Ibomian
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The Ibomian language is the most widely spoken and official language of the Novaran country, Iboma. Spoken, by approximately 99.7% of the population, it has 56.9 million speakers. Modern Ibomian is descended from Middle and Ancient Ibomian. As the only language in its language family, it is considered a language isolate. Although, it once used a Runic alphabet, it shifted to Codexian script when it came into contact with Codexian explorers. It is an agglutinative language characterized by a rich noun-class system, subject-verb-object sentence structure, and pro-drop approach to pronouns.
History
The Ibomic language family originated thousands of years ago and was reportedly spoken by the first group of Golden Elves to arrive in Iboma.
Usage
Ibomian is primarily used in Iboma. It is spoken by small communities of Ibomian expatriates in foreign nations, but is largely only used in Iboma. The Ibomian Language Board (Lizuko la'Iboma laluPuwo).
Phonetics
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | Template:IPA link | Template:IPA link | |
| Mid | Template:IPA link | Template:IPA link | |
| Open | Template:IPA link |
Consonants
The Ibomian language uses soft and hard variations of consonants (especially plosives) that might be hard for non-native or foreign speakers to distinguish.
| Labial | Dental/Alveolar | Postalveolar | Velar | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| central | lateral | ||||||
| Nasal | modally voiced | m | n | ɲ | |||
| slack-voiced | m̤ | n̤ | (ŋ̈) | ||||
| Stop | 'plain' | pʼ | tʼ | kʼ | |||
| aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | kʰ | ||||
| slack-voiced | b̤ | d̤ | ɡ̈ | ||||
| implosive | ɓ | ɠ | |||||
| Affricate | 'plain' | tsʼ | tʃʼ | kxʼ~kʟ̝̊ʼ | |||
| slack-voiced | dʒ̈ | ||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | ʃ | h | ||
| slack-voiced | v̤ | z̤ | ɦ̥ | ||||
| Approximant | modally voiced | l | j | w | |||
| slack-voiced | j̈ | w̤ | |||||
| Trill | r | ||||||
Orthography
The Ibomian language is written in the Codexian script. Spelling is highly regular and reflects spoken language closely and consistently.
Grammar
Nouns
There are several noun classes and each one has a unique prefix which is attached to a root word. Noun classes are akin to grammatical gender in other languages. However, this term is not used because there are simply too many (most languages have a maximum of 3 which they assign neuter, feminine and masculine properties), and because the Ibomian Language Board thinks the notion of grammatical gender is ridiculous and patriarchal.
Classes
Cases
- Locative
- Demonstrative
- Vocative
- Indefinite
- Relative
- Negative
- Copulative
- Genitive
Verbs
Verbs are usually prefixed by the Prefix of the noun which carries them out if they have a subject.
Moods
- Infinitive
- Stative
- Subjunctive
- Imperative
Tense
- Past
- Present
- Future
- Immediate future
Derivation
- Causative
- Applicative
- Reciprocal
- Intensive
- Passive
- Neuter-passive
Adjectives
Adjectives follow the noun they describe and they are prefixed by the first letter of the prefix of the noun that they describe. Adjectives can also describe other adjectives.
Adverbs
Adverbs modify verbs. They can also modify adjectives. They are prefixed by the prefix of the verb that they modify which in turn is the prefix of the noun at the head of the phrase structure.
Pronouns
As a pro-drop language, pronouns are not compulsory. They are only used to emphasize things.
Personal pronouns
Demonstrative pronouns
Ideophones
Ideophones are akin to onomatopoeia in that they are just reproductions of real-world sounds. Ibomian ideophones can be used more broadly than onomatopoeia as they can be imbued with grammatical properties.