Language

Phonology

Cyranese has 10 phonemic consonants.

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Retroflex	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Stop			t			k [k~q]
Continuant	voiceless		s [s~ɕ]			h [x~χ~ħ~h]
	voiced		r [ɹ~ɾ~r]	i [j]	z [ʐ~ʑ]	l [l~ɫ]
	Nasal	m	n

Cyranese has 5 phonemic vowels.

	front	central	back
Close	i		u
Mid	e [æ]	o [ə~ʌ]
Open		a [a]

Phonotactics

Cyranese syllables are CCVCC at maximum. Allowed consonant clusters are as follows:

Allowed clusters

	m	n	t	r	s	z	l	j	k	h
m						mz	ml		mk
n			nt	nr	ns	nz	nl	nj	nk
t		tn		tr	ts	tz	tl	tj	tk	th
r			rt			rz			rk
s		sn	st			sz		sj	sk	sh
z		zn	zt					zj	zk	zh
l	lm						ll		lk
j				jr		jz
k			kt	kr	ks				kl	kh
h									hk

Allowed word-initial clusters

	m	n	t	r	s	z	l	j	k	h
m						mz	ml		mk
n			nt	nr	ns	nz	nl	nj	nk
t		tn		tr	ts	tz	tl	tj	tk	th
r			rt			rz			rk
s		sn	st			sz		sj	sk	sh
z		zn	zt					zj	zk	zh
l	lm						ll		lk
j				jr		jz
k			kt	kr	ks				kl	kh
h									hk

Allowed word-final clusters

	m	n	t	r	s	z	l	j	k	h
m						mz	ml		mk
n			nt	nr	ns	nz	nl	nj	nk
t		tn		tr	ts	tz	tl	tj	tk	th
r			rt			rz			rk
s		sn	st			sz		sj	sk	sh
z		zn	zt					zj	zk	zh
l	lm						ll		lk
j				jr		jz
k			kt	kr	ks				kl	kh
h									hk

The following clusters are also allowed word-finally:

• rst
• nst
• llm
• rzk

Vowel clusters are not allowed. When combining case endings, plural, etc, and two vowels occur together, the first one is deleted. Eg:

marzka "butterfly" → marzkos "with (the/a) butterfly" (not *marzkaos)

When a consonant cluster happens and it is not allowed in the tables above, a "filler" (epenthetic) -a- is inserted to break the cluster, eg:

Lorah "Lorah" → Lorahanan "Lorah's" (not *Lorahnan)

The only exception to this is the cluster -ss-, which is assimilated to -sz-, eg:

tes "he/she/it/they" → teszotror "to himself/herself/itself/themself" (not *tessotror not *tesasotror)

Lastly, two syllables words where both syllables are light (ie, follow the shape CV.CV) must end in -h (so any CV.CV words become CV.CVh, ie, Lora → Lorah, kana → kanah, etc)

Ortography

	Letter Name	IPA value	Environment	Pronunciation guide	Example word	Notes
a		[a]	Everywhere	As a "raw" or "palm"
e		[æ]	Everywhere	As ä in finnish or a in "trap", but more central
h		[x~χ~ħ~h]		No direct equivalent in English, except ch in Scottish words such as "Loch" Equivalent to German "Buch", Russian хороший (khoroshij), etc. Can also be pronounced further back in the mouth, such as r in Danish "pres", or as far as Arabic ح‍ال (ḥal); The variant pronunciation [h] such as in English "happy" occurs but is rare.
i		[i]	Between consonants, word-initially before a consonant, word-finally after a consonant (CiC, #iC, Ci#)	As ee in "fleece"
		[j]	Between, before and after vowels Between a consonant and a vowel (ViV, (C)iV, Vi(C))	As y in "your"
j			Everywhere			Used in the old orthography, still found in proper names
k		[kʰ~qʰ]	Word-initially	As c in "cat"; might be pronounced slightly further back in the mouth. Aspirated.
		[k~q]	Elsewhere	As c in "cut"; might be pronounced slightly further back in the mouth. Not aspirated.
l		[l]	Word-initially, between vowels, between a consonant and a vowel ((C)lV, VlV)	As l in "lump" or "allow"
		[ɫ]	Syllable-finally	As l in "feel"
m		[m]	Everywhere	As m in "meet" or "hum"
n		[n]	Everywhere	As n in "nod" or "Hun"
o		[ə]	Unstressed syllables	As a in "comma"
		[ʌ]	Stressed syllables	As u in "strut"
r		[ɹ~ɾ~r]	Everywhere	The most common pronunciations is as r in English "rump" [ɾ] is a common allophone after consonants, and is pronounced as t or d as in water, butter, petal, gotta, peddle. A trilled [r] is possible, but rare.		In free variation, albeit [ɾ] is more common after other consonants (Cr); [r] is rare but possible
s		[s]	Word-initially	As s in "sap"
		[ɕ]	Elsewhere	As sh in Japanese "塩" (shio) as sh in English "shirt" [ʃ] is also possible
sz			Word-initially			Not an actual letter of the alphabet; Actually a cluster where the <z> gets assimilated by the <s>
t		[tʰ]	Word-initially	As t in "tap"
		[t]	Elsewhere	As t in "stable"
u		[u]	Everywhere	As oo in "room" or "goose"
v		[x~χ~ʕ~h]	Word-initially	See <h>		Remnant of old orthography?
		[ʐ~ʑ]	Word-internally, between vowels	See <z>
		[k~q]	Word-finally	See <k>	azev [aʑæk]
z		[ʐ~ʑ]	Everywhere	As ż in polish "żona" or ж in Russian "жена" (žena) As j in Japanese "火事" (kaji) is also possible but less common

Obsolete letters

	Letter Name	IPA value	Environment	Pronunciation guide	Example word	Notes
b		[m]	Same as <m>	See <m>		Occurs in a few words, replaced by <m>
d		[tʰ] or [t]	Same as <t>	See <t>		Occurs in a few words, replaced by <t>
f		[x~χ~ʕ~h]	Everywhere	See <h>	felanek [xælanæk]	Occurs in a few words, replaced by <h>
g		[kʰ] or [k]	Same as <k>	See <k>		Occurs in a few words, replaced by <k>
ll		[l]	Syllable-finally	As l in "lump" or "allow"	allmezintek [almæʑinteæk]	Occurs in a few words, replaced by <l> and pronounced [ɫ]
p		[kʰ] or [k]	Same as <k>	See <k>		Occurs in a few words, replaced by <k>
x		[kɕ]	Everywhere			Occurs in a few words, replaced by <ks>
y		[j]	Everywhere	As y in "your"		Occurs in a few words, replaced by <i>

Grammar

Cyranese is an agglutinative language, where words are changed or composed by stringing multiple morphemes together in a clear way, and morphemes only carry single meanings; this is similar to Japanese and Finnish grammar. Cyranese makes uses of case to mark the role of words in sentences, therefore nouns, pronouns and adjectives must agree in case and number, which is distinguished between singular and plural. Meanwhile, there is no grammatical gender. Word order is canonically subject-verb-object (SVO), as in most European languages. Verbs only take past and non-past distinction, and further tense, aspect and mode distinctions are made using auxiliaries.

Word classes

Cyranese distinguishes the following word classess: nouns, deictics, adjectives, adverbs, verbs and indeclinables. Words can be translated between those classes by using suffixes, so, for example, a verb such as "walk" can be turned into a noun like "walker".

Roots

Roots are words with basic meanings, which can be further modified through declination, conjugation and derivation. In Cyranese, unmodified roots can be nominative case nominals, adverbs or non-past verbs.

Nominals

For the sake of simplicity, nouns, deicticts and adjectives are grouped together under the class of "nominals". Their shared characteristic is taking case and number endings according to their function in the sentence.

	Suffix	Function	English preposition	Example	Translation
Grammatical
Nominative	-	the normal citation form of a word, also marks the subject of a verb	-
Accusative	-ak	marks the direct object of a verb	-
Dative	-on	marks the indirect object of a verb or recipient of an action	-
Instrumental	-os	marks the instrument through which an action is accomplished	with
Genitive	-nan	marks the possessor of something	-
Locative
Locative	-azt	marks a place where something is	in, on, at
Ablative	-set	marks the origin of an action	from
Lative	-tror	marks the destination of an action	to, towards

Additionally, plurals are marked with the "-te" ending, which goes after case endings. For the locative and and ablative cases, which end in -t, the double t is assimilated to a single one, according to the rules of assimilation, ie:

ramoka "pumpkin" → ramokazt "in/on/at the pumpkin" → ramokazte "in/on/at the pumpkins", not *ramokaztte

ramoka "pumpkin" → ramokaset "from the pumpkin" → ramokasete "in/on/at the pumpkins", not *ramokasette

also notice how the final a in ramoka was assimilated when using the locative case (ie, ramokazt, not * ramokaazt)

Deictics

Deictics are a class of words that have relative meaning according to context - they can be pronouns, which are used to refer to persons and things relevant to the discourse at hand such as "I, you, he, they" etc; Demonstratives, which describe entities being referred to and need to be distinguished one from another, such as "this, that, these, those", and; Articles, which are used to distinguish between definite and indefinite noun phrases (eg, "the book" vs "a book")

Pronouns

Cyranese pronouns make no distinction of gender. Plural pronouns are formed by attaching the general plural suffix, -te. When pronouns are inflected for case, the case ending always goes before the plural ending, just like with other nominals.

	Singular	Translation
First person	ajoka	"I"
Second person	akan	"you" (singular)
Third person	tes	"he/she/it/they"

Additionally, there is a reflexive, "-so", which can be be attached to pronouns to turn them into their reflexive counterpart, eg, ajoka "I" → ajokaso "myself". This is never used in the nominative case, and goes before the case and plural endings. For clarity, a table with the order of suffixes is provided below:

Pronoun base	Reflexive	Case	Plural
ajoka akan tes	-so-	-- -ak- -on- -os- -nan- -azt- -set- -tror-	-te

so, for example, if one needs to say "towards ourselves", they combine the first person ajoka + the reflexive so + the lative case tror + the plural ending te, to obtain "ajokasotrorte".

Demonstratives

Demonstratives are words used to describe entities relevant to discourse and differentiate one from another. They are words such as "this, that, these, those", which can refer to things that can be pointed or previous entities at the conversation.

	le (near speaker)	te (near listener)	ine (far from both)	et (interrogative)
- (demonstrative)	le "this one"	te "that one"	ine "that one (over there)"	et which one?
-kah (of manner)	lekah "in this manner"	tekah "in that manner"	inekah "in that (other) manner"	etkah "how? (in what manner?)"
-(a)kt (of person)	lekt "this person"	tekt "that person"	inekt "that person (over there)"	etakt "who? (which person?)"

Demonstratives also take case and plural endings, like all nouns, to describe their role in the sentence. Demonstratives taking the instrumental, genitive, locative, ablative and lative cases provide additional meanings to the ones above:

	le (near speaker)	te (near listener)	ine (far from both)	et (interrogative)
-(o)s (instrumental)	les "with this"	tes "with that"	ines "with that (something else)"	etos "(with) what?"
-nan (genitive)	lenan "(of) this"	tenan "(of) that"	inenan "(of) that (over there)"	etnan "(of) what?"
-(a)zt (locative)	lezt "here"	tezt "there"	inezt "over there"	etazt "where?"
-set (ablative)	leset "from here"	teset "from there"	ineset "from over there"	etset "from where?"
-tror (lative)	letror "towards here, this way"	tetror "towards there, that way"	inetror "towards over there, that other way"	etror "which way? to where?"

Articles

Articles are words used to distinguish known entities from new entities in discourse. Cyranese works similarly to English: there is a definite article, like English "the", which is applied to know entities, and an indefinite article, which is used to introduce new entities to conversation or refer to any entity, like english "a/an". Articles are also inflected for case and number.

	Singular	Example
Indefinite	ja	ja mila "a potato"
Definite	no	no mila "the potato"

Adjectives

Adjectives are the last member of the nominal class. They are "qualifier words", such as "beautiful", "dark" or "blue", which used to describe the other nominals. Adjectives take case and number endings, and must agree with the nominal they describe. All cyranese adjectives end in -ek. New adjectives can be created with the ending -iszek, which roughly translates to "similar to [...], [...]-like". In Cyranese, adjectives go after the noun they describe:

almaselk kolek "dandelion beautiful", ie, "beautiful dandelion"

Adverbs

The second class of words in Cyranese are adverbs. Those are words such as "calmly", "very" or "often", and are used to further describe verbs and adjectives. Adverbs end in -ket; New adverbs can be formed with -tisket ending, which rough translates to "in the manner of [...]".

Verbs

Verbs are the third class of Cyranese words. They describe actions, such as "to walk", "to carry", etc. Cyranese verbs only distinguish between past, non-past and imperative conjugations. Non-past is the default conjugation, and always ends in -kaz

	Conjugation	Example
Past	-ksin	tanaksin "walked"
Non-past	-kaz	tanakaz "walks, will walk, to walk, etc"
Imperative	-tuk	tanatuk "walk!"

Personal conjugations are not done in the verb, instead the relevant pronoun or noun phrase is placed before the verb:

• ajoka tanaksin "I walked"
• akan tanaksin "you walked"
• tes tanaksin "he/she/it walked"
• ajoka tanakaz "I walk/will walk"
• akan tanakaz "you walk/will walk"
• tes tanakaz "he/she/it walks/will walk"
• akan - tanatuk! "you - walk!"
• etc

Further distinction of tense (when an action happened), aspect (how an action happened) and mood (whether it should have happened, among other things) can be done through various auxiliaries:

Teket ajoka tanakaz "tomorrow I walk", ie, "I will walk tomorrow"

Ajoka evaksin tanakaz "I was walking" vs Ajoka tanaksin, "I walked" - on the first one, the action is still ongoing in the discourse (perhaps the speaker will describe how something interrupted their walk), while on the second one, the action is finished.

Note, however, that these are not mandatory, and "Ajoka tanakaz" for "I will walk" and "Ajoka tanaskin" for "I was walking" are also valid, as long as context is enough to avoid ambiguity.

Indeclinables

The final class of word in Cyranese is indeclinables. These words are called "indeclinable" since they do not take cases, number, etc

Particles

Particles are function words that modify entire phrases, just like case endings modify single words

• inak - no
• are - yes

• etuk - and

Derivational Morphology

Derivational morphology describes the process of how words can be turned into new words.

		Example	Note
verb → agent noun	-es	tanakazes "walker"
verb → abstract noun	ja + non-past verb	ja tanakaz "a walk, a stroll"	same "ja" as the indefinite article
noun → adjective	-(i)szek	milaszek "potato-like"
verb → adjective (similarity, use)	no + past verb	no tanaksin "walk-like; walked through (eg, of a path)"	same "no" as the definite article
verb → adjective (possibility)	-(i)hke	tanakazihke "walkable"
noun → verb	any verb ending	milakaz "to turn into a potato"
adjective → adverb	-tisket	kolektisket "beautifully"

Wordlist

	word	meaning
	marzka	buttterfly
	emer	snail
	jaskia	snake
	isesz	worm
	mila	potato
	seterk	cabbage
	ramoka	sunflower
	szima	pumpkin
	neksil	poppy flower
	raszak	lupine
x	felanek	cattail
	almaselk	dandelion
	inakozn	tulip
x	semp	shrimp
	rekro	small fish
	satkan	medium fish
	amotka	big fish