Sacovian language

Sacovian

Sacovo
Spoken natively in	Caradia
Language family	Constructed languages Sacovian
Writing system	Latin
Source	Romance, (Portuguese, French)
Official status
Official language in	Caradia

The Sacovian language is spoken in Caradia, mostly in the Gcealick March and in small parts of Cearîm and Scear counties. The language stems from the more ancient language "Sòlasçi", and was developed by the nomadic Sacovian tribes.

Alphabet

Sacovian		IPA	English approximation
A	a	/ɑ/	car
À	à	/a/	apple
B	b	/b/	barrel
C	c	/k/ in front of a, o, u, /s/ in front of e, i	cancer
Ç	ç	/s/	see
Ĉ	ĉ	/tʃ/	cheese
Ch	ch	/ʃ/	sheer
Cz	cz	/ts/	cats
D	d	/d/	dog
E	e	/ɛ/, silent at the end of a word	fed
È	è	/e/	No English approximate
Ë	ë	/ə/	above; only used in loan-words
F	f	/f/	feel
G	g	/g/ in front of a, o, or u,/ʒ/ in front of e, i	goose, vision
Ĝ	ĝ	/dʒ/	jam
Gu	gu	/g/	goose
Gü	gü	/gw/	No English approximation
H	h	/h/	house
I	i	/i/	read
J	j	/ʒ/	vision
L	l	/l/	lemon
Lh	lh	/ʎ/	million
M	m	/m/	maple
N	n	/n/	never
Nh	nh	/ɲ/	onion
O	o	/o/	hot
Ò	ò	/ɔ/	hole
P	p	/p/	pie
Qu	qu	/k/	queso
Qü	qü	/kw/	quarter
R	r	/r/	Trilled English R
S	s	/s/ (silent after vowel clusters at the end of words)	silent
T	t	/t/ (silent after 'ae', 'ai', 'eau', 'ei', 'oi' at the end of words)	tell
U	u	/ʊ/, /w/ before vowel	food
Ù	ù	/u/	No English approximate
V	v	/v/	vehicle
X	x	Rare, only present after vowel clusters, where it is silent	No English approximation
Y	y	/j/	yes
Z	z	/z/	zebra

Diacritics and Digraphs

Sacovian makes use of four different diacritics: Circumflex ( ^ ) Â Ê Î Ô Û, tilde ( ~ ) Ã Ẽ Ĩ Õ Ũ, grave ( ` ) À È Ì Ò Ù, and accute ( ' ) Á É Í Ó Ú.

Grave denotes a different sound for vowels.

The tilde accent denotes a nasalisation of the letter.

Circumflex accent denotes a stressed version of a vowel's grave sound.

Accute accent denotes a stressed version of the vowel's normal sound.

Sacovian also employs ten different vowel cluster digraphs:

• Ae (/ɑi/)
• Ai (/ɛ/)
• Au (/ɔ/)
• Eau (/ɔ/)
• Ei (/e/)
• Eu (/ə/)
• Oa (/wɑ/)
• Oe (/ə/)
• Oi (/wɑ/)
• Ou (/ʊ/)

'Nt' and 'Ns' are also sometimes used. At the end of a word, 'nt' and 'ns' are silent and nasalise the preceding vowel.

Strong, Neutral, Weak

Though technically classified as 'grammatical gender', Sacovian classifies its nouns as strong, neutral, or weak. This classification affects the conjugation of adjectives, and also how the noun changes based on its count. Nouns are strong if they end in a voiced consonant, neutral if they end in a vowel, and weak if they end in an unvoiced consonant (even if that consonant is silent). Nouns in Sacovian do not inflect for case or mood.

Verb conjugation

Sacovian verbs conjugate based on who is performing the action, as well as the mood of the verb.

Sacovian verbs also conjugate according to the verb's infinitive ending, which is either '-a' or '-e'.

Present:

	-a		-e
Number	Sing.	Plur.	Sing.	Plur.
First Person	-ê	-ama	-ê	-aime
Second Person	-as	-ae	-aiç	-ae
Third Person	-at	-ast	-et	-aist
Imperative	-asa	-asa	-eisè	-eisè

Past:

	-a		-e
Number	Sing.	Plur.	Sing.	Plur.
First Person	-ô	-azra	-ô	-ezré
Second Person	-ar	-eu	-èr	-eu
Third Person	-arca	-aras	-èrque	-ères

Future:

	-a		-e
Number	Sing.	Plur.	Sing.	Plur.
First Person	-û	-anhada	-û	-enhadè
Second Person	-am	-eau	-em	-eau
Third Person	-aiz	-ãdz	-eiz	-ẽdz

Adjectives conjugate to the grammatical gender of the noun they describe:

• Standard (no noun): -ay
• Strong: -ò
• Neutral: -i
• Weak: - (remove -ay)

Ex.:

• Standard (no noun): Asûray
• Strong: Asûrò
• Neutral: Asûri
• Weak: Asûr

Grammar

Standard word order in Sacovian is Subject-Verb-Object. A common exception to this is when the direct object of the verb is a pronoun, in which case the pronoun comes before the verb (unless the verb is imperative, in which case the pronoun is attached to the end of the verb).

Adjectives always come after the noun they modify.