Doroun language

Doroun [doh-ROON, dɒ'ruːn] is the common language of Ororr, the principle language of law, trade, government and the Mother Church.

Doroun is spoken as a first language in the regions of Dunasanin and Gaskanin, and as a second language in other regions. It developed from the language of traders on the River Dor, during the Empire of Dor-en-Sann. They were an important link between the imperial heartlands and the great cities of the River Wiyel, so their simplified language became the common trading language vernacular. After the unification of Ororr, Doroun became the official common language of both church and state.

The Doroun people refers to the majority panethnic group in central Ororr who speak Doroun as a first language yet have an ethnically diverse heritage.

The language underwent a series of reforms during the first century ME, partly to regularise it according to usage in the writings of the Great Prophet, partly to embrace ongoing language shift, and also as the result of extending the language to many new peoples and as a formal language of law, faith and government. Old Doroun (called Imperial or Old Church Doroun, though it was never a liturgical language) was a gendered language, though this was being eroded by colloquial use of the neutral gender for many new words and concepts. The reforms made all genders neutral, along with a standardisation of spelling and pronunciation.

Despite this standardisation a number of regional dialects have arisen, with local language words crossing over into everyday urban speech. However, official Doroun remains as a standard language of church, state and commerce.

Doroun has nine vowel sounds:

• a - hat
• ah - car
• e - get
• i - ee
• o - hot
• oh - coat
• or - more
• u - short oo
• ou - technically the vowels are enunciated separately, but commonly oo

Classic Doroun has a more limited set of consonants, but given the huge number of loan words, terms and place names, there are many more.

• b
• k
• ch
• d
• g
• j
• k
• m
• n
• ny
• r
• s
• t
• v/f
• w
• y

Vs tend to be pronounced more like f, and there is some interchangeability. P is not found in pure Doroun but common in loan words. H sounds are are also non-native to Doroun but found in other Ororran languages.

Doroun has a fairly simple verb structure with no verb tenses. Instead it uses context and adverbs to indicate the aspect or timeframe of the verb, eg “Now I go” for “I am going”, “Yesterday I go” for “I went”. It uses suffixes to indicate the pronoun of a verb, though this is often only used in context or the first time introducing a pronoun, the rest being indicated by context, eg “Yesterday i go to the market. Eat my dinner, pray at temple”. Infinitives have the prefix chi- or cha- for most regular Doroun words. Foreign loan-verbs can have slightly different rules and are indicated by si-/sha- for Mayapon words, or ji-/ga for most other loan words (originally Gaal).

The suffix -ka makes a noun from a verb, meaning “the state of”.

Examples:

• amba - go (stem and imperative)
• chiamba - to go
• ambasiye - I go
• doambasib - They are going (now)
• bitambasim - We went

Classic Doroun was originally a simple pictographic system, with symbols representing quantities and specific goods. This extended over time to become more complex. Today a cursive form of the language is commonly used in writing, though the formal printing and inscriptions retain features of the original system.