Lycene language

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Lycene
lyseniq
"taairy lyseniq" in Xinsuu
Pronunciation[lisenik]
Native toLycem
Early forms
Dozenal Sabiolycene
  • Poshonic Lycene
    • Anconic Lycene
      • Desrocheric Lycene
        • Lycene
Latin (Lycene alphabet)
Official status
Official language in
Lycem Lycem Region
Regulated byVotir

The Lycene language (taairy lyseniq), also known earlier as Sabiolycene, is one of the three constructed languages developed and spoken in Sabia and Verona. It was created in the region of Lycem, which was once independent from Sabia and Verona, and it was originally constructed as a dialect of the Sabian language. Over the course of the years, the languages' creators have drawn the two conlangs apart to the point where they are no longer mutually intelligible; Lycene was first granted "language" status by the University of Elinore in 2014. The Lycene Commission, or axVootir (lit. "Honorable Council") is the regulating authority of the language. The current head of the Lycene Commission is the language's chief creator and collaborator, Tarik Kârjasary.

Since the language was created based on Dozenal Sabian, Lycene is technically a posteriori, though the language has considerably drifted apart from its parent Sabian.

Grammar

In comparison with modern Sabian, Lycene has remained relatively close to its early forms grammar-wise. Lycene counts with four grammatical cases, nominative, genitive (indicating possession), dative and accusative. The dative and accusative cases are relatively new, since they were first seen in the language in the early aquatic era, when Anconic Lycene started to evolve into Suiitic Lycene, its current accepted form. The nominative and genitive cases were already present in late forms of Dozenal Sabian. Modern Lycene is a highly inflected language that counts with three grammatical genders — nocturnal (aghamee miaara), diurnal (apaxare miaara) and divine (sae miaara). Nocturnal words usually end in a vowel, diurnal words generally end in a consonant while divine words must always end in -on.[1] Regardless of the gender however, all words must follow the rules of plural and paucal; for example: naavaq ("son", diurnal, singular), naavaqii (paucal), naavaqar (plural). There are some tendencies that could be used to define the gender of a word, such as:

  • Water-related objects, darkness or dark-related objects, food and food-related objects (excluding fruits) are generally nocturnal. See suii (water), nooja (river), aghami (night), logoxe (beer) and vagaeri (napkin). Nocturnal animals are, naturally, nocturnal, while all other animals are diurnal.
  • Diurnal animals, politics-related concepts, words for human beings, body parts and places tend to be diurnal. For example dargho (bear),[2] neej (field), gentisuurbeiq (democracy), edan (father), saerexqoq (lieutenant), vootir (council) and caeraq (hand). By rule, all demonyms are diurnal.
  • Theological and "non-earthly" concepts, fire-related objects and concepts that may only be understood through knowledge of Lycene mythology are divine. Divine nouns are particularly difficult to be assigned to a tendency. Some divine words include peelion (god), suurion (fire), sujaeron (unity), Aqon, Xoosiron, Suzuureon and Izuureon (the cardinal directions) and vireelon (flame). Many Lycene names are divine, such as Dimerion and Aerigon.

Verbs

Same as in the Sabian language, Lycene verbs have four indicative tenses: the present tense (mix minearee; "I speak"), the preterite (mix minearaae; "I spoke"), the conditional simple (mix minearuu; "I would speak") and the future (mix minearoo; "I will speak"), in which minear- is the root of the verb mineareei (inf. "to speak"). Each tense counts with six forms, which vary for first, second, or third person and for singular, paucal or plural number.

Lycene verbs also conjugate in the perfective and continuous aspects in a similar way to the Spanish language, with the difference that continuous verbs are formally recognized as compound tenses, the same way as perfective ones. Present perfect verbs use the prefix laan or laas, past perfect verbs use the prefix laaen or laaes, conditional perfect verbs use the prefix luus or luun and future perfect verbs use the prefix loos or loon. Similarly, present continuous verbs use the prefix jaax, past continuous verbs use the prefix jaaex, conditional continuous verbs use the prefix luus or muus and future continuous uses the prefix loos or moos. For example:

Iisuron aqu axReghenis ("Glory to the Queen") in Xinsuu (above) and Xixu (below)

Scripts and alphabets

The Lycene language has been written in a grand total of six scripts: the Latin script which is currently used and considered "standard" by the axVootir, the Myasaa Toobosu ("ancient script") or Archaic Lycene Script which was derived from a script developed during the times of the Goldan Age of Artaghe and that remains in use for cultural purposes today, T'aene Toobosu ("magic script") which was in use during the Iron, Mercury and late Copper states and the Chinese-based scripts of the Steel state and early Aquatic era, Xixu and Xinsuu. Xixu and Xinsuu are two scripts that saw themselves in use during a short period in the cultural flourishment of the Steel state and were based on Chinese characters (hanzi). The Lycene Chinese Syllabary or LCS, commonly known as Xixu (朸权) was an abugida-like syllabary consisting of 845 characters. The Xinsuu relied on ideograms. Unlike the LCS, Xinsuu does not use modern Chinese characters, but the ancient Chinese "seal script".

Following the spelling reform of 2015, the Lycene Latin alphabet consists of 24 letters, without diacritics. Formerly the Lycene latin alphabet counted with 27 letters, plus diacritics such as the acute accent (á, é, í, ó and ú) and the macron (ā, ē, ī, ō and ū), but it was reduced in order to simplify its use.

Majuscule Forms (also called uppercase or capital letters)
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V X Z
Minuscule Forms (also called lowercase or small letters)
a b c d e f g h ı j k l m n o p q r s t u v x z

Notes and references

  1. With the only exception of Apa (sun) and Ataaxi (moon)
  2. One of the many irregularities regarding gender in Lycene, dargho is a diurnal word even though it ends with a vowel