Lortho
| Lortho [loɾtʰo] | |
| Spoken in: | Lortho |
| Conworld: | A planet which orbits a binary star |
| Total speakers: | (insufficient data) |
| Genealogical classification: | (Family)
|
| Basic word order: | Verb Subject Object |
| Morphological type: | |
| Morphosyntactic alignment: | |
| Created by: | |
| Brian Bourque | March 2017 |
Introduction
Lortho (IPA : [loɾtʰo]) is an a priori constructed language created by Brian Bourque in the beginning of 2003. It originally started as a prop for a strategy board game where only the script was created for aesthetics. Fast forward about 13 years and it has now evolved into a fusional-agglutinative language. The verbs are changed in conjugation; however, suffixes and prefixes are added to nouns to denote case.
Inspiration
Brian got his main inspiration from his daughter. As she started progressing to the ability to make sounds and mimic speech, there were a few words that she had created to mean certain things. A few of these words have entered the Lortho lexicon.
Alphabet and Script
Alphabet
Lortho is written from left to right.
 |
| The alphabet consists of 22 letters, of which one is a vowel. All other vowels are written as diacritics. NOTE: This script only includes the letters of the alphabet. Diacritics will be used to denote vowels (except [ i ] ) and these are still in development. If anyone has suggestions for these diacritics, please feel free to click on the "talk" link in my signature. |
Consonants
| Bilabial | Labiodental | Alveolar | Postalveolar | Velar | Glottal | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | p pʰ | b | t tʰ | d dʰ | k kʰ | ʔ | ||||||
| Nasal | m mː | n nː | ||||||||||
| Tap or Flap | ɾ | |||||||||||
| Fricative | f | s | ʃ | h | ||||||||
| Lateral Approximant | l lʰ | |||||||||||
Vowels
There are five vowels, four of which are written using diacritics. Lortho is very strict when pronouncing vowels.
| Front | Near-front | Central | Near-back | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |||
| Near-close | |||||
| Close-mid | o | ||||
| Mid | |||||
| Open-mid | ɛ | ||||
| Near-open | |||||
| Open | ɑ |
Grammar
The grammar in Lortho is accomplished through both inflection and agglutination.
Noun Cases[1]
Lortho has ten cases:
| Case | Modifier | Example | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | - | kɑnsɑptʰɑ | forest, woods |
| Accusative | -mɛ | kɑnsɑptʰɑmɛ | forest (direct obj.) |
| Dative | -mɛlɑ | kɑnsɑptʰɑmɛlɑ | forest (indirect obj.) |
| Genitive¹ | (see below) | nimakɑnsɑptʰɑ | our forest |
| Sublative | -inɑ/ɛnɑ | kɑnsɑptʰɑɪnɑ | in/into the forest |
| Ablative | -(ɛ)nat | kɑnsɑptʰɑnɑt | out of (from) the forest |
| Allative | -dɑn | kɑnsɑptʰɑdɑn | to/towards the forest |
| Prolative | -dɑnɑɾ | kɑnsɑptʰɑdɑnɑɾ | through the forest |
| Instructive | -lɛn | tʰomidin kɑnsɑptʰɑlɑn | I live off of the forest |
| Vocative | fa- | still in development | |
¹Genitive Case
The genitive, or possessive, case is formed by using personal prefixes to the nouns:
| Person | Singular | Plural | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| masc | fem | neut | masc | fem | neut | |
| 1st person | ni- | nu- | - | nimɑ- | numɑ- | - |
| 2nd person | lin- | lun- | - | nɑni- | nɑnu- | - |
| 3rd person | li- | lu- | lɑ- | limi- | limu- | limɑ- |
Gender and Number Agreement
There are three rules for noun-adjective-verb agreement:
- Verbs must match number and gender of the noun.
- Adjectives must match noun gender, but not number or grammatical case.
- When a specific noun is counted, the noun does not take the plural since the ordinal number denotes pluralization.
Examples
| English | Lortho |
|---|---|
| We walk through their forest | [mɑlʰiɾinɑn limakɑnsɑptʰɑdɑnɑɾ] |
| He sat on his chair | [ʃɑɪlɑnikʰi lidʰɑmːɔɪna] |
Verbs
There are three major verb types: -o verbs, -t verbs, and -n verbs. Each follow a general rule for conjugation.
-o verbs
-o verbs are conjugated by subtracting the -o and adding the personal endings.
-t verbs
-t verbs are conjugated by changing the -t to -d then adding the personal endings
-n verbs
-n verbs do not change and personal endings are simply added to the verb. The exception to this rule is the verb [hɑɾlɑn] to be, which will be discussed later.
| Present Tense | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| -o Verbs [konpʰɑɾo] to speak | -t Verbs [pʰɾɑmit] to push | -n Verbs [ʃɑɪlɑn] to sit | |||
| konpʰɑɾin, -un | -inɑn, -unɑn | pʰɾɑmidin, -dun | -dinɑn, -dunan | ʃɑɪlɑnin, -un | -inɑn, -unan |
| -ɑnːi, -ɑnːu | -ɑmin, -ɑmun | -dɑnːi, -dɑnːu | -dɑmin, -dɑmun | -ɑnːi, -ɑnːu | -ɑmin, -ɑmun |
| -i, -u, -ɑ | -imi, -imu, -imɑ | -di, -u, -ɑ | -dimi, -dimu, -dimɑ | -i, -u, -ɑ | -imi, -imu, -imɑ |
"A man is only as big as the dream he dares to live." - No Fear Brian Bourque (talk) 17:15, 18 March 2017 (PDT)
