding tense, aspect, mood, negation, and may indicate subject and/or object, and may incorporate a 'manner' (typically an adverb, but sometimes another verb or an object), making the language technically polysynthetic.
Syntax
Nominal order follows the animacy hierarchy, which is: 1st person, 2nd person, Sentient, Sacred, Animate, Impactful, Immaterial, Inanimate, and Degenerate. The verb typically appears after its final argument but before any complements, so in effect, the typical word order is SOVI; but the verb can appear later or earlier to emphasize itself or certain nominal elements.
As a direct-inverse language, thematic role of the nouns is indicated by the presence or absence of an inverse marker. If absent, the sentence is SO. If present, it is OS.