Maiyal

Setting
Spoken on an island group known to speakers as kuótasékwé ("where they jut up suddenly"), comprising one main island and numerous smaller islands. The island is dominated by temperate rainforests in the west and low, heathland hills in the east, with both giving way to muskeg in the north. A spine of tall, glaciated mountains of volcanic origin line the western coast.

General Information
Maiyal is a highly agglutinative language, with much information encoded in affixes.

Maiyal possesses four grammatical numbers (nuller, singular, plural, and infinitive), four grammatical persons (first, second, third, and fourth), and two grammatical genders (concrete and abstract).

Other than the only truly irregular verb (lun, "to be") and verbs derived from it, all other verbs are regular and conjugation comes from suffixes. Verbs are conjugated to match the number and person of the subject, and according to mood, tense, and aspect.

Nouns are declined into seven cases and four numbers.

Maiyal is generally SOV, except when a direct and/or indirect object is present, in which case it is SVO. Pro-drop generally occurs with subjects in the first, second, and fourth persons.

Romanization
Maiyal is romanized using the following alphabet. Note there is no distinction between majuscule and miniscule. a ä b d e é g h i k l hl m n o ó p r s t tl u v w x y ai au éó éu uó

Vowels
1. [ə] is an allophone of both /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ when they occur word-finally

2. [y] and [œ] occur only in the Fjordland dialect, replacing [eu] and [eo], respectively.

3. Maiyal contains following diphthongs: /ɑi/, /ɑu/, /eo/, /eu/, /uo/

Consonants
Voiced in Bold

Sounds in brackets are allophones, see notes below.

1. [ŋ] is an allophone of /n/ when followed by a velar stop.

2. the voiceless lateral fricative [ɬ] is an allophone of /l̥/ occurring in the coda

3. [ʧ] is an allophone of /t/ when followed by /ɹ/

4. [ʤ] and [g͡ɣ] occur as realizations of the consonant clusters /dj/ and /gj/ respectively

Nasals, voiceless stops, fricatives, and [l] can be distinguished between short and long, but long consonants may only appear intervocalically.

Stress
Stress follows complex rules, and varies according to dialect. The only steadfast rules are that in polysyllabic words, primary stress never falls on the last syllable, and secondary stress never falls adjacent to the primary stressed syllable.

In the Lowland dialect, considered “standard,” the following apply.

Two syllable words always have stress on the first syllable.

In words of more than two syllables, primary stress falls on the penultimate syllable if all the vowels are single vowels. If a diphthong is present anywhere except the last syllable, stress falls on the diphthong. alélan “of the west” = a - LÉ - lan but laiwélan “of the tree” = LAI - wé - lan but laksisuo “they all escaped” = lak - SI - suo

In words of four or more syllables without diphthongs, primary stress falls on the penultimate syllable with secondary stress on the first syllable. téahié “these years” = té - a - HI - é [“te.a.‘hi.e]

If a diphthong is present anywhere except the last syllable, the diphthong takes the primary stress, and secondary stress falls on the penultimate syllable. waimpótlasiéhl “it has been good to see you” = WAIM - pó - tla - si- éhl

Unless:

1. The diphthong is on the second syllable of a four syllable word, in which case there is no secondary stress. liwainyavé “they have fallen” = li - WAI - nya - vé [li.’waj.nja.ve]

2. The diphthong is either the penultimate syllable or the syllable before the penultimate syllable, in which case the secondary stress falls on the first syllable. vuhunaura “in the wind” = vu - hu - NAU - ra [“vu.hu.‘naw.ra] ällaliwainvólé “they should have flickered” = ä-lla-li-WAIN-vó-lé [“æ.l:a.li.‘wajn.vo.le]

If the word has more than one diphthong outside of the last syllable, the diphthong closest to the penultimate syllable takes primary stress and the diphthong closest to the first syllable takes secondary stress: liwainaskéusékas “they had peeled them long ago” = li - wai - na - SKÉU- sé - kas laikannaura “amid the leaves” = lai - kan - NAU - ra

Unless:

1.The word has three syllables, in which case the first syllable takes the primary stress: uóruórés “melodious” = UÓ - ruó - rés

2. Those two syllables lie next to each other, in which case the first syllable of the word takes secondary stress rather than the first diphthong. liwainéóhrévaxa “it had sprouted” = li - wai - NÉÓ - hré - va - xa

Phonological Processes
Sounds in Maiyal are relatively stable, with mutations relatively rare. Certain metatheses occur, but the predominant phonological process involves the reduplication of vowels to break up unacceptable consonant clusters.

Gender
Nouns in Maiyal fall into one of two genders: concrete or abstract. Concrete nouns consist of things that can be experienced with any of the senses, interacted with, or otherwise experienced in the "real" world. Abstract nouns tend to describe emotions, thoughts, concepts, and other things considered to be experienced in the mind. Abstract nouns are considered uncountable, and therefore only exist in the singular, and cannot take determiners.

Number
Concrete nouns in Maiyal can exist in four numbers, the nuller, the singular, the plural, and the infinitive. The nuller is used for none of something, the singular for just one of something, the plural for a discrete quantity of something, and the infinitive for an infinite, uncountable, or uncounted quantity of something, and also the entirety of a specific quantity. While the distinction between the nuller and the other numbers is distinct, there is some leeway between the plural and the infinitive. The plural is always used when the exact number of something is known, while the infinitive is always used for all of something or for things seen as mass nouns, but for large quantities of things, it is up to the speaker to decide how countable the quantity is.

Determiners
Determiners in Maiyal are prefixes which attach to their noun.

Noun Cases
Maiyal has seven noun cases; four simple cases and three complex cases. The four simple cases are the Nominative, the Accusative, the Dative, and the Absolutive, while the three complex cases are the Genitive, the Locative, and the Essive.

Nominative
The nominative is used when a noun is the subject of a verb (with the exception of an abstract noun as the subject of an intransitive verb).

Accusative
The accusative is used when a noun is the direct object of a verb.

Dative
The dative is used when a noun is used as the indirect object of a verb.

Absolutive
The absolutive is used when an abstract noun is the subject of an intransitive sentence. Because it is only applied to abstract nouns, it only exists in the singular.

Complex Cases
The three complex cases are so called because they are composed of more than one part. Each of the three cases requires a postpositional suffix, and may optionally take positionitives, "fine-tuning" suffixes which serve to modify the postpositionals.

The Genitive indicates origin, composition, possession, and similar ideas, the Locative signifies a fixed spatial location, while the Essive indicates transition, movement, use, or temporal location.

They are all formed by suffixing, unlike the majority of the simple cases.

Each of the above cases then must take one of the following postpositional suffixes: