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.

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.