Vasỳkaa

Vasỳkaa (/va.sè .kaː /, anglicized Vaseyka) is a language of the Lhuban family. It is spoken in Sèè Tjálaa Èkuuholààta on the planet Ììlęę (Aysling), where it is an official and national language. It is spoken as a first language by 6 million people; it does not have a significant second-language speaker population.

Classification and Dialects
Vasỳkaa is the second-most spoken member of the Lhuban family. It is one of three extant languages of the Northern branch, the only extant branch of the family. The other two languages, Iathi and Throlyen, are closely related though not mutually intelligible with each other or Vasỳkaa.

Consonants

 * nasals and /l/ can be geminate intervocalically

Vowels

 * all vowels, including nasal vowels, can occur long

Tone
Vasykaa is a tonal language. The language distinguishes four tones: mid tone (unmarked), high tone (acute accent), low tone (grave accent), and falling tone (circumflex accent).

Phonotactics
All syllables are of the form CV, where C can be any consonant and V can be any vowel. There are no consonant clusters, codas, or diphthongs.

Stress
Stress is not distinctive in Vasykaa, much like in French. This means that two words may not be differentiated based on stress alone, as can be the case in English such as in the pair "dessert" and "desert." In fact, the difference between stressed and unstressed syllables is much less marked than in English, making such a distinction impossible anyway.

Writing System

 * geminate consonants and long vowels are written as double letters in orthography

Example text

 * Kęjęsaa sỳ tyjuny tŷta pálatá le mijutá be se dóvę̀ le sỳ tédali. Bąjýsaa dą́ą́ sy se tę̀ le se inu so dą́ą́ otą̀ą̀kàà pá se ǫ dàta sy e timi te se kupevo.


 * "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."