Cyran

In an earlier mail a mentioned my ancient (ca 1996-7) conlang Cyran. I
thought I give some more info on it - in particular it may be interesting as
my first conlang project, one started and effectively abandoned not only
before I became aware of the conlang comunity, but also before I became
involved in Tolkien linguistics.

Cyran was/is/will be spoken in a country of the same name in an alternative
universe. The society and technology is basically medieval.

PHONOLOGY

Six vowels: i y e a o u (roughly IPA values). Long vowels are written twice:
ii yy ee aa oo uu
Semivowel: j [j]
Consonants: p b t d k g f v s z c ([S] or [Z] depending on position) l r m n
h.
Syllabic consonants: r n

Phonotactics are very lax; the word for "northern" is _Ctstytsti_!

GRAMMAR

Unfortunately, Cyran has next to no grammar, and only one verb I can
remember, namely _jug_ "bear, carry", from which is formed the agental noun
_jugd_ "bearer, carrier".

Adjectives preceed nouns; _Ctstytsti Cyran_ "Nothern Cyran" (one of the the
three provinces of Cyran). In compounds the adjectival element comes first;
_kyast_ "composite bow", _jugd_ "bearer" yields _kyastjugd_ "bearer of a
composite bow", used ="mounted archer" ("foot archer" is _jeastjugd_, lit
"bearer of longbow").

VOCABULARY

Nouns:

kyast   "composite bow"
jeast   "longbow"
bun     "armour"
ktant   "pike"
graanz  "border, border area; mountainous wildlands"
mered   "island in river"

Verbs:

jug     "carry, bear"

Adjectives:

ctstytsti       "northern"
syys            "southern"
lants           "far, distant"

Placenames:

Cyran
Mzn [mzn=]
Prznd [pr=zn=d]
Mzni Graanz [mzn=i gra:nz]
Mrd
Zn-Hava [zn= hava]
Curuu
Cyytsi
Jeera
Ctstytsti Raan
Molur

Personal names:

Kanz
Loodcoo [lo:dZo:]
Tnarakat
Hisrakat
Mca (monosyllabic!)

This seems to be about all I can recall of Cyran. Quite possibly, some of
the phonemes listed above never occured in any actual word, but undoubtly
many words have been forgotten, especially placenames. I also had a quite
impressive amount of history for the place, mostly now forgotten.

                                                 Andreas

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