User:FictiveJ/Lovian English

'I'm detakavikifying Lovian English. Bear with me here. Notes are in bold italic face like this.'

Lovian English is a variety of North American English used in Lovia. In many ways, it resembles American English, and especially the Californian dialect. In fact it's a mixture of Californian American English and European influences. Many of the grammatical constructions are derived from Dutch, Libertan or French grammar. Lovian English is, spoken, mostly the same as American, and written as well. Characteristics of American English, such as an 'o' instead of 'ou' (eg. 'color'), are also typical for Lovian. Although, it has many influences, especially Dutch, Libertan and Burenian, on both spelling and grammar. Lovian English typically uses American orthography and terminology.

According to the Constitution, English is the official language of Lovia. In fact, the Constitution says that American English is preferred. Many consider Lovian English as a variety of American English. Boundaries between these varietes are unclear, and so, Lovian English is frequently seen as the official language of Lovia.

The Dykstra-Morris Dictionary of Lovian English is one of the most popular dictionaries used by Lovians, and the only major publication to focus exclusively on the Lovian dialect. In the absence of any official regulation, it is the most influential work on the subject.

General North-American phonology
In many ways, compared to British English, North American English (including American, Canadian, and Lovian English) is conservative in its phonology. Most North American speech is rhotic, as English was in most places in the 17th century. Rhoticity was further supported by Hiberno-English and Scottish English as well as the fact most regions of England at this time also had rhotic accents. In most varieties of North American English, the sound corresponding to the letter r is a retroflex [ɻ] or alveolar approximant [ɹ] rather than a trill or a tap.

In England, the lost r was often changed into [ə] (schwa), giving rise to a new class of falling diphthongs. Furthermore, the er sound of fur or butter, is realized in Lovian and American English as a monophthongal r-colored vowel (stressed [ɝ] or unstressed [ɚ] as represented in the IPA). This does not happen in the non-rhotic varieties of North American speech.

Some other British English changes in which most North American dialects do not participate:
 * The shift of /æ/ to /ɑ/ (the so-called "broad A") before /f/, /s/, /θ/, /ð/, /z/, /v/ alone or preceded by a homorganic nasal. This is the difference between the British Received Pronunciation and American pronunciation of bath and dance.
 * The realization of intervocalic /t/ as a glottal stop [ʔ] (as in [bɒʔəl] for bottle). This change is not universal for British English and is not considered a feature of Received Pronunciation. This is not a property of most North American dialects, especially Western variations including Lovian English.

On the other hand, North American English has undergone some sound changes not found in Britain, especially not in its standard varieties. Many of these are instances of phonemic differentiation and include:
 * The merger of /ɑ/ and /ɒ/, making father and bother rhyme. This change is nearly universal in the United States and in Lovia.
 * The merger of /ɒ/ and /ɔ/. This is the so-called cot-caught merger, where cot and caught are homophones. This change has occured in several parts of the USA, especially to the West. Exceptions are the San Francisco region, and as a result of that: most parts of the Lovia Archipelago.

For speakers who do not merge caught and cot: The replacement of the cot vowel with the caught vowel before voiceless fricatives (as in cloth, off [which is found in some old-fashioned varieties of RP]), as well as before /ŋ/ (as in strong, long), usually in gone, often in on, and irregularly before /g/ (log, hog, dog, fog.

The replacement of the lot vowel with the strut vowel in most utterances of the words was, of, from, what and in many utterances of the words everybody, nobody, somebody, anybody; the word because has either /ʌ/ or /ɔ/; want has normally /ɔ/ or /ɑ/, sometimes /ʌ/.

Vowel merger before intervocalic /ɹ/. Which vowels are affected varies between dialects. One such change is the laxing of /e/, /i/ and /u/ to /ɛ/, /ɪ/ and /ʊ/ before /ɹ/, causing pronunciations like [pɛɹ], [pɪɹ] and [pjʊɹ] for pair, peer and pure. The resulting sound [ʊɹ] is often further reduced to [ɝ], especially after palatals, so that cure, pure, mature and sure rhyme with fir.

The flapping of intervocalic /t/ and /d/ to alveolar tap [ɾ] before unstressed vowels (as in butter, party) and syllabic /l/ (bottle), as well as at the end of a word or morpheme before any vowel (what else, whatever). Thus, for most speakers, pairs such as ladder/latter, metal/medal, and coating/coding are pronounced the same. For many speakers, this merger is incomplete and does not occur after /aɪ/; these speakers tend to pronounce writer with [əɪ] and rider with [aɪ]. Both intervocalic /nt/ and /n/ may be realized as [n] or [ɾ̃], making winter and winner homophones. This does not occur when the second syllable is stressed, as in entail.

The pin-pen merger, by which [ɛ] is raised to [ɪ] before nasal consonants, making pairs like pen/pin homophonous. This merger originated in Southern American English but is now found in parts of the Midwest, West, and in Lovia since the 1920s as well.

Some mergers found in most varieties of both American and British English include:
 * The merger of the vowels /ɔ/ and /o/ before 'r', making pairs like horse/hoarse, corps/core, for/four, morning/mourning, etc. homophones.
 * The wine-whine merger making pairs like wine/whine, wet/whet, Wales/whales, wear/where, etc. homophones, in most cases eliminating /ʍ/, the voiceless labiovelar fricative.

Specific Lovian phonology
The differents between American and Lovian English are rather small, especially not between Lovian and California English. Specific characteristics of both Lovian/Californian English, that are different for most American varieties:
 * Front vowels are raised before velar nasal /ŋ/, so that the near-open front unrounded vowel /æ/ and the near-close near-front unrounded vowel /ɪ/ are raised to a close-mid front unrounded vowel [e] and a close front unrounded vowel [i] before /ŋ/. This change makes for minimal pairs such as king and keen, both having the same vowel [i], differing from king [kɪŋ] in other varieties of English. Similarly, a word like rang will often have the same vowel as rain in Lovia English, not the same vowel as ran as in other varieties.
 * The vowels in words such as Mary, marry, merry are merged to the open-mid front unrounded vowel [ɛ]
 * Most speakers in Lovia do distinguish between the open-mid back rounded vowel /ɔ/ and open back unrounded vowel /ɑ/, characteristic of the cot-caught merger, which is a result of the migration from San Francisco where the East Coast language tradition was kept alive.
 * According to phoneticians studying Lovian English, traditionally diphthongal vowels such as /oʊ/ as in boat and /eɪ/, as in bait, have acquired qualities much closer to monophthongs in some speakers of Lovian English. However, the continuing presence of slight offglides (if less salient than those of, say, British Received Pronunciation) and convention in IPA transcription for English account for continuing use of /oʊ/ and /eɪ/.
 * The pin-pen merger is complete in Lovia.

Vocabulary
Though the vocabulary differs from town to town some words are found almost everywhere in Lovia, for example:
 * actrice: actress
 * arrestation: arrest, detention
 * backdoor politics: corruption
 * contralegislative: illegal, unlawful
 * desbetreffende: the thing in case
 * to disexistify/deëxistify: to cease the existence of something; to terminate
 * to flashcreate: to quickly create something
 * horeca: hotel, restaurant, and café
 * -ify: used in place of various verb suffixes, such as -en, -ize, -ify itself, and so on
 * origine: origin.
 * pieriuzation: growing influence of Pierius Magnus and his comrades over Lovia
 * premmy: Prime Minister
 * to quinge: to extinguish, to quench
 * to registrate: to register (from Hurbanovan English)
 * to sadify: to depress, to sadden
 * to separate: to divorce
 * a serious amount of time: at least one more week
 * to shute: to propel a projectile into a living object using a firearm (past tense: shuted; past participle: shuten) (from Hurbanovan English)
 * tabloid: loser, jerk
 * takavíhki/takaviki: strange, bad, useless, weird, ugly, stupid (Burenian loanword)
 * a tentall: a number of ten
 * threatening weather: very dark and clouded weather that most likely precedes heavy rainfall
 * to trial: to put (someone) on trial
 * wallfish: a whale (borrowed from Oshenna, originally Dutch)

Expressions and proverbs

 * naranja
 * Meaning: congratulations, let's do it!, great!
 * to be a crumble compared to the cake
 * Meaning: to be less good/famous/... compared to somebody great
 * not to give a naranja
 * Meaning: to not care about something
 * to do the naranja
 * Meaning: to congratulate, to cheer
 * to do the Anfii
 * Meaning: to react to something by saying "I see"
 * to have one's own newspaper to write in
 * Meaning: to mind one's own business
 * to have one's own ZIP code or to have one's own hexacode
 * Meaning: to be very distinct from most people; to be a political extremist
 * to be like that fucking Donia castle
 * Meaning: to be shitty
 * è
 * Meaning: nothing, seeking some kind of vague agreement or just to reinforce one's statement
 * to be pro
 * Meaning: to be in favor of
 * to be contra
 * Meaning: to be in opposition of
 * to cost more than the Burenian nuclear program
 * Meaning: to be expensive
 * argumentum ad tacavicum
 * logical fallacy referring to the perceived takavikiness of a concept, often as a reply to another logical fallacy

Regional variety
Blackburn University linguist Boris Hartman (2006) identifies four major regional dialect regions in Lovia: There are no clear distinctions between Northern, Urban and Beaver River dialects. The distinctions have been made based on the speech of the elder made population, being the most conservative. As for the younger generations, the Urban and Northern dialects are clearly growing and boundaries are fading. Hurbanovan English is the most distinct variety of Lovian English and has a rich and unique history. Originally a Slovak and English pidgin, it evolved into a creole language. In the 20th century, it lost many of its Slovak characteristics and was heavily influenced by the then Oceana Lovian English. Eventually, Hurbanovan English evolved into a dialect of Lovian English.
 * Northern Lovian English
 * Urban Lovian English
 * Beaver River dialects
 * Hurbanovan English

Modern Trainish is an extinct dialect of Lovian English. Before it went extinct, it was only spoken by a minority of the elder male population in Train Village and the Emerald Highlands. It shared some of its characteristics with the Beaver River dialects.

Influence on other languages and dialects
In the course of its history, Lovian English and its dialects have influenced several other languages and dialects on the Lovia Archipelago. Most of them were creole languages that arose on the archipelago:
 * † Fade Dutch, a Dutch-based creole, extinct since 2009.
 * Oceana, a language with English, Polish and Slovak roots.
 * Muzan Oceana, a very conservative form of Oceana that shares some vocabulary with the Beaver River dialects. It is nearly extinct.
 * † Train Village Dutch, a Dutch dialect that was heavily influenced by Lovian English dialects. Extinct since the 1960s.