Lortho
Lortho ['loɾ.tʰo] | |
| Spoken in: | Dhamashi |
| Conworld: | A circumbinary planet |
| Total Speakers: | 6 million |
| Genealogical classification: | under development |
| Basic word order: | Verb-Subject-Object |
| Morphological Type: | Agglutinating |
| Morphosyntactic Alignment: | Nominative-Accusative |
| Created by: | |
| Brian Bourque | March 2017 |
Lortho 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. It is an agglutinating language with some minor fusional aspects.
The people (Kalanune) who speak Lortho live on Dhamashi, a circumbinary plant which has two natural satellites. The planet's surface has many similarities to Earth where it has oceans, mountains, deserts, and forests. The planet has three major continents: Mashonu, Kashti, and Lamona. The Kalanune live on Lamona.
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.
Phonology
Consonants
| Bilabial | Labiodental | Alveolar | Postalveolar | Velar | Glottal | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | p pʰ | b | t tʰ | d dʰ | k kʰ | |||||||
| Nasal | m | n | ||||||||||
| Tap or Flap | ɾ | |||||||||||
| Fricative | f | s | ʃ | h | ||||||||
| Lateral Approximant | l lʰ | |||||||||||
Vowels
Monophthongs
There are five vowels in Lortho which are strictly pronounced regardless of placement or stress.
| Front | Near- front | Central | Near- back | Back | ||
| Close | 
| |||||
| Near-close | ||||||
| Close-mid | ||||||
| Mid | ||||||
| Open-mid | ||||||
| Near-open | ||||||
| Open | ||||||
Diphthongs
There are four diphthongs in Lortho:
- [aɪ]
- [eɪ]
- [aʊ]
- [ɔɪ]
Syllable Structure
The syllable structure is (C)V(V)(C).
Phonotactics
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Romanization System
For ease of reading outside of its script, a system of Romanization has been developed as shown in the tables below.
| Consonants | ||||||||||||||||||||
| IPA | dʰ | d | kʰ | k | lʰ | l | tʰ | t | pʰ | p | ʃ | s | n | nː | m | mː | h | b | f | ɾ |
| Romanization | dh | d | kh | k | lh | l | th | t | ph | p | sh | s | n | nn | m | mm | h | b | f | r |
| Monophthongs | ||||||
| IPA | i | ɑ | ɛ | o | u | |
| Romanization | i | a | e | o | u | |
| Diphthongs | ||||
| IPA | aɪ | eɪ | aʊ | ɔɪ |
| Romanization | ai | ei | au | oi |
Orthography
Alphabet
Lortho is an alphabet written from left to right. It consists of 21 letters, one of which is a vowel.
 |
Vowels
The vowels are written as ligatures:
 |
| Lortho vowels |
Grammar
Nouns
Lortho has ten cases:
| Case | Modifier | Example | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | - | kansaptha | forest, woods |
| Accusative | -me | kansapthame | forest (direct obj.) |
| Dative | -mela | kansapthamela | forest (indirect obj.) |
| Genitive | -nalo | kansapthanalo | of the forest |
| Sublative | -ina/ena | kansapthaina | in/into the forest |
| Ablative | -(e)nat | kansapthanat | out of (from) the forest |
| Allative | -dan | kansapthadan | to/towards the forest |
| Prolative | -danar | kansapthadanar | through the forest |
| Instructive | -len | thomidin kansapthalan | I live off of the forest |
| Vocative | fa(l)- | fakansaptha, lharid! | Run, forest! |
Possessives
The possessives are formed by using personal prefixes to the nouns. The same word kansaptha will be used in the table below.
| Person | Singular | Plural | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| masc | fem | neut | masc | fem | neut | |
| 1st person | nikansaptha | nukansaptha | - | nimakansaptha | numakansaptha | - |
| 2nd person | linkansaptha | lunkansaptha | - | nanikansaptha | nanukansaptha | - |
| 3rd person | likansaptha | lukansaptha | lakansaptha | limikansaptha | limukansaptha | limakansaptha |
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 | malhirinan limakansapthadanar |
| He sat on his chair | shailanikhi lidhammoina |
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 keep their infinitive form 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.
Conjugation Table
| Present Tense | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| -o Verbs konpharo [kon.'pʰɑ.ɾo] to speak root: konphar- |
-t Verbs phramit ['pʰɾɑ.mit] to push root: phramid- |
-n Verbs shailan [ʃɑɪ.'lɑn] to sit root: shailan- | |||
| konpharin, konpharun | konpharinan, konpharunan | phramidin, phramidun | phramidinan, phramidunan | shailanin, shailanun | shailaninan, shailanunan |
| konpharanni, konpharannu | konpharamin, konpharamun | phramidanni, phramidannu | phramidamin, phramidamun | shailananni, shailanannu | shailanamin, shailanamun |
| konphari, konpharu, konphara | konpharimi, konpharimu, konpharima | phramidi, phramiu, phramia | phramidimi, phramidimu, phramidima | shailani, shailanu, shailana | shailanimi, shailanimu, shailanima |
Irregular Verbs
At present, there are very few irregular verbs in Lortho; however, the irregular verbs which do exist are somewhat regular in their own right. One such verb is harlan to be.
The verb harlan is conjugated slightly different from the regular -n verbs. The -an is dropped and then the personal endings are added to the root, harl-.
| harlan [hɑɾlɑn] to be root: harl- | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | Plural | |||||
| masc | fem | neut | masc | fem | neut | |
| 1st person | harlin | harlun | - | harlinan | harlunan | - |
| 2nd person | harlanni | harlannu | - | harlamin | harlamun | - |
| 3rd person | harli | harlu | harla | harlimi | harlimu | harlima |
Moods
Imperative
The imperative form of the verb is simply the root with the vocative case (which can be either implied or explicit).
Examples:
- famannu, konphar!
- Hey you, speak!
- fanamin, nathar namineme!
- Hey you, be quiet! (lit. quiet yourselves)
- fabrian, shailan!
- Brian, sit!
Vocabulary:
- konpharo (konphar-) v. to speak
- natharo (nathar-) v. to quell, pacify
- mannu pronoun you (fem. sing.)
- namin pronoun you (masc. pl.)
- shailan (shailan-) v. to sit
Sample Text
 | |
| Text | Translation |
| konpharin lorthome | I speak Lortho |
|
| Sample text in Lortho script. Text taken from Relay 24 in CALS |
Resources
Linguistics
Endangered Alphabets - a not-for-profit organization to catalog 14 alphabets threatened by extinction
Glossika Phonics - a YouTube channel for IPA pronunciation
International Phonetic Alphabet
NativLang
Omniglot
Online Etymology Dictionary (English)
Reddit:Linguistics
Wikitongues
World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS)
Conlangs
Conlang Atlas of Language Structures (CALS)
Conlang Bulletin Board (CBB)
Conlang Critic - a YouTube vlogger who offers insights on conlangs
Conlang Mailing List
Conlang Relay Museum on CALS
ConWorkShop - an online one-stop-shop for cataloging your conlang
Fiat Lingua - an online archive of conlang articles
Language Creation Society
LCS on YouTube
Reddit: Conlangs
Reddit: Neography (Constructed Scripts)
Speculative Grammarian - A satirical periodical about linguistics and conlangery
Zompist Bulletin Board (ZBB)
Lortho
Lortho on CALS
Lortho in the 24th Conlang Relay
Lortho on ConWorkShop
Lortho Lexicon
Lortho on Linguifex
"Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't." - Mark Twain Brian Bourque (talk) 17:15, 18 March 2017 (PDT)
