Viisyal

The most widespread descendent of Warlok, Viisyal is spoken in the Mi empire by a flying people. It includes politeness levels that reflect the Mi social consciousness, vocabulary attuned for flight, and a set of third person pronouns allowing three referents. It lacks any gender distinctions. (This conlang was developed for a series of novels, graphic novels, and one RPG in print.  It is complete.  Please do not make any changes to this page unless you see a misspelled English word.)

Phonotactics
The syllable structure of Viisyal is CVF, where C is a consonant, V is a vowel or dipthong, and F is a final consonant. Final consonants mutate dependent on vowel length. 1. Historically t and β mutated from final -p. Final -p remains in some family and place names. 2. ts becomes ɕ after long front vowels, and s after all other long vowels.

Consonants
1. Consonant only formed by sound change: hɯV => ʍV ; Vt.ɬV => V.tɬV ; !i => ǁi ; zi => ʑi

2. Variation by dialect and register. The dental click ʇ is present in palace dialect, rural northern dialects, and as an affectation for sounding high class or archaic. Affricate tɕ is found in all other dialects, including standard.

3. Consonant formed by sound change and present as a final consonant. tɯ => tsɯ ; tu: => tsu: ; hi => çi ; hi: => çi: ; ga => ŋa ; F.na => F.Na

Tone
Although tone is not marked in writing, Viisyal uses its two tone system to distinguish what would otherwise be homophones, and to add contour to suffixed words. The two tones are Low (default) and High (accented). In general, words obtain a high tone on their last syllable, after which suffixes append with low tone. If a compound word is formed, the accent will be high on the last syllable of the first word in the compound, then stay low until the last syllable of the next word in the compound, maintaining the tone contour of the two compound words. The tones are not dramatically separate, as the low tone is more of a mid tone in height, but they are distinct. Tones are also relative to the general lilt and emphasis of a sentence which can also have general raising or falling pitch for questions, refusals, excitement, etcetera.

Although this may seem to be a pitch accent tone system at first, implying that a single syllable word would always be high tone (since its last syllable is its only syllable), single syllable words may be low tone instead of high tone. Thus the tone of the word is integral to its pronunciation. A good way to guess the tone of single syllable words is that high tone words can often be turned into verb stems or adjectives, whereas low tones ones cannot.

Examples of tone-distinguished base pairs, where H is high tone and L is low tone: /xi_H/ nature (scenery), /xi_L/ thing, /-xi_L/ subjective case suffix; /nuq_H/ milky, /nuq_L/ rights ; /su_H/ actions, /su_L/ crop (stomach); /jei_H/ glue, /jei_L/ skull ; /fa_H/ tired, /fa_L/ alcohol ; /hii_H/ crimson, /hii_L/ hydrogen ; /to_H/ take /to_L/ I (informal).

When raising intonation to produce emphasis, a low tone word may start out high for emphasis, then slide into the lower tone to confirm its tone, and vis versa. Eg. "but this is my whip-poor-will!" /doum kyo uu tono hueidoli ya!/ includes low tone /to/ being emphasised, so the tone contour of the sentence would be /doum_L  kyo_H  uu_L  to_HL_no_L  hu_L_ei_H_do_L_li_H  ya_L/.

Alphabet
Viisyal uses this alphabet as a basic writing tool. The alphabet is supplemented by ~2000 logographic characters which can be encoded as CJK characters. Of these 2000 characters, only about 800 are required for basic literacy, and sur-text is provided for all characters in children's literature and government forms. Names often employ obscure pronunciations for characters ; it is preferable to render family names in characters but personal names can be written in alphabet only. In this chart "IPA" /./ represents a syllable break used in some words and /-/ precedes a syllable-final phoneme.



A sample of Viisyal characters:



Word Order
Viisyal orders its sentences head finally. Words proceed in Subject-Object-Verb SOV order with the following finer distinctions :

Noun Phrase > Adjective > Noun > Case Marker > Adverb > Verb (conjugation suffixes)

Politeness
Viisyal recognises at least three registers in common speech : informal, formal, and supplicative. There are further polite registers, such as Regal, but these are used exclusively in royal or religious settings or by stuck up people. As well, the vulgar register is simply a slang   form of the informal register found in metropolitan areas. One must always be conscious of one's politeness register when speaking to another individual, based on social standing and age.

Informal is the default register used in dictionaries, but should not be the default for speech. This register is appropriate for speaking to friends, family, children, and equals at work. Informal speech is not appropriate when speaking to social superiors, strangers, or new associates at work. It is highly offensive to use informal speech when first meeting someone or when speaking to a social superior.

Formal register is always acceptable unless speaking to royalty.

Supplicative register is used when speaking to royalty, heads of corporations, or judges. The supplicative assumes that the speaker is being graciously allowed to speak. Many common verbs have separate supplicative roots, such that using a regular verb with supplicative conjugation is incorrect and offensive.

Case Marking
Viisyal marks case on nouns and noun phrases by using case marking particles. All particles come after the nouns or noun phrases they modify. These particles do not attach to the nouns or noun phrases. However, the genitive no when used with pronouns and demonstratives can be treated as one word. More complex prepositions appear as combinations in the pattern of /N no P mi/ where N is a noun and P is a noun being used as a preposition. Eg. /nag/, usually "centre", becomes "inside of" in /N no nag mi/.

Topics /uu/ act differently from subjects marked with the nominative case. Topics take precedence over subjects by defining the theme of a sentence, or what a sentence is about or referring to overall.

Ablative /kou/ case is used both for movement away from something and in logical/because statements.

Accusative /o/ case marks the direct object of a verb.

Dative /mi/ case marks both movement toward something and the indirect object of a verb.

Genitive /no/ goes after the noun it modifies and precedes the noun that will belong to the modified word.

Instrumental /ba/ is used for both using tools and using locations. Eg. researching in a library would be using the library, and eating at a caf&eacute; would be using a caf&eacute;.

Locative /mi/ is a very versatile case, used for placing objects in the world and ideas in a conversation. (1) The lative marker /ei/ is used for verbs with a sense of active ongoing movement, such as the preposition "towards."

Nominative /a/ marks a hard subject to a verb, where the action of the subject is being emphasized. Emotions, preferences, and wishes also take a nominative case before the verb.

Verbs
Verbs appear after nouns, adjectives, and noun phrases : head-final. Verbs are conjugated with suffixes to the verb stem. Verbs are listed under their -ra (simple indicative present) form, so the stem is found by simply dropping -ra. Suffixes can stack in the order [Formality] > Modality > Aspect > Mood > Negation > Voice > Emphasis, where formality decides how a verb will be conjugated, and any other suffixes follow in order.

Aspect
Aspect reflects whether an action has been completed or not. The simple aspect is used both for present and future actions. When speaking in strict time terms /-ku/ may be appended instead of /-ra/ while carrying the idea of certainty about the future. However, /-ku/ is much rarer than /-ra/, and /-ra/ is used for the future more often, relying on context and time words to distinguish it from the /-ra/ of the simple present.

Viisyal recognises a rare type of aspect referring to an action that is completed already in preparation for the future. This aspect is distinct from the pluperfect which is marked by the suffix /-meta/ in both informal and formal registers. The progressive aspect it is used both for actions which are incomplete or ongoing, and as a continuance in a sentence taking the place of "and." Ex. "I am wet and sad." is /to uu cainqe xisara./ and not */to uu cainra et xisara./  The progressive is used as a foundation for conjugating verb modality in the formal register, and for some compound verbs. Since the /-qe/ form is considered incomplete on its own, there is a special form, /qe i-/ which is used sentence finally to refer to ongoing actions without implying that there is more information to be had. Ex. Compare "I am wet and sad [but this is temporary]." as /to uu cainqe xisara./, and "I am wet and sad [and have been so for a while]." as /to uu cainqe xisaqeira/.

Mood
Mood in Viisyal uses verb suffixes instead of modal verbs as in English. The imperative is not widely used in formal speech, where it is considered impolite. Instead, one of many more polite "request forms" is used, of which the least formal is the progressive aspect seen above. When indicating a verb is in the simple indicative conjugation, only one /ra/ is used. (1) Although the sense of needing something is a verbal mood, the plain suffix /-bets/ only applies when a person needs to perform an action. To need an object is grammatically formed by saying something (X) is needed in the form /X a betsra/.

Modality
Like mood, Modality in Viisyal uses verb suffixes instead of modal verbs as in English. The "by accident" modality often carries a sense that the action was unfortunate, but can also carry the sense that "it just happened to be that way" or "it suddenly became that way."

Voice
Like mood, Voice in Viisyal uses verb suffixes instead of modal verbs as in English. The passive voice is used more often than in English, carrying a sense that the action was unavoidable.

Negation
Any verb can be negated by appending a negation suffix after the root. /lanai/ is the formal conjugation of negation. Negation comes after aspect, modality, and mood if a verb is conjugated for them. The negation of a verb takes on a separate form when in the progressive informal aspect, originating as slang. Yet it is rare to hear or read /qenai/ due to the creep of /naqe/ into a standard form.

Emphasis
Verb emphasis suffixes can stack within themselves in the order listed, though usually no more than two at a time. Additionally, /-myou/ can be used instead of the subjunctive /xi/ if the speaker seeks input from others about the statement. /yo/ additionally may act as an evidentiary enforcing the first person verified truth of its statement. /ze/ and /zo/  are impolite suffixes that state emphasis about a subject but carry a bragging tone. Choice between the two varies by accent, although /ze/ has in modern times acquired a tone of seeking agreement from false analogy with /ne/. Emphasis suffixes do not conjugate.

Politeness Registers
Informal register requires no special conjugation. The insulting verb suffix is extremely vulgar, and may be used in place of swearing.

Request Forms
Request forms of verbs break the supplicative register formality rules ; these request forms are seen as sufficiently polite without adding /ba ojalasu/.

Verb Suffix Concatenation Example with /su-/ "to do"

Nouns
Nouns do not decline. If a plural is absolutely needed, the suffix /-le/ may be appended, usually in cases of emphasizing a group or when using pronouns. Context reliably informs whether a noun is being referred to in a singular or plural sense. In Viisyal orthography, the "dash" is also used to introduce foreign nouns into a sentence ; in romanisation, the foreign word is capitalised. If used in English, an example would be "What a lovely -KIMONO." Foreign nouns introduced this way do not have to conform to Viisyal phonotactics.

Pronouns
Pronouns appear in gradations of person and politeness with /-le/ as an optional pluraliser, and /-la/ as a pluraliser in informal solidified forms. The choice of pronoun can say a lot about the speaker, including eschewing pronouns altogether. The third person pronoun comes in three forms, reflecting that a conversation can mark up to three separate third person arguments. These arguments are always animate ; inanimate third person referents use the words for "this" and "that" instead. The default third person is used first ; after that further arguments are introduced in the form of "[noun], [pronoun]".

V stands for vulgar, I for Informal, F for formal. Supplicative and regal pronouns use /-le/ for plurality only rarely, preferring not to use pronouns. Viisyal does have a way to distinguish inclusive and exclusive second person pronouns. The definitive inclusive is /minna/ which has a secondary meaning of "everyone," or /otuu/ meaning "us two." The listed second person pronouns are seen as exclusive when read, since it would be impolite to assume that the reader, or even the speaker, is making a statement about what someone else would do.

Embedded Clauses
A clause may be embedded in a sentence preceding the verb or noun it modifies, acting as an adjective. All clauses in Viisyal contain a verb and could be independent. One marker for a dependent clause embedded in a sentence is the use of verbs before a noun or adjective. Eg. "the man who sold the world" becomes /dacii o venta lui/ and also "the food I used to hate" becomes /mae mi kiita nuuri/.

Some clauses are marked with /et/ at the end of the phrase. These come in set patterns with certain verbs pertaining to quotes or cognition, such as : /sanra/ to know, /mura/ to think, /yura/ to say, /kikoera/ to hear about. Eg. "I think that it will rain tomorrow" becomes /to uu ajta ame a fura et mura/ and also "she said that she likes her" becomes /ka uu ke a qiira et yuta/. Note the use of two different pronouns in the last example, referring to two different ladies that in English would be referred to only as "she."

Gerunds
A noun may be made out of a verb by either using the root form of the verb if that verb also functions as a noun (which is the case more often than not), or by adding the suffix /-noa/ to the verb root.

Adjectives
Adjectives can either precede a noun, or act as a verb on their own. Adjectives placed before a noun do not conjugate. Sometimes this forms a compound word in writing if both adjective and noun are written as characters. Eg. "pretty cake" /bilu keiki/   "sad person" /xisa lui/

Adjectives that act as verb do not precede a noun, but are placed in the sentence-final position and conjugated. However, in very informal speech, the conjugation for an adjective may be dropped so long as the topic case marker is still placed after the noun and before the adjective. Adjectives used as verbs are usually describing the state of an object. Eg. "I'm sad" /to uu xisara./   "I'm cold." /to uu samura./   "That's hot." /sa uu atsra/  or even  "It's hot!" /ats-yo/.

Participle
The participle is formed by conjugating a verb in the past /-ta/ or passive /-saj/. Some verbs have fixed participle forms as separate words with a reduced /-q/ or /-j/ ending, acting completely as adjectives or even nouns without conjugation thanks to changes and lost meaning over time.

Adverb
An adverb is formed by placing a time word or adjective directly before the verb. Time words in particular can instead come at the very beginning of a sentence, but descriptive adjectives (such as -ly adverbs in English) must directly precede the verb.

Comparatives
Comparatives take the form of "X is more Z than Y" thus /X no hou a Y you Z/. Eg. "I am more tall than you" becomes /to no hou a an you miib/.

A shortened form of the comparative is /X you Z/ "more Z than X is." Eg. "taller than a tree" /gi you miib/.

The shortest form is simply /mot/ which is only used before nouns, such as "we need more milk" /mot nuq a betsra/.

Superlatives
Superlatives take the form of /onour no/ placed before an adjective or noun, meaning literally "the #1 thing." To find the word "most" in the sense of "most things act that way", /moda/ is used as an adjective. /onour no/ may be used before a noun prase or verb.

There is also a subset of compound adjective superlatives that can be formed with the prefix /cai-/. These are very commonly used superlatives such as "best" /cailu/, "worst" /caibai/, "first" /caimyo/, "last" /caifin/, "finest" /caihin/ etc. Cai may not be used before a noun phrase or verb.

For, In Order To, About
To state the intent of a movement action, /mi/ is placed after the intent. Eg. "go to the store for jeans" becomes /duustar mi gazet ei ira/  while "come to school to learn" becomes /melra mi lanliis ei kura/.

To state the intent of any other action, the phrase /no teka mi/ is placed after the intent or recipient. This takes the place of the english preposition "for." When placed after a verb, /no teka mi/ becomes simply /teka mi/ because the verb is modifying /teka/ "intent" which is a noun. Eg.  "I did it for you" /To uu an no teka mi sa o suta./ and also "I studied biology to become a doctor" /haos mi ranra teka mi vigankyou o kankyouta./

To say that something "is about" a subject, as in corncerning that subject, the construction /[subject] mi pelqe [something]/ is used. This allows someone to talk about the themes of things without necessarily introducing them as sentence Topics or even Subjects. Eg. in "I want to read a book about flowers" the subject is "I" and the object is "a book about flowers" so the translation is definitely /to uu kaa mi pelqe liib o liveu./

Conjunctions
1. Handled as a verb ending.

2. Handled as a case marker.

3. There are more conjunctions, but these are the major ones, those seen most often.

Prepositions
Although the locative cases /mi/ and /ei/ can be used for most prepositions in a general sense, many more specific prepositions can be glossed using a location word in the form /no [location word] mi/. Such that "in the bag" can be either /sats mi/ or /sats no nag mi/. The exceptions are "above", "below", "with", "full of" and "without" which are formed by pure affixes. A small list of location words:

Vocabulary
Example vocabulary : For a full Swadesh List, see this offsite page. The viisyal tumblr updates with new vocabulary daily.

To obtain a freelang dictionary of Viisyal, follow these steps :
 * Go to freelang.net and download their Freelang Dictionary at this link.  Don’t worry, it has no viruses.  Don't downloa 4.0.  It will not work with old dictionary files like mine.
 * Find the folder AppData\Local\Freelang Dictionary\language under your user folder.  Searching for AppData or Freelang Dictionary in your search bar should bring it up.
 * The dictionary files : Download this file and this file, and place them in the languages sub folder.
 * Here’s the icon that goes in the icons sub folder.  And here’s the dict.ini file.  Put it in the main folder where there is already a dict.ini file.  Replace it with this one.
 * When you start up Freelang Dictionary, you will see my dictionary!

Example text
(Hmm, universal declaration of human rights or obscure alt-rock lyrics?  Like that's even a choice.  For a full grammar and cultural note breakdown, see here.)



"Iqnaqe ba'ii kega janaqezo" jiih: -THE PAPER CHASE qadu: -OBFUSCOBBLE

Aza fuiigumi kou ho’un giiqe niista. To o boteta, zamei iita luu mi ya. Kyono Nyarlathotep meim mi juuta to o sebaraqa?

"If Nobody Moves, Nobody Will Get Hurt" composition: the pAper chAse translation: obfuscobble

''No search party came so (my) nails grew and sharpened. They kicked me, it was like I never happened. Who will look after me when I'm cursed just like Nyarlathotep?''



Kouluts meim tomyanhe, rian no hihuu meim no "Iqnaqe ba’ii kega janaqezo". Cika utaota “Tola et eq’el kuusda”. Tola no saho, kaohuoqe, kal huota. Xej’eu o zoumqe, xejta ten’ar’amaj. Qeimokujai no nag mi tuq -9VOLT o louqeoq. Yo uu atjatsta tao dizi uu jumetta tao, ra uu ilovu o akileura faihe. Taiqo tola uu vitaomta niqu kour no fuseikag o mitora!

''As with billboards consume, as with slogans on umbrellas, "If nobody moves nobody will get hurt." Our chest puffed proudly "Us and the almighty must feed." Committees were formed, we save face, we stay calm. We drilled our air holes, cashed in our savings bonds. Just in case, we licked every nine volt that's inside our fire alarms. When your work here is done and fingers are calloused, (then) let the sun hit your iris. We're animated meat accepting complete the infidelity of the body!''



Nanqa uu jitqe, tenaka o najqe iqe, to o getkuqe ira. Nanqa uu jitqe nanqa uu jitqe to ei. Kyo uu veuqa? Kyo o etaa. An uu kyo a betsxi, osecoug o roloqe jutsrahe, jutsrahe.

''It's getting closer, it's right around the corner, coming for me. It's getting closer it's getting closer to me. Do you want this? By all means, you may have this. If it's something you need, then stretch out your skeletons and grab it, and grab it.''



Oo, weijin ba naqe dar hiib ba eitenku. Xuub dawuub uu tola o ilu ekuusta:  tola uu nuuri koci vit o sebada ou cujleqleuhpajqe kourle!

Nanqa uu jitqe, tenaka o najqe iqe, to o getkuqe ira. Nanqa uu jitqe nanqa uu jitqe to ei.

''Oh, we won't go in style, we'll go out (be extinguished) in one piece. Great praise to Shub Niggurath who  got rid of us easy : our lumbering bodies that we have to feed, put to bed, take to the bathroom!''

''It's getting closer, it's right around the corner, coming for me. It's getting closer it's getting closer to me.''



Et tola no caihin gaito o kemiqe, et xotqe caifin topi o linaqe, kyo kin uu noyera xi o nyoqe esurane. Tola uu yao qagqe, iihruubqe, atjelqe, et an uu tono houxou a sanqe ira et mura. Doum sa tola uu seqa wasunae, wasunae. Sa uu jitqe ira. Sa uu jitqe ira, tuqzei jit to ei. Yee, mot ilu ya zeu, sa o habiibnaiveu, tola o muuvsiultaomta joigour. Xin uu noyera xi o nyoqe esurane.

''And we tailor our suits, and (while) polishing ourselves suck in our stomachs, and try to ignore that we're all drowning. And we'll keep making plans, we gather, we're grooming, and you think that you know my true feelings and self. But don’t forget that we’re all crashing to our deaths. It's getting closer. It's getting closer, closer every day. Yeah, it's just easier for me to just not believe it, that we're softened up by the lloigor. Try to ignore that our minds are drowning.''