Hlotderb

Hlotderb (/ɬoʈ.ɛʁb/) is the language spoken through out the base of the western mountain range of Lheinead. It is believed to be a language isolate, but with heavy influence from Turkic and Altic languages, among others. The name Hlotderb is derived from Hlotde(/ɬoʈ.e/), meaning mountain people.

Phonology

• Consonants: /dˁ tˁ kˁ gˁ t p b d k g n ŋ m v f ʒ ʃ z s ç ʝ ɬ l ʁ r̝ ʣ ʤ ʂ ʐ ʈ ɖ/
  • Romanized As: <dh th kh gh t p b d k g n ng m v f j ss z s c ÿ hl l r rh dz dj sz zs td dt>
  • Exceptions:
    • /tˁ dˁ kˁ gˁ/ are marked as <t' d' k' g'> before <hl>
• Allophones:
  • /t d k g p b/ become [tʰ dʰ kʰ gʰ pʰ bʰ] initially
  • /l/ becomes [ɭ] when in a cluster with /ʂ ʐ ʈ ɖ/

	Bilabial	Labio-Dental	Dental	Alveolar	Post-Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Stops	p  b		t  d			ʈ  ɖ		k  g
Emphatic Stops			tˁ  dˁ					kˁ  gˁ
Nasals	m		n					ŋ
Fricatives		f  v		s  z	ʃ  ʒ	ʂ  ʐ	ç  ʝ
Approximants			r̝	ɬ	l				ʁ
Affricates				ʣ	ʤ

• Vowels: /e i ɛ æ ə ɑ ɔ o u/
  • Romanized As: <e i eh aa y a ô o u>
    • Differentiation:
      • /ɛ/ proceding /ɬ/ is denoted by <e'l> instead of <ehhl> or <ehl> (which means /ɛl/
• Phonological Constraints: (S or F)(S or F)(N)(A)V(N)(A)(F)(P)
  • Where S=stop, F=fricative, A=approximant, N=nasal, and V=vowel
  • Also with identical voicing and usually similar point of articulation
  • For stop combinations, only regular+emphatic and regular+regular are permitted
  • For stops/fricatives, retroflexes do not combine with other stops/fricatives in the cluster

Pronouns

Nominative:

	Singular	Plural
First Person, Exclusive	ghro (/gˁʁo/)	bim (/bim/)
First Person, Inclusive	-	bij (/biʒ/)
Second Person	dja (/ʤɑ/)	sse (/ʃe/)
Third Person, Animate	cuÿ (/çuʝ/)	tcom (/tçom/)
Third Person, Cultural	coss (/çoʃ/)	côtd (/çɔʈ/)
Third Person, Natural	côsz (/çɔʂ/)	côtd (/çɔʈ/)

Voice

There are four grammatical voices in Hloterb: Active, Passive, Locative, Reflexive. The first three are distiguished by prefixes (or in the case of the active voice, the lack of a prefix), whereas the reflexive voice is simply active voice with a corresponding reflexive pronoun as the object.

A few examples:

Dhlap ssônirh jaadz
Herding -produce.PRES wool
Herding produces wool

an active sentence,

Jaadz ossônirh dhlap
Wool PASS.produce.PRES herding
Wool is produced by herding

a passive sentence,

Hlotde aassônirh jaadz
Hlotde LOC.produce.PRES wool
At Hlotde wool is produced

a locative sentence,

Ghro ssônirh kehsz
I produce myself
I made myself

a reflexive sentence.

In slang or more colloquial speech, however, the locative voice has been re-analyzed as a genitive constructive. For example,

Côsz aadazirh jaadz
It.NAT underwent the shaving of wool
It was shaved of (its) wool

Syntax and Morphology

Hloterb is SVO, resulting in the abandonment of case endings, except for the locative case -aa, which survived attached to the verb as a voice ending. Direct objects proceed indirect objects. The locative and genitive cases are now formed from prepositions, which vary depending on dialect, case, and gender.

Hloterb distinguishes three genders: natural, cultural, and animate. The last is reserved for humans and beloved pets. The first includes general household items (with a few exceptions), living organisms (not scanned as animate), and natural formations (mountains, deserts, etc.). The cultural gender is used in relation to all remaining nouns, commonly less ordinary produced items (Cotton, the final product, for instance)

Adjectives decline for the gender but fairly straightforwardly. Verbal adverbs also agree with the voice of the verb. It has been suggested that this reduces confusion in multiple verb predicates. Adverbial Adverbs and Adjective Adverbs agree with the modifier that they modify.

Verbs are conjugated for voice and tense, but no other issue. Mood and aspect are often worked into a sentence through various adverbs. Person and number are determined from context or the nominative pronoun. In this respect, Hloterb is highly isolating.

Lexicon

Hloterb Lexicon