Othian

Orthography

Othian was historically written in Shandian, a semi-syllabary used for various languages across the continent of Nagain, until 2855, when, as part of a series of modernising reforms, a Dvekmenu-based alphabet was created and adopted. Dvekmenu was chosen as it was the script used by their closest neighbours, the Rossans, and their largest trading partner, the Vessians. A 25-year transition period was implemented during which both Shandian and the new Dvekmenu scripts were acceptable for official use. Despite the Dvekmenu alphabet being the sole script in official use since 1 Sun's Coming 2880, Shandian remains in frequent use. Continued use of Shandian is particularly strong in Otha itself, as Othian is used mostly for official and business purposes outside Otha, and many users learned the language after the adoption of the new alphabet.   Some choices for the script were idiosyncratic, such as using ⟨у⟩ to represent /ɨ ~ ɨː/, while using ⟨и⟩ to represent /ə/. They revived the obselete character ⟨ѡ⟩ to represent both /ʊ ~ uː/ and /w/. Despite Gothalian using ⟨ѳ⟩ to represent both /θ/ and /ð/, and ⟨х⟩ to represent both /x/ and /h/ (for Vessian Gothalian), Othian uses ⟨ԁ⟩ for /ð/ and ⟨ь⟩ for /h/, using ⟨ь⟩ to also mark devoiced sonorants (/r̥/, /n̥/, and /m̥/). The sound /ɬ/ is written ⟨ль⟩ as if it were a devoiced sonorant (indeed /ɬ/ developed from an earlier /*l̥/). ⟨ль⟩ and ⟨нь⟩ are often written as ⟨љ⟩ and ⟨њ⟩, but these are considered ligatures rather than unique letters. ⟨мь⟩ does not have a ligature, as in most Othian writing, the sides of the ⟨м⟩ are angled rather than perpendicular to the writing line, disallowing the ligature: ⟨ʍь⟩. ⟨Ее⟩ is often written as ⟨Єє⟩, especially the capital form, making them allographs rather than distinct letters as they are in some languages (including Rossan, which the Othian alphabet was heavily influenced by). Long vowels are marked with a circumflex accent (^) or macron (¯), the "round vowels" (а, е, і, о) getting the circumflex, and the "broad vowels" (и, у, and ѡ) getting the macron. Geminate consonants are unwritten as to avoid double letters or diacritics on consonants (due to the difficulty of accounting for ascenders and descenders, particularly ф). Pellen Hu, the designer of the script, stated the oddities were the result of aesthetic choices meant to "make the language more beautiful". He apparently considered using the hard yer (ъ) for /h/, but opted for the soft due to "the ugliness of it [the hard yer], especially at the beginning of words." The usual forms of some of the letters vary from the standard forms used in Ros or Vasmark, such as д often looking more like Tira Vellan δ in both capital and lowercase forms.   The script is largely phonemic, except for those accents/dialects in northern Otha which merge the sounds of ⟨у⟩ into ⟨і⟩, rendering ⟨у⟩ a redundant letter, and the digraphs ⟨ау⟩, ⟨ое⟩ and ⟨еу⟩ redundant.  

Grammar

Grammar is typical of other Trans-Naganian languages, with features such as inclusive and exclusive first person plural pronouns and extensive use of proclitics. It marks evidentality with proclitic markers. It has a rich mood system for verbs, but simple noun system, without grammatical gender or noun classes. Recently the future tense is being increasingly constructed analytically ("Гемак рӯл" instead of "Геѡрьӯл"), likely due to Gothalian influence, which conjugates noun tense only for past and non-past and uses the preposition "вил" ("will") for future constructions.