Viisyal

General information
The most widespread descendent of Warlok, Viisyal is spoken in the Mii empire by a flying people. It includes politeness levels that reflect the Mii's social consciousness, vocabulary attuned for flight, and a setof third person pronouns alloweing three referrents. It lacks any gender distinctions.

(This conlang was developed for a series of novels, graphic novels, and one RPG in print.  It is complete.  Please do not make any changes to this page unless you see a misspelled English word.)

Consonants
1. Consonant only formed by sound change: hɯV => ʍV ; Vt.ɬV => V.tɬV ; !i => ǁi ; zi => ʑi

2. Variation by dialect and register. The dental click ʇ is present in palace dialect, rural northern dialects, and as an affectation for sounding high class or archaic. Affricate tɕ is found in all other dialects, including standard.

3. Consonant formed by sound change and present as a final consonant. tɯ => tsɯ ; tu: => tsu: ; hi => çi ; hi: => çi: ; ga => ŋa ; F.na => F.Na

Alphabet


Viisyal uses this alphabet as a basic writing tool. The alphabet is supplemented by ~2000 logographic characters which can be encoded as CJK characters. Of these 2000 characters, only about 800 are required for basic literacy, and sur-text is provided for all characters in childrens' literature and government forms. Names often employ obscure pronunciations for characters ; it is preferable to render family names in characters but personal names can be written in alphabet only. I apologise for R appearing upside down.

Phonotactics
The syllable structure of Viisyal is CVF, where C is a consonant, V is a vowel or dipthong, and F is a final consonant. Final consonants mutate dependent on vowel length. 1. Historically t and β mutated from final -p. Final -p remains in some family and place names.

2. ts becomes ɕ after long front vowels, and s after all other long vowels.

Nouns
Nouns do not decline. If a plural is absolutely needed, the suffix /-le/ may be appended, usually in cases of emphasizing a group or when using pronouns. Context reliably informs whether a nounis being referred to in a singular or plural sense. In Viisyal orthography, the "dash" is also used to introduce foreign nouns into a sentence ; in romanisation, the foreign word is capitalised. If used in English, an example would be "What a lovely -KIMONO." Foreign nouns introduced this way do not have to conform to Viisyal phonotactics.

Pronouns

Pronouns appear in gradations of person and politeness with /-le/ as an optional pluraliser, and /-la/ as a pluraliser in informal solidified forms. The choice of pronoun can say a lot about the speaker, including eschewing pronouns altogether.

Case Marking
Viisyal marks case on nouns and noun phrases by using case marking particles. All particles come after the nouns or noun phrases they modify. These particles do not attatch to the nouns or noun phrases. However, the genitive no when used with pronouns and demonstratives can be treated as one word. More complex prepositions appear as combinations in the pattern of /N no P mi/ where N is a noun and P is a noun being used as a preposition. Eg. /nag/, usually "centre", becomes "inside of" in /N no nag mi/.

Topics /uu/ act differently from subjects marked with the nominative case. Topics take precedence over subjects by defining the theme of a sentence, or what a sentence is about or referring to overall.

Ablative /kou/ case is used both for movement away from something and in logical/because statements.

Accusative /o/ case marks the direct object of a verb.

Dative /mi/ case marks both movement toward something and the indirect object of a verb.

Genitive /no/ goes after the noun it modifies and precedes the noun that will belong to the modified word.

Instrumental /ba/ is used for both using tools and using locations. Eg. researching in a library would be using the library, and eating at a caf&eacute; would be using a caf&eacute;.

Locative /mi/ is a very versatile case, used for placing objects in the world and ideas in a conversation. (1) The lative marker /ei/ is used for verbs with a sense of active ongoing movement, such as the preposition "towards."

Nominative /a/ marks a hard subject to a verb, where the action of the subject is being emphasized. Emotions, preferences, and wishes also take a nominative case before the verb.

Verbs
Verbs appear after nouns, adjectives, and noun phrases : head-final. Verbs are conjugated with suffixes to the verb stem. Verbs are listed under their -ra (simple indicative present) form, so the stem is found by simply dropping -ra. Suffixes can stack in the order [Formality] > Modality > Aspect > Mood > Voice > Emphasis, where formality decides how a verb will be conjugated, and any other suffixes follow in order.

Verb Aspect Verb Mood Verb Modality Verb Voice Verb Emphasis Verb emphasis suffixes can stack within themselves in the order listed, though usually no more than two at a time. Additionaly, /-myou/ can be used istead of the subjunctive /xi/ if the speaker seeks input from others about the statement. /yo/ additionally may act as an evidentiary enforcing the truth of its statement. /ze/ is an impolite suffix that states emphaisis about a subject but carries a bragging tone.

Verb Politeness Informal verb suffixes are the default suffixes used. These are appropriate for speaking to friends, family, children, and equals at work. Informal speech is not approproate when speaking to social superiors, strangers, or new associates at work. It is highly offensive to use informal speech when first meeting someone or when speaking to a social superior.

Formal verb suffixes are always acceptable unless speaking to royalty.

Supplicative verb suffuxes are used when speaking to royalty, heads of corporations, or judges. The supplicative verb assumes that the speaker is being graciously allowed to speak. Many common verbs have separate supplicative roots, such that using a regular verb with supplicative conjugation is incorrect and offensive.

Syntax
oh boy howdy

Example text

 * }