Syrunian

Syrunian h-lez sirunyya : הלעז סירוניא
Spoken in:	Syria (formerly, Roman Province of Syria)
Conworld:	Alternate
Total speakers:	ca. 6,000
Genealogical classification:	Indo-European Italic-Romance Levantine Syrunian
Basic word order:	VSO
Morphological type:	inflecting
Morphosyntactic alignment:	Nominative-Accusative
Writing system:	a Hebrew-derived alphabet, historically also the Aramaic/Syriac abjads
Created by:
Culmær	December 2010

Syrunian is a Romance conlang, or romlang, designed to be a plausible descendant of Latin which sounds (and, at time, acts) like a Semitic language. It is derived from a fictional Vulgar Latin spoken in Roman Syria. Its primary influence is Aramaic, but there are later borrowings from Arabic and modern loans French and English, like h-aurdinatur from the French “l’ordinateur” (computer).

Etymology of Name

הלעז סירוניא (Romanised h-Lez sirunyya, IPA / həlaʕz sirʊˈniːja /) is derived from the Syrian-Latin phrase hic lahez Siria Romane (the language of Roman Syria, i.e. the Latin of Syria).

• H  : definite article, “the.” [> L. hic (cf: Hebrew def. article ‘h, ה’)]
• Lez : language [> SrL lahez > Amc laʕaz (לעז) a foreign, non-Hebrew/Aramaic language]
• Sirunyya [> L Siria+Romane → sirya rumanya → sir' runanya → sirunyya] Syrian Roman/Latin, a type of Vulgar Latin spoken in Roman Syria.

Alternate history

[elements of history that are different from reality are given in italics]

Aramaic had served as a language of administration in Mesopotamia and was the day-to-day language in Judea from about 539 BCE to 70 CE.
During the Roman period, the great city of Antioch was the capital of the Province of Syria. It was one of the largest cities in the ancient world and an important centre of trade. Although Greek was the lingua franca in the eastern Roman Empire, Latin remained the language of administration in many Syrian cities, facilitating trade with the western Empire, and was widely understood by those in the urban sphere of influence. Latin was also spoken by the Roman army. The Empire's major cities in Syria eventually adopted Greek, however, in small villages (especially between Antioch and Damascus) administrators and merchants continued to use Latin on a daily basis. Their Latin was greatly influenced by Aramaic, the vernacular of the broader region, especially in terms of pronunciation. Aramaic geographic, and Hebrew religious terminology was absorbed into their language, commonly referred to as Syrian Latin.

Syria remained under Roman/Byzantine control until 638 CE, when it was conquered by the Rashidun Caliphate and the Levant as a whole was brought under Arab-Islamic rule. Nevertheless, Early Syrunian survived as a vernacular in small villages. By the late 11th century, Syria was conquered first by the Seljuk Turks and then carved between Turkmen tribes and participants of the first Crusade. Sections of the coastline of Syria were briefly Frankish crusader states, which reintroduced Latin (via Old French) to the region. Although Arabic was not displaced as the dominant language, this reinforced the status of Syrunian in the areas where it was still spoken. The region was part of the Ottoman Empire from the 16th through 20th centuries and the Syrunian language was already in steady decline. After World War I, the Ottoman Empire was dissolved. In 1922 the League of Nations ceded to France the territories of modern-day Syria and Lebanon. This gave rise to numerous French loans in the Syrunian idiom. Syrian independence was acquired in April 1946.

Syrunian in Modern times

Syrunian is a minority language, spoken in a few remote villages in South-western Syria, bordering Lebanon. The distance from other major cities and isolating geological features have aided the survival of Syrunian. However, modern roads and transportation, as well as accessibility to Arabic-language television and print media, are eroding the Syrunian language.

Phonology

Consonants
	Labial		Dental~Alv.			Alveolar			Post-Alv.	Palatal	Velar		Uvular	Pharyngeal		Glottal
Nasal	m					n					(ŋ)
Plosive	b	p	d	t	tˤ						g	k	q			ʔ
Fricative	v~β	f	ð	θ		z	s	sˤ	ʃ		ɣ	x		ʕ	ħ	h
Approx.	w				l					j			ʁ̞~r

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		ʊ~u
MId	e~ɛ / ē
Low		ä~a / ā

Writing systems

Syrunian is written with the Hebrew alphabet, although there is an official Syrunian-Latin alphabet. Historically, the Syriac script was used too, along with other writing systems of the majority culture round about them.

Note that the Syrunian dagesh functions differently than the Hebrew and Aramaic dagesh. It is used with Ssadi and Zayn for /tʃ/ and /ʒ/.

General linguistic characteristics

Syntax

The predominant word order in Syrunian is VSO (Verb – Subject – Objects). VSO is the word order of Literary Syriac, as well as Biblical Hebrew and Classical Arabic. Within the noun phrase, both adjectives and possessors follow nouns. Possessors precede adjectives when modifying the same noun. Syrunian uses prepositions, some of which are proclitic.

Morphology

Syrunian is more inflecting than most Romance languages and is comparable to Romanian. Nouns resemble Syriac/Aramaic nouns, but their forms derive from Latin. The Syrunian definite article «h-, ה» is derived from the Latin word hic (this) and resembles the Hebrew definite article hə, ה. It is used in all numbers, states and genders.
Syrunian marks direct objects with «la-, לא», which is derived from the same root as the definite article in modern Western Romance languages, like French and Italian. This developed under the influence of the Aramaic prefix «l-, ל» which marks the direct object.

Pronouns

Pronouns
	Subject forms	Object forms
1 Sing. Common	eħ עח	miħ מיח
2 Sing. Masc	tu תו	tiv תיב
2 Sing. Fem	ta תא	tavā תבא
3 Sing. Masc	lu לו	ei עי
3 Sing. Fem	liā ליא	eā עא
1 Pl. Common	nu נו	nuṡ נוש
2 Pl. Common	vu בו	vuṡ בוש
3 Pl. Common	alu אלו	aus אוס

Nouns

Syrunian only has a definite article «h-, ה» which is a contraction of the Latin word hic (this). It is also related to the Hebrew definite article hə, ה. It is used in all numbers, states and genders.
Syrunian has two grammatical genders, masculine and feminine. The feminine absolute singular is usually marked by the ending –ā א or –at את . Nouns can be either singular or plural, but an additional 'dual' number exists for nouns that usually come in pairs.
Syrunian nouns and adjectives can exist in one of three states; these states correspond in part to the role of cases in other languages.

• The emphatic or determined state
  

is the basic form of the noun and is used to mark the topic and subject of a sentence. If an emphatic noun is preceded by the preposition la, לא it is the direct object of a sentence.
The emphatic also governs the prepositions: in, ין (in, at) and pur, פור (for, to).

• The absolute state
  

is a prepositional state. In the plural, it is often marked with the suffix –im.
The absolute governs the prepositions: a, א (towards); ṡe, שע (out of, from); di, די (from, concerning); cum, כום (with); ṡem, שעם (without); suv, סוב (below); sifr, סיפר (above).

• The construct state
  

is a form of the noun used to make possessive phrases. Unlike a genitive case, which marks the possessor, the construct state is marked on the possessed. This is mainly due to Semitic word order: possessed[const.] possessor[abs./emph.] They are treated as a speech unit, with the first unit (possessed) employing the construct state to link it to the following word. Together, the make a construct chain'.
Possessive phrases in Syrunian are often made with the preposition di-, rather than the construct case.
For example, the various forms of possessive phrases (for 'the book of the queen') are:

1. הליברע המלכא (h-livre h-malaca) — the possessed object (h-liver, 'the book') is in the construct state (i.e. livre) ; the possessor (h-malaca, 'the queen') is in the emphatic state.
2. הליבר דמלכא (h-liver d-malaca) — both words are in the emphatic state and the relative particle d- is used to mark the relationship
3. הליברע דמלכא (h-livre d-malaca) — the possessed object is in the construct state and the preposition d- is used to reaffirm the relationship.
   

In Modern Syrunian, the last form is by far the most common.

Inflection of "malac" (regular noun)
	KING Masculine			QUEEN Feminine
	singular	plural		singular	plural
Emphatic	malac מלאך	malici מליכי		malaca מלאכא	malacay מלאכאי
Absolute	malcim מלכם	malcis מלכס		malcut מלכות	malcas מלכאס
Construct	malce מלכע	malces מלכעס		malcute מלכותע	malcese מלכעסע

Inflection of "ucul" (eye, regular with dual)
	singular	dual	plural
Emphatic	ucul וכול	uculin וכולין	ucili וכילי
Absolute	uclim וכלים	uclayym וכלאיים	uclis וכלס
Construct	ucle וכלע	ucleyn וכלעין	ucles וכלעס

Superficially, Syrio-Aramaic and Latin nouns had similar inflection forms. Thus, they survived in Syrunian.

Comparative inflection of regular nouns
	LATIN	SYRIAC (Aramaic)	SYRUNIAN
Nominative/ Emphatic	Vita	šeqle	liver
Accusative/ Absloute	Vit-am	šeql-în	livr-im
Genitive/ Construct	Vit-æ	šeql-ay	livr-e
translation	"life"	"tax"	"book"

Adjectives

Adjectives agree with their nouns in number and state, but only attributive. Predicative adjectives are in the construct state regardless of the state of their noun (a copula can, but need not be written). Thus, an attributive adjective to an emphatic noun, as in the phrase 'the good king', is written also in the emphatic state : h-malac h-ben — the king[emph.] good[emph.]. In comparison, the predicative adjective, as in the phrase 'the king is good', is written in the construct state: h-malac beni — the king[emph.] good[cons.] An alternative is : es beni h-malac – is good[cons.] the king[emph.].
Note that Dual numbers take plural adjectives. Adjectives never inflect for the dual.

Inflection of "ben" (good)
	Masculine		Feminine
	singular	plural	Singular	Plural
Emphatic	ben בן	bens בנס	bena בנא	benat בנאת
Absolute	benim בנם	bens בנס	benam בנם	benat בנאת
Construct	beni בני	benis בניס	beni בני	benis בניס

Verbs

Verbs conjugate for number; and in the singular for gender too. Singular verbs do not require the pronoun to be stated explicitly in the sentence, however, pronouns must always be used with plural verbs. Verbs exist in two base forms: the perfect and imperfect. Time is expressed by using these forms in compound tenses.

The regular verb AMAR (to love) ROOTS
	Imperfect forms	Perfect forms
1 Sing. Common (I)	amaħ אמאח	amav אמאב
2 Sing. Masc (you)	amut אמות	amavis אמאביס
2 Sing. Fem	amat אמאת	amavit אמאבית
3 Sing. Masc (he/it)	amu אמו	amavis אמאביס
3 Sing. Fem (she)	amya אמיא	amavit אמאבית
1 Pl. Common (we)	amamus אמאמוס	amavam אמאבאם
2 Pl. Common (you)	amass אמאץ	amavatiss אמאבאתיץ
3 Pl. Common (they)	amayn אמאין	amavin אמאבין

The construction of tenses and moods
	Past perfect	Imperfect	Present	Future	Future perfect	Passive
Eng. example	I have loved	I loved	I love	I will love	I will have loved	I am loved
Syrunian	to have [IMP] + PERF	PERF	IMP	to go [IMP] + INFINITIVE	to go[IMP] + PERF	{alif (he)}PERF

Passive= adjectival form: a[perfect form] (ie: the perfect from, with an Alif prefix)

Texts

See: Syrunian texts
Also consult the Syrunian word-list

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Anasħuttuvin h-culs h-ħuni libris e eqlis cum h-cuvdim e h-yuris. Adunavin h-culs la-raṡin e la-cussett, e devin alu aus sis agir in h-ruħe d-fratiryya.
אנאסחוטובין הכולס החוני ליבבריס ע עקליס כם הכובדם ע היורס. אדונאבין הכולס לא-ראשין ע לא-כוצעט, ע דעבין אלו אוס סס אגיר ין הרוחע דפראתירייא
Read by David Salo: Media:Syrunian_UDHR1.ogg.

compared to this version, in my earliest draft of "Levantine Romance":
Sunt nasħuntaθs aunes ħuni libers, eħuals et sam al-dihnte al-żihursqe. Sunt dunati luir dal raσnim dal cusħentsimsqe et est-ċi avulet q’ agiσint ilar sifral-autres sam al-sfirte fraθres.
סונט נאסחוטאתס אונעס חוני ליבערס ,עחואלס עט סאם אל-דיהנטע אל-זּיהורסכע. סונט דונאטי לויר דאל-ראשנים דאל-קוסחעצימסכע עט עסט-צּי אוּולעט כ אגישינט ילאר סיףראל-אוטרעס סאם אל-סףירטע ףראתרעס.

More texts available on the Syrunian texts page