The Golden Tongue

The Golden tongue is a secret language used by The Lights of Golden Triumph to communicate about hunts, guild events, and other important things that would get them imprisoned if found out in public or when writing letters. Because of the complexity of everything that must be said when to it comes to hunts and dragon hunting in general the language is a fully fledged language rather than a cypher or code since mixing up even the words old and ancient could get many hunters killed.    

Spelling & Phonology

  Consonant inventory: /b g j k v z ɫ ɱ ɸ ɾ ʃ ʎ ʢ ʤ ʧ β/

↓Manner/Place→	Bilabial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Palato-alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Pharyngeal
Nasal		ɱ
Stop	b					k g
Affricate				ʧ ʤ
Fricative	ɸ β	v	z	ʃ
Approximant					j
Tap			ɾ
Trill							ʢ
Lateral approximant					ʎ

  Co-articulated phonemes

↓Manner/Place→	Velarized alveolar
Lateral approximant	ɫ

  Vowel inventory: /aʊ eɪ i æ ø ɐ ɔɪ ɞ ɤ ɵ ʉ ʊ ʌ/   Diphthongs: aʊ, eɪ, ɔɪ ?

	Front	Central	Back
High	i	ʉ
Near-high			ʊ
High-mid	ø	ɵ	ɤ
Low-mid		ɞ	ʌ
Near-low	æ	ɐ

  Syllable structure: (C)V(C) ? Stress pattern: No fixed stress ? Word initial consonants: g, j, k, v, z, ɫ, ɱ, ɸ, ɾ, ʎ, ʢ, ʤ, ʧ, β Mid-word consonants: b, bj, bɾ, bʤ, g, gb, gj, gz, j, jk, jv, jz, k, kz, v, vɾ, z, zj, zɫ, ɫ, ɫv, ɫɫ, ɱ, ɸ, ɾ, ɾb, ɾj, ɾk, ɾv, ɾʃ, ɾʤ, ɾʧ, ʃ, ʃk, ʃv, ʎ, ʢ, ʤ, ʧ, β Word final consonants: b, g, k, z, ɫ, ɱ, ɸ, ɾ, ʃ, ʎ, ʢ, ʧ, β   Phonological changes (in order of application): ?  

• ʧ → i / C_
• g → k / #_
• C → Ø / C_#
• g → w / V_
• v → w / #_
• g → h / V_V
• j → s / #_
• j → ʤ / V_V
• N → w / S_S
• N → h / _S

  Spelling rules:

Pronunciation	Spelling
aʊ	ou
eɪ	ay
j	y
æ	e
ɐ	a
ɔɪ	oi
ɞ	ö
ɤ	ë
ɫ	l
ɱ	m
ɵ	ï
ɸ	p
ɾ	d
ʃ	sh
ʉ	ù
ʊ	o
ʌ	ü
ʎ	ÿ
ʤ	j
ʧ	ch
β	w

 

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Grammar

  Main word order: Subject-Verb-Object-Oblique. "Mary opened the door with a key" turns into Mary opened the door with a key. Adjective order: Adjectives are positioned before the noun. Adposition: prepositions ?  

Nouns

  Nouns form plural with separate plural word:

Plural

byao /bjaʊ/ plural particle

  undefined  

Articles

  The Golden Tongue encodes definite article ‘the’, and indefinite article ‘a’ in noun affixes. See Noun section.  

Pronouns

undefined  

Possessive determiners

undefined  

Verbs

  The Golden Tongue uses a standalone particle word for past tense:undefined   The Golden Tongue uses a standalone particle word for future tense:undefined  

Imperfective aspect

  The ‘imperfective’ aspect refers to ongoing actions, such as I am learning and habitual actions, such as I learn (something new every day). The Golden Tongue uses an affix for imperfective:undefined  

Numbers

  The Golden Tongue has a base-20 number system:   1 - chù 2 - zig 3 - weɪ 4 - yezlöz 5 - ʢë 6 - zø 7 - yö 8 - li 9 - wɔɪ 10 - weɪ 11 - ((eleven)) 12 - ((twelve)) 13 - ((thirteen)) 14 - ((fourteen)) 15 - ((fifteen)) 16 - ((sixteen)) 17 - ((seventeen)) 18 - ((eighteen)) 19 - ((nineteen)) 20 - ((twenty)) 21 - ((twenty))chù “twenty-one” 400 - vëb “fourhundred” 401 - vëb lig chù “fourhundred and one” 800 - zig vëb “two fourhundred” 8000 - och “eightthousand”  

Derivational morphology

  Adjective → adverb = If starts with vowel: Prefix ʃɾ- Else: Prefix ʃɾɔɪ- Adjective → noun (the quality of being [adj]) = Prefix ʊ- Adjective → verb (to make something [adj]) = Prefix ɞ- Noun → adjective (having the quality of [noun]) = Prefix ɞ- Noun → adjective relating to noun (e.g. economy → economic) = Prefix gɔɪ- Noun → verb (to create [noun]) = If starts with vowel: Prefix vj- Else: Prefix vjeɪ- Verb → adjective (result of doing [verb]) = Prefix ʧɔɪ- Verb → adjective (likely to do [verb]) = If starts with vowel: Prefix β- Else: Prefix βɞ- Verb → noun (the act of [verb]) = If starts with vowel: Prefix ɾ- Else: Prefix ɾʉ- Verb → noun that verb physically produces (e.g. build → building) = If starts with vowel: Prefix gj- Else: Prefix gjaʊ- One who [verb]s (e.g. paint → painter) = Prefix aʊ- Place of (e.g. wine → winery) = Prefix ɔɪ- Diminutive = If starts with vowel: Prefix ʃɾ- Else: Prefix ʃɾʉ- Augmentative = If starts with vowel: Prefix b- Else: Prefix bʊ-