Islysian

Illyrian Ilieski
Spoken in:	Illyria
Timeline/Universe:	Modern timeline Alternate Earth
Total speakers:	~10 million
Writing system:	Modified Latin alphabet
Genealogical classification:	Indo-European  Illyrian
Basic word order:	SOV
Morphological type:	Inflecting
Morphosyntactic alignment:	Nominative-Accusative
Created by:
Cody Jaeger	2006

Iterekisna - Introduction

The Illyrian language is spoken by nearly all of Illyria's population of ~10 million; by small ethnic-Illyrian communities in neighbouring countries such as Sweden, Finland, Poland, and the Baltic Rim; and by small emigrant communities in the Anglophone countries.

The Illyrian language is considered an Indo-European isolate. Much loaned vocabulary can be traced to Finnic, Baltic, Germanic, Slavic, and even Romance languages--for example, "poike" boy from Finnish and Swedish; "arbat" tea from Lithuanian; "kamping" from English; and "dešöné" lunch from French.

There are several dialects of Illyrian. While they are all mutually intelligible (except, perhaps, among the very elderly, who tend to retain antiquidated forms of speech), this grammar will focus on the spoken form of the Western Illyrian dialect. This dialect, originating in the metropolitan areas surrounding the Tälia Sound, is the most widespread dialect, spoken by approximately 60% of the Illyrian-speaking population.

Lantevaidaslys - Phonology

Sonesai - Vowels

a - /a/
á - /ɑ/
ä - /ɛ:/
e - /ɛ/
é - /e:/
i - /i/
í - /i:/
o - /ɔ/
ó - /o:/
ö - /œ/
u -/y/
ú - /u/
y - /ɪ/

Pronunciation of certain consonants, such as J, change depending on which vowel they precede. For these purposes, Illyrian vowels are grouped into "hard" and "soft" sets.

• The hard vowels are: a, á, o, ó, ú.
  
• The soft vowels are: ä, i, í, e, é, ö, u, y.

An accute accent marks a vowel as long. Acute-accented vowels are not considered separate letters of the alphabet; ä and ö, however, are.

Divisonesai - Diphthongs

Diphthongs in Illyrian are as follows:

ai - /ai/
au - /æw/
ei - /ɛi/
ia - /i.a/
ie - /i.ɛ/
iu - /i.ʉ/
oi - /ɔi/
ui - /ɥi/
uo - /uɔ/

All diphthongs are pronounced with a grave accent on the second vowel.

Soklasinet - Consonants

b - /b/
d - /d/
f - /f/
g - /g/ before a hard vowel or finally; /∫/ before a soft vowel
h - /h/
j - /j/ before a hard vowel or finally; /ʝ/ before a soft vowel
k - /k/, palatised /kʲ/ before a soft vowel or finally
l - /l/, apical, as in Italian, French, etc.
m - /m/
n - /n/ pronounced dentally; /ŋ/ before K
p - /p/ always aspirated
r - /r/ before a vowel or finally; /ʁ/ before a consonant (except H and J)
s - /s/
š - /∫/
t - /t/ always aspirated
þ - /θ/
v - /v/ in most dialects, but most Western Illyrian speakers realise as /ʋ/
z - /z/

Doubled consonants indicate extended length, which varies greatly between dialects. In Western Illyrian, the length of a doubled consonant should be slightly shorter than the "N" sound in English "pen-knife"

Sanalantaslysti mainai - Pronunciation changes

Pronunciation changes in Illyrian are relatively rare and mostly regular.

Very common clauses sometimes feature internal elision or contraction. For example, the relative clause "saka za" that, which is in everyday speech rendered as ['saksa].

An unstressed "I" before an approximant is lenited to /ɪ/, such as the first letter of the word "ilieski" itself.

More informally, an initial unstressed "E" is often elided: this is most often heard in the case of the demonstrative pronoun "eta" this/it (is), which is very commonly elided to 'ta, particularly by children. In extreme cases, sentences such as "eta enka erda en ejou eli illa?" is this narrow table sufficient or not? may be heard as tankardan júlilla? However, it would not be likely to hear someone speaking in such an exaggerated manner except for effect.

In some cases, if the mutation becomes widespread enough it may enter the standard form of the language: for example, "siarkesli," good evening is a morphologised contraction of "sia irkesli."

Skiemutasti rakeini - Syllable structure

Illyrian syllable structure is basically (C)V(C). Clusters of up to three consonants are allowed initially. Every syllable must have an acceptable vowel sound, ie. structures such as Czech "prvni" first, which uses "r" as a semi-vowel, would not be allowed in Illyrian. Final consonant clusters are not allowed, however in recent years, it seems this rule has been blurred when adopting loan words--in particular "ir week-end."

Kursa ilieskiai - Writing in Illyrian

Ir alfabet - The alphabet

Illyrian is written with a modified Latin alphabet. The first written text in Illyrian was the Code of Laws of Prince Iliem II, written in the 1340s. However, the missionaries who introduced writing failed to create an orthography specially designed for the language, which is apparent by the wide spelling variations of the period: Ä was interchangeable with E, and Ö with U. /∫/ was variously written as SZ, SJ, SCH, CH, and CJ. K and C were interchangeable, as were V and W. Above all, it seemed that every writer came up with his own realisation of /θ/.

Illyrian spelling was finally standardised by King Andiri IV in 1573. His reform is basically what is in use today. Andiri, a scholar of languages, imported the thorn (Illyrian letter þa) from England and the S-caron (Illyrian letter še) from Bohemia. The phoneme /ç/ is today written with a digraph due to the fact that, at the time of Andiri's reform, /ç/ was not considered a distinct phoneme but rather a palatisation of <h>.

The modern Illyrian alphabet has 26 letters: 8 vowels and 18 consonants. Collation order is as follows:

A Ä B D E F G H I J K L M N O Ö P R S Š T Þ U V Y Z

Vilainon kursatyllet - Non-native letters

The following letters are not considered part of the Illyrian alphabet as they do not occur naturally in the Illyrian language. They are only found in loan words, foreign names, and technical jargon (eg, "www.")

c - /k/ before a hard vowel or finally; /ts/ before a soft vowel
q - /k/
w - /v/ or /ʋ/
x - /ks/ before a hard vowel or finally; /∫/ before a soft vowel

Divikursuret - Digraphs

Besides the diphthongs described in the section on Phonology, the only digraph in the modern Illyrian orthography is <hj>, which is pronounced /ç/. It most frequently occurs word-initially, and is almost never found word-finally except in a few colloquialisms, such as "yhj" [ɪç] - which is equivalent to either "ouch!" or "oy vey!"

Kiesai kursajöruret - Alternate Realisations

In situations (eg. typewriters, keyboard, www addresses, etc) in which typing Illyrian letters such as Še and Þa (the thorn) would be difficult or impossible the following realisations are acceptable:

ä - ay
ö - oy
š - sj
þ - tj

Digraphs are not considered separate letters of the Illyrian alphabet. In alternate realisations, however, the two letters are treated as though they were the proper Illyrian monograph: eg. "tjaysti" (þästi) often would nominally be sorted after, for example, "tyrsi" dry.

Suresaslys jau akronimet - Capitalisation and acronyms

Capitalisation is absolutely regular. Only the first letter of a sentence and the first letter of a proper noun are capitalised. Adjectives and common nouns derived from proper nouns are not capitalised.

Ilieska Illyria

ilieski Illyrian (adjective, or the Illyrian language)

ilieskalainen (an Illyrian person)

Acronyms are written with the capitalised first letter of each component word, and any following letters from the same word are lowercase. There is no punctuation between letters of an acronym. Acronyms which are themselves loan terms are not usually translated.

ITv (Ilieskai Televizia, Illyrian Television)

IK (Idinörju Karjanen, United Kingdom)

UNProFor (UNPROFOR, United Nations Protection Force)

Kursahaftaslys - Punctuation

Formatting for full stops, commas, colons, exclamation/question marks, etc. is the same as in English--that is, no space after the preceding word.

Inverted commas are used to show emphasis of strength which, in speech, would be indicated by the speaker's tone of voice.

Illa, ja vardu saka za 'Kören' iše siras. No, I said KÖREN likes cheese.

Outward-pointing double angle quotes (with internal spacing) indicate speech. No comma is used to offset quotes. If the quotation includes the end of a sentence, the full stop goes inside the quotes, otherwise they go outside.

Se vardun « siras iši. » You said, "I like cheese."

Isse irsu « kótet jau kienet jau tréša » . He saw "cats and dogs and a rabbit."

However, for ongoing dialogue, such as in narrative storytelling (which is always written in the present tense), em-dashes are preferred. To show the cutoff point of the dialogue where the sentence does not end, a colon is used.
&em;Saka? ja vardi.
&em;Ö, ja vardu saka za ja ruosti skolliai ida, : isse varde.

Indentation is not used in written Illyrian, except for nesting lists. Double-spacing indicates a new paragraph, but blocks of dialogue use only single spacing.

Ir kun alfabetisti - The alphabet song

Illyrian children learn an "alphabet song" which is sung to the same tune as the English alphabet song:

Ah äh be de je ef ga,
Ha i ja ka el-äm-än-o-ö,
Pe är äs, še te þa, ju vé ipsilon zéta
Ja ir alfabetas jussi, jazo 'ta nén klósoli?

The last line translates to: "I know the alphabet, isn't that lovely?"