Olbano Language

Pronunciation

Ulajésalne

The letter and pronunciation system within Olbano is very strict; one letter's pronunciation often stays the same regardless of where it's placed in a word. One increasingly common exception is with the letters O and Ō, where words starting or ending with O, like Okaraitola or ko, will sometimes be pronounced as if they were starting/ending with Ō. Ō was also originally introduced into the alphabet as merely an indicator for the long O sound. Olbano also has no silent consonants. An English word like “gnat” would be said with the G in Olbano. 

Tone is also very important to Olbano. There are "tone modifier" words that can be added to the end of sentences, such as the word muanab to sound more polite or soft, or rovkai to sound angry or accusatory; though this is not used often anymore and is much more used in informal writing than when formally or informally speaking.

Language Rules

Labu'ku Viigakun

Olbano has the typical rules of English, and has the same word order, subject–verb–object (SVO). For example, the phrase “Sam eats apples” in Olbano is Sam jojikun namesitan, but the word order is the same - jojikun = eats and namesitan = apples. The literal translation would still be “Sam eats apples.”

Olbano has past, present, and future verb tenses, and nouns are not gendered. There are words like man and woman, but nouns do not change depending on the gender of the person who says them. Additionally, Olbano does not have gendered third-person pronouns, only singular (ōsii) and plural (teji). 

Suffixes like -ly and -est will always be the same when added to words and will usually replace the last letter of that word, e.g. bina (fine) becomes binzy (finest). Common suffixes are -iin (-ed), -e (-er), -an (-ing), -zy (-est) and -o (-ly). It should be noted that words ending in -ly are equivalent to the suffix -like and will be literally translated as that, for example, "beastly" (ku’moroo) would become beast-like. 

Respect and family are huge things in Olban culture as well. There are formal, semi-formal, and casual forms of all nouns and some verbs; and special titles are often used for those appropriate. Even for families, family members are often referred to with a title. For example, sons call their fathers Fotaruku [name], meaning father [name], and fathers will call their sons Zabo [name]. Lastly, non-Olban names are translated to their Olbano versions and typically Olban families will call each other by their Olbano names along with their titles. Examples would be “Alex” turning into Aleͽ (Alekh), “Gabriella” turning into Gabriєlé (Gabriyela), “Toby” turning into Tōbi, and so on and so forth. This can also apply to historically Olbano names that have been Anglicized, such as “Varilynn,” which would be Farlin.