Nevesh language
Nevesh | |
---|---|
Modern Neviran Neveśim | |
Native speakers | 200 million? (no date) |
Language family | |
Official status | |
Official language in | Nevira |
CWS code | nva |
Background
Nevesh, also known as Neviran, Modern Neviran, or Standard Neviran, is a prominent language in Ekuosia with at least 90 million native speakers and an additional surplus of 100 million second-language speakers, mostly within the country of Nevira, where it is the official language. It is also retained as a minority language in some of its former colonies. Like other Ekuo-Lahiri languages, it is a direct-inverse language featuring an animacy hierarchy. 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
Nevesh uses its own script, a derivative of the Adzamic script in the Ekuosian script family.
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.