Elbic

Helvica
Pronounced:	/"ElvIk@/
Timeline and Universe:	Ill Bethisad
Species:	Human
Spoken:	Elba
Total speakers:	30,000
Writing system:	Latin
Genealogy:	Indo-European  Italic   Romance    South-Central Romance     Central-Southern Italian      Elbic
Typology
Morphological type:	Inflecting
Morphosyntactic alignment:	Nominative-Accusative
Basic word order:	SVO
Credits
Creator:	Sectori
Created:	May 2006

Elbic is the language of the Principality of Elba, an island off the coast of Tuscany. It is a Central and Southern Italian language, related to Neapolitan and Tuscan Italian. It has two sets of changes to initial consonants, similar to the mutations found in the Celtic consonants: the geminate mutation (also found in Neapolitan), and the gorgic mutation (Tuscan Italian).

Phonotactics/Orthography/Stress

The Elbic alphabet contains 37 distinct letters. There are 15 vowel letters representing ten sounds. Elbic has the following vowels:

Vowels

Vowels
	Front		Near-front		Central		Near-back		Back
High	i									u
Near-high			ɪ					ʊ
High-mid			e							o
Mid					ə
Low-mid			ɛ							ɔ
Near-low
Low					a

Orthographically, these are represented by:

Vowels
	Front		Near-front		Central		Near-back		Back
High	í									ú
Near-high			ì					ù
High-mid			é							ó
Mid					à
Low-mid			è							ò
Near-low
Low					á

There are a set of unaccented vowels <a e i o u>. These, when stressed, are pronounced as the acute vowels, when unstressed as the grave vowels.

Consonants

Consonants
	Bilabial		Labiod.		Dental		Alveolar		Post-alv.		Palatal		Velar		Glottal
Nasal		m						n				ɲ
Plosive	p	b			t	d							k	g
Fricative	ɸ	β			θ	ð	s		ʃ				x	ɣ
Affricate						dz			t∫	dʒ		kw	(ks)
Approximants		(w)										(j)
Trill								r
Lateral Approximant								l

These are represented orthographically by the characters following. However, there are some important notes. /dz/ when adjacent to an unvoiced consonant or initially is [ts]. Double consonants <nn ss>, etc. are pronounced /nn ss/, etc. /t∫/ is [k] before <a o u> in all variations. /dʒ/ is [g] before <a o u> in all variations. There is also an orthographically represented <h>. <h> is non-phonemic, but rather represents /ˈ/, a movement of stress. <h> always precedes a vowel, and moves the stress of the word to that vowel. /kw/ is /k/ before <e i> in all variations. < i u> in diphthongs are pronounced /j w/. /ɲ ʎ/ before <a o u> in all variations are /gn gl/. /∫/ in non-Elbic words (i.e. lone words) is /ks/.

Consonants
	Bilabial		Labiod.		Dental		Alveolar		Post-alv.		Palatal		Velar		Glottal
Nasal		m						n				gn
Plosive	p	b			t	d							ch	gh
Fricative	hp	hb			ht	hd	s		x				hc	hg
Affricate						z			c	g		qu	(x)
Approximants		(u)										(i)
Trill								r
Lateral Approximant								l

Stress

To place the stress of a word, follow these rules in the order they are presented here.

• When determining the stress of a word, always initially place it on the final syllable.
• If the final phoneme is a vowel, stress moves back one syllable.
• If the final syllable ends in a nasal or an approximant, move the stress back one syllable.
• If anywhere in the word there is an <h> preceding a vowel, move the stress to the h-vowel.
• In monosyllabic words, the vowel is always treated as if it were stressed.

Thus, Mhexicó, the Elbic name for Mexico, is /mˈɛksɪko/, and Helva, the Elbic name for Elba, is /ˈɛlvə/. No Nápolitanno, or "a Neapolitan", is /no napɔlɪtˈannɔ/.

Nominal Morphology

Phew. That's over. Good. Now we can get onto the interesting bit. Nouns in Elbic belong to one of three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. There are also two numbers: singular and plural. All Elbic nouns end in vowels. The changes applied to vowels to go from singular to plural are as follows:

• -o>-i (in cases where the noun ends in -io, the i becomes -ì); gatto>gatti
• -a>-e; cossina>cossine
• -u>-e; frasu>frase
• -e>-i; traduzione>traduzioni
• -i>-e (very few nouns end in -i); spaghetti>spaghette

The singular endings can tell you a significant amount about the gender of a noun. Here are some basic guidelines.

• Most nouns ending in -o are masculine; lo gatto
• Most nouns ending in -a are feminine; la ccossina
• Most nouns ending in -u are neuter; lu ffrasu
• All nouns ending in -zione are feminine; la ttraduzione
• All nouns ending in -ismo are neuter; lu ffaxismo
• Nouns ending in -e or -i can be of any gender, and so you just have to memorize them; lo cambiatte, lu mmomenti

Articles

Along with nouns must come articles. Elbic has six definite articles and four indefinite articles. The definite articles are equivalent to English "the" and precede the noun they modify. There are both singular and plural definite articles. The indefinite articles are equivalent to English "a/an" and precede the noun they modify. There are only singular indefinite articles. The definite articles are as follows.

• lo: masculine singular; lo gatto
• la: feminine singular; la ccossina
• lu: neuter singular; lu ffrasu
• l: singular (substitutes for lo, la, or lu before a vowel); l'arbollo
• li: masculine plural; li gatti
• le: feminine and neuter plural; le ffrase

The indefinite articles are as follows.

• no: masculine singular; no gatto
• na: feminine singular: na ccossina
• nu: neuter singular; nu ffrasu
• n': singular (substitutes for no, na, or nu before a vowel); n'arbollo

Geminate Mutation

You may have noticed that some of the nouns changed when articles were placed in front of them. This is the geminate mutation, one of the more unique features of Elbic, shared with Neapolitan. The geminate mutation is a doubling of the initial consonant of a word. It is triggered by the feminine and neuter articles. Any word following these articles will experience the doubling. However, only certain consonants are doubled. Here is the list. It includes the gorgic mutation for future reference as well.

Initial Consonant	Geminate Form	Gorgic Form
t	tt	ht
d	dd	hd
c	cc	hc
g	gg	hg
z	zz	z
p	pp	hp
b	bb	hb
ch	cch	hch
gh	ggh	hgh
n	nn	n
m	mm	m
l	ll	l
r	rr	r
f	ff	f
v	vv	v
x	xx	x

So you can see how the transfer from frasu to lu ffrasu occurs.

• cossina /kɔssinə/>la ccossina /la kkɔssinə/
• nápolitanna /napɔlɪtannə/>la nnápolitanna /la nnapɔlɪtannə/
• frasu /frasʊ/>lu ffrasu /lu ffrasʊ/
• nome /nomɛ/>lu nnome /lu nnomɛ/