Mursian language

Mursian (Murstina, pronounced /ˈmʊrʃtina/) is a Borealslavic language spoken in South Central Artemia, primarily in Mursland. It is the language of Mursians.

Along with the closely related Volirian languages and Vrtgoran, it is a member of the Sera-Boreslavic dialect continuum of the Proto-Artemian language family. The language has several characteristics that sets it apart from the other Slavic languages: changes include elimination of case declension in adjectives, a vocabulary with much foreign influence, different structuring of grammatical genders, and the retention of case in specific parts.

History
In the late 17th century, the famous playwright and novelist Ismé u Dit wrote many of her stories in Mursian. Her works were highly popular and caused a resurgence of interest in the language among the elite. Although much of her linguistic contributions have been lost over time, it has formed the basis of modern vocabulary and grammar.

Orthography
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Morphology
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Gender
Mursian distinguishes four grammatical genders: masculine, feminine, neuter, and.

The epicene is used when the referred should have a grammatical gender, but this gender is not determinable, could not be determined, or (in vernacular language) is irrelevant. This sees use when used in reference to a person of profession (of unknown gender), unknown figures, groups of people of both genders, and (in recent times). Neuter is limited to non-human subjects, such as objects, animals, or abstract objects. A complication is when talking about groups of people; when talking about its members, epicene ought to be used, when talking about the group as a whole, neuter should be used.

Examples:


 * 1) I went to the doctor, they told me to rest. - Ja bsem wokpehil lékare, oni kronilo mje odpotsivat. (epicene singular)
 * 2) What does the thief look like? (lit. The thief resembles who?) - Slodsej vykadu kogo? (epicene singular)
 * 3) When the class heard the news, they all (the class-members) cheered. - Ked taxi uswytal správy, woni bsi witalio. (epicene plural)
 * 4) Once the regiment finishes training, it will be deployed immediately on the frontline. - Raz pluk bsem podokontit vytuiko, inhed wono bsem rozmiistit w kufovi. (neuter singular)

The first sentence is an example of where the gender is deemed irrelevant to what is said; it does not matter for the story told whether the doctor is male or female. In the second sentence, the thief has yet to be identified, which means that they cannot be assigned a relevant gender, even though they are expected to have one in the sentence. In the third sentence, the class does not consist of a single gender, thus will have to use the epicene. The fourth sentence is an example of when neuter should be used for groups.

Number
Modern Mursian has 3 : Singular, and Plural.

In practice has the Dual gone into disuse in written language, finding only use in s and some special verbs. However, it still finds use in spoken language in various dialects. It is then often (arguably incorrectly) used to refer to a smaller group in relation of larger groups. For example:
 * 1) Woni bsi nimi na odovernovi; Wono nekedsjbos. - 'They were angry at the government; it (the government) did not care.'
 * 2) Woni bsi nimi na odovernovi; Wonej nekedsjbosou. - 'They were angry at the government; they (the government) did not care.'

Most Utmursik gods are considered a 'dual-being' and have either a neuter dual or epicene dual inflection. These inflections are still in use in modern day when talking about the relevant deities.

Case
Mursian has 7 cases:, , , , , , and.

Declension based on case is used in nouns, adjectives, and some pronouns (personal, possessive, demonstrative). For Vocatives goes they are equal to the Nominative safe for some irregular nouns.

Nouns
Mursian does not use to indicate nouns. They are split in hard and soft roots, which determines what their inflection will be based on gender. The hardness is determined on the ending of the root of the word; nouns ending on [d, h, ch, k, n, r, t] are determined hard, all others soft. An exception goes for words ending on -a and -i, which have their own inflection. They are also split on singular and plural. Historically, there was a separate dual form, but this has been merged with the singular and had disappeared by the 19th century. The Vocative has the same declension as the Nominative. The Locative is always combined with a preposition.

Personal names also obtain suffixes depending on the case, but rather than adding it straight behind the name, an is added in between. Example: Jaan'a - Jaan in accusative form.

Adjectives and Adverbs
Adjectives are placed before nouns. They have no inflection in modern day use. The comparative is formed by either changing the ending of the adjective or adding a suffix; this retains in the superlative, which also adds the "nu-" prefix.

Adverbs are obtained through modifying the adjective's root.

Personal and Possessive
A large variety of personal and possessive pronouns can be found in the Mursian language. Personal pronouns can be found in 4 genders, 3 numbers and 6 cases, most of them unique, for a total of 87.Below you can find an example of 1st personal pronouns (not gender dependant). For all other personal and the possessive pronouns, see Mursian pronouns.

Interrogative
Mursian has a set of Interrogatives which form the base for most of the pronouns. These are:
 * kto - 'who?'
 * co - 'what?'
 * ak (hak)  - 'how?', and its derivatives
 * (h)aki  - 'what kind?'
 * (h)aký tas  (hakitas ) - 'at what time?'
 * (h)ak často  (haktato ) - 'how many times?'
 * kad - 'where?'
 * wotkul - 'from where?'
 * kedy - 'when?'
 * cohola - 'why?'
 * poses - 'how many/much?'

Of these interrogatives, kto, co, ak, aki and ak tasto have declensions. Declensions are carried over to the derivatives, as long as the pronoun type does not add a suffix to the word (with exception of -i).

Relative
Relative pronouns are formed by adding -s to the Interrogative. In the case the Interrogative already ends in -s (poses - 'how much?'; hakitas - 'at what time?') the last syllable is replaced by -os. Thus you form posos 'as many as' and hakitos 'at which time'. Exceptions to this rule are: kam 'where' and ked 'when'.

There are also indefinitive relative pronouns. These are formed by adding -kolek to the stem of the interrogative. Exceptions are: lecjaký - 'whoever', 'whatever', and shehak - 'however'. Poseskolek 'however much' is often contracted into posakolek.

Indefinite
Indefinite pronouns are made from the interrogative by adding ne- or kod(o)-. The former method results in a request for a specific although unknown subject (such as 'some' works in Anglic; someone, somehow, etcetera). The latter method is a more generalized form of the indefinite, used for when any member of a group suffices (such as 'any' work in Anglic; anyone, any kind of, anywhere, etcetera).

Exceptions to this rule are: raz (lit. 'some time' → 'once'), naki 'some kind of', kodotkul 'from anywhere' and kodakitas 'at any moment'.

Negative
Negatives are formed by adding the suffix ni- to the interrogative. The only exception on this is nitkul 'from nowhere', a contraction of wotkul 'from where?' and the aforementioned suffix.

Demonstrative
Mursian knows 3 types of : proximal, medial and distal. Proximal demonstratives are te 'this', to 'here', wotul 'from here' and vtedy 'then'. Medial demonstratives are tam 'this/that, the one/those near you' and tom 'the place near you'. Distal demonstratives are wón 'that', ta 'there' and womtul 'from that place'.

The basic demonstratives te, tam and wóm have declensions based on case, gender and number. Their declension is similar to the possessive pronouns safe for some exceptions, see Mursian_pronouns for details.

Collective
Collective pronouns are formed by adding vys- to interrogative, although this gets contracted or reshaped for most versions.


 * vyske - 'all', 'every'
 * oba - 'both', archiac
 * vysaki - 'all kinds', 'every kind'
 * visak - 'in every way'
 * chudé - 'everywhere'
 * vyskul - 'from everywhere'
 * vishdy - 'always'
 * vysaktato - 'all the times', for repetitions

Identity and other
There are three identity pronouns: tatjed and tamjed, both mean 'the same' for humans and objects respectively; and ihned - 'immediately'.

Next tot that, there are pronouns to refer to 'others.' The most common is hynaksy, which means "someone or something else." There are also other pronouns for manner, place and source, which is formed by adding in- to their respective interrogatives.

Prepositions
TBD: list of all prepositions in Mursian

Numerals
Mursian uses the, in which orders of magnitude above million scale per million. The intermediate steps of thousands uses the -dy ending.

Perfectives
Verbs in Mursian exist in two forms: the imperfect and the perfect. Historically, these were two separate verbs. They usually shared some similarity, but under influence of the proto-Ludarsian and languages, many variations existed across the dialect continuum. Attempts were made to standardize the two forms since the middle 17th century as a result of the Mursland region regaining sovereignty from Variadia and Propyria. The attempts often saw only temporary success in literary circles, if any at all. It was the formation of Hebalia that sparked countrywide efforts to standardize the imperfective-perfective pairs, initially for administrative reasons. It was in 1851 that a standard was devised to make the two forms conjugated from one another. In 1889, the many types were reduced to the set in current day use.

There are 5 regular forms. They are marked with single letters in dictionaries as can been seen in the table below.

Conjugation

 * The past tense is achieved by using the verb být 'to be' and the past participle. Example: Ja bsem boskal 'I kissed'
 * The future tense is achieved differently for imperfect and perfect verbs:
 * Imprefectives: by using the verb být 'to be' and the infinitive. Example: Ja bsem twarit 'I will build'
 * Perfectives: here, the present tense also serves as the future tense.
 * In spoken language, the two are sometimes used to indicate the speaker is absolutely certain something will happen. Examples: Woni padowas raz 'they will fall someday', Woni bsi padowas raz 'they shall (certainly) fall someday (/soon)'
 * The present conditional is achieved by using the verb biil 'to be' and the past participle. Example: Ja bych kupil 'I would kiss'
 * The past conditional is achieved by using both the verb biil and být, and the past participle. Example: Ja bsem bych kupin 'I would have bought'
 * If passive voice is used, ...
 * Negatives can be made using the prefix ne- onto the stem. Example: dobys, nedobys 'to benefit, to not benefit'. Note that, in writing, the prefixes of the imperfective are applied before the negative, but the position at the stem has priority. Example: owas, zowas 'to call', neowas, zneowas 'to not call', instead of zjneowas. Since 'zn' is an awkward sound, it is often pronounced with either glottal stop or between them.
 * When talking about female or neuter subjects, the suffix -a and -o can be added to the participle. This has become optional, and is only used in literary and poetic context, or ceremonial addresses.

Syntax
Historically, Volirian had a flexible sentence structure, with the large variety of grammatical cases giving context. However, foreign influence has solidified word-order, especially notable in formal writing. In informal spoken language and poetics, the syntax is often purposefully broken to generate emphasis on certain items. General sentences are structured as: Dieté gandame kiab.

Child.NOM.PL read.PRES.PL book.SG

'The children read a book' Dieté {ba matkan} gandame kiab.

Child.NOM.PL {with mother.INS.SG} read.PRES.PL book.SG

'The children read a book with their mother'

In older writing, especially on religion, you will often find VSO order. This was thanks to as found in the Rabt and related writings.

Adjectives are always placed before their nouns. Likewise, nouns can be used to specify other nouns by directly following each other (e.g. Duurzhavi-Pokoj 'Province Room', as opposed to Duurzhavy Pokoj 'The Room of the Province'). When used, both nouns inflect to the same case.

Bohari musj wokpe {autoe esrése}

Rich.ADJ man.NOM.SG attend.PRES.SG {car.ACC.SG race.ACC.SG}

'The rich man watches the car race'

blah blah
Ja X wokpit Panapisimuh, ktos {bsem djgandan} Jaan'a.

I want.PRES.SG visit.INF university.ACC.SG, which.HUM {gets educated at}.PASS.SG John.ACC.SG

'I want to visit the university that John attends.'

Linguistic influences
Scholars speak of a seperate Proto-Mursian when the Proto-Pozrik arrived in the Bohesian region and came into contact with the Utmuraks in the 5th century. The populations were in frequent contact with each other, and gradually merged vocabulary.

The Utmurak language itself had considerable loanwords from Ershimad?, and Atrymian by exposure during settlement period. From the latter, little has remained in modern Mursian and only few words can be attested with certainty. When the Ershamids settled the coast in 122 BCE, many loanwords entered Utmurak vocabulary, particularly about governance, law and religion.

During the Tovik period, the language saw significant influence of words, especially about novelty ideas. As the region gained independence, these words would often remain up until the Mursian Naissance in the 18th century. From then on, attempts were made to 'Voliriate' everyday vernacular, which saw success to some extend.

More modern terms find their origin from and. As Ludarsian and Thallasian (of the Bohesian form) return to education, loanwords from these languages gain popularity.

Antone-Mursian vs Sorish-Mursian
In northeast Sorland (KNA), the settlements of Antonene, Tordiu and Draukoirad speak a variant of Mursian. The region was settled in the 1870s-1900s by Mursian immigrants, mostly from the West Reimos area. Current day, an estimated 85000 people speak the variant.

Scholar disagree whether this variant is a dialect (Antone-Mursian, Mu: Antoni Murstina) or a separate language (Sorish-Mursian, Mu: Sorlani Murstina). Arguments in favour of it being a separate language is because there is a clear division point where the variant developed differently from mainland Mursian dialects. The far distance from the homeland, combined with the settlements at no point having Mursian government supervised schools, has caused various chances compared to standard Mursian. Much of the spelling and grammar is based on the older Mursian rules before the reform of 1889. The language also has seen influences of and Norsk for much of the day-to-day speaking.

Arguments against it is that the language is still very mutually eligible when a speaker of either variant has been in contact with the other for a short period of time, once they are adjusted to the different slang. Additionally, beside being based on the older grammar, much of the simplification in both variants have resulted in the languages looking similar in most writing.