Sevvufery

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Sevvufery is a language spoken by the Sevvuferýkilý of Sevvuferý, a country at the centre of contemporary maps of the fictional planet Erad. Its inhabitants are similar to humans, apart from differences in intellectual capacity. Though there has been some change in the language, not much has evolved over time, which is why this page's information was taken from a time when the language has lived for about 200 years.

Phonology

Consonants

Sevvufery has 27 consonants. Some of these are represented using two of the same letter, but they are treated as one letter in writing, and would be considered as such to a native speaker.

	Bilabial	Labio-dental	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyngeal
Plosive	p [p] b [b]		t [t] d [d]					k [k] vv [g]
Nasal	m [m]			n[n]		[ɳ]*	[ɲ]*	ΔΓ [ŋ]
Trill				r [r]
Affricate					g[t̠ʃ]		yy [dʑ]
Fricative		f [f] v [v]	å [θ] ð [ð]	s [s] x [z]	rr [ʃ] ii [ʒ]				hh [χ]	h [h] ʰ [h]* [ɦ]*
Lateral Fricative				∞ [ɬ]
Approximant		w [ʋ]					j [j]
Lateral Approximant				l [l]

n is pronounced [ɳ] if it comes before another consonant. Otherwise, it is just pronounced as [n].

h is pronounced [ɦ] if it is the last letter of a word. ʰ is pronounced as a weaker version of [h] and cannot appear at the start or end of words.

Letters representing consonant clusters

The cluster [ks] is represented by the letter 'z'

The cluster [zχ] is represented by the letters 'zz'

Monopthongs

Sevvufery uses 17 letters to represent vowel/dipthong sounds. Of these, 13 represent monopthongs. Where two sounds are included in the same row, the one on the left represents the unrounded version

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i/ý [i]* u [y]		ö [u]
Near-close	í [ɪ]
Close-mid	y [e]	ä [ɵ]
Mid			õ [o̞]
Open-mid	e [ɛ]		o [ɔ]
Near-open		ú [ɐ]
Open	a [a]		ã [ɑ]

i and ý both make the [i] sound, but ý is the shorter vowel of the two.

Dipthongs

Vowel clusters are banned in Sevvufery, so other letters are used for dipthongs, as are shown below:

• ÿ [ai]
• ø [aɔ]
• ë [ɛi]
• ï [ɪi]
• ü [ɐi]

Morphology

Sound clusters

Start of a word

Most sound clusters are banned at the start of words, but there are two which are permitted: kr and tr.

For example, in the word 'krut' (/kryt/) meaning 'synagogue'

Middle

However, in the middle of words, consonant clusters are allowed, if they are no longer than two letters (with one exception : ntr), provided that a vowel both preceeds and proceeds them.

For example, the word 'ysry' (/esre/) meaning 'voice'.

End of a word

There is some more lenience at the end of words, although not much. Again though, the clusters must not be any longer than 2 letters. The following are permitted: ns, nt, nk. And here the effect I mentioned earlier occurs, where the n shifts to being pronounced as [ɳ].

For example, the word 'nunk' (/nyɳk/) meaning 'to notice'.

Uses of ʰ

Vowel lengthening

Now, with the exception of 'i' and 'ý' (both pronounced as [i] but the former is the longer version), Sevvufery does not distinguish between long and short vowels with the use of different letters. In order to lengthen another vowel, two of the same vowel are placed on either side of the letter ʰ.

For example: the word "hyliʰi" (/heli:/) meaning 'certain' or 'specific'

Joining vowels in a very weak dipthong

The other use of ʰ is less subtle, and places more importance on its pronunciation. When two vowels occur next to each other whose dipthong is not already covered by one of the letters mentioned earlier, ʰ is used to connect these since it does act as a consonant, just a weakly pronounced one.

For example, in the word 'yʰale' (/ehalɛ/) meaning 'phase'.

Grammar

Nouns and Adjectives

Nouns in Sevvufery employ a highly inflectional structure, where each case, apart from the nominative singular, is marked with a suffix. Adjectives precede the noun they describe, and must agree with it in number, but not in case (so, for example, an adjective in the dative plural does not need to be followed by a noun in the dative plural, but the noun must still be in the plural form, and not the singular). This will be explained further in the section 'Articles' burden'. All nouns and adjectives decline differently depending on whether they end in a consonant, or a vowel.

Adjectives

Table of Contractions

Letter	e-contraction	i-contraction	ú-contraction
a	y	ÿ	ø
ä	ä	ú	o
e	e	i	í
ö	õ	u	ö

ë, ï and ü have not been included here, since they would just be reduced to e + j, í + j, and ú + j respectively, after which they follow the consonant endings

Rules of formation

Although adjectives may end in any consonant, they cannot end in any vowel. Only the following are permitted, due to the way this plays into comparatives, superlatives and absolutives, having mentioned the table of contractions in the previous section: a, ä, e, ë, ï, ö, ü.

Comparative

This is the mode adjectives take in order to, well, compare nouns to others, as is the case for many natural languages. Comparatives decline like regular adjectives. They are formed by adding -egan to consonant endings, and adding the e-contracted version of the last vowel of the adjective + gan if the adjective ends in a vowel. Refer to the Table of Contractions. Comparatives are followed by the resultant case to achieve the meaning 'than [insert object]'

For example, "dögegan TËIRymuvv mo."

I am better than him.

More about the resultant will be shown later.

Verbs

Sevvuferyn verbs fall into four categories, and these have distinctly different endings. The standard form used for study, and for giving explanations about verbs, is the present infinitive.

Simplest verb

Historically, this was the first word added to Sevvufery, when its first ruler had just arrived and before the language merged with those of its neighbours. It means 'to' but without indicating what the action is. It declines irregularly and its present tense is the source of Sevvuferyn pronouns. 'Yr' was originally the present tense infinitive, but over time that has contracted into 'yk'