Friscan is a language native to the San Francisco region. It originated in the mid-21st century as a dialect of English highly affected by Cantonese grammar and vocabulary.

Contents 1 Phonology 1.1 Consonents 1.2 Pure vowels 1.3 Diphthongs 1.4 Tones 2 Nouns 3 Pronouns 3.1 Personal pronouns 4 Verbs 4.1 Coverbs

PhonologyEdit

Friscan in relation to Cantonese has more complex consonental combinations; has lost its more unusual -- from an English viewpoint -- vowels; has obtained a distinction of voicing rather than aspiration between consonent pairs; and has lost most of its tones. Syllables are structured as: [C]+[l/r/j/w]+V+[C].

ConsonentsEdit

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stops	p / b	t / d		k / g	`
Fricatives	f	s			h
Affricatives		ts / dz
Nasals	m	n		ng
Approximants	w	l / r	j

Pure vowelsEdit

	Front		Front-Mid		Central		Back-Mid		Back
Close										u
Close-Close-Mid			i
Close-Mid
Middle					y
Open-Mid	e									o*
Open-Open-Mid
Open	a

• Also, /ou/.

DiphthongsEdit

The diphthongs are: ai, ei, au, eu, and oi.

TonesEdit

Cantonese influence has produced a more tonal syllabic accent, based more on higher pitch than stronger stress. For the purposes of this document, stressed syllables are marked with diareses.

NounsEdit

Nouns are declined for number only. Use of the plural is generally optional; the singular is used for multiple things when this can be seen in context or is unimportant.

PronounsEdit

Personal pronounsEdit

The personal pronoun set is notably different from both source languages'.

	Singular	Plural
1st	o / mi / ai	wi / ys
		odei
2nd	ju	jal
	lei	leidei
3rd	hi / shi / it / kwi	dzei

In the first person, 'o', 'mi', and 'ai' are interchangeable; 'wi' and 'ys' are inclusive ("you and I" or "you and we") and 'odei' is exclusive ("we, not including you"). In the second, 'ju' and 'jal' are informal, while 'lei' and 'leidei' are formal. Rules for usage of this basically correspond to those of European languages. 'Kwi' in the third, singular, is a pronoun of unstated gender.

Pronouns are not declined for case.

Unlike nouns, personal pronouns are generally always plural when that fits the situation.

VerbsEdit

Verb root words are not conjugated for number or tense. The modals 'wil' and 'haf' are available for the future and aorist, respectively. The combinations 'wil haf' and 'haf haf' can be used for the future perfect and, by context, imperfect or past perfect.

CoverbsEdit

Coverbs are verbs that, along with a direct object, are freely inserted into another clause to function as adjectives and adverbs; such predicates are often compared to prepositional phrases. For example: "O jus tsë tïngdei go Frësno go.", which is literally translated as "I use car tomorrow go Fresno go.", in which the coverbal clauses "use car" and "go Fresno" can be taken as "by car" and "to Fresno".

Verbs can be used freely as coverbs; there is no set canon.