Amphorean

Amphorean is a Programming minority language spoken in Vallis Draconum. While it is rarely used in the modern day, its effects can still be felt in Ferritumulic Latin.

History

As the Programming languages developed in some ultra-deep alternative future, it came to more-and-more resemble the philosophical and mathematical texts of old. Since these traditions began in Ancient Greek, it is thought that this explains the writing system and a good portion of the lexicon of Amphorean. It appears that Amphorean is a creole language between some myriennia-derived form of Ruby and Modern Greek, though it is often argued that these instead take the form of learned borrowings.

As a so-called Tinoan language, Amphorean, despite being a Programming language, tries to mimic human language as much as possible. This is used as the reasoning behind Modern Greek being a learned borrowing for Amphorean.

Phonology and orthography

There are four scripts in which Amphorean is often written: Theorian runes, Stellar Script 160,000, Greek script, and Latin script. None of these are natively created by Amphorean speakers, though Theorian is considered the closest thing to a native script for Amphorean, followed by Stellar, then Greek, then Latin.

The following shows the Greek orthography for each phoneme given.

Amphorean consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Velar	Guttural
Stop	aspirated	ps ⟨ψ⟩	ts ⟨ζ⟩	ks ⟨ξ⟩
	plain	p ⟨π⟩	t ⟨τ⟩	k ⟨κ⟩	q ⟨ϟ⟩
	nasalized	ⁿb ⟨μβ⟩	ⁿd ⟨νδ⟩	ⁿg ⟨γγ⟩
	voiced	b ⟨ββ⟩	d ⟨δδ⟩
Fricative	unvoiced	ɸ ⟨φ⟩	s ⟨σ⟩	x ⟨χ⟩	h ⟨‘⟩
	voiced	β ⟨β⟩	ð ⟨δ⟩	ɣ ⟨‘γ⟩
Nasal		m ⟨μ⟩	n ⟨ν⟩	ŋ ⟨γ⟩
Approximant			ɹ ⟨θ⟩	ɰ ⟨ϝ⟩	ɦ ⟨‘ϟ⟩

Note that several of these appear different in the coda, specifically ⟨σ ϝ⟩ (which become ⟨ϛ υ⟩). Additionally, intervocalically, /ps ks/ lenite to [ɸs xs].

Amphorean vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i ⟨ι⟩	y ⟨υ⟩	yɥ ⟨ου⟩
Close-mid	e ⟨η⟩	ø ⟨ηω⟩	ɐo̯ ⟨ω⟩
Open-mid		œ ⟨εω⟩	ɔ ⟨ο⟩
Open	ɛ		α

Note that the open vowels' IPA values are also written like the Greek orthography.

Amphorean is romanized essentially like if it were Ancient Greek, with accented vowels keeping their acute accent, although a stressed /e ɐo̯/ is romanized as ⟨ê ô⟩ instead of ⟨ḗ ṓ⟩.