Difference between revisions of "Alvésin"

Revision as of 21:01, 30 May 2006

Alvésin is a language spoken in southeastern Antrium, specifically in the province of Alvés-Navlan. It is also spoken in South Antrium, one of two official languages there. It is based off of English and French. Many place names in Antrium and almost all of the names of Antrian people are in Alvésin.

History

Not much is known about the history of Alvésin, because most of the older writings have been destroyed or lost. It is assumed to have originated in what is now Antrium, but no one is sure when the language was created.

It is known that the Alvési tribe have spoken it for many years. They conquered the neighboring Navlanis in a very long and brutal war, and spread the language to them.

It was not widely taught in most of American Federalist, and was reduced to under 50,000 speakers at one time. Schools in western American Federalist started teaching it in 2001, 4 years before the foundation of Antrium, and it has gained many speakers since then.

In 2002, The Orîtan R. Révané Dictionary of Alvésin was written, which set spelling standards that were very unclear prior to its publishing. Since then, many people in Antrium have learned the language. It is now the third official language of Antrium.

In 2006, De Akademî do Alvésin was established, which now regulates the language. They can add new words to the language when needed. They completely changed the number system, after many complaints about extremely long words when speaking about large numbers.

Another recent change was the addition of new letters to replace digraphs, which the Akademî thought were making the language more difficult. They also replaced ī and ū with î and û, respectively, to make it easier to type on non-Alvésin keyboards.

Speakers

In the most recent Antrium census, it was estimated that about 3,500,000 Antrians know at least an upper high school level of Alvésin. It is spoken mainly in the provinces of Alvés-Navlan and Soréto, where the government requires schools to teach Alvésin, but it is spreading quickly throughout Antrium.
In 2006, the Antrian government approved a plan to give bonuses to schools that teach Alvésin. This is expected to raise the number of schools teaching the language. It is estimated that over 22 million Antrians will know at least a basic knowledge of Alvésin by 2007. The South Antrian government made Alvésin one of their two official languages when it was founded in 2006. This is expected to increase the number of speakers.

Pronunciation

Alphabet

The Alvésin alphabet consists of 30 letters (10 vowels, 20 consonants) and is very similar to the English alphabet. Some of the accented letters are borrowed from French, and some accents are unique to the language. The letters c, q, x, and y are not included.
Alvésin is easier to learn to spell than most other languages, because it does not use silent letters. All words are spelled as they sound. All letters only make one sound, so there is no confusion in pronunciation.

a à b č d e é f g h i î j k l m n o ô p r s š t ť u û v w z

Note: The Alvésin alphabet used to include the letter ñ, but in the most recent edition of the Orītan R. Révané Dictionary, the letter was removed due to its rare usage. Ñ has been replaced with nīū, which sounds very similar.

Note: De Akademî do Alvésin added the letters č, ô, š, and ť in 2006, and replaced macron accents with circumflexes.

Digraphs

àî = ai as in English eye or five
îû = j as in English yes or yellow

Grammar

Pronouns

Verb Conjugation

All verbs in Alvésin end in -īr or -ér. To conjugate an -īr or -ér verb, you simply remove the īr or ér and put in the appropriate verb ending from the chart below.

Note: only the first verb in the sentence needs to be conjugated.

The pronoun and conjugated verb are connected by a hyphen if there are no words between them. (example: "I want to go" is Jà-desīs galér, and "I don't want to go" is Jà no desīs galér)

The pronoun comes before the verb unless it is a question, in which case the verb would come before the pronoun. (example: "I want to go" is Jà-desīs galér, and "I want to go?" is Desīs-jà galér?)

Verb Forms

To make a verb negative, add no before the verb (example: "I do not walk" is Jà no vàlkés)

De Akademî do Alvésin is currently reviewing new options for past and future tense, and additions for other tenses.

To make a command, use the to form of the verb when addressing one person (example: "Look!" is "Vàtčket!") and use the tos form of the verb when addressing multiple people. (example: "Look!" is "Vàtčkérez!")

Some Common Verbs

Vocabulary

Basic Words And Phrases

Numbers

Note: The Alvésin number system was revised by De Akademî do Alvésîn because of extremely long words. They couldn't fix the problem for extremely large numbers, but they decided that there was a need for words like "hundred" instead of "ten tens." The revised edition is as follows.

To make ordinal numbers: Add "-îl" to the end of the number.
Examples: 1st - unîl, 24th - tutànforîl

To make fractions: Say the number, then "àn" (and), then the number of portions, then the ordinal number for the portion.
Examples: 1 1/2 - un àn un tuîl, 2 3/4 - tu àn tér forîls

To make decimals: Say the number, then "pwan" (point), then the number in the decimal.
Examples: 1.38 - un pwan tértànàl, 16.71 - tànsîks pwan vetànun

Time and Date

Weather

Places and Directions

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IDU Country Names

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Language Names

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