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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/ tá [taːgø] 'mirror'
/ɛ/ ezk [ɛsk] 'a/an'
/ɛː/ éz [ɛːz] 'he/she/it'
/i/ kiśńa [kiʃɲə] 'cat'
/iː/ kí [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 Ä 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
IPA a æ b ts d ɛ ɛː f g h i j k l m n ɲ ɔ ɔː ø øː p x ɾ s ʃ t u v i z ʒ

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
Comitative -vyć se boźojóvyć with the egg
Instrumental -keżżő se boźojókeżżő using the egg
Vialis -hetrú se boźojóhetrú via/through/by way of the egg

Articles

There are four articles: the definate and indefinate, which both have a singular and plural forms.

Article Form Example Meaning
Definate Singular se se nosod the house
Definate Plural sett sett nosodett the houses
Indefinate Singular ezk ezk nosod a house
Indefinate Plural ezkett ezkett nosodett some/any houses

Number

There are two numbers in Vattic - the singular and plural. The plural is marked by the ending -(e)tt. For example: nosod "house" becomes nosodett "houses".

Possession

The possessor of a noun is indicated in the noun in itself by the way of a suffix.

Suffix Example Meaning
-um nosodum my house
-ud nosodud your (sing.) house
-uz nosoduz his/her/it's house
-ém nosodém our house
-éd nosodéd your (pl.) house
-éz nosodéz their house

Demonstratives

  • ves - this
  • vost - that
  • vesett - these
  • vostett - those
  • zévér - other
  • pemitt - many

Vesett nosodett lensí san. - "These houses are nice."

Verbs

Tenses

Vattic verbs are quite restricted in regards to tenses. There are five tenses, as seen in the table below, using the verb fagand "to do" as an example.

Tense Tense
Suffix
Example Meaning
Past -an fagandan did
Past Participle -anak fagandanak have done
Present -en faganden do
Present Participle -enek fagandenek am doing
Future -ún fagandún will do

Participants

The participant of a verb is notified in the noun. They take the same forms as the possessive suffixes of nouns. So for example in the sentence: tanatum nosodumpéj "I went to my house", "I went" (tanatum) and "My house" (nosodum) both take the same suffix.

Mood

There are several different moods used in Vattic which indicate various intensities of different verbs. Each mood is added to the verb in the form of a prefix, which is placed directly before the main verb root.

Mood Suffix Example Meaning
Indicative - 'kastóránanuz uzekk pórség She married him yesterday
Subjunctive kessok- kessokkastóránuz uzekk pórség (It was suggested) she marry him
Hypothetical öröm- örömkastóránuz uzekk pórség (If) she marries him tomorrow
Dubious unuhh- unuhhkastóránanuz uzekk pórség I guess she must have married him yesterday
Presumptive merré- merrékastóránuz uzekkk pórség Even if she marries him tomorrow
Conditional effe- effekastóránuz uzekk pórség ge vrökastóránuz uzekk She would marry him tomorrow if she wants to (marry him).
Desiderative vrö- vrökastóránuz uzekk pórség she wants to marry him tomorrow
Imperative ba- bakastóránud uzekk pórség! marry him tomorrow!
Cohortative lesse- lessekastóránuz uzekk pórség allow her to marry him tomorrow

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Word Order

Vattic follows a VSO word order - that is Verb-Subject-Object. The following sentences show the word order.

Vattic Sentence Gloss English Meaning
Vősan se várakin se lönenekk read the teacher the book+acc. The teacher read the book
Vősúnum se lönenekk lépéj read+fut.+I the book you+dat. I will read the book to you

Adjectives

There are three forms of each adjective: the basic, comparitive and superlative.

Basic Comparitive Superlative
lensí
nice
lensíf
nicer
lennlensíf
nicest
suggun
ugly
suggunef
uglier
lennsuggunef
ugliest
bujjan
big
bujjanef
bigger
lennbujjanef
biggest

Interrogatives

Interrogative words go to the beginning of the word, as in English.

  • qa - what?
  • qér - who?
  • qopa - why?
  • qubśí - when?
  • medod - how?
  • qancin - how much? (cost)

Pronouns

Personal Pronouns

Person Nominative Accusative Possessive
Suffix
1st Person Sing. la lakk -um
1st Person Plur. latt lattekk -em
2nd Person Sing. lékk -ud
2nd Person Plur. létt léttekk -éd
3rd Person Sing. éz ézekk -uz
3rd Person Plur. ézett ézettekk -éz

Interrogative Pronouns

Interrogative pronouns follow the same route as the interrogative questioning words. The only difference is that the dummy word "dá" is added to the beginning.

So for example, one may ask Qopa fagandanakud veś? "Why have you done this?", and an answer may be Nal veś dá qopa... "This is why...".

English Question Pronoun
what qa? dá qa
why qopa? dá qopa
when qubśí dá qubśí
how much qancin? dá qancin
how medod? dá medod
who qér? dá qér

Dummy Pronouns

Several dummy pronouns exist in Vattic. A dummy pronoun is like in English "It is raining again", where the "it" does not replace any particular noun, but is need in order to make grammatical sense.

Zke

The word "zke" is used as in the above example "It is raining again", where Zke represents "it is". It is declined according to the regular verb tense endings to become zkan "it was", zkún "it will be" etc. So someone could say Zke errenssútárenek "It is raining again" or Zkún errenssútárún "It will rain again".

A

The lexical word "a" is similar to the "there" in "there will be". It can be declined as a verb to become a (there is/are), anan (there was/were), anún (there will be) etc. So for example someone could say "There is no point in doing that" as A név radanc fagandum vostór.

Numbers

Cardinal Ordinal
0 telce telceq
1 öl öleq
2 zegg zeggeq
3 ven veneq
4 zár záreq
5 bän bäneq
6 úś úśeq
7 vennér vennéreq
8 pír píreq
9 kénced kéncedeq
10 ńez ńezeq
11 ńezöl ńezöleq
12 ńezzegg ńezzeggeq
13 ńezven ńezveneq
20 zeggńez zeggńezeq
30 veńńez veńńez
100 völcyn völcyneq
101 völcynöl völcynöleq
1000 unov unoveq

When the number is used to indicate a quantity of a noun, it is written after the noun itself. So for example: An rúgárett zeggńez means "There were twenty cars".

Dictionary

See: Vattic Dictionary

Example Text

Random Wikipedia Article

Vattic Se kavdáta nal ezk dolatebennylabíddakk dá qá ký ezk rikkakekk e-vehhenan se stókabon dőrvaśstohhe se abécében latinasta e-lýnan ńekelvettben őröpasta śqo amerikasta suksen.

Se kavdáta ko lýnan śtospek onselasekk se tranzkripasben sett ńekelvettvál suksen sett Amerikanettvál. Ves lýnas évanan sett órfografíttben dá qá e-makkonan i-mizzonárárett Kristínasta tranzkrib vesett ńekelvettekk. Ék se pennas e-daśśestenan i-anfropologgistettekk amerikasta śqo ńekelvajjattekk dá qér essyddak nepústa ves örömvőrtekk tranzkribasben fonetik veddoséggon.

Se kavdáta e-lýnan nettő tranzlitasben akademyś slavonastavál vőnzig dźúvodnihha. polenastaben, slavonastaben vőnzig dźuvodnihha, navajastaben, apaććastaben ösincim, ćirikahvastaben śqo dalekárlístaben śtospekuz se ranenon nal onselaqqan. Én dzessū ‘e’ nal ezk ‘e’ onselaqqan polenastaben, ‘a’ nal ezk ‘o’ onselaqqan śqo ném ‘a’ (ves nal lanc ńepa se ranenonsselemasvál – ‘ą’ nalan ezk ‘a’ lámónd onel ‘a’, dá zūst gavfáran ezk ‘o’ śtumvje onel, dá qubśí se lesseććas ezk ranenonvál meddoddas seffaśan.

English The ogonek is a diacritic hook placed under the lower right corner of a vowel in the Latin alphabet used in several European and Native American languages.

The use of the ogonek to indicate nasality is common in the transcription of the indigenous languages of the Americas. This usage originated in the orthographies created by Christian missionaries to transcribe these languages. Later, the practice was continued by Americanist anthropologists and linguists who still follow this convention in phonetic transcription to the present day (see Americanist phonetic notation). The ogonek is also used in academic transliteration of Old Church Slavonic. In Polish, Old Church Slavonic, Navajo, Western Apache, Chiricahua, and Dalecarlian it indicates that the vowel is nasalized. Even if ę is nasalized e in Polish, ą is nasalized o not a (this is so because of the vowel change — "ą" was a long nasal "a", which turned into short nasal "o", when the vowel quantity distinction disappeared).

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