Lrahran

The Sounds of Lrahran

Lrahran is a very melodic language. It contains a number of vowels, liquids, nasals and semivowels. This tends to produce a rolling lyrical effect for the hearer. Below is a list of the Lrahran vowels and consonants.

HM a voiceless bilabial nasal
M a bilabial nasal
MJ a palatalized bilabial nasal
MR a bilabialized nasal retroflex
MN a labilaized alveolar nasal
HN a voiceless alveolar nasal
N an alveolar nasal
NJ a palatal nasal
NG a velar nasal
HL a voiceless alveolar lateral
L an alveolar lateral
LJ a palatal lateral
LR a palatized retroflex
LW a lbiovelarized alveolar lateral
NL a nasalized alveolar lateral
HR a voiceless retroflex
R a retroflex ("identical" to English "r")
RJ a palatized retroflex
HW a voiceless labiovelar
W a labiovelar
WR a labiovelarized retroflex
HY a voiceless palatal
Y a palatal
A low central unround vowel
E mid front unround vowel
U high back round vowel
O mid back round vowel

If you are interested in learning a bit more click here to see the new Lrahran-English dictionary. Coming soon the English-Lrahran Dictionary.
If you want to have a look at the native script of the Lrahran language just click here.

Tense & Aspect

Lrahran verbs have fine distinctions of tense and aspect. There are general tenses for past and future, but co-existing with them are numerous tenses which finly devide the past and future into smaller units. in addition to these tenses there are the infinitive and the eternal tense which express ideas taken out of the context of time and beyond the context of time.

 ____________general past____________
|                                    |
primordial-->distal-->past-->recent-->

present-->

 _______general future_______
|                            |
impending-->future-->ultimate

Added to these distinctions of tense are numerous aspect markers which express different durations of the progressive, conditionality and causation.
Different levels of politeness (from honorific to crude)and defference (superior, equal, inferior) may also be expressed on the verb.
There is no category "adjective" in Lrahran grammar. Concepts that would be expressed as adjectives in English are encoded as verbs in Lrahran. Words such as mewa meaning lime green are verbs which might be better rendered as to be lime green.
Pronouns

The pronominal system like most aspects of the language allows for many distinctions.

	Singular	Dual	Trial	Plural
1st m	nye	nyelu	nyenge	nyem
1st f	hle	hlelu	hlenge	hlem
1st n	mne	mnelu	mnenge	mnem
1st m exc	nyeal	nyelual	nyengeal	nyemal
1st f exc	hleal	hlelual	hlengeal	hlemal
1st n exc	mneal	mnelual	mnengeal	mnemal
2nd m	nyu	nyulu	nyunge	nyum
2nd f	hlu	hlulu	hlunge	hlum
2nd n	mnu	mnulu	mnunge	mnum
3rd m	nyo	nyolu	nyonge	nyom
3rd f	hlo	hlolu	hlonge	hlom
3rd n	mno	mnolu	mnonge	mnom
4th m	nya	nyalu	nyange	nyam
4th f	hla	hlalu	hlange	hlam
4th n	mna	mnalu	mnange	mnam

Lrahran nouns are marked for case, and the category "noun" is silghtly larger in Lrahran than in English since it includes a number of concepts which English would express as adverbs. Lrahran marks for the following cases:

Agentive      -0
Dative        -yen
Benadictive   -yal
Patient       -ryon
Locative      -hnem
Instrumental  -lrul
Associative   -myang
Manner        -wen

Each of these cases can under certain certain circumstances be promoted to subject position. In other words, odd sounding utterances such as "Loudly called," or "With the hammer broke," would be acceptable sentances.

Would you like to take some Lrahran lessons? If you would click here to view a sample of the Total Physical Response lessons I used in my recent experiment.

Coming soon sample lessons in the Audio-Lingual style!

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