Champanian language

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Champanian
Łengua xampânèsca
Pronunciation[ˈʎen.gwə 'ʃam.pa:n.ɛskə]
Native toChampania
parts of Amathia and Gaullica
Native speakers
c. 9.2 million
Standard forms
Eastern Champanian
Western Champanian
Champanian alphabet (Solarian script)
Gaullican braille
Signed Champanian (Gaullican)
Official status
Official language in
 Champania
Mutual Assistance Organisation
Recognised minority
language in
Regulated byAcadêmia xampânèsca de ła łengua
Language codes
ISO 639-1ch
ISO 639-2cha
ISO 639-3cha
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For a guide to IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Champanian (/'ʃampani.ən/ or /'t͡ʃampani.ən/; Champanian: xampânèsca [ʃam.pa:n.ɛskə] or łengua xampânèsca [ˈʎen.gwə 'ʃam.pa:n.ɛskə]) is a Gaullo-Solaric language. The language is primarily spoken in Champania, where it is one of two official languages alongside Gaullican. Outside of Champania, it is spoken in portions of Amathia, Gaullica, the Miersas, and throughout Gaullica's former colonies, notably Cassier, and Satucin. The language shares some spoken mutual intelligibility with other Occitano-Solaric languages spoken throughout southern Gaullica and northern Etruria, and Tosuton spoken in Paretia.

History

oppression and then hipster renaissance

Phonology

Consonants

Consonant phonemes
Bilabial Labio-Dental Dental Alveolar Postalveolar Palatal Velar Uvular
Nasal m n ɲ
Plosive p b t d k g
Fricative f v (θ) s z ʃ ʒ ʁ
Affricate tʃ dʒ
Approximate j w
Lateral approx. l ʎ

Vowels

Short vowel phonemes
Front Near-front Back
Close i u
Close-mid e o
Open-mid ɛ ɔ
Open a

Both /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ only occur solely in stressed syllables and are given a grave accent. These phonemes are represented by "è" and "ò" respectively, and receive the accent regardless of whether they occur in a normally stressed syllable or an irregularly stressed syllable.

Long vowel phonemes
Front Back
Close i: y: u:
Middle e:
Open ɑ:

Unlike most other modern Solaric languages, Champanian continues to contrast short and long vowels. Long vowels are marked with a circumflex regardless of their position in the word. Additionally, long vowels are usually realized as dipthongs, and themselves cannot form dipthongs with other vowels nor are reduced.

The phoneme /o:/ is not present in Champanian due to vowel shifting; /o:/ shifted to /u:/ and is represented by "ô", with "û" being used to represent the front-shifted /y:/.

In addition to both long and short vowels, vowels may be reduced in spoken Champanian. These reductions occur solely in unstressed short vowels and are shown below.

Reduced vowel phonemes
Front Near-front Central Back
Close i ~ ɪ u ~ ʊ
Middle ɔ ~ œ ~ o e/a/ɛ ~ ə

Orthography

Alphabet

The Champanian alphabet officially consists of the following 25 letters:

Upper case
A B C Ç D E F G H I J L Ł M N O P Q R S T U V X Z
Lower case
a b c ç d e f g h i j l ł m n o p q r s t u v x z

The letters K, W and Y are considered foreign by Champanians and are used only in words of foreign origin, incrementally integrated into Champanian such as whisky, watt, Rwizi. They may be included in the Champanian alphabet following the order in the international alphabet.

Similarly, unlike most other Solaric languages, the Champanian alphabet distinguishes Ç as a separate letter from C, although other diacritics are not considered separate letters.

Letter Name Diacritics and ligatures
Aa a Ââ
Bb be
Cc ce
Çç ce cediła
Dd de
Ee e Éé, Èè, Êê
Ff efè
Gg ge
Hh echè
Ii i Îî, Ïï
Jj je
(Kk) ca
Ll ele
Łł èla
Mm emè
Nn enè
Oo o Óó, Òò, Ôô
Pp pe
Qq cu
Rr èr
Ss ès
Tt
Uu u Ùù, Ûû, Üü
Vv ve
(Ww) ve duple
Xx xèi
(Yy)
Zz zeda

Orthography

Champanian orthography is relatively new (comparatively to Estmerish and Gaullican) and thusly, words are spelled as they are pronounced, or spelled similarly to their expected pronunciation. Stress in Champanian is easy to predict. Under orthographic conventions, the second-to-last vowel of any word is stressed with a few exceptions. In words ending in -r, -m, -t, -l, -z or a digraph, the stress is placed on the is on the final vocalic sound not on the final vowel. Exceptions to this rule are indicated by placing an acute accent on the stressed vowel.

  • Accents are used to indicate stress, if it differs from the natural stress of a word, and are used to distinguish pronunciation changes.
    • Acute accents are purely used to indicate stress, and can be used on any vowel. Examples include avón (where the stress would normally be avon) and árbor
    • Grave accents are used to indicate a pronunciation change. È means the vowel represents /ɛ/ rather than /e/, and ò is used when the vowel represents /ɔ/ instead of /o/. Examples include sènèstra (left) and còul (neck)
    • The circumflex is used to indicate vowel length. Unlike other Solaric languages, Champanian maintains vowel length distinction. Examples include sôl (/'so:l/ - sun) versus the Tosutonian sol (/ˈsɔl/) and mân (/'ma:n? - hand)
    • Diaeresis indicates that a vowel is to be pronounced separately from the preceding one: païses (countries) and płuïa (rain)
    • The cedilla means that the letter ç is pronounced /s/ in front of the vowels a, o and u. C is always pronounced /s/ in front of the front vowels e and i, thus ç is never found in front of front vowels.
  • The interpunct · is used to distinguish the graphemes qu and gu when in situations where they turn into hard k and g respectively. Under normal circumstances, these graphemes are /kw/ and /gw/ respectively in front of any consonant or the vowels a and u, but revert to /g/ and /k/ when placed in front of e, i, and /y/. In cases where the /w/ is preserved, the interpunct is used to indicate it. Examples include cinqu·ênt (/'sin.kwɛ:nt/ – 50) and the name Gu·i (equivalent Guy). Since the 2000s, the status of the interpunct has seen some debate, with some calling for it to be dropped with ü used in its place. In 2015, the AXL permitted the ü to be used interchangeably with the interpunct, and has both spellings listed as correct.

Like other Solaric languages, Champanian experiences initial cluster palatalization with the clusters -cl-, -pl-, and -l- palatizing.

  • -cl- becomes -ch- (/t͡ʃ/) (Example: Solarian clamare → Champanian chamar)
  • -pl- becomes -pł- (/pʎ/), but is often realized in common speaking as /pj/ (Example: Solarian plenus → Champanian płei
  • -l- becomes -ł- (/ʎ/) (Example: Solarian lavāre → Champanian łavar)

Furthermore, the -ct- cluster experienced mutations when around vowels, which is seen in other Solaric languages. Vespasian sees this mutation realized as -tt- (i.e, dottore, Vittoria, otto), Esmeiran sees this partially, seen in words like ocho, and to a lesser extent fruto, and Tosutonian and Gaullican see this in huit and fruit. In Champanian this mutation is realized:

  • act → ait
  • ect → eit (as in aspectareaspeitar)
  • ict → eit
  • oct → oit (as in octooito)
  • uct → oit (as in fructusfroit)

Champanian also has cluster reductions, which are realized occasionally at the end of words. Words like temp and corp are analyzed as /'temp/ and /'corp/, but are realized as [tem] and [cor] when spoken. This kind of thing happens with most complex clusters, however they are reduced when suffixes are added so that [cor] → [cor'po.res].

Digraphs

Champanian utilizes numerous digraphs which have their own special sounds and rules.

Digraphs
Graph IPA Notes
ch /t͡ʃ/
gu /gw/ before any consonant and a, u
gu· /gw/ before e, i, /y/
nh /ɲ/
qu /kw// same rules as -gu-
qu· /kw/ same rules as -gu·-
ss /z/ between vowels
tg /dʒ/ word final before [i] and variants of
tj /dʒ/ same rules as -tg-
tl /l/
/ʎ/
tm /m/
tn /n/
tz /s/

Grammar

Nouns and adjectives

Verbs

Preposition

Syntax