Context http://verduria.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=395#p15375
Climate Map: http://verduria.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=395#p15379
Country Map: http://verduria.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=395#p15439
Nouns: http://verduria.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=395#p15653
Caste: http://verduria.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=395#p15824
Pronouns: http://verduria.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=395#p15936
Verbs I - Politeness, Past, Present and Future Tenses, Active Voice, Passive Voice http://verduria.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=395#p15936
Verbs II - Causatives http://verduria.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=395#p15936
Subordinate Clauses - http://verduria.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t ... =20#p18420
Vedreki is the native first language of about 190m people in total. Vedreki speakers comprise the majority of Azdrai (non-human) inhabitants of the Empire of Cheyaden (approximately 161m within the borders of the empire proper and maybe another 10m in the occupied Naxaqeen territories). It is also spoken by approximately 18m in the principality of Erelese Vedrek on the north coast of the continent of Erelan, which forms the south side of the roughly triangular Inner Sea. The continent of Naxaq forms the north-west side of the Inner Sea and is separated from Erelan by the Western Passage. The north-eastern side is made up of the southern end of the Khardan continent, which politically comprises the south of the Tarkentian Empire; that continent is separated from Naxaq by the Northern Passage and from Erelan by the Eastern Passage. The Empire is centred on the Cheyadeneen archipelago, a volcanic chain of islands approximately 1000 miles long, which consists of 6 large islands and multiple smaller ones, in the eastern part of the Inner Sea, but extends all the way up the eastern seaboard of the continent of Naxaq.
Erelese Vedreki is different in a number of respects – spelling and pronunciation – from standard Vedreki, which is the speech of the largest Vedreki city in the Empire, Black City or Moris Udrek. This introduction concentrates on the language of that city. Vedreki is part of the Central family of languages, mainly found in the northern part of Erelan and is most closely related to the languages of Nakhese (spoken in Xalnakh and Kornakh), Uralan, and Katrardheen all of which are spoken on the north coast of Erelan. While the consonantal complexity of proto-Central has been simplified in all these languages, Vedreki, along with Uralan, has retained the most complex inflectional morphology of the languages in the group. It is unrelated, despite significant borrowings between the two, to the human language of Cheyadeneen spoken across the Cheyadeneen archipelago and the rest of the empire.
In terms of phonology
Consonant | bilabial | labio-dental | alveolar | velar | uvular | post-alv |
stop | p, b | t,d | k,g | q | ||
fricative | f,v | s | kh, gh | qh | x (sh) | |
approximant | r,l | |||||
nasal | m | n |
“qh” should be pronounced as in Classical Arabic, without the velarisation found in modern Arabic dialects, to distinguish it from the separate Vedreki voiceless velar fricative (“kh”). Erelese Vedreki is rapidly eliding these two sounds and Nakhese has lost the distinction altogether.
Note also the lack of voiced alveolar fricative.
Word-final “r” is essentially silent and elongates the previous vowel, so ghaxar (wide) is pronounced “ghaxaa”; be careful, however, to pronounce the “r” in other contexts – so sevardok (house) is not pronounced in standard Vedreki as sevaadok (although non-rhoticity is gaining ground across the archipelago, but not interestingly in Erelese Vedrek which has less contact with Cheyadeneen, where non-rhoticity is the norm).
As with Cheyadeneen, voice assimilation both progressive and regressive occurs eg a voiced obstruent (stop or fricative) is unvoiced prior to a following unvoiced obstruent, or alveolar lateral approximant - “l”: eg “neb” eleven becomes “nep” prior to “taal” twelve to form neptaal, which means 132. By the same token “ved” six assimilates to vettaal (6 x 12; 72). “Dalb” sun therefore becomes “tlab-” in cases other than nominative singular. It also becomes “talb” in “fleqtalb” east. Labio-dental nasal consonants also assimilate to following bilabial nasals; “nm” assimilates to “mm”.
Unvoiced initial stops are aspirated; elsewhere unaspirated (a rule shared with Cheyadeneen).
Syncope breaks up otherwise illegal consonant clusters formed by either inflectional morphology, derivation or combinations of words to form compounds by deleting a medial consonant.
Historical interchange between the liquids r/l and dissimulation (usually m to b) where two different nasals are beginning and end of the same final syllable.
vowels | front rounded | back rounded | front unrounded | back unrounded | front long | back long |
high | i | ü | u | uu | ||
mid | e | ee | ||||
low | a | o | ö | aa | oo |
Generally each syllable should receive roughly equal stress, consistently with the syllable-timed nature of the language. Maximal syllable structure is
C(C)V(C)(C)
This can be set out as
(Stop/Fricative) + (Approximant) + V + (n, Fricative, Approximant) + (p, b, t, d)
(Stop/Fricative) + (Approximant) + V + C
(Stop/Fricative/Nasal/Approx) + V + C
(Stop/Fricative/Nasal/Approx) + V + (n, Fricative) + (t, d)
Nb f or v + r is almost never found, although there are instances of kh + r or qh + r. Generally this rule is becoming fricative + l at start of syllable
Syllable-splitting:
a) If syllable ends in CC, next will start with vowel
Dakht-un (to say)
b) Three consonants together are forbidden (in same syllable)
Fleq-tlab-a (East (acc sg))
c) Split between forbidden combinations
Flakh-noe (a speech
d) If two vowels are together split between the vowels
If anyone's interested, they have a choice. I can either move straight on to nouns and nominal morphology, or give you some geopolitical context for the empire or non-human-human relations. There is also a spectacularly unhelpful world map.