Viyadish

Viyadish (or Viyädiş) is the language of Viyade people (or Viyädyä). The language is widely spoken in The Mediterranean Sea and is one of the Sacred Empire's official language. The Viyadish speaker constitute 85% population of the Princely state of East Oskan, 75% of Qağız Khanate, 35% of the Kingdom of Estana, and 20% of the Duchy of Gondval and the Kingdom of Irygia.

Viyadish is a language that belongs to Ochkhon (or Oçxon) language family. Its origin is believed to be the steppe in the central of continent, the westside of Indastra River, somewhere around lake Karqortay. Viyade migrated the the Golden Bay about 300 years ago, and spread around the Mediterranean Sea.

Viyadish's basic vocabulary contains a lot of words related to woods, berries, and snow, implying that Viyade people once inhabited in or near the subalpine zone.

Viyadish has variable of dialects around the world. Most of them have been borrowing a significant number of word from local languages, making it difficult to communicate to other Viyadish speakers from other regions. In many cases they are classified as Pidgin languages rather than dialects. This article will introduce the classical Viyadish —or canonical Viyadish— which is thought to be the closest to the original one spoken by ancient Viyade people.

Classical Viyadish is stronly aggutinative and high-context language. It has abundant suffixes and particles that conveys emotional or situational context. On the other hand, the language rarely has indication of person and number in the sentece, forcing the linstener to figure them out from the context. The gender is not indicated by grammar but instead by using different words. Honorific expression is highly developed in Viyadish, but they are precisely systemized.

The dominant word order is SOV. However, Classical Viyadish is an extreme topic-prominent language. Subject, object, and verb can be indicated as the topic by adding a suffix -nın. The topic will be located at the beginning of the sentence.

Consonants
Viyadish has consonant harmony. Typically, voiced and unvoiced sounds are exchangible to each other according to a word's suffix. All he nasal consonants (m, n and ŋ) are replacable to each other according to the following suffix of a word. There are some consonants that are never followed by specific vowels, such as /q/ to rounded vowels, /w/ to any vowels but /o/, and /ɰ/ to any vowels but /ɯ/. /dʒ/ and /ʑ/ is not distinguished in Viyadish.

Vowels
Viyadish has vowel harmony. The vowels are classified to four categories. Vowels of the suffixes will be assimilated to the vowel from the last syllable of a word. Vowels in the prefixes will be assimilited to the vowel from the first syllable of a word. A word always contain only rounded vowels, otherwise only unrounded vowels. Vowel length is clearly distinguished in Viyadish, since the length is correlated to the vowel stress. Diphthong is exrtemely few and is rare found in vocabulary.

Phonotactics
Viyadish syllable allows only V, CV and CVC. Loan words and translation will drop/add vowels to meet this requirement.


 * The onset (C) includes any consonants, but the onset of the first syllable does not allow voiced velar fricative /ɣ/ and glottal fricative, /h/
 * The nucleus (V) can be any vowel, harmonized by the vowel of the first syllable
 * The coda (C) includes /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, /p/, /t/, /k/, /ʂ/, /z/, /tʃ/, /r/, /l/, /j/

Diphthongs are counted as two syllables. Long vowels and are counted as two morae. The coda is also counted as one mora. As a result, one syllable can account for up to three morae.

Stress
(1)The syllable with long vowel is always stressed. (2) Suffixes are not stressed, but prefix can be streessed. In that case, the first syllable of the stem is the second accent. (3) As far as it meet requirement (1) and (2), the first syllable is the weakest. The second syllable is stressed the most.

Personal Pronouns
There is no distinction of gender in personal pronouns. There is neither dintinction of number, but one can add the suffix qımğı (or kimği) to indicate that the noun is plural. There is, however, the distinction of 1st plural that includes the 2nd person (orma) or not (aňa). The former one is called inclusive and the later one is called exclusive. Viyadish is sensitive to the relation between the speaker (1st person) and the listener (2nd person); distinction of inclusiveness is one of the figures representing this characteristic.

Other Pronouns
Viyadish pronouns function quite differently from those of Indo-European languages. There are five types and four classes. The types are: object, person, location, choice, and manner. Demonstratives are pronouns that function as determiners of following nouns, such as this, that, and these in English. Viyadish demonstrative pronouns do not distinct the number of gender, but they do indicate the distance of the determined 'thing' from the speaker and the listener to four forms: proximal, mesoproximal, mesodistal, and distal. Proximal and distal works just like this and that in English, respectively. Mesodistal indicates that a thing is far away from the speaker but close to the listener. Mesoproximal is used when a thing is close to the speaker but remote from the listener. Mesoproximal is particularly used when the listener is considered to be away from the speaker, both physically and non-physically.

The other three classes of pronouns are : interrogative, indefinite, and negative. Interrogative pronoun is also known as question word. Indefinite indicates a thing that is not definite, or in other words, determined. Words such as something, anyone, everybody are indefinite pronouns. Nerative indicates that a thing does not exist. Words like none or nobody are negative pronouns. Interroggative pronouns of object, person, location, choice, and manner can be traslated to what, who, where, which, and how, respectively. Unlike question word in English, Viyadish interrogative pronouns functions purely as a noun, which means that they can declined to many cases.

Assertive pronouns of object, person, location, choice, and manner can be traslated to something, somebody, somewhere, one (in "Choose one from these"), and somehow. These pronouns do not indicate the number or gender. Elective pronouns of object, person, location, choice, and manner can be traslated to anything, anybody, anywhere, anyone, and any way. Elective pronouns spefically used to deny other things that is not included in the following word. Collective pronouns of object, person, location, choice, and manner can be traslated to everything, everybody, everywhere, everyone, and every way. However, collective pronouns are never used like "everybody listen!" in English.


 * 1) Oğulun ınım? Ene, oğulú uxunum. (Is there anybody? Oh, there isn't anybody.)