Qeran language (Origo Mundi)

The Qeran language (qeran: Âtluâm, [ˈət͡ɬwəm̥]) is the official language of the Principality of Qera, spoken by well over 30 million people. The language is commonly grouped with Sillenic, Sayaleni and Old Makuku into a Qero-Sillenic language family. Âtluâm is an accusative-nominative language with a Verb-Subject-Object sentence structure. Qeran in contrast to most Qero-Sillenic languages lacks comparatives completely and large consonant clusters occur frequently. The first Qeran language diverged from Proto-Qero-Sillenic in -4000 OM, however the exact date is disputed among linguists.

Etymology

The name Âtluâm is the endonym of the Qeran language and refers to the (often wildly differing) dialects of Qeran. The term has its root in the Old Qeran word for "man" or "human" (in this case "human-like" with human+genitive) [a:kləŋ] and "sound" [wɛ:m̩]. The was first only used for the northern dialects spoken around the Oguota river, however with territorial expansion of the Principality of Qera the language spread and either assimilated or influenced local tribal languages. Most other languages who have interacted with Qera rarely use the endonym but rather use a term that is derived from the geographic region (Qera) that the language comes from.

Phonology

Consonants

	Bilabial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyngial	Glottal
Plosive	p,b2		t,d		c,ɟ	k, (g)	q		ʔ
Nasals	m̥,m		n̥,n			ŋ
Trill			r
Affricate			t͡ɬ / t͡s	t͡ʃ					ʔ͡h1
Fricative		f (v)	s,(z)	ʃ			χ,(ʁ)	ħ	h
Lateral Fricative			ɬ
Approximant	w,ʍ				j
Lateral Approximant			l

1. [h] is often realized as [ʔ͡h] at the beginning of the word, however this only occurs in certain dialects.
2. [b] might also be an implosive [ɓ], and is often identified as such when a voiced plosive or bilabial nasal is assimilated in a cluster with [b]
3. [v], [z] and [g] do not occur in any native Qeran word but mostly in loanwords from Sillenic
4. The voiced uvular fricative is the realization of an intervocalic [χ] and can be used interchangeably with the latter at the beginning of a word

Vowels

	Front	Central	back
High			ɯ
Close-Mid	e		o
Mid		ə
Open-Mid
Low		a

Vowels can occur in long and short form, with the exception of the Schwa. [o], [e], [ɯ] and [a] may also be realized as [ɔ], [ɛ], [ʊ] and [ʌ] in an unstressed syllable. Diphthongs in Qeran are limited to ea, ao, ɯə and eo. In an initial position, [w] is often realized as [u].
Furthermore, [ɯ] has a strong tendency to be realized as [ɤ] after a uvular or velar sound.

Orthography

Consonants:

Monograph/Digraph

m

n

g

b

p

t

d

dj

tj

k, kh

q

'

f

s

z

sj

l, ll

x

rh

h

u

w

l

r

j

kj

tl

c

IPA-Symbol

m

n

ŋ

ɓ

p

t

d

ɟ

c

k

q

ʔ

f

s

z

ʃ

ɬ

χ

ʁ

h/ħ

w

ʍ

l

r

j

t͡ʃ

t͡ɬ

t͡s

Vowels:

Monograph/Digraph	a	e	â	i	o
IPA-Symbol	a ~ ʌ	e ~ ɛ	ə	ɯ ~ ʊ	o ~ ɔ

Weakening and Strengthening of sounds

One major aspect that often makes the verbs and nouns hard to learn for non-native speakers is the assimilation of consonants, that are triggered when the suffixes meet certain consonant clusters. As an example, the verb seteken , to set something is conjugated in the present tense.

	first person	second person	third person
Singular	seteka ['secʰekʰʌ]	seteke ['secʰet͡ʃa]	seteco ['secʰeˌtso]
Plural	setejet [secʰejetʰ]	setexat ['secʰeχatʰ]	setejek ['secʰejek]

The verb seteken displays some form of assimilation in every form of the present tense conjugation. It is very common for palatal consonants or diphthongs to result in long vowels, or become sequences of the same vowel intersected by a glide. A [k] is meanwhile usually palatalised into a [t͡ʃ], and the following vowel has a tendency to be realized as a more open vowel (into an [e] when an [i] is present, and into an [a] when an [e] is present).
Furthermore it is possible that plosives are "swallowed", meaning they are either dropping out or turn into fricatives. The latter occurs when the plosive is the coda of a stressed syllable, or when the preceding plosive is considered "stronger" (meaning stronger pronounced, which includes the voiceless plosives, and [s], [χ] and [ɬ] for the fricatives). Fricatives frequently swallow plosives as well: [s] swallows a preceding [k] and [c], a double s turns into an t͡s. Labiodental fricatives are completely dropped in these environments.
The most prominent trigger for the weakening of plosives is the glottal fricative [h]. Due to being pronounced at the end of the syllable as well (though often realized as a [ħ]), it turns a preceding voiceless plosive into a strong fricative. When preceding an alveolar or palatal plosive, [s] is triggered, when preceding an [r] or an [l], the mutation into [ɬ] is triggered. For [q] and [k], [χ] is the result of the weakening.

However, it is very important to note that mutation is depending on the context of the word. For example seteke ['secʰet͡ʃa] means "you put (something)", setekhe ['secʰeke] marks the perfect aspect, while setheke [setet͡ʃa] marks the imperfect.

Verbs

The Qeran verb is declined according to number, tense and aspect and is usually comes before the subject and the object of the sentence. The mood is marked with particles.

Conjugation

Due to the lack of irregular verbs (with the exception of maqeg (to make/to do)) and the fairly consistent usage of suffixes to mark person and number, Qeran became a pro-drop language. One uncommon trait of the Qeran verb system is the lack of a word meaning "to be", since this can be replaced with the Equative case and an auxiliary verb to mark tense.
The suffuxes for the regular verbs are the following:

	first person	second person	third person
Singular	-a	-e	-so
Plural	-eak	-hat	-dek

Nouns

Cases

Qeran is an accusative-nominative language, meaning the patient (direct object) of a sentence is marked according to its function. The cases present in Qeran are the nominative, accusative, dative and the equative case. The nominative case is usually unmarked, as the default case of the noun is in the nominative. Double inflections are possible, however only in combination with the Equative case. When this occurs, the accusative or dative suffixes will be used in the singular form preceding the equative case.

Case	singular	plural
Nominative	-∅	-∅
Accusative	-ak/-k	-as/-s
Dative	-te/-e	-ce/-se
Equative	-eq/-q	-ex/-x ~ -rh

Note: the suffix on the right is applied when the noun ends with -tl or a vowel
-rh is applied when between vowels

Equative case

The Equative case can be used in multiple ways. In general, it describes a comparison or between the subject and the direct object of the sentence, which can be done in 3 forms:

• comparing a subject with an object using the equative and usually an adjective (A is like B)
  • the degree of comparison can be expressed with the adverbs yro (many) or soti (few) and the particle xo succeeding the adjective
• expressing the equality of the subject and the direct object with the equative and the particle dia. It can also be used to replace a verb meaning "to be". (A is B)