Ualia

Ualia is a conlanguage designed for a predatorial species, and was originally devised by a pair of extremely bored seven year olds. Several years, many latin and japanese textbooks later, and one of the original creators losing interest fairly quickly after various obscenities were fleshed out in the tongue, there is a heavy attempt at reforming the grammar, phonology, and alphabet into coherency.

Therefore, under construction.

=Design Points= Before explaining this languge several facts must be noted.
 * It is highly regular with nigh-static evolution.
 * It has a vowelized 'r' indicated as r . This is created using a similar method to purring, pri-ing, or growling. A good replacement is to 'roll' or 'growl' the r.
 * The language, instead of relying on subjunctives for mood, uses 'forms'.
 * Prefixes and suffixes are a key point in identifying word-type.
 * The number system is both written and spoken in an arabic style. This makes large numbers rather bulky.
 * Tenses are based on interference levels, so there is no diffrentiation of pluperfect and perfect.
 * It has a number of cases on top of the typical nominative, dative and accusative. Notably the personative and variative case.
 * It is designed to be as informative as possible, whilst as minimilistic as possible.
 * There is an emphasis on verbs.
 * There are two/three dative cases, depending on the verb.
 * It is a social/hunt language.

=Natives= The species utilizing Ualian, or Lian are a predatorial species, whom would probably be called Ualians in English, but a more native pluralization of Ualia shall be used, thus, Ualis. Designed to be a carnivore with a pack-mentality dissimilar to wolves in being semi-democratic over caste with an additional emotional instinct known as 'lia'. Similar in potency to romance, lia is the highly obsessive and devoted emotions displayed between members of the species. Ualis also display an unusual inherited ability to attach memories to an energy-format (rather unscientific here, but very interesting) and therefore possess a natural ability to 'reincarnate'. The language is designed to cater to the alien psychology as best as possible, and because of the generally immortal nature of the species (it's not precisely immortal, mentally and especially not physically, but it is similar enough) the language is very static, with few irregularities. This is due to the natural evolution of the language being more or less frozen.

Physical
Ualis are semi-bipedal, and vaguely resemble felines in terms of skeleton and pieces of their anatomy, but outwardly have a very 'squirrel-like' appearance. Whilst quadruped, they primarily walk on their front-limbs, which although longer than the back-legs, are usually held more in a crouching position, or due to the tree-based life of a Ualis, are held far from the body. The front paws, also possess a second opposable thumb (evolved for a safer grip on a tree branch), and utilize a complex sheathing-method, which enables them to 'knuckle' walk, use their fingers dexterously, and scratch with retractible claws. The hind-legs are far stronger, but less dexterous, providing the spring in their movements. The back legs use a retractible method similar to felines, and have only five digits.

All the limbs possess an extra joint; in the front limbs this joint is situated mid-way between shoulder and elbow, and on the back leg this joint is further back and has less motion, oscillating between two different 'locks' depending on bipedal or quadruped motion.

The tail is semi-prehensile and covered in extremely thick fur, thus strengthening the squirrel appearance. The tail is not used for grip, but is often utilized for balance, warmth, and body language. As long as the Ualis' back, the tail is usually held in a light 'u' shape, and this position has come to mean a 'calm mood'. Ualis have excellent balance from their well-developed middle-ear, sensitive joints, pads, and whiskers and so their tails, although infinitely useful in the complex acrobatics of the 'hunt' are largely a social device, so a large amount of verbs related to tail movements are in the vocabulary.

The facial set of the Uali is slightly more canid than felid, but again, the adherence to the feline design is obvious. This felinus quality was selected because the common cat is considered a pinnacle in predatory animals, having suffered little design change. It was, thus, a logical candidate for a parallel evolution, although clearly the Ualis have deviations. The ears are large, well-formed, and although feline in shape, are larger - even if they weren't larger they would appear so due to the tufts. These tufts reinforce the squirrel image (again) and are used for communication and to channel sound into the ear. Ualis possess two whisker sets, a larger set, used to determine positioning, help balance and assist maneuvering the Ualis through tight gaps. The larger set is largely vestigial, but very translucent. The smaller set can be pricked back behind the thick cheek fur, and this gesture (pricking back and forth) has come to be part of the affirmation/negation system. The smaller set can detect certain frequencies of sound-waves, an almost radar effect and the electrical aura of living things - much like a shark.

This leads me to the Ualis senses, the Ualis possess a number of senses (including a strange defect; an inability to see purple, perceiving it as a grey) and their primary one would be sound. Scent and taste are deeply tied together, with words usually mixed between them, for example Skira, meaning 'I smell/taste', this entwining of scent and taste is due partially to their flehman reflex. Their sense of touch is limited, but they respond to pressure and balance reasonably enough. Sight is fairly important, although less relied on than scent or sound. They also have an 'air' movement or frequency detecting ability from their whiskers, as well as slight heat perception.

Their diet is generally of fresh meat and fruit, but lacks pure H20, and has a different staple fluid, blood. Not in the slightest vampiric, a Uali consumes three litres every two days minimum, and retains most of their water from it. Drinking water in a pure form is a nauseous experience, from both culture and biology, down to the deeply rooted link a'twixst being a 'prey' animal and drinking water. Ualis also retain some water from the heavily humid atmosphere of their world. The young are suckled on blood, as opposed to milk, due to a lack of mammary glands in the evolution and blood being a staple. The blood is let from the wrists, where fur is thinner, and an equal to thumb-sucking would be to gnaw on one's own wrists gently. The social implications of a blood-reliance, notably of wrist-vulnerability, have build a trust culture based upon gestures with the wrist, and the Ualis have a variety of verbs depicting particular gestures.

Psychological
The Ualis mind is constructed to be very different from that of a human, and the language structure is attempting to reflect that. A Ualis does not perceive events in a chain, but rather as a network, a net, or spider-web of interconnecting situations. This narrows down the connectives (the emphasis on placement detracts from long lists of variants favouring order) so there are extremely low amounts of connectives.

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=Alphabet= The written alphabet is a form of flexible runes that merge into eachother, in an extreme variation of the Roman style of mixing letters to conserve space. This is because the runes are a carved script, often scrawled into wood, or thick papers, and needed as much space-minimization as possible.

=Basic Grammar= ...

=Dictionary= ...

=Example text= ...

=Creator= Aliasdefeat.