Felinese

Felinese is the lingua franca of the felin people. See also the Dictionary and Phrasebook.

Name

TODO: Explain how and why Felinese is "the people's speech".

History

Why yes, I am trying to copy Wikipedia's style.

Classification

• Firrhnian
  • Old Firrhnese
    • Upperspeech
      • Felinese

Dialects

This is where things like Klethan are elaborated upon, like how it and Fhuraian differ from standard Felinese.

Phonology

Consonants

	Bilabial		Labio-dental		Dental		Alveolar		Post-Alveolar		Palatal		Velar		Uvular		Glottal
Nasal		m					n
Plosive	p	b					t	d			c		k
Fricative		β	f	v	θ		s		ʃ								h
Lateral approximant							l
Approximant			ʋ								j
Trill							r								ʀ
Flap							ɾ

Blends	tʃ	ŋg	g͡ʀ	h͡ɾ	m͡ɾ

Vowels

	Front		Near-front		Central		Back
Close	i:							u
Near-close			ɪ
Close-mid		ø̌						o o:
Mid					ə
Open-mid							ʌ
Near-open					ɐ ɐ: ɐ̌1

Polyphthongs	ɛɪ	aɪ	ɪɐ	ɔɪ

The subtext purr

One important thing about proper pronunciation of Felinese is a coarticulated purr that dramatically changes the meaning of an utterance in that an otherwise completely innocent statement becomes sexual, basically turning literally anything into a euphemism.

Grammar

Felinese has a mildly agglutinative, slightly fusional grammar. Verbs agree with the subject and mark for one of four tense-aspect combinations: present progressive, past, present, and future. On top of that, they can also inflect for imperative, interrogative, abilitative, and propositional moods. Furthermore, a noun can be zero-derived from a verb, and a verb or noun can take the -aw suffix to become an adjective. That's absolutely it for noun declensions. That's right: no numbers or cases are present in Felinese nouns, although pronouns do have number (singular and plural only). 

Syntax is largely head-final, with SOV order in the clause, and adjectives and numerals preceding the noun. However, nouns precede the relative clause, which is formed using a gapped construction with an overall adjectival structure.

Conjugations

		Present	Past	Future	Progressive
Singular	1st	-l	-lw	-sena	-lite
	2nd	-e	-ew	-esew	-ite
	3rd	-n	-nwa	-esen	-nite
Plural	1st	-li	-lwi	-senai	-litei
	2nd	-ei	-ewi	-esewi	-itei
	3rd	-n	-nwa'i	-eseni	-nitei

Imperative	Adjective	Interrogative	Agentive	Abilitative	Propisitive	Noun	Ordinal
-il	-aw	-ia	-fhra	-rhuw	-iurh	ø	-rha

Personal pronouns

	Subjective	Posessive	Reflexive
1st person¹	eun	euna	eunem
1st person inclusive	iun	iuna	iunem
2nd person	tiun	tiuna	tiunem
2nd person childish²	chun	chuna	chunem
3rd person	oun	ouna	ounem
3rd person animal	uin	uina	uinem

¹: Lacking plurality, *eun* is both "I" and "we". First person inclusive is implicitly plural, *eun* being "the group I am in, but you are not" and *iun* being "all of us, including you." ²: The exact nature of *chun* is up for debate. Is it childish? Is it coolkid? Does it have an historical basis?

Writing

Felinese can be written in two ways, not counting transcription into the Latin alphabet. The simplest (and best-developed from a real world perspective) is upper style, a simple alphabet. The lesser-developed is lower style, which is a syllabary.

felinvol wra orshoi oen.

The Alphabet

Latin	Felin	IPA	Notes
a	a	/ɐ/
ae	æ	/ɛɪ/	long ay
ah	à	/ɐ̌/
ai	â	/aɪ/	short ay
b	b	/b/
ch	C	/tʃ/
d	d	/d/
e	e	/ə/
f	f	/f/	short vowel
fh	F	/v/	longer vowel
gr	G	/g͡ʀ/	rough growl
h	h	/h/
hr	H	/h͡ɾ/	soft growl
i	i	/ɪ/
ia	Á	/ɪɐ/
ie	É	/i:/	ee!
k	k	/c/	harder
kh	K	/k/	softer
l	l	/l/
m	m	/m/
mr	M	/m͡ɾ/	murry
n	n	/n/
o	o	/o/
p	p	/p/
r	r	/ɾ/
rh	R	/r/	slightly growlier than r
s	s	/s/
t	t	/t/
th	þ	/θ/
u	u	/u/
v	v	/β/
w	w	/ʋ/

The syllabary

Lower style hasn't been developed enough to have its own font. An explanation and some examples will be provided in due time.

This is a work in progress. Gotta tweak up Template:Fel a bit for readability, add grammar info...