Lortho
| Lortho [loɾtʰo] | |
| Spoken in: | Lortho |
| Conworld: | A planet which orbits a binary star |
| Total speakers: | (insufficient data) |
| Genealogical classification: | (Family)
|
| Basic word order: | Verb Subject Object |
| Morphological type: | |
| Morphosyntactic alignment: | |
| Created by: | |
| Brian Bourque | March 2017 |
Overview
Lortho (IPA : [loɾtʰo]) is a constructed language created by Brian Bourque in the beginning of 2003. It originally started as a prop for a strategy board game where only the script was created for aesthetics. Fast forward about 13 years and it has now evolved into a fusional/agglutinative language. The verbs are changed in conjugation; however, suffixes and prefixes are added to nouns to denote case.
Alphabet and Script
Alphabet
 |
| The alphabet consists of 22 letters, of which one is a vowel. All other vowels are written as diacritics. NOTE: This script only includes the letters of the alphabet. Diacritics will be used to denote vowels (except [ i ] ) and these are still in development. If anyone has suggestions for these diacritics, please feel free to click on the "talk" link in my signature. |
Vowels
There are five vowels, four of which are written using diacritics. Lortho is very strict when pronouncing vowels.
| Front | Near-front | Central | Near-back | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |||
| Near-close | |||||
| Close-mid | o | ||||
| Mid | |||||
| Open-mid | ɛ | ||||
| Near-open | |||||
| Open | ɑ |
Grammar
Noun Cases[1]
Lortho has nine cases:
| Case | Modifier | Example | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | - | kɑnsɑptʰɑ | forest, woods |
| Accusative | -mɛ | kɑnsɑptʰɑmɛ | forest (direct obj.) |
| Dative | -mɛlɑ | kɑnsɑptʰɑmɛlɑ | forest (indirect obj.) |
| Genitive¹ | Possessive Prefix | nimakɑnsɑptʰɑ | our forest |
| Sublative | -inɑ/ɛnɑ | kɑnsɑptʰɑɪnɑ | in/into the forest |
| Ablative | -(ɛ)nat | kɑnsɑptʰɑnɑt | out of (from) the forest |
| Prolative | -dɑn | kɑnsɑptʰɑdɑn | to/towards the forest |
| -dɑnɑɾ | kɑnsɑptʰɑdɑnɑɾ | through the forest | |
| Instructive | -lɑn | tʰomidin kɑnsɑptʰɑlɑn | I live off of the forest |
| Vocative | fa- | still in development | |
¹Genitive Case
The genitive, or possessive, case is formed by using personal prefixes to the nouns:
| Person | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| 1st person | ni-, nu- | nimɑ-, numɑ- |
| 2nd person | lin-, lun- | nɑni-, nɑnu- |
| 3rd person | li-, lu-, lɑ- | limi-, limu-, limɑ- |
Gender and Number Agreement
There are three rules for noun-adjective-verb agreement:
- Verbs must match number and gender of the noun.
- Adjectives must match noun gender, but not number or grammatical case.
- When a specific noun is counted, the noun does not take the plural since the ordinal number denotes pluralization.
Verbs
There are three major verb types: -o verbs, -t verbs, and -n verbs. Each follow a general rule for conjugation.
-o verbs
-o verbs are conjugated by subtracting the -o and adding the personal endings.
-t verbs
-t verbs are conjugated by changing the -t to -d then adding the personal endings
-n verbs
-n verbs do not change and personal endings are simply added to the verb. The exception to this rule is the verb [hɑɾlɑn] to be, which will be discussed later.
| Present Tense | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| -o Verbs [konpʰɑɾo] to speak | -t Verbs [pʰɾɑmit] to push | -n Verbs [ʃɑɪlɑn] to sit | |||
| konpʰɑɾin, -un | -inɑn, -unɑn | pʰɾɑmidin, -dun | -dinɑn, -dunan | ʃɑɪlɑnin, -un | -inɑn, -unan |
| -ɑnːi, -ɑnːu | -ɑmin, -ɑmun | -dɑnːi, -dɑnːu | -dɑmin, -dɑmun | -ɑnːi, -ɑnːu | -ɑmin, -ɑmun |
| -i, -u, -ɑ | -imi, -imu, -imɑ | -di, -u, -ɑ | -dimi, -dimu, -dimɑ | -i, -u, -ɑ | -imi, -imu, -imɑ |
"A man is only as big as the dream he dares to live." - No Fear Brian Bourque (talk) 17:15, 18 March 2017 (PDT)
