Olivarian

Olivarianu
Pronunciation:	[olivaɾiˈanu]
Spoken in:	Olivaria, Sea of Sardinia
Coordinates :	(may not appear in some maps) [1]
Total speakers:	80,000
Language family:	Romance language
Distribution:

Olivarian (olivarianu, or lingua olivariana) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that originated in the island of Olivaria, in the Sea of Sardinia, northwest to the island of Menorca. It is the official language of the Principality of Olivaria. Olivarian evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin after the collapse of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. It is considered an extremely conservative variety of Vulgar Latin. Most of Olivarian vocabulary is derived from Latin, and through Latin, Ancient Greek. Olivarian vocabulary has been in contact with Arabic since the first millennium. Olivarian has also been influenced by native Celtic languages and by Germanic languages of the post-Roman invaders.

History

In 210 BC, when the Romans arrived at the island of Olivaria, they brought the Latin language with them. The language was spread by Roman soldiers, settlers, and merchants, who built the ancient village of Olivaria on settlements of Celtic, Phoenician and Greek Pre-Roman peoples. After the Roman Empire collapsed, Olivaria was conquered by Germanic peoples in 483. The occupiers quickly adopted the Vulgar Latin dialect of the island. After the Moorish invasion in 897, Arabic became the administrative and common language of Olivaria, but most of the remaining population continued to speak a form of Romance known as Old Olivarian. Like other Neo-Latin and European languages, Olivarian has adopted a significant number of loanwords from Greek, mainly for technical and scientific terminology. These borrowings occurred via Latin, and later during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The first written Old Olivarian words and phrases are recorded in Latin administrative documents. The standard Olivarian language has a poetic and literary origin in the writings of writers of the early second millennium. In 1293, the Prince of Olivaria decreed for Olivarian to be known as Classical Olivarian and used officially.

Writing system

Olivarian is written with 26 letters of the Latin script, making use of diacritics to denote stress, vowel height, palatization and lack of palatization (acute accent, grave accent, breve and interpunct). It also has some digraphs and trigraphs. The Olivarian orthography is both etymologically and phonologically based. Accented characters and digraphs are not counted as separate letters for collation purposes.

Phonology

The Olivarian phonemic system exhibits some traits in common with Portuguese, Catalan and Italian. With the exception of loanwords, it lacks diphthongization of Latin short ĕ, ŏ, as in Catalan and Portuguese, but unlike French, Spanish, or Italian.

Vowels

	Front	Back
Close	i	u
Close-mid	e	o
Open-mid	ɛ	ɔ
Open	a

1. While Olivarian contrasts close-mid (/e o/) and open-mid (/ɛ ɔ/) vowels in stressed syllables, they are in free variation when unstressed.

Consonants

	Bilabial	Labio- dental	Dental/ Alveolar	Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Nasal	m		n		ɲ
Plosive	p b		t d			k g
Fricative		f v	s z	ʃ ʒ
Affricate			ts dz	tʃ dʒ
Approximant					j	w
Trill			r
Tap			ɾ
Lateral			l		ʎ

1. Nasals assimilate to the point of articulation of whatever consonant they precede. For example, /nɡ/ is realized as [ŋɡ].

Grammar

The morphology and syntax of the Olivarian language is similar to those of most other Romance languages. It is a relatively synthetic, fusional language. Nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and articles are moderately inflected: there are two genders (masculine and feminine) and two numbers (singular and plural). The case system of the ancestor language, Latin, has been lost, but personal pronouns are still declined. Most nouns and many adjectives can take diminutive or augmentative derivational suffixes, and most adjectives can take a so-called "superlative" derivational suffix. Olivarian syntax is considered right-branching, meaning that subordinate or modifying constituents tend to be placed after their head words. The language uses prepositions (rather than postpositions or inflection of nouns for case), and usually—though not always—places adjectives after nouns, as do most other Romance languages.

Verbs are highly inflected: there are three tenses (past, present, future), three moods (indicative, subjunctive, imperative), three aspects (perfective, imperfective, and progressive) and three voices (active, passive, reflexive). Most perfect and imperfect tenses are synthetic. There is also an impersonal passive construction, with the agent replaced by an indefinite pronoun. Olivarian is basically an SVO language, although SOV syntax may occur with a few object pronouns, and word order is generally not as rigid as in English. It is a null subject language, with a tendency to drop object pronouns as well, in colloquial varieties. It has two main copular verbs: essere and stare.

Verbs

Every Olivarian verb belongs to one of three form classes, characterized by the infinitive ending: -are, -ere, or -ire— sometimes called the first, second, third and the fourth "conjugations", respectively.

Vocabulary

See: Swadesh list for Olivarianu

Most of the lexicon of Olivarian is derived, directly or through other Romance languages, from Latin. Nevertheless, it has some words from pre-Roman languages and loanwords from other languages around the world. Germanic people contributed with some words to the lexicon. Olivarian also acquired words from Arabic by influence of Moorish rule. Like other languages, Olivarian has a large list of loanwords from Greek and Classical Latin. Finally, it has received a steady influx of loanwords from other European languages, especially French and English.

Dialects

Roughly, the dialectal areas correspond to the six main villages of Olivaria: Telcapolia, Hurtomia, Pecesamia, Ucosia and Lenomia. Seven stressed vowels are used in the villages of Telcapolia, Pecesamia and Ucosia, with a contrast of the vowel pairs /ɛ e/ and /ɔ o/, whereas only five stressed vowels are distinct in Hurtomia and Lenomia. Vowels tend to be nasalized before nasal consonants in Telcapolia and Dossia. As in Classical Olivarian, the Ucosian dialect maintains the distinction between geminated and simple consonants, which is lost in all other varieties. The contrast between /b/ and /v/ is not made in Hurtomia, Pecesamia and northern Telcapolia. Palatized ⟨c⟩ is prounced /t͡ʃ/ in Ucosia and Lenomia, as /ts/ in southern Telcapolia, southern Hurtomia, Pecesamia and Lenomia, and as /θ/ in northern Telcapolia and northern Hurtomia. The palatal consonants /ʎ/ and /ɲ/ are replaced by /lj/ and /nj/ in Lenomia, respectively. Between vowels, ⟨b⟩, ⟨d⟩ and ⟨g⟩ are usually pronunced /β/, /ð/ and /ɣ/ in Pecesamia, Hurtomia and northern Telcapolia. /r/ and /ɾ/ have phonemic contrast in Telcapolia, Hurtomia, Pecesamia and Dossia. The exact places of articulation of the rhotics are varied. All these variations are equally standard.

Sample Texts

Declarațione Universale de llos Direċtos Humanos

Articulu Unu

Totos illos esseres humanos nascont liberos et eguales in dignitate et in direċtos. Sunt dotatos de rațione et de conscienția et debont comportar-se illos unos cum illos altros in spiritu de fraternitate.

Articulu Duos

Totas las personas se possont prevalere de llos direċtos et las libertates proclamatos in ella presente Declarațione, sin nulla distincțione, notatamendète, de rața, de colore, de sexu, de lingua, de religione, de opinione politica aud qualsiat altra, de origine naționale aud sociale, de fortuna, de nascenția aud qualsiat altra situațione. Fora de acuestu, non serat facta nulla distincțione fundata in illu statutu politicu, juridicu aud internaționale de llu paese a llu quale una persona pertenet, siat acuestu paese aud territoriu indepentende, subtu tutela, non autonomu aud subiectu ad qualsiat altra limitațione de suberanitate.

Articulu Tres

Totu individuu hat direċtu a lla vita, a lla libertate et a lla securitate de sua persona.

Articulu Quattro

Nulla persona serat mantenuta in sclavitudine, aud in servitudine; la sclavitudine et illu commerciu de sclavos sunt prohibitos subtu totas las suas formas.

Articulu Cinque

Nulla persona serat submissa ad torturas niċ ad penas aud tractamentos crudeles, inhumanos aud degradantes.

Articulu Sex

Totu individuu hat illu direċtu, in totos locales, a llu recognoscimentu de sua personalitate juridica.

Articulu Septe

Totos sunt eguales abante la lege et haunt direċtu, sin distincțione, ad eguale protecțione de lla lege. Totos haunt direċtu ad una eguale protecțione contra qualsiat discriminațione que violet la presente Declarațione et contra qualsiat provocațione ad tale discriminațione.

Articulu Oċto

Tota persona hat direċtu, in condiționes de plena egualitate, ad essere equitativa et publicamente audita per un tribunale independente et imparțiale, per lla determinațione siat de suos direċtos et obligaționes, siat per illu examine de qualsiat accusațione in materia penale contra ella.

Articulu Noue

Nulla persona potet essere arbitrariamente arrestata, detenuta aud exiliata.

Articulu Dece

La Turrem de Babel

Intunque tota la terra habebat una sola lingua et las metissimas parablas. Quando partieront de llu oriente, incontraront una planura in illu paese de Senar et allà se stablieront. Et dixeront illos unos a llos altros: Venitis, faciamus bloccos et cocamu-los cum focu. Et illos bloccos lis servieront de petra et illu bitume de cementu. Appost dixeront: Venitis, construamu-nos una ciutate et una turrem, illu culmine de lla quale arribet a llu celu, et faciamu-nos famosos, ad fine de vedere la ciutate et la turrem que illos filĭos de llos homines construebant. Et illu Senĭore dixet: Illes sunt un solu populu et parlant una sola lingua: acuestu est illu que comințiaront facere. Ahora nullo los restringerat de facere totu que se proponant. Intunque descendamus et confundamus loru lingua, ad fine de que non comprehendant mais la lingua illos unos de llos altros. Et illu Senĭore los dispersaut de allà supre tota la terra; et cessaront de construere la ciutate. Per acuestu, acuesta ciutate se clamaut Babel, per que allà illu Senĭore confundit la lingua de tota la terra, et de allà illu Senĭore los dispersaut supre tota la terra.

Illu Diminutu Principe

Quando habebat sex annos, vedi, una vece, una magnifica imagine, in un libru supre la foresta virgine que se clamabat "Historias Vicutas". Acuestu representabat una serpente boa que ingluttibat una fera. Acuesta est la copia de llu designu:

Se dicebat in illu libru: "Las serpentes boas ingluttont loru preda tota integra, sin masticar-la. Appost non possont mais mover-se et dormont durante illos sex meses de loru digestione".

Reflexi multu intunque supre las adventuras de lla jungla et, ad mea vece, reexii, cun un lapize de colore, ad tracțiare meun primu designu. Erat assi:

Monstrai mea opera maistra a llas personas grandes et lis questionabam si meun designu lis facebat pavore.

Ellas me responderont: "Per que un capellu faraiat pavore?"

Meun designu non representabat un capellu. Representabat una serpente boa que digerebat un elephante. Intunque disegnai illu interiore de lla boa, ad fine de que las personas grandes potuissent comprehendere. Sempre necessitant explicaționes.

Sanscritu

La lingua sanscrita, qualsiat sua antiquitate, est de una structura meravilĭosa; mais perfecta ca illu grecu, mais rica ca illu latine et mais exquisitamente refinata ca totas las duas, sibenque habiat cun las duas una affinitate mais forte, tantu in ellas radices de los verbos quantu in ellas formas de grammatica, que poterebat habere situ productu per accidente. Tan forte, in factu, que nulli philologu poterebat examinare totas las tres, sin credere que se originaront de una fonte commune que, pote essere, non mais existet. Ivi hat una rațione similare, sibenque mesclatos cum una lingua multu differente, habiant illu metissimu origine ca illu sancritu; et illu antiquu persa poterebat essere aggregatu a lla metissima familia.