Nelíc

Nelíc Nelíc, Jembeç
Timeline and Universe:	Lorech
Spoken:	National language in: None An official language in: None A regional language in: Elitho (In three tystírain: Ioðinbêr, Lynelth, Louriem Timoreg)
Total speakers:	1,841,600 (most also speak Celinese)
Genealogy:	Tygenoci Celinese languages South Eastern Celinese Nelíc
Typology
Morphological type:	Fusional
Morphosyntactic alignment:	Ergative-absolutive
Basic word order:	Free, though OVS is the most common in most contexts.
Credits
Creator:	A. Ayres
Created:	2010-

Nelíc (pronounced /neˈlik/), deriving from a modified form of the word celín (language) - also known as Jembeç (/ˈʐe̞mbe̞ç/) is a prominent, divergent Celinese variety that developed in Ioðinbêr, capital of Elitho. There is considerable debate as to how Nelíc should be classified, with some proponents considering it to be a sociolect of the capital's working class and immigrant communities, and others - such as the Nâloe go Nelíc na Jembea, which promotes the variety, consider it to be a fully-fledged language of its own. Whilst the grammar of Nelíc's acrolectic and mesolectic forms do not deviate much at all from that of Standard Celinese, its vocabulary is often immensely different, having been enriched by plentiful borrowings from the foreign community languages of the capital; complete re-imaginings of standard Celinese words; a language game known as 'chelím'; the resurrection of words from the traditional non-Celinese language of South-Eastern Elitho, and the use of previously obscure Ioðinbêr dialectical words over Standard Celinese equivalents. The NNJ consider it necessary for the average Celinese speaker to spend 6-9 immersed in speaking Nelíc to become fully conversant in the variety.

Speaking Nelíc is now a firmly entrenched part of Ioðinbêr identity for up to a third of the capital's residents; whilst ISC is – to a certain extent – shared with the nation, Nelíc is not really heard outside of the greater capital region of Louriem. It has gone from being seen as a shady patois to being a celebrated marker of belonging to the capital. Books, moving pictures, radio shows, magazines and even a newspaper now use a once decried sociolect either on its own, or in combination with Standard Celinese, which has led to some non-Ioðinbêr residents to learning Nelíc.

Phonology and orthography

Consonants

There is no universally accepted standard in which to write Nelíc, but the standard pioneered by such cultural zines of Chibrâ (Fire – an inverted form of Brych) and Leyiyain (Poets – from Leiðírain) has been hugely influencial. The benefits of the Chibrâ-Leyiyain system (CLS) is its regularity and familiarity for those used to Standard Celinese.

	Labial	Bilabial	Dental	Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasals	m			n
Voiceless plosives	p			t			c
Voiced plosives	b			d			g
Voiceless fricatives		f		s	ş	ç	ch		h
Voiced fricatives		v			j	gh
Approximant	w	r					y/i
Lateral approximant				l

The consonant inventory of the average nelíc speaker is not radically different from that of their Ioðinbêr Standard Celinese (henceforward referred to as ISC) speaking counterparts. There are, however, a few notable differences:

• /θ/ and /ð/ in Celinese-originating words are nearly elided in medial and final position: caith /kaɪθ/ simply becomes cai /kai/ - neiðír /nɛɪˈðiʐ / becomes neiyír /neiˈjiɐ/. At the beginning of words, they are pronounced /t/ and /d/ respectively: thus the reversed Nelíc counterpart to path (so) and caraið (train) is tap and daraic.
• In common with many Southern Elithoan varieties, Nelíc is non-rhotic: ar – typically /aʐ/ - is pronounced /a/. After other vowels, the /ʐ/ of the Ioðinbêr acrolect is replaced by /ɐ/ in final position or before another consonant. Many speakers replace the ISC initial and medial /ɾ/ with /ʐ/, /ʋ/ or even /ʍ/. Thus, norír /ˈnɔɾiʐ/ can become /noˈʋiɐ/ or even the Chelím ronír /ʋoˈniɐ/.
• ISC acrolects and mesolects have retained a number of palatal consonants – namely /ɲ/, /c/, /ɟ/, and /ʎ/ - which do not appear outside of ISC. These all disappear in Nelíc: tain (tree) is not pronounced /taɲ/, but rather /tain/, closer in line with non-Ioðinbêr dialects.
• /ʐ/ - usually from Jinyera words – can be found in all positions, whereas in ISC, it is only an allophone of /ɾ/. Usually written as <j>
• /ç/ can be found in all positions, rather than just in word-final position as in Standard Celinese.
• <ch> is usually pronounced /x/ rather than /χ/.
• /ɣ/ is present in Nelíc, but not in non-Ioðinbêr dialects, and is dying out in ISC except for amongst working class, non-Nelíc ISC speakers. It is usually transcribed as <gh>, and is used not only in Foreign derived words, but in words from the old Ioðinbêr dialect that began to be used less when a standard Celinese was agreed upon. Compare Standard Celinese and ISC teglos with Nelíc taighlos.

Vowels

	Front		Central			Back
Close	[i] <i>					[u] <u>
Mid	[e̞] <e>					[o̞] <o>
Near-open			[ɐ] final <r>
Open	[a] <a>					[ɒ] <â>

The typical vowel inventory of the average speaker of Nelíc is rather drastically reduced from that of Standard Celinese. Whilst the average Celinese speaker has ten phonemic vowels, Nelíc speakers generally have six - /ɐ/ being an allophone of /ʋ/.

/ɔ/ and /o/ merge (often as /o̞/); /ɛ/ and /e/ merge (often as /e̞/). These are roughly referred to as /e/ and /o/ by local linguists. /ø/ and /ɪ/ merge into i, and words containing /ə/ change to /ɒ/, denoted as <ë> or <â>.

/ɒ/ is an interesting local peculiarity – not only is it used where /ə/ is in Standard Perís-Ioðinbêr Celinese, it is also used in many words denoted in /a/ in the standard written language as a result of an /a/-/ɒ/ merger. Compare Standard Celinese tralethí /tɾalɛˈθi/ with Nelíc trâleyí /ˈtʋɒleˌji/ and ISC trolythí /ˈtɾɔlɪθi/.

Both vowel and consonant inventories can be considerably different depending on the background of the Nelíc speaker. Some speakers retain the dental fricatives; others retain the Celinese vowel system or are influenced by the phonology of their native language. It can be said that there are Jinyer, Wyšo and other varieties of Nelíc, but the above illustrates the average speaker's vowel inventory.

Other notes

In the CLS, diacritics that are superfluous to Nelíc are removed – only the acute, denoting irregular stress and not vowel quality, and the circumflex, used over â for the distinctive /ɒ/ sound, remain. CLS does away entirely with <y> and <ë>, but speakers of Nelíc often use both, partially out of force of habit. Etymologically justified but phonologically redundant renderings of Celinese words with diacritics – e.g. cêis, coroê, séile instead of the suggested ces, coroye and şelâ – still occur, as can the non-adapted borrowing of foreign words – e.g. Jinyera tôla instead of the recommended tolâ.

The Nelíc system eliminates some of the difficulties that Celinese can pose for a learner – having to know when to use a circumflex rather than an acute, when a g is pronounced /ç/, when an <f> is pronounced /v/ or an <s> pronounced /ʂ/. In the CLS, there is only one letter for each sound, except for vowels other than <â> which can be marked with an acute to show irregular stress (i.e. non-penultimate stress.)

	Standard Celinese		Nelíc
	ofor /ɔvɔʐ/		ovor /o̞vo̞͡ɐ/
	sí /ʂi/		şi /ʂi/
	anséilmisoroê /anʂeɪlˈmøsɔˌɾɔje/		anşelmísoroye /anʂelˈmiso̞ˌʋo̞je/