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Lutrin is spoken by the aquatic race native to the lakes and rivers of the Minwan Basin to the northwest of the Last Continent. It is poorly understood and often even denied the status of a language by many humans due to being physically unpronounceable by the more dominant species. The anthropologist Miriam Braun spent decades with a Lutrin tribe to codify its grammar and propose a method of translation between the two species, but due to political and cultural tensions between humans and Lutrins it has not been widely accepted apart from by a handful of diplomats.

Despite general opinion of it, Lutrin is in reality a number of separate dialects, some of which are on the verge of differentiating into their own languages, although this hardly matters as the tribes are being forced together in recent years and many dialects are dying out. Described here is the most prominent Lutrin dialect, Rieliko (Smallnose).

Name: Lutrin

Type: Fusional

Alignment: Ergative-Absolutive

Head Direction: Initial

Number of genders: 2

Declensions: Yes

Conjugations: Yes

Nouns declined
according to
Case Number
Definitiveness Gender
Verbs conjugated
according to
Voice Mood
Person Number
Tense Aspect


General Information[]

Gender Cases Numbers Tenses Persons Moods Voices Aspects
Verb Yes No Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes
Nouns Yes Yes Yes No Yes No No No
Adjectives Yes No Yes No No No No No
Numbers No No No No No No No No
Participles No No No No No No No No
Adverb No No No No No No No No
Pronouns Yes Yes Yes No Yes No No No
Adpositions No No No No No No No No
Article No No No No No No No No
Particle No No No No No No No No


Phonology[]

Miriam Braun's final paper before her death outlined a suggestion for a phonetic transliteration standard that would easily replace Lutrin phonemes with human ones that could be recognized by a trained Lutrin ear, or vice-versa by a human trained in the standard. Although this work has been largely dismissed, Braun's phonetic equivalents will be included here along with descriptions of Lutrin vocalizations, as will probable graphemes suggested for an orthographic system.

Consonants[]

Grapheme Lutrin Braun
Ç Ingressive noise produced by running the flat tongue back over oral articulators. Described as a "nursing" sound. [c]
F Affricative puff of air produced by an incomplete closure of the front jowls over the bottom teeth and quick release. [f]
H Glottal sound, similar to human phoneme. [h]
C, K A repeatable click produced at the back of the mouth. [k]
L Growl produced at the back of the mouth. [ɫ]
M Placeless nasal. [m]
N Nasal produced with the tongue flat across oral articulators. [n]
R Rolling growl. [r]
S Coronal hiss. [s]
SH Dorsal hiss [ʃ]
T Ingressive sucking noise similar to Ç but produced towards the front of the mouth with the tongue tip. [t]
TL Probably a coarticulated dorsal growl and coronal ingressive. [tɬ]
TS Coarticulated coronal ingressive and a nasal fricative-like sound. [ts]

Vowels[]

Lutrin vowels are very high-pitched and difficult to distinguish to human ears. It's more useful to visually observe tongue and jaw placement.

Lutrin has a pitch-accent system that places either a high pitch on the first syllable and a low pitch on the second, or vice-versa. These accents are not typically written and are more important for social reasons than for comprehension, as whether a lexical item uses the first or second accent type varies greatly between even otherwise similar dialects.

Vowel length is phonemic.

Monophthongs[]

Grapheme Lutrin Braun
A Tongue low and back; jaw wide. [a]
E Lips spread, jaw close, tongue center. [e]
I Mouth barely open. Tongue probably anterior. [i]
O Sounds like an M. Lips pursed. [u]

Diphthongs[]

Grapheme Lutrin Braun
AI, AE Jaws close and lips stretch during production. [aɪ]
AO Jaws close from wide position and lips purse during production. [aʊ]
IE, IA Jaw opens and lips relax during production. [iə]
IO Lips purse from stretched position during production [ju]
OE Lips and jaws relax from pursed position. Almost a kissing noise. [we]
  • Although front-front have variable spellings, the only back-front diphthong in the language, OE, defaults to that spelling, even when formed by contact between O and a front vowel other than E.
  • Vowel length is phonemic.
  • E becomes OE when followed by O and is lengthened when followed by any other vowel (not diphthongized).

Phonotactics[]

Syllables can be V, VC, CV, or CVC. Growls (liquids R and L) do not carry weight in onset position.

Grammar[]

Lutrin is relatively synthetic, postspecifying, with an SVO/VS word order, four cases, three numbers, and two grammatical genders.

Nouns[]

Gender, number, and case are expressed in a single bound morpheme.

Masculine Feminine Dual Plural
Ergative/Absolutive ~ ~ ~its ~el
Dative re~ lie~ rel~ lier~
Genitive ~mal ~ano ~ama ~non
Instrumental co~ lo~ coe~ lor~

Possessive Suffixes[]

Gloss Suffix
1 singular ~e
dual ~etot
plural ~eçio
2 singular ~o
dual ~tonet
plural ~tsio
3 masculine ~ail
feminine ~om
dual ~aral
plural ~otsis
  • Possessive suffixes precede any case suffixes.

Pronouns[]

Ergative/Absolutive Dative Instrumental
1 male lie relie colie
female me lime lome
dual iots reliots coets
plural eçiol lieçiol loreçiol
2 male lo roe coe
female moe lio loo
dual tonets reltonet coetonet
plural tsiol liertsio lortsio
3 masculine ail reil coel
feminine oem liem loem
dual aratl relatl coetl
plural otsits liertsits lortsits

Other Nominal Affixes[]

Gloss Affix
Diminutive ~iko

Verbs[]

Lutrin inflects for aspect (progressive, completed, contemplative), mood (conditional, potential, causative), person/gender/number, and voice (active, passive). The initial two inflections take the form of an infix before the first nuclear vowel, while the latter two are combined in a suffix.

Aspect and Mood[]

The following are infixes before the first nuclear vowel of a root.

Progressive Completed Contemplative
Indicative ~ierin~ ~ir~ ~iel~
Conditional ~efin~ ~ief~ ~et~
Potential ~omrin~ ~omir~ ~omiel~
Causative ~açin~ ~iaç~ ~açiel~

Agreement[]

Verbs agree with the intransitive subject or the transitive object.

Active Passive
1 singular ~e ~en
dual ~eto ~eton
plural ~eçio ~eçion
2 singular ~o ~on
dual ~tone ~tonen
plural ~tsio ~tsion
3 masculine ~ai ~ailen
feminine ~oe ~omen
dual ~ara ~aran
plural ~ot ~otsin

Agents of passive verbs are preceded by the particle fe.

Negative is an immediate prefix maiç-

Adjectives[]

Adjectives follow the noun they modify. They agree with its gender or number with a suffix.

Noun Class Suffix
Masculine ~l
Feminine ~m
Dual ~r
Plural ~r

Suffix ~m also derives an adverb.

Lexicon[]

Numbers[]

Base-10. Follows noun. Ordinal derived using adjective suffix on final morpheme.

Arabic Lutrin
1 mel (masc), men (fem)
2 tlo
3 crie
4 hof
5 colits
6 tsa
7 sho
8 ain
9 mio
10 crens
11 men crens
20 crestlo
30 crescrie
100 aomentli
200 aotlotli
222 tlo crestlo aotlotli

Particles[]

English Lutrin
And him
From hoer
Here laer
Or le
There tsaer
Which, As shai

Open Class[]

English Lutrin
Adhesive (n.m) slishica
All, Entire (adj) roo
Be (v) ar
Beginning (n.m) shoeter
Beside (adj) enesti
Building (n.m) moerelsis
Building Material (n.m) moerelçirets
Burn (v) feroolicsam
Child (n.?) ioni
Come (v) hatar
Confuse (v) oefotil
Do (v) ior
Downwards (adv) laam
Earth (n.f) caila
East (adj) tlaa
Find (v) hisha
Go (v) crol
God (n.?) tsiesa
Have (v) harit
Heat (n.m) licsam
Hurt (v) rool
Land (n.m) moerel
Language (n.m) shiftsit
Live (v) sies
Make (v) çiarets
Migration (n.m) cliçerits
Name (n.?) aila
Nose (n.f) riel
Nothing (n.m) maiçotsi
Now (adv) mac
Only (adv) aosem
Person (n.f) oekin
Possible (adj) çenmialo
Same (adj) arikia
Say (v) mamol
See (v) fias
Sky (n.f) haiho
Split (v) shiot
Stone (n.f) cai
Understand (v) oecarim
Village (n.f) oelsis
Want (v) fiol
Water (n.f) oel
Word(n.m) ranme

Examples[]

The Tower of Babel (Genesis 11: 1-9)[]

  1. Now the whole earth had one language and the same words.
    Mac caila room hiraritoe shiftsit mel him ranmeel arikiar.
    (Now the entire earth had one language and the same words.)
  2. And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.
    Him oekinel iriorot cliçerits loroel tlaar, him moerel hirishaot reShinar, him siriesel tsaer.
    (And people made a migration via eastern waters, and they found land in Shinar, and they lived there.)
  3. And they said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly." And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar.
    Him miramolot liemoekin enestim: "Hatar, çetiaretseto oerelçirets, him feroolicsamotsin room." Him hiraritot moerelçirets liecai.
    (And they said to the one next to them, Come, we will make building materials, and they will be burned completely. And they had building materials for stone.)
  4. Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth."
    Him miramolot, "Hatar, çetiaretseto elsis him moerelsis liehaiho, him çetiaretseto aila eliot, le cliçerits iriorotsin liecaila room."
    (And they said, "Come, we will make a village and a building to the sky, and we will make a name for ourselves, or we will be made a migration across the whole earth."")
  5. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built.
    Him Tsiesa hirataroe laam fiasoe oelsis him moerelsis shai ionieleçio çiriaretsot.
    (And God came down to see the village and building that our children built.)
  6. And the Lord said, "Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.
    Him Tsiesa miramol, "Fias, arot ekinel men, him haritot hiftsit mel, him aroe aosem hoeterotsis. Him maiçotsi shai fiolot ielarai maiçenmialo liertsits."
    (And God said, "Look, they are one people, and they have one language, and this is only their beginning. And nothing that they want will be impossible for them.)
  7. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another's speech."
    Hatar, crieloleto laam him açieloeftileto shiftsitotsis, him oekinano enestim mirinamol maiçieloecarim."
    (Come, we will go down and we will confuse their language, and cause them to not understand the speech of the person next to them.)
  8. So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city.
    Maiçamoloe, Tsiesa shiriotoe otsits liecaila room hoer tsaer, him maiçiriaretsot oelsis.
    (As she said that, God split the people around the whole world from there, and they didn't build the village.)
  9. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth. And from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth.)
    Shaiçiotoe, ailaom iraroe Fafel, Tsiesa aiçoefotiloe cailaama room shiftsit. Him hoer tsaer iriorotsin cliçerits liecaila room fe Tsiesa.
    (As she split, its name was Babel, because God confused the whole world's language. And from there they were made to migrate across the whole world by God.)
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