Mwyltydd

['muɪ̯l.ti:ð]

(---Mwyltydd (Millic or Millish in English) was originally intended to be a Welsh-based argot, but a conworld formed easily around it. This should be kept in mind while reading about the language, as the grammar is very similar to Welsh and would not be justified as an independent natural language of its own accord---)

Millic (natively Mwyltydd) is a Garro-Milleo language spoken by the Mills (Mwyldaws ['muɪ̯l.daʊ̯s]) on the four mountain islands of Y Llatmwyl Hul on the planet Mycae (which for all intents and purposes is nearly identical to Earth, apart from the geography, cultures, and pretty much everything else, so actually it's really not at all similar). Also, by some strange coincidence, the Mills use orthography, phonology, and grammar that varies almost insignificantly from that of modern Welsh. This has led some suprademensional beings to question the seemingly spontaneous and random nature of the universe, however, the affairs of lower beings aren't of any relevance enough to inquire further into this matter. Millic is a mildly inflected analytic language, though it also has some uncommonly realized polysynthetic qualities. As is true in the Insular Celtic of Earth languages, Millic features a heavy usage of verbnouns and a system of initial consonant mutation, and has several other similarities to not only Welsh, but traits of the Goidelic languages as well. In addition, there are several loan words, loan translations, and other influences from the Snake Language spoken by the dolphin population indigenous to the waters around Y Llatmwyl Hul. Dolphins. Dolphins everywhere.

Classification
​
 * Asrineo-Cymrean
 * West Asrinean
 * Low Garr ý lic
 * Garro-Milleo
 * New Garr ý lic (extinct)
 * Millic

After the unfortunate and unforeseeable destruction of Llatgar ýl (the former fifth island in the island chain, Wysyr) whereupon New Garr ýlic was spoken, and due to the Millic superstition that the open sea is evil (or at least whatever might lay in wait thereacross), the Mills found themselves alone in the world. Strict population control has been inforced for on the island-states for hundreds of years. So much so that the population actually decreased by 30% over the last century, but at now has been stabilized with a whopping growth factor of 0%. Freaky as it may seem, this was not the work of a nefarious governing body, but instead the choice of the people, content with their humble lives on their four wittle iswands. Similar to their obsessive control of the population, is the Mills control over the uniformity and non-evolution of their language, regulated by Y Dyddych Fonog Fwyltydd (The Millic Language Council). They like it how it is and make sure it don't never changes, not one bit. As such, there are no branching dialects. In order to facilitate this, when certain colloquialisms gain a certain level of popularity, the YDFF will vote on accepting the new device into the standard language (eg. the general plural).

Consonants
Notes:
 * All plosives and affricates are slightly aspirated.
 * [ ɾ] is is an allophone of /r/ intervocalicaly.

Stress
Stress is always on in penult syllable unless indicated by an acute accent, or, occasionally, a circumflex on a vowel in the terminal syllable of a word.

Orthography
The spelling of Mwyltydd is very similar to that of Welsh with some slight- but important- differences along with some additional phonemes. One should note that the digraph "Qj,qj" unpredictably represents either [ ʝ] or [ ʒ]; a borrowed usage from the snake-language of the Dolphins; a language which has, on Earth, never been able to be translated, despite millions of years of cohabitation.

Consonants
-Millic sonorants /r,m,n,ŋ,/, when followed by orthographic {h}, are realized as /r̥, m̥, n̥, ŋ̊/ respectively.

-{s} is pronounced /ʃ/ before {i} and after {ì}. In such cases {i, ì} are not phonetically realized, only providing orthographic indication of palatal coloring.

Monophthongs
- Unaccented vowels are realized as long before single consonant.

-Unmarked vowels occurring at the end of words are realized as long. The exceptions being {y} which is realized as /ə/ at the end of a word.

-{y} is realized as /ə/ word terminally and in predetermined words and syllables.

-The pronunciation of {u} is often decided by the speaker's preference. Older speakers will realize it as /ʊ/ more often, while young speakers find it easier to pronounce it in much the same way as {i} without having the palatal coloring effect on {s}. Word terminally it is always realized as /i/.

Nouns
Nouns were historically inflected in Mwyltydd and remnants of this system can be seen in certain places. The general plural suffix {-u} is a recent development necessitated by and used in contexts where the exact number is not specifically stated or known. However, Mwyltydd does feature a collective-singulative system which has been under constant debate by the YDFF for several decades on whether it should be officially considered a form of inflection, as it is only used to form singulatives from uncountable nouns and groups that are referred to as single units {water > drop of water, forest > tree, flock > bird, etc}. Singulative suffixes are also colloquially used to form partitives (Bread + SS = some bread; the sandwich + SS = part of the sandwich).

Pronouns
The non-emphatic personal pronouns are: The 3rd person singular unspecific forms are equivalent to English "they" and "one".

Numbers
Zero through ten:

Consonant Mutation
Consonant mutation in Mwyltydd is changes in the initial consonant of a word according to the word's morphological, syntactic, or phonemic environment. Rarely, mutations will occur as an independent form of inflection. Vowel-initial words undergo n- and h- prosthesis in environments which trigger the nasal and aspirate mutations respectively.