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: | Agglutinating |
| Morphosyntactic alignment: | Nominative-Accusative |
| 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
Writing System
Lortho is an alphabet written from left to right.
 |
| The alphabet consists of 21 letters, of which one is a vowel. All other vowels are written as diacritics. |
Diacritics
The diacritics are variants of the vowel [i] and are positioned at different heights to denote the vowel as seen below.
 |
| Lortho vowels. From left to right they are: [i], [ɑ], [o], [u], and [ɛ] |
Sample
 |
| [konpʰɑɾin loɾtʰomɛ] I speak Lortho |
Phonology
Consonants
| Bilabial | Labiodental | Alveolar | Postalveolar | Velar | Glottal | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | p pʰ | b | t tʰ | d dʰ | k kʰ | |||||||
| 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 |
Diphthongs
There are four diphthongs in Lortho: [aɪ],[eɪ], [aʊ], [ɔɪ]
Syllable Structure
The syllable structure is (C)V(V)(C).
Romanization System
For ease of reading outside of its script, a system of Romanization has been developed as shown in the tables below.
| Alphabet | |||||||||||||||||||||
| IPA | dʰ | d | kʰ | k | lʰ | l | tʰ | t | pʰ | p | ʃ | s | n | nː | m | mː | h | b | f | i | ɾ |
| Romanization | dh | d | kh | k | lh | l | th | t | ph | p | sh | s | n | nn | m | mm | h | b | f | i | r |
| Vowels | |||||
| IPA | ɑ | ɛ | o | u | |
| Romanization | a | e | o | u | |
| Diphthongs | ||||
| IPA | aɪ | eɪ | aʊ | ɔɪ |
| Romanization | ai | ei | au | oi |
The Romanization system will be used from here on throughout the page.
Grammar
The grammar in Lortho is accomplished through both inflection and agglutination.
Noun Cases
Lortho has ten cases:
| Case | Modifier | Example | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | - | kansaptha | forest, woods |
| Accusative | -me | kansapthame | forest (direct obj.) |
| Dative | -mela | kansapthamela | forest (indirect obj.) |
| Genitive¹ | -nalo | kansapthanalo | our 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- | still in development | |
Possessives
The possessives are formed by using personal prefixes to the nouns:
| Person | Singular | Plural | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| masc | fem | neut | masc | fem | neut | |
| 1st person | ni- | nu- | - | nima- | numa- | - |
| 2nd person | lin- | lun- | - | nani- | nanu- | - |
| 3rd person | li- | lu- | la- | limi- | limu- | lima- |
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.
| Present Tense | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| -o Verbs konpharo [kon.'pʰɑ.ɾo] to speak | -t Verbs phramit ['pʰɾɑ.mit] to push | -n Verbs shailan [ʃɑɪ.'lɑn] to sit | |||
| konpharin, -un | -inan, -unan | phramidin, -dun | -dinan, -dunan | shailanin, -un | -inan, -unan |
| -anni, -annu | -amin, -amun | -danni, -dannu | -damin, -damun | -anni, -annu | -amin, -amun |
| -i, -u, -a | -imi, -imu, -ima | -di, -u, -a | -dimi, -dimu, -dima | -i, -u, -a | -imi, -imu, -ima |
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 | |
|---|---|
| harlin, -un | -inɑn, -unan |
| -ɑnːi, -ɑnːu | -ɑmin, -ɑmun |
| -i, -u, -ɑ | -imi, -imu, -imɑ |
Sample Text
|
| Sample text in Lortho script. Text taken from Relay 24 in CALS |
"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)
