Terra Novan (language)

I've begun work on what will be the definitive language for (Eastern)
Terra Nova.  The Terra Novans are divided into three large segments, the
Easterners, the Westerners, and the Southerners, which speak different
descendants of English usually considered different languages, altho
Western and Southern are definitely mutually intelligible, and Eastern
is sort of borderline with the other two.

The orthography is fairly conservative, tho there was an orthographic
reform at some point, plus a few small-scale changes, many of them
pre-Terra Novan period.  The grammar has changed quite a bit.  The
morphological possessive was lost, possession now indicated by
juxtaposition.  (De man hous (/d@ ma~ hos/) = The man's house).  The
past tense was lost, taken over by the perfect.  Also, the language has
become somewhat agglutinating, with subject and object pronouns becoming
suffixes.  There's also been, of course, a number of phonetic changes,
including a phonemic split between aspirated and unaspirated stops (this
occured in the pre-Terra Novan phase, and in Western unaspirated stops
have merged with voiced stops).

Here's a (provisional) sample:

Dis it's a samba o Eestan, de languaj it get speek in de Eestan paht o
de Hyoom Continen.  It get descen from English, woun o de maja languajes
o Ahf an o de Sola Sistem.  Eestan also get relate to Westan an Suvvan.

/dEs Ets @ 'sa~b@ @ 'esta~ 'dle~gwEdZ EtgEt'pek e~ 'desta~ p_hOt @ d@
Cwo~ 'k_hOna~ EtgEde'se~ fro~ 'e~glES wo~ @ d@ 'mEj@ 'le~gwEdZ@z @ Of A~
@ d@ 'sul@ 'sEsta~ 'esta~ Olsu gEtre'lEt t_hwO w&sta~ A~ 'sOva~/

This is a sample of Eastern, the language spoken in the Eastern part of
the Human Continent.  It's descended from English, one of the major
languages of Earth and of the Solar System.  Eastern is also related to
Western and Southern.

--
"Old linguists never die - they just come to voiceless stops." -
anonymous
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