Yesega



Yesega (ზესეგა yesega, [ʐeˈsegə], [ʝeˈsegə]) is a prosteriori language, being mainly Indo-European. This language's culture, however, evolved to be fairly isolated. This resulted in its obscure phoneme inventory and unusual syntax and grammar. It uses 15 chracters from the Georgian alphabet, as well as 〈’〉 to represent the glottal stop. Its closest lignuistic relatives are Ancient Greek, Latin, and Romanian with small influences from Russian and Japanese.

=Etymology=

The history of the word Yesega comes from the Middle Yesegan word for language, ზეზეგა zezeka, which originates from Proto-Yesegan ეზე' ezeq meaning "tounge". This comes from the Late Proto-Slavic *ęzỳkъ.

Several etymological roots can be seen from Latin sources, however some words have been highly distorded due to isolation. An example of this includes the word for "eye" which is ჰუ'უმ hu'um, coming from oculus→oku→hoqum→hu'um.

=Dialects=

The standard dialect of Yesega is fomally called ზესეგა გუმუნ yesega gumun, meaning "communal Yesega". A small portion of the speakers, mostly the older generation, have subtle differences. 〈y〉 is pronounced [ʝ] rather than standard [ʐ], and 〈f〉 is pronounced [f] and sometimes [ɱ] between vowels rather than [ɸ].

=Phonology=

Consonants
1[n] becomes [ ŋ] when used as  〈ნგ, ng〉.

Vowels
1[a] becomes [ə] when unstressed.

Stress
The stress on a syllable of a word depends of the final phoneme.

Ending in a Vowel or Nasal
Words ending in any vowel, M, or N places stress on the second to last syllable.


 * ემნე emne; გაუნ gaun; მეუმ meum

Ending in a Consonant and Ng
Words that end in a consonant other than M or N has stress on the final syllable.


 * ეტერ eter; ატაშ atas; ნარანგ narang

=Grammar=

Reflexive

 * In standard Yesega, a speaker will usually put ეტ et linking the personal pronoun to its reflexive.