Vattic

Phonology

Vowels

Vattic distinguishes between long and short vowels, and as such has a symmetrical system of 6 short vowels and 6 long. The phonetic quality of these vowel pairs does not differ, just the duration.

Phoneme	Example
/a/	vak [vak] 'hole'
/aː/	tágö [taːgø] 'mirror'
/ɛ/	ezk [ɛsk] 'a/an'
/ɛː/	éz [ɛːz] 'he/she/it'
/i/	kiśńa [kiʃɲə] 'cat'
/iː/	kíbő [kiːbøː] 'bird'
/ɔ/	onyć [ɔnitʃ] 'to steal'
/ɔː/	péró [pɛːrɔː] 'ruler'
/u/	muććet [mutʃːɛt] 'to pout'
/uː/	lú [luː] 'rain'
/ø/	öneśyl [ønɛʃiɫ] 'wine'
/øː/	mettő [mɛtøː]

There are no dipthongs in Vattic, and vowels do not come into contact with eachother. If a situation arises where two vowels would need to be placed next to eachother (such as in compound words or the addition of a suffix), an auxillary 'n' is placed inbetween them. This is highlighted in the following: "dégge" ('heel') + "órogő" ('high') = "déggenórogőt" ('high heels (shoes)').

Consonants

	Bilabial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m		n		ɲ
Plosive	p b		t d			k g
Fricative		f v	s z	ʃ ʒ		x	h
Affricate			ts dz	tʃ dʒ
Approximant					j
Tap			ɾ
Lateral Approximant			l

• /m/ and /n/ become [ɱ] before /f/ and /v/ as in kunfel [kuɱfɛl] "horse".
• /n/ becomes [ŋ] before /k/, /g/ and /x/, as in sanqábok [saŋxaːbɔk] "to sit"

Gemination

All fricatives and affricates can be geminated (i.e. pronounced longer than ususal). This is indicated by the doubling of the consonant letter: ssém [sːɛːm]. Gemination can occur at the beginning, middle and end of a word. In words where a stop consonant is doubled, it does not have any effect on pronunciation.

Orthography

The Vattic Orthography follows a predominantly phonemic principle, with each letter representing one phoneme. However, some phonemes may be represented by more than one letter and can sometimes cause confusion.

Alphabet

The alphabet consists of 38 letters. These are all the letters of the standard latin alphabet except 'w' and 'x', plus numerous letters modified with a diacritic mark.

Uppercase

A

Á

B

C

Ć

D

E

É

F

G

H

I

Í

J

K

L

M

N

Ń

O

Ó

Ö

Ő

P

Q

R

S

Ś

T

U

Ú

Ū

V

Y

Ý

Z

Ź

Ż

IPA

a

aː

b

ts

tʃ

d

ɛ

ɛː

f

g

h

i

iː

j

k

l

m

n

ɲ

ɔ

ɔː

ø

øː

p

x

ɾ

s

ʃ

t

u

uː

uː

v

i

iː

z

ʒ

dz

Collation

In Vattic, the letters with diacritics like 'á' and 'ö' are treated as letters in their own right, representing distinct sounds from their non-diacritic counterparts. Therefore, in alphabetical ordering they are placed after their parent letter. So for example ozzýn comes before óban.

The Letters I and Y

The letters 'i' and 'y' both represent the phoneme /i/ (with their long counterparts 'í' and 'ý' both representing /iː/). There is no specific rule which governs when 'i' should be used over 'y' and vice versa, so it a simple matter of memory, but 'y' sees a much more marginal use than 'i' so a guess at 'i' would be sufficient. The reason for having both letter representing the same phoneme derives from Early Vattic, where 'y' represented the phoneme /y/. After /y/ lost its roundedness and became /i/, the orthography was not changed.

The Letter Ū

Ū represents the long vowel /uː/, the same sound as 'ú' and the long counterpart of 'u'. It derives from the collapse of the sequence /uhu/ in Early Vattic, which later voiced to become [uɦu], and then the [ɦ] was lost altogether, resulting in [uː], which was notified by this letter.

Capitalisation

As in most languages, the first letter of a sentence is capitalised. However, in proper nouns the capitalisation is much more sporadic.

• In names of people, the fist letter is always capitalised, as in almost every other language.
• In names of places, the first letter is always capitalised, for example tanatum Londynpéj "I went to London". This is also the case in road names.
• In the names of months and days which are always capitalised in english, the first letter is never capitalised. For example Londynpéj tanatum ūnavességgón "I went to London on Tuesday".
• Language names and demonyms are never capitalised, for example anlasta vessaluz "she speaks English".

Basic Grammar

Nouns

Vattic nouns follow a rich system of inflection, with numerous noun cases, and different endings indicating things like number and possession.

Case

There are numerous noun cases in Vattic. The following table shows a detailed list of the cases found in Vattic, using the noun boźojó "egg".

Case	Case Suffix	Example	Meaning
Nominative	-	se boźojó	the egg (as a subject)
Accusative	-kk	se boźojókk	the egg (as an object)
Dative	-péj	se boźojópéj	to the egg
Genitive	-vál	se boźojóvál	of the egg, the egg's
Ablative	-luce	se boźojóluce	because of the egg
Adessive	-śul	se boźojóśul	near the egg
Apudessive	-sydd	se boźojósydd	next to the egg
Inessive	-ben	se boźojóben	inside the egg
Intrative	-nić	sett boźojóttnić	between the eggs
Subessive	-bon	se boźojóbon	under the egg
Superessive	-pám	se boźojópám	ontop of the egg
Vialis	-hetrú	se boźojóhetrú	via/through/by way of the egg