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Noterelenda

Noterelenda is a constructed language developed in Bedistan, and is one of the five official languages of the Unified Capitalizt States, though it is more widely spoken in the former West Bedistan and Pedriana. It draws influences from the other three Bedistani languages (English, Spanish, and a very small amount of classical Greek).

Basic Grammar

Due to Noterelenda's case system, there is no specific required sentence structure, though most sentences use a simple subject-verb-object (SVO) form, like English. Modifiers are usually placed after nouns.

Archaic letters

The letter q has not always existed in its present form. Originally, the /tʃ/ sound was represented by the letter combination "ch". The extra letter h was later dropped and the /tʃ/ sound was represented by a cedilla added under the c (ç). Rushed writing styles common to Noterelenda speakers eventually resulted in the morphing of this letter into a g-like entity, and eventually the stroke was reversed in direction to help in differentiation, producing today's modern letter q.

Pronunciation

Unless otherwise specified, the stress of any polysyllabic word falls on the penultimate syllable (qidade, konsike). A written acute accent mark indicates that the stress instead falls on the syllable over which it is written (jevaré). An apostrophe (') usually indicates a slightly more pronounced break between syllables. It is typically used when there is an awkward transition in sounds (archaic word Arjenibrúk'ta, replaced by Arjenibrukem). It is also used for separating special modifiers from a word (the suffix 'da, for instance, acts as the word "the"). Note that for purposes of stress, any prefixes or suffixes set off by apostrophes are not considered to be part of the word; hence the written accent over the u in Arjenibrúk'ta. A few words, such as numbers, can be composed of multiple parts set off by apostrophes. For purposes of stress, treat each section as a separate word; the stress within each section will fall on the penultimate syllable unless otherwise specified. This is the only way in which multiple accent marks can appear in a word.

Vowels

Normally when two vowels appear side-by-side, they are considered to be part of two separate syllables. Thus, senie (store, nominative) is pronounced "sen-EE-ay", with the i and e forming distinct syllables. For a greater range of vowel sounds, though, a diphthong can be formed. A diphthong is composed of two vowels side-by-side, with the second vowel having a diaeresis (two dots) drawn above it.

Example: The word guane, written as shown, would be pronounced "goo-AH-nay". However, if a diphthong is formed by writing guäne, the two vowels merge, and the pronunciation becomes "GWAH-nay".

In the event that a diphthong requires a written accent mark, that accent mark is placed over the first vowel. Thus, a theoretical word nepáï would be pronounced "nep-AYE".

See more in the main article.