Vayardyio

Overview

=Setting= Vayardyio is an extra-terrestial language spoken by the humanoid population in the so-called Northwestern quadrant of the Great Continent on the planet called Tolouga (in V.: meaning 'world' or 'living space'). Tolouga circles its sun in more-or-less earthlike circumstances and (mostly due to lack of imagination of their creator) its animate species look and behave quite familiar to us. Vayardyio is the mother tongue of the Vayardi people (they who inhabit the country of Vayardo). Native speakers number approx. 49 mi. It is seen as the sole representative of the Western branch within the Coumrillian language family. Two more branches of this family exist in neighbouring countries: the Northern (or ‘High’) branch, consisting of Tozurian, Chirchian and Gabilian, and the Southern branch, with Avessite, Alemnic and Silmerian. All languages show a strong lexical and syntactical relationship, whereas rather prominent differences occur in the phonology and phonetics. Vayardyio shares with the Northern branch-languages features like a fully active nominal and pronominal declension in three cases, while it still displays rare phenomena other languages have lost, such as the use of a ‘4th person’ (often called: obviative). Also, only Vayardyio retains the original five verbal moods of the Old-Coumrillian root language. Vayardyio languages history tracks back some 2000 years, dating to the westward movement of Coumrillian tribes from the northern plains even before the Classical Civilisation of Coumrillia came to full bloom. Therefore, Vayardyio lexicon displays quite a few words and meanings which differ from words in all other modern Coumrillian languages, more heavily influenced bij the Classical Coumrillian speech. Here is an example of regular language change (incl consonant shifts) in several Coumrillian languages:

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Development of Coumrillian root words in various modern Coumrillian languages: 

Coumr        Gabilian     Tozurian     Vayardyio   Avessitian        Alemnic       (meaning in English)

xεm             heum         him            yémo          jem            jemon          human creature, man 

xεddün        houd          hüd            yo               judij'          jid                 year 

uæxas          auc            ühi            oya              uj              oje                water   

xuonnas      hanna         heni           ana            ană            ana               woman   

bhæstarau   hestre        hestur         ésiara        festere        feste             to do, make 

phaiger        fegru          fegur          figro           fijere           fejre            blue

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Typology
Vayardyio is a typical SOV-language, in which fronting constituents to the 'left' (head) of the sentence marks topicalization. Typically, negation is expressed by fronting the verb, preceded only by the general negation marker yé. The language is inflecting, according to regular patterns: declension of nouns and pronouns, conjugation of verbs, on a nominative-accusative basis. Verbs show four moods and display active and passive voice; nouns are distinguished by gender: -o class (male), -a class (female) while -o class being the default type. An earlier gender distinction in animate - inanimate has left only some remote traces in the language.

Although being a SOV-language in which the verb as a rule is sentence-final, Vayardyio retains prepositions in stead of postpositions, and modifiers generally preceed their heads in an apparent violation of the well-known language universals.

Phonology
Vayardyio phonemic inventory consists of a set of six vowels: a, e, o, i, u and /schwa/; the latter only appears in inflected endings. It is obligatory in V. that all (native) words end vocalic; also words rarely begin with  /i/, /o/ and /u/. Furthermore, strict rules inhibit the forming of allophones. Diphtongs are non-existant too: between any pair of vowels a pause is always observed.

The consonants are: b, k, d, f, g, ç, j, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, θ, v, z. Of these, /b/, /j/ and /z/ are sparsely distributed. Written č represents the dental fricative /θ/ as in English or Spanish. The two glides /j/ and /ç/ (palatalized) are written gi+(vowel) an y respectively in “terrestial” orthography; whenever g preceding i+(vowel) should not be pronounced /j/, it is written ğ. In scheme, the consonants are distributed like this:

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                  bilabial               labio-            dental      palatal        velar  

                                             dental

 

stop            p       b                                    t        d                          k      γ

 

fricative                                 f        v          s   θ   z           ç

nasal         m                                                   n                               ŋ

 

liquid                                     l         r

glide           w                                                       j

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Several consonant clusters are allowed at the beginning of words, including clusters like /sf/, /sm/, /scr/, /spr/ or /str/, but the language as a whole favours syllable formation of the type CV, CVC or VC. Base words mostly have no more than three syllables, however throug inflection and suffixing, strings up to six syllables can exist.

=Basic Grammar=

the verb
In Vayardyio, the verb is a very significant category. Two conjugations exist: verbs ending in -ani and those ending in -ara. The latter comprises all transitive verbs, verbs ending in -ani without any exception are intransitive. Both conjugations differ only slightly, however. All verbs are conjugated for

tense

Present and past tense are the most marked. Actions or events in near future are mostly expressed in present tense, while a choice of adverbs make the future notion more specific. Future tense proper in modern Vayardyio actually has merged with the optative mood (see below).

aspect

Vayardyio retains the original Coumrillian three-way aspect system: imperfect, progressive/durative, and perfect. Durative is widely used, much like in English, to express ongoing actions, mostly with no specific relation to time or completion.

mood

Any verb comes in five moods: indicative, subjunctive/conjunctive, hortative, potential/optative, infinitive. Hortative is used to express imperative statements and orders; potential-optative, which signals a (future) possibility, has become the means to express all actions or events which are likely to happen in near or more remote future.

voice

Passive and medio-passive are fully developed in terms of morphology, but tend to be avoided in everyday speech. A trend towards a more analytic realization of passive or medio-passive voice is attested, mostly by using the copula stiara (to be (brought) in a state) + participle.

the noun; article, adjective
Here is a table of nominal declensions.

Nouns come in two genders, those ending in –o or –i; and those ending in –a; there are three cases:

Nom = nominative case (1st )(subject)

Obl = oblique case (2nd)(direct and indirect object)

Gen = genitive case (3d)(genetive proper and partitive); 

the use of the partitive construction is widespread:

mo tanilou i oyi sépe - he drank a cup of water

épia oyi sépe - he drank some water

soio oyo lisépita - he has drunk all the water

Note that when a part of speech or NP is negated, it also figures in the 3d case. Hence, the preposition fata '('without') governs the 3nd case, while almost all other prepositions govern the 2nd:

O ano giésitia - I have seen the woman

Yé i ani giésitia - I have not seen the woman

Fata casyi acastio gravanye - he vanished without leaving a trace

(lit.: 'without a trace leaving he disappeared')

Note that adjectives agree in gender and case with nouns. When the noun is definite, the adjective preceeds it. If it is indefinite, the adjective follows the noun; in this case, inflected endings on the adjective are less marked. Sequences of adjectives can be ranged to both sides of the noun, depending on their salience:

Ma séfia frissa Vayardya - a young Vayardese girl

Mo acadio paravou fario troge - he bought a new red car (his old car was red as well)

Mo paravou fario acadio troge - he bought a new red car (he bought a new car which -accidentally- was red)

Namio acadio paravou troge - he bought this (particular) red car

A. definite

example: é négo cadino (the big town); gia tira magissa (the small village)

singular

1e nv. é             négo         cadino                   gia            tira           magissa

2e nv. o             négio       cadinou                   o              tirio         magisso

3e nv. i              négi         cadini                      i               tiri           magissi

plural 

1e nv. nie         négie       cadinéne                 ge            tirie         magisse

2e nv. ne          négine     cadinone                 se            tiride       magissase

3e nv. ni           négi         cadinéni                  si             tirise       magisséi

'

B. indefinite

singular

1e nv. mé          cadino      négo                                      ma           magissa tira

2e nv. mo          cadinou   négio                                       mo           magisso tirio

3e nv. mi           cadini      négi                                        mi            magissi  tiri

plural  

1e nv. cadinéne négi                                                        magisse                 tiri

2e nv. cadinone nége                                                       magissase             tire

3e nv. cadinéni  négi                                                        magisséi                tiri

pronouns
These are inflected mostly like adjectives. Personal pronouns are commonly omitted in spoken language and in written language also. Sometimes however, the personal pronouns are retained for stress or in literal and poetic purposes.

In third person singular as well as plural, natural gender is observed. Also there is a third person 'unpersonal' (or inanimate) pronoun which is closely related to the definite article and which is also used as a 'filler' particle.

A very specific feature of Vayaryio is the use of 'proximate' and 'obviative' forms, the latter mostly referred to as 'fourth person'.

'obviative' forms are used whenever two (or more) persons are mentioned in one sentence, to avoid ambiguity. For example:

O giarou giéso - I saw the man

Ono giéso - I saw him

Etou giése - he (prox.) saw him (obv.)

Here is the full set of personal pronouns:

adverbs
Adverbs are not inflected for case or gender. They do not differ formally from adjectives, except manner adverbs. These take the suffix -ima to mark them as modifier of a verb:

Gia frissa ofra nia - she is a careful girl

O salmou ofr ima scéname - he was carefully (warily) climbing the tree

['the tree 2nd case careful-ly he-was-climbing']

Some adverbs occur together with a preposition to form a fixed expression:

Ono da mélio vali - he fares badly

['to him for worse is doing/happening']

Scores of adverbs behave more or less like particles, like

ya - somewhat

alla - once

ita - soon, shortly

ya si - surely

etc.

syntactical matters
=Dictionary=

swadesh list
=Example text=  

'''Soie yémine isméie sé vi télénissou sé stodissou étio progémintie stiari. Ini a rato sé '''

All   creatures free  and in dignity         and right equal born they-stand. To them reason and

'''assonariou légita,                   si giésa atoa vé livastissou dissarnara sédassire. '''

conscience it-has-been-given,    and in-face each-other in solidarity behave they-should.

 

''`All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.`''

He lay flat on the brown, pine-needled floor of the forest,

Té solio asti rédénou i logisi apprédisto, scaltésata pandame,'

On brown forest floor leaves covered-with, stretched-out he was laying down

his chin on his folded arms,

alta pouta té rémase rédiviste,'

his chin on (at) arms folded,

and high overhead the wind blew in the tops of the pine trees

sé nyo sig’ono é gialvo vi salmisi otrélase velantame.'

and high above him the wind in trees tops it-was-blowing.

The mountainside sloped gently where he lay;

Gie andri réna vé fiğio lama pandame, régantima élése; 

The mountain side [in-place-that] he was lying, gently(mildly) sloped;

But below it was steep and he could see

tasima topa séda riva nie sé giésara sate

but more-remote (yonder) steep it-was and see he-was-able

the dark of the oiled road winding through the pass.

i barnisti vasi alvisso paréči o calisso andanio.

(E. Hemingway; For whom the bell tolls; opening sentence)

Note: of course on Tolougia no pine-trees grow, so neither is the forest floor covered with needles.

Literal translation is added in the third sentences