Oikan language

Oikan (Oikan: oikto Oikto [ˈo̞i̯.ktɵ̞]) is the official language of Sunteria. It is a Mallo-Brausian language.

Phonology

Consonants

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Guttural
Nasal	m [m~ɱ]	n [n~ɲ~ŋ]
Plosive	p [p] b [b]	t [t] d [d]		k [k] g [g]
Affricate		t͡s [t͡s] d͡z [d͡z]	t͡ʃ [t̠͡ʃ] d͡ʒ [d̠͡ʒ]
Fricative	f [f] v [v]	s [s] z [z]	ʃ [ʃ] ʒ [ʒ]	h [h]
Central Approximant			j [j]	w [w]
Lateral Approximant		l [l~ʎ~ʟ]
Trill		r [r]

Vowels

Monophthongs
	Front	Back
Close	i [i~ɪ̈]	u [u~ʊ̈]
Mid	e [e̞~ə]	o [o̞~ɵ̞~ə]
Open	a [ä~ɐ~ə]
Diphthongs
ai̯ [äi̯] au̯ [äu̯] ei̯ [e̞i̯] eu̯ [e̞u̯] iu̯ [iu̯] oi̯ [o̞i̯] ou̯ [o̞u̯] ui̯ [ui̯]

Allophony

• monophthongs are reduced in unstressed syllables
• /m/ is labiodental when followed by /f, v/
• /n/ and /l/ are palatal when followed by /e, ei̯, eu̯, i, iu̯, j, ʃ, ʒ, t͡ʃ, d͡ʒ/
• /n/ and /l/ are velar when followed by /o, oi̯, ou̯, u, ui̯, w, k, g/
• in glede speech, /tp/ and /pt/ are realized as [t͡p], and /db/ and /bd/ are realized as [d͡b]
• in glede speech, the reduced forms of /a/, /e/, and /o/ merge into [ə]

Phonotactics

Syllable structure: (C)⁴V(C)⁷

• a phoneme cannot cluster with itself, or with a phoneme that differs only by voicing, within the same syllable
• /h/ cannot cluster with another obstruent within the same syllable
• when /h/ clusters with a sonorant within the same syllable, /h/ must come first
• a nasal sonorant cannot cluster with another nasal sonorant within the same syllable
• a semivowel cannot cluster with another semivowel within the same syllable
• when an oral sonorant clusters with a nasal sonorant within the same syllable in an onset, the nasal sonorant must come first
• when a sonorant clusters with an obstruent within the same syllable in an onset, the obstruent must come first
• when a liquid clusters with a semivowel within the same syllable in an onset, the liquid must come first
• a liquid cannot cluster with another liquid within the same syllable in an onset
• nuclei must be vocalic
• /h/ cannot be codal
• semivowels cannot be codal
• when a sonorant clusters with an obstruent within the same syllable in a coda, the sonorant must come first
• when /r/ clusters with /l/ within the same syllable in a coda, /r/ must come first
• when an oral sonorant clusters with a nasal sonorant within the same syllable in a coda, the oral sonorant must come first
• hiatuses involving /i, iu̯, u, ui̯/ cannot occur, except in loanwords

Kelhria and Gledia

All dialects of Oikan have a distinction between the kelhre register (kelhria) and the glede register (gledia). Kelhria is careful, enunciated speech. Gledia is natural, “lazy” speech. Certain allophonic processes only occur in gledia.

This distinction arose ca. the 1850s, when certain sound changes involving allophony happened, but society begin to see them as inherently informal, so they affected speech without them when speaking formally/carefully. More-or-less, the gledia register has the natural evolution of Oikan allophony, whereas the kelhria register is an affectation designed to imitate the Oikan allophony of the early 19th century.

Other Phonological Details

• stress-timed
• plosives always have an audible release
• adjacent obstruents other than /h/ regressively assimilate their voicing—this is not indicated in spelling
• there is normally no contrast between polyphthongs and hiatuses—if a sequence of vowels can syneresize into a polyphthong, it will always do so, except in some loanwords
• there is normally no contrast between vowels and semivowels—if a vowel can become a semivowel, it will always do so, except in some loanwords
• there is no contrast between affricates and sequences—if a sequence of consonants can combine into an affricate, it will always do so
• /j/ becomes /i/ wherever /j/ is phonotactically impossible
• /w/ becomes /u/ wherever /w/ is phonotactically impossible
• /h/ becomes /a/ wherever /h/ is phonotactically impossible—this is indicated in spelling
• /e/ is used as an epenthetic vowel wherever phonotactically necessary—this is indicated in spelling

Orthography

Oikan is written in a mixed script consisting of Ukilen logographs (rehie) and Astseredontia letters (suenie).

Grammar

• Three grammatical genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter
• Two grammatical numbers: singular and plural
• Three grammatical persons: first-person, second-person, and third-person
• Three grammatical tenses: past, present, and future
• Five grammatical aspects: simple, progressive, perfect, prospective, and gnomic
• Four grammatical moods: indicative, imperative, conditional, and subjunctive
• Eight grammatical cases for nouns, adjectives, and determiners: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative, instrumental, locative, and ablative
• Nine grammatical cases for pronouns: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative, instrumental, locative, ablative, and disjunctive
• Three types of declensions for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives
• No possessive adjectives exist—instead, the genitive case is used
• One genitive construction is (article, if appropriate) + (modified) + (article in the genitive case, if appropriate) + (modifier in the genitive case)—this is roughly equivalent to an English "of" construction
• Another genitive construction is (article in the genitive case, if appropriate) + (modifier in the genitive case) + (modified)—this is roughly equivalent to an English Saxon genitive construction
• Synesis does not occur—agreement in number is based only on grammatical number, agreement in person is based only on grammatical person, and agreement in gender is based only on grammatical gender
• Not pro-drop
• Double negatives cancel each other out
• Free word order but SVO is the most common word order in practice
• Adjectives always precede the noun they modify
• Adverbs always precede the thing they modify
• All prepositions take the dative case
• The default gender is the neuter
• Agents of passive verbs are in the instrumental case
• No exact equivalents of "there to be" or "there to exist" exist—instead, the equivalent of "to be" or "to exist" is used
• In counterfactual conditional sentences, the protasis is in the subjunctive mood and the apodosis is in the conditional mood
• Counterfactual conditional sentences do not have "fake past"
• In indicative conditional sentences, the protasis is in the indicative mood and the apodosis is in the indicative mood
• Use of proclitic forms is mandatory wherever phonotactically possible
• No exact equivalent of “very” exists—instead, the augmentative is used

Dialectal variation

There are many dialects of Oikan. Oikan dialects can be divided into two groups: yod-coalescing dialects and yod-preserving dialects. Yod-coalescing dialects are dialects where the sound shift {dj, d͡zj, d͡ʒj}, {sj, ʃj}, {tj, t͡sj, t͡ʃj}, {zj, ʒj} → d͡ʒ, ʃ, t͡ʃ, ʒ has occurred. Yod-preserving dialects are dialects where said sound shift did not occur.