Solan (language)

Solan is one of the languages of Gaedera. It was first spoken by the people of the Solan Territory, and continues to be spoken by the people of the Solan nations.

While Astra, Sonora and Onao have since taken up Belan as the primary spoken language, the people of Aora and Oro continue to speak Solan as their primary language. Dialects of Solan spoken in Astra, Sonora and Onao also tend to be more heavily influenced by Belan than the Oro and Aoran counterparts.

Linguistics
Solan has a distinctive pattern of syllables consisting of at least a vowel peak, with a possible consonant onset, but never a consonant coda--ka, jo, hu, nai, among others. Only two diphthongs are found in Solan: ai and ao. Following on this finite phonology, its script is a syllabary: every possible syllable in the language is represented by a character in the Solan script.

Solan often uses compound words, and it is notable for its crases: that is, when words are compounded, the final vowel of the first component word and the consonant at the start of the second component word (if present) are elided. For instance, the compounding of lina (clear water) and huka (rocky island) into Linuka (the name of an island and its city) sees both the a from lina and the h from huka elided. An exception is made when the second word starts with s--it is not elided.

Additionally, nouns, verbs and adjectives are often used interchangeably: niti could mean fast-moving (adjective) or fast movement (noun) depending on its placement in a word or sentence.

There is a tendency for Solan inflections to get applied to loanwords from other languages. For instance, the name Aora is a Hies Loricoda word, but the commonly-used demonym, Aoran, is constructed via the Solan rule of appending -an at the end of the name. (In Hies Loricoda, the demonym would be Aorin, from the root aor.)

Belanised alphabet
a, d, e, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, r, s, t, u, v

Syllables

 * a, ai, ao
 * da, dai, dao, di, do, du
 * e
 * ha, hai, hao, hi, ho, hu
 * i
 * jo
 * ka, kai, kao, ke, ki, ko, ku
 * la, lai, lao, li, lo, lu
 * ma, mai, mao, mi, mo, mu
 * na, nai, nao, ne, ni, no, nu
 * o
 * ra, rai, rao, ri, ro, ru
 * sa, sai, sao, se, si, so, su
 * ta, tai, tao, ti, to, tu
 * u
 * ve

Words

 * ada island
 * ari river
 * huka rocks, rocky
 * mila weed
 * ina east
 * naina south
 * mita west
 * aita north
 * kajo settlement, settled
 * nitajo swiftly-settled
 * lina clear blue water
 * niti fast movement, speed
 * nali forest
 * kao vicious, fierce, angry
 * sina city
 * niri town