2. Phoenixian

Requested by no one.

Today, we’re looking at Phoenixian, /u/TypicalUser1‘s first conlang. This is apparently a Germanic language.

Phonology

This language’s phonology is a bit involved, so I’ll try to explain it as well as I can.

Consonant

	Labial	Dental	Alv.	Post.	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal	m		n		ɲ nn	(ŋ)
Stop	p b		t d			k ɡ g	q	ʔ hk
Fric.	f v	θ ð þ ð	s z	ʃ ʒ x zh	ç ʝ ch gh	x ɣ c gh	χ
Affric.			ts dz	tʃ dʒ tx dzh			qχ q
Approx.	w (ʍ) v		l		j
Trill			(r̥) r

The original documentation paints a more complicated picture: graphemes can have up to three different pronunciations, depending on which graphemes are around them. I’ll say that the phonology and the orthography was well thought out, though I’m not a fan of hk for /ʔ/.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i y		u
	ɪ i ï ʏ ü
	e ø		o
Mid		ə à
	ɛ e ë œ ö		(ɔ o)
	æ ä
Open	a

Diphthongs:

/au̯ aʏ̯/ á
/ei̯ eː/ é
/ai̯ iː/ í
/oi̯ oː/ ó
/ɛʏ̯ uː/ ú
/uʏ̯ ʏː/ ý

Strangely enough, no mention of phonotactics.

Grammar

(I won’t go into all the nitty-gritty details here, since I don’t want to copy the grammar verbatim and you can check the details out yourself.)

Syntax is SOV for the most part, but if V is the word for “to be”, then the order is SVP instead, and if V is a compound verb, then the auxiliary verb is pulled to be the second word (= V2), and in questions, the order is VSO instead.

Phoenixian has seven cases (nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive, dative, ablative, instrumental) and two numbers (singular and plural). (This is PIE’s case system without the locative, or Latin’s with the instrumental.) There are seven declension patterns depending on the stem of the noun, and declensions are influenced by gender (masculine, neuter and feminine).

Interestingly, articles and quantifiers decline for the case of the noun they modify.

As usual, pronouns have first, second and third person pronouns. This system isn’t terribly fun, but it works most of the time. The first and second persons have formal pronouns that aren’t distinguished by number (though when to use them is a question left unanswered). Third-person pronouns are distinguished by gender but there’s also a set of gender ambiguous pronouns that I didn’t expect to see here.

Demonstrative pronouns have three degrees of proximity, and, as usual, are inflected for number and case (but not gender). Relative pronouns decline for animacy (human vs. non-human), case, number and, in non-human pronouns, gender. And as usual, there are reflexive and interrogative pronouns.

Adjectives are declined for only three cases: nominative and accusative are as before, but everything else goes into the “oblique” box. They precede what they modify, unless the antecedent is modified by an article, in which case they follow it (and get a different inflection). The grammar also states that adjectives are ordered in “more or less the same way as English”, which shows that the creator knew about the whole thing but wasn’t creative enough to think of how to do it differently. Adverbs are distinct from adjectives but can be derived from them regularly. Then, of course, we get comparative and superlative forms. Separate, of course.

Infinitives of verbs end in -a, -e or -i, and there are strong and weak verbs. Strong verbs, in turn, can have up to six different stems. Luckily, weak verbs are somewhat more sane. In general, verbs are inflected for person and number (+ formal for 1st and 2nd persons), as well as tense (present and past; future is formed periphrastically) and mood (indicative, subjunctive and imperative sighs). There are also conjugations for the passive voice in present tense, and the passive voice in past tense is formed periphrastically. Verbs with perfect aspect are formed periphrastically.

And as usual, we have participles and gerunds.

Prepositions act like prefixes in this language, and come in three classes: kinetic, locative and grammatical. The object of these prepositions are in the accusative, dative or (instrumental | ablative), respectively.

Numerals are almost like English, because why not. The numerals for 1 – 4 do have declensions, though.

Another interesting tidbit about this language (as if there were more than a few) is that it distinguishes between “ordered” and “unordered” lists.

I’m getting weary now from trying to describe everything. There are some things I didn’t cover because they’re what you’d expect from a Germanic language.

Verdict

I’ll admit that a posteriori languages are not my cup of tea. But Phoenixian is so boring and “vanilla”. When I read the grammar, I felt as if I were wading through a bunch of tables.

That being said, there were some interesting things the creator did with the language, such as the orthography, the gender-ambiguous pronouns and the distinction between “ordered” and “unordered” lists. I also hear that /u/TypicalUser1 is overhauling the language, so I’d like to encourage them to take this opportunity to introduce some more exotic features.