Wa'ynian

Wa'ynian or Waynian (English pronunciation /waʊnjən/ or /waynjən/) is the language of the Waynis, a fictional people living in the coastal region of Wawuryni in the fictional world of Hanihit.

Classification and Dialects
Waynian is generally considered to be a language isolate, consistently with the position within land of its speakers - on a coastal area in a valley surrounded my mountains.

Three dialects, or topolects are generally recognized to exist: a northern variety, a southern variety and a central variety that is usually regarded as the standard for writing (and is the one examined in this article). Furthermore, more varieties, or more correctly registers, within each dialect.

Waynian is notable in that all the three topolects have minimal or no differences in phonology, while differences in grammar abound; on the other hand, registers are primarily marked by differences in pronunciation rather than in vocabulary or grammar. In writing, these differences are primarily marked by the choice of the writing system; see the dedicated section more.

Registers
Below are listed the main characteristics of the six main registers found in the three topolects of Waynian.

Main register
This is the normal register used in most conversations between acquaintances, family and friends. Its phonology corresponds to the standard phonology; see the Phonology section for details.

Political-institutional register

 * As opposed to the work register, men use a pitch accent.
 * Women have a strong tendency to drop coda nasals /m/ and /n/ and thus introducing a distinction between nasal and oral vowels.
 * The stress replacer phone [β̞ ] is usually pronounced as a trill [ʙ].
 * Marking an exception from the usual strong Waynian tendency to keep consonants voiceless, they are always pronounced as voiced in this register, so that [p, f, t, k, s, ʃ, ʃʷ, t͡s, t͡ʃ, ħ, h] become [b, v, d, g, z, ʒ, ʒʷ, d͡z, d͡ʒ, ʕ, ɦ].
 * Some clusters of a consonant plus /j/ tend to coalesce, so that [dj] and [gj] become [ɟ], and [zj] becomes [ʑ]; this also applies across word boundaries.

Work register

 * The same tendency to make alveolars retroflexes of the academic register is found here.
 * Women may switch to a pitch accent.
 * Men have a tendency to pronounce /r/ as an approximant [ɹ].
 * There is a strong tendency to velarize /l/ as [ɫ].
 * There is a tendency to neutralize vowel length and to substitute it with a difference of quality, in a way that reminds of the love register: while previously long vowels retain their original quality, short /i, y, u, a/ are often reduced to [ɪ, ʏ, ʊ, ə] in closed syllables and to [e, ø, o, ɐ] in open syllables.

Academic registrer
This register is used in educational settings, academies, or any other private or group lesson.


 * /h/ is not pronounced in syllable codas; instead the preceding vowel is coloured, so that in open syllables an opposition between the pairs /i/-/e/, /u-o/, /y-ø/ and /a-ɑ/ arises.
 * There is a strong tendency to pronounce dental consonants as retroflexes [ʈ ɖ ʂ ʈ͡ʂ], in both genders.
 * Women may switch to a pitch accent.
 * Men have a tendency to pronounce /r/ as an approximant [ɹ].
 * There is a strong tendency to velarize /l/ as [ɫ].

Ritual register
This register is used in all religious, ritual or ceremonial functions.


 * Both sexes pronounce velar consonants: specifically, the phonemes /t n ts/ are pronounced as the velars [k ŋ t͡ʃ] before the vowel /u/.
 * All stressed open syllables gain a /n/ coda.
 * The vowel /y/ is pronounced [ɨ ̴ ʉ].
 * The glottal stop is pronounced as the uvular [q].
 * Women pronounce the stress replacer phone (see below) [β̞] as [ʋ]. When cantillating, it is often dropped entirely.
 * Men have no pharyngeal fricative, which is instead pronounced as a velar [x].

Love register
This register in only used in love-related contexts when the feeling involves the speaker, including but not limited to dates, intimate conversations both between regular lovers and spouses, romantic or sexual partners, marriages.


 * The vowel /y/ is merged into /i/; as a consequence, /ʃ ʃʷ/ are also distinctive in non-word-final environments.
 * The stress replacer vowelizes away, forming diphthongs /au/, /eu/, /ou/.
 * Women merge /ts/ into /s/, and /ħ/ into /h/.
 * Men do not distinguish vowel length.
 * Unstressed vowels tend to center to [ɪ ə ʊ], and they all collapse into a single vowel [ə] in closed syllable.
 * /m/ and /n/ are removed at the start of a word (leaving no glottal stop behind).
 * Tendency to shorten affixes, by dropping their last syllable or vowel (when this is possible without dropping part of the lexical stem syllables). This has, uniquely among the registers, consequences on grammar.
 * In Central Waynian:
 * possessive suffixes are drastically reduced. Indefinite nouns can take no possessive markings, while definite nouns can only take suffixes for feminine possessors. This gap is usually filled by the use of personal pronouns in the genitive case, often even in cases where the possessive suffix is available, especially when no adjective accompanies the noun.
 * Nouns can bear no dual or paucal number marking. However, possessed nouns (thus followed by a pronoun in the genitive) can be generally marked as paucal with a suffix /-na/ for masculine possessors and /-i/ for feminine possessors; no person-specific possessive suffixes can be used in this case.
 * Verbs generally receive no sentiment marking (although they possibly could with verbs ending in a vowel).
 * Verbs don't have a marked active form. This means the voice of the verb must be teased from the noun cases; alternatively, it is possible to replace the passive conjugation with the mediopassive form. This also means second-class and third-class also have no way to mark aspect.
 * The /-y/ marker used for pluralizing loanwords falls away, meaning borrowings are undeclinable.

Northern dialect
The northern dialect is notable for being very grammatically innovative; in fact, it has almost completely lost all inflections found in Central Waynian.

Among the most important differences:


 * The noun declension by case and feeling disappears, so that all nouns only distinguish a singular a plural form (the paucal and the dual are also not used). The form preserved is generally the neutral absolutive. Noun, however, preserve gender, and a vestigial declension can be found in the two different ways to form the plural.
 * Suffixed possessives are not used; instead, pronouns follow the nouns, preceded by the particle wy (used in Central Waynian to express the genitive of pronouns - which are indeclinable in both varieties of the language).
 * Similarly, no inflection by possession or feeling exists for adjectives, which thus only retain five forms: two genders, two numbers and a predicative form (which often uses a shortened suffix or none at all in this variety).
 * Verbs don't have affixes for person, except for the masculine third singular person; no conjugation for benefit exists, but aspect and the active/passive voice opposition is retained (while mediopassive is not used). This also goes for numerals, although the particular conjugation by number type is instead retained in some registers along with an analytical form.
 * Just like nouns, the definite articles are undeclinable, no longer distinguishing case, retaining only a masculine and a feminine form. Articles only enjoy a wider use in the Northern variety, being used with personal names, demonstratives, verbs and coverbs, where this use is wholly unheard of in Central Waynian.
 * Participials don't exist; while some are cristallized as full-fledged coverbs, regular verbs simply employ their regular forms, sometimes joined by a conjuction or just juxtaposed.
 * Possessed classifiers do not exist. Furthermore, the use of classifiers is reduced in contrast to Central Waynian, being mostly restricted to nouns with a determiner.
 * Possessed demonstrative fall out of use, and the tripartite system is reduced to bipartite, so that the only determiners are li and ti, which usually are only used in what in Central Waynian is the feminine form, not inflecting for gender, and obviously not for case either.
 * The particles fi, ti and wy, used in Central Waynian to inflect pronouns, expand in use and start acting as prepositions or coverbs.
 * The circumfixes used in Central Waynian to express various comparisons are generally not used, being replaced just by a particle pi meaning "more", with the term of comparison being introduced by ti.
 * There is extensive use of final particles, much more than Central Waynian, and more of them are coined.
 * Reduplication enjoys wider use, being also used in nouns and verbs.

Southern dialect
The southern dialect tends to be more conservative than Central Waynian, and has innovated in ways opposite to Northern Waynian so that of the three, it is the dialect with the most complex morphology.


 * While Central Waynian has reduced the declension of nouns and articles to four cases, Southern Waynian has preserved six (ergative, absolutive, dative, genitive, locative and instrumental). Additionally, beside the suffix also found in Central Waynian, Southern Waynian also preserves separate infixes for the dual and the paucal. Finally, one fourth declension is preserved, that has merged into the first in Central Waynian.
 * The separate infixes for the dual and the paucal extend into the adjectival declension. Furthermore, Southern Waynian preserves up to five predicative infixes, whereas only one exists in Central Waynian.
 * Other than object infixes, subject prefixes are preserved that are appended to the verb. Verbs, just like nouns, exhibit a fourth declension.
 * Souther Waynian exhibits a system of evidentials, expressed as particles following the verb.
 * Articles are used less often in Southern Waynian, and in fact their use is very close to generic demonstratives unmarked for proximity.
 * Participials can exhibit person affixes.
 * Loanwords, other than the plural, can also be inflected for dual and paucal.
 * Classifiers enjoy a wider use than in Central Waynian, being used with any noun preceded by an article.
 * Possessed classifiers are often used with possessives or possessed demonstratives, so that a specific system of declensions for possession. Likewise, beside an analytical form preserved in some registers, regular classifiers can also fuse with demonstratives, meaning analytical classifiers are only preserved in the cases or article+noun phrases.
 * Reduplication is rare, often only used in expressions borrowed from Central or Northern Waynian.
 * Derivational circumfixes only preserve long circumfixal forms (whereas Central and Northern Waynian employ alongside them an affixal form).
 * The distal demonstrative is often substituted by the medial, so that shi is more frequent than ti.
 * Instead as verbs, numerals are very often used as participials; a derivational system, in place of inflection, is used to differentiate numeral types.
 * Pronouns are declinable just like the rest of nouns, although the dative/locative/instrumental collapse into one form.
 * Instead of a coverb, comparison is often expressed through the simple dative case.
 * Other than feeling, nouns may exhibit a rhetoricasl suffix indicating the tone of the sentence in various ways; those result from grammayicalization of final particles.
 * Verbs exhibit a system of alignment, so that while in Central Waynian the structure of the action is described through syntax and partly through cases, alignment is widely used in Southern Waynian.

Phonology
This section describes the phonology of the main register. For details on other registers, see the dedicated section.

Note

 * 1) There is a strong tendency in the main register of men to front vowels in closed syllables, so that /u, a/ may become [ʉ, æ].
 * 2) When a high vowel /i, y, u/ is ini a syllable with a /j/ or /w/ coda, these coalesce into the diphthongs /jɪ ɥʏ wʏ/ and /jʌ ɥɔ wɔ/.

Phonotactics
Waynian phonotactics are generally symple, as in all registers and in both sexes only CV and CVC syllables are allowed, except when a glottal stop specifically is deleted giving rise to V or VC syllables.

Writing System
Two parallel writing systems exist in Waynian: the Waynian syllabary and Wayni characters (the latter being a logographic system).

Nouns
Nouns in Central Waynian are all comprised within one of two genders, masculine and feminine, and one of three declensions.

Characteristics such as the opposition between singular and plural, gender, case and feeling are expressed through a compact, inflectional infix between the two syllables of the root word. For compounds, see the dedicated section.

Gender
Gender assignment is arbitrary in Waynian for inanimate nouns and a minority of animate nouns; other inanimate nouns may follow the assigned sex of the referent. When the noun refers to a mixed group or an unspecified gender, the feminine acts as the default form.

Case
Central Waynian distinguishes four cases: absolutive, ergative, dative and genitive.


 * The absolutive acts as the zero-case, and is normally marked by a shortened infix with no additional consonant. It is used for the entity that undergoes the action of the verb, specifically the object in the case of transitive verbs and the subject of intransitive verbs.
 * The ergative marks the subject of transitive verbs, that is someone who does an action to someone else. It is normally marked by the consonant /f/.
 * The dative is generally used as an indirect object case, being able to take the role of most prepositions in European languages, so that it can be a circumstance marker, a locative, an instrumental marker or even just a marker for any second argument of the verb. When necessary, its meaning is specified through the use of coverbs. It is usually marked by the consonant /t/.
 * The genitive marks the possessor of an object, and is usually marked by the consonant /w/. Its positioning is governed by somewhat complex rules; see the dedicated section for more.

Feeling
The feeling marker express a judgement by the speaker: this can be neutral, marked by a zero affix or /l/, or two different grades of positivity (marked by /ts/ and /ʃ/) and two different grades of negativity (marked by /h/ and /m/).

First declension
All nouns whose root has no stressed syllable are comprised in this declension. Note that for this declension, the infix is always stressed.

Note that the infixes are shown for the absolutive, ergative, dative and genitive in this order.

Feminine infixes gain a glottal stop after a vowel, except for the genitive plural.

Second declension
This declension comprises all roots which carry the stress, and whose first syllable is open.

Where only one form is shown indicates the noun has the same form in all the four cases.

Third declension
This declension is complementary to the second - in that all nouns where the root bears the stress, and the first syllable of it ends in a consonant, belong to this class. The neutral singular oblique (non-absolutive) forms cause the first syllable of the root to lose its coda consonant.

Ablaut
When the vowel of the first syllable of the root is /i/, this can change to /y/ in plural forms (and more rarely, /a/ changes to /u/). Whether this happens needs to be memorized on a case-to-case basis, although it can be said it is more common than not.

A subset of nouns that undergo ablaut also show a slightly irregular declension, in that the /y/ affix of the plural is dropped, either only in the absolutive neutral or in all neutral cases. Case declension may be preserved in this cases by a consontal affix, or not.

Possessives
Possessives are marked by a suffix after the stem, one for each person and gender, and also distinguishing inalienable from alienable possession