Orbono

Orbono (shortened from Is Orbono, "language of Orbon") is the main language spoken by the people of the Orbon nations: Ro Orbon, Ro Gtero and Ptrao.

Early Orbono emerged in the tribe of Orbon during the Expansionist Age as a descendent of Hies Loricoda, and evolved considerably. Due to the size and influence of the Orbon tribe and the countries that emerged from it after the Red Ring Pact, Orbono has long influenced the languages of the surrounding regions, including Ismaba and Hies Keidana.

Etymology
Reflecting its origin, a great amount of Orbono vocabulary is descended from words in Hies Loricoda, and continues to be recognisable. For instance, the Orbono word for metal, gata, is identical to its Hies counterpart. Other words have originated in Orbono (rather than being borrowed from Hies); many of these can be identified by consonant codas that do not occur in Hies, such as in the word lanak, a rather specific term referring to crags, or large boulders on mountains.

The phonetic changes from Hies to Orbono tend to be quite consistent. Orbono is noted for its syncopes, or the loss of short or unstressed vowels. i 's and e 's in Hies Loricoda words are lost in Orbono, as well as h 's, gh 's, and some other unstressed vowels.

Many internal s 's are substituted for z 's, while c 's and x 's are substituted for k 's. (Specifically, all /k/ sounds found in Hies Loricoda, as represented by the letter c, have been replaced by the aspirated /k/, commonly represented by the letter k.)

These are what give rise to the distinctive appearance of Orbono when written in Belan script: it lacks the letter i outside of suffixes, features z 's, and often contains clusters of consonants that appear difficult to pronounce.

These qualities can be seen in the name of the goddess Soreco, who is known as Sorko to people of the Orbon nations, as well as in the names Ro Gtero and Ptrao, which are derived from geter, vegetation, and petira, rust, respectively.

In other cases, Hies Loricoda conventions are replaced entirely with Orbono innovations. For instance, the Hies pertinence suffixes (-a, -da, -ta or -sa) are lost in favour of the Orbono -o pertinence suffix. Likewise, the adjective suffix -e/-ne has been shed in favour of -is/-nis on words that originated from Hies.

Phonology
The language, includes the sounds represented by the letters a, b, e, g, i, k, l, m, n, o, p, r, s, t and z.

Script
The script of Orbono is an "impure" abjad: it only has a generic open vowel marker, and otherwise only marks consonants. Though e and i are distinguished in the Belanisation, they are essentially the same sound, and are only pronounced slightly differently because of surrounding consonants. Essentially, the e in gter and the i in azakris are pronounced nearly identically.

Inflections
Words originally from Orbono (unlike words derived from Hies Loricoda) use the pertinence suffix of -is only regardless of the word's part of speech; if the pre-modification word has a vowel ending, that vowel is elided. For example, the word ptra, "rust," is modified via the hybrid rule to ptranis, "like rust," whereas the word azakra, "dragon," which originated in Orbono, is modified via the Orbono rule to azakris, "like a dragon."

To avoid ambiguity, no Orbono word ends with -o unless it was gained from the pertinence suffix, with the exception of the word ro (meaning land or territory).

Syntax
It is grammatical to modify a noun with another word without using the pertinence suffix, but both give slightly different meanings. For instance, to express an idea with the semantic head n, "man," with the dependent azakra, "dragon," one could say n azakris (a man with traits of a dragon) or n azakra (dragon man). The former parallels the traits of the man with those of a dragon, while the latter implies the man is conceptually connected to dragons.


 * -m nounising suffix for adjectives

Dictionary

 * aktar (n.) lightning, from Hies Loricoda acetar
 * azakra (n.) dragon
 * gter (n.) vegetation, from Hies Loricoda geter
 * gtero (adj.) pertaining to vegetation, synonymous with Hies Loricoda getera
 * ike (n.) city
 * kagor (adj.) angry
 * krei (adj.) quick
 * lanak (n.) crag
 * n (n.) person
 * ptra (n.) rust, from Hies Loricoda petira
 * ptrao (adj.) pertaining to rust, synonymous with Hies Loricoda petirada
 * ro (n.) land, territory
 * mnek (adj.) ice sheet