Conlang Relay 19/Wanya
This is Fenhl's Wanya torch from Conlang Relay 19's Conscript ring.
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Umyi Kolanda
At ləs #N ta abiömis ɹəts At ləs #V ta δiŋis ɹəts pan Ta #D altəts ena Wimats nai Ta abiömis nananəts ta δiŋis ŋi wa [na za sə bet ena] Ta δiŋis liləts ŋi wa [nai gaäl [moste menənəsoy la] ɹə bet ena]
At λino *SN[DI] fyum tazyona [ləs #N pan yuŋgaba ləs #N] səts Tazyona liləts ŋi wa [wimes nai] Ta δiŋis liləts ŋi wa [nai gaäl [moste menənəsoy la] ɹə bet ena] Tazyona liləts ŋi wa [mau sa akinoe Yuŋgaba pan oy wakirfəm bet ena At γus riŋ ariŋgoy ŋi keꝛə bet ena]
At nunis fyum tazyona tazyonəts bet ena Бi at nunis yuŋgaba wakirfus xai ena
At nunis tazyona betəts Lilats ŋi wa [soyats bet ena Riŋ ariŋgoyats luk #F luŋis pan ana [beərinis fentsis ko dulan beərinis fiöndis pan viya] sa]
Ta abiömis liləts ŋi wa [mau γus wakirfoy bet ena] Бi ta δiŋis liləts ŋi wa [nai gaäl [moste menənəsoy la] ɹə bet ena]
At λino *M,NDI yuŋgaba betəts pan Lilats ŋi wa [riŋ ariŋgoyats bedz dazyidi pan βusga ko kxon keꝛə dulan pan γɹuβa Sats ompfis]
Ta abiömis liləts ŋi wa [mau γus wakirfoy bet ena] Бi ta δiŋis liləts ŋi wa [fisoy boen ya yes Γus benuvəmoy fis] Бi fisgamyats
Vocabulary
Note that there may be multiple entries for a word if it has different meanings depending on where it is in the sentence.
- (evid.) “and”, “also”
- (n.) “badger”
- (adj.) “back”
- (conj.) “behind”
- (v.) “return”
- (adj.) “wide”, “vast”, “broad”
- (v.) “live”
- (n.) “spoken message”, “speech”
- (n.) “river”
- (adj.) “multiple”, “much”, “many”
- (conj.) introduces a relative clause (la is substituted for the noun)
- (v.) “do something”, “follow an activity”
- (conj.) introduces the meaning of a sentence, which is appended using kure (or “[”) and mai (or “]”). Usually used with the null pronoun ŋi.
- (v.) “walk”, “run”, “wander”
- (v.) “exist”
- (n.) “wolf”
- (pron.) 2nd person
- (conj.) “of”, possessive
- (adj.) “also”, “too”
- (conj.) “and”
- (n.) “rock”, “stone”
- (n.) “bird”
- (v.) “fly”
- (n.) “arrow”, “needle”, “thorn”
- (adj., evid.) locational marker, by itself stands for “at”, “near”
- (conj.) “with”
- (v.) “teach”, “educate”
- (adj.) “small”, “little”, “short”
- (v.) “talk”, “converse”, “chat”, “discuss”
- (conj.) makes the following numeral an ordinal number
- (n.) “tree”
- (adj.) “fallen”
- (pron.) 3rd person
- (tmp.) later
- (conj.) “of” (+ defining attribute), “(talking) about”, “concerning”
- (n.) “bush”
- (evid.) speaker's immediate perception
- (n.) “violet” (the flower, not the color)
- (pron.) “who”, “what”
- (evid.) abilitative mood
- (n.) “squid”
- (v.) “know”
- (conj., evid.) negation
- (evid.) “definitely”, the speaker is 100% certain
- (adj., tmp.) “quick”, “punctual”, “soon after”
- (evid.) “in my opinion”, when used with a question: “I wonder”
- (pron.) “nothing”
- (v.) “talk to sb.”, “address sb.”, “start a conversation”
- (pron.) null pronoun
- (evid.) inceptive aspect
- (adj.) “happy”
- (v.) “smile”
- (v.) “like”, “be thankful”
- (adj.) “reflecting”, “shimmering”
- (adj.) “covered”, “clothed”
- (v.) “be”, copula
- (adj.) “up”, “on”, “above”
- (n.) “hill”
- (adj.) “big”, “large”
- (conj., evid.) temporal phrase indicator, by itself it refers to the time referred to in the last sentence, but can be modified by postpositioned nouns and temporal particles
- (n.) “problem”
- (v.) “sit”, “rest”, “idle”, “wait”
- (v.) “see”, “look (at)”, “watch”, “view”
- (n.) “valley”
- (pron.) 1st person
- (adj.) “tasty”, “delicious”
Abbreviations
- adj. = adjective, adverb
- conj. = conjunction (an adjective that takes another word as its argument)
- evid. = evidential or other sentence-level modifier
- n. = noun
- pron. = pronoun
- tmp. = temporal particle (used with the temporal marker)
- v. = verb
Grammar notes
- The text and vocabulary are written in Wanya's native alphabet. You will need the chart on that wiki page in order to match the capital and small letters.
- Wanya does not use punctuation to indicate sentence breaks. The first letter of each sentence is still capitalized though.
- The basic word order is subject-verb-object.
- Sentences may begin with one or more sentence-level modifier words (called “evid.” in the vocab)
- The subject slot is left empty when the verb is in the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd person. On the other hand, the 4th person is used whenever the subject slot is not left empty.
- There is no number marking on nouns or verbs, i.e. no grammatical distinction between singular and plural. The adjective “multiple” can be used to mark something as plural, or alternatively numbers in an adjective slot.
- Numbers work as follows (taken from the main page):
Wanya uses a quinary (base-5) number system. The digits are:
- 0 —
- 1 —
- 2 —
- 3 —
- 4 —
These digits are simply chained together: 40 (base 10) = 130 (base 5) = . These are the basic rules for writing numbers in Wanya. There are the following exceptions:
- 0 as a number (not as a digit) is written as .
- Ordinal numbers start at 0, not at 1 (just like in computer science). This 0 is written as .
- If a number is or starts in , this is replaced by .
- If a number is or starts in , this is replaced by .
- The sequence , if it is not surrounded by more , is replaced by .
- If a digit occurs exactly twice in a row, the second occurrence is replaced by .
- If a digit other than occurs exactly thrice in a row, the second and third occurrences are, together, replaced by .
- If a digit occurs multiple times in a row, the sequence is replaced by the digit in question, [, the length of the sequence, and ].
All numbers are prefixed with either the symbol for the unit if there is one, or the number sign .
To quantify a noun, a number word can be used as an adjective.
- For units, the number sign () is replaced by the symbol for the unit. The only unit used in the text is the temporal unit * (), which is equivalent to one day, or 24 hours.
- Adjectives and conjunction phrases come after the noun.
- In the same way, adjectives can be added to a verb as adverbs.
- The whole adjective phrase (all adjectives and conjunction phrases behind a single noun) may be enclosed in and (or [ and ]) to avoid ambiguities.
- Verbs are inflected according to tense (present, future, past), modality (indicative, imperative, declarative), and person (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th). The forms are:
| indicative | imperative | declarative | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| present | 1 | | | |
| 2 | | | | |
| 3 | | | | |
| 4 | () | | () | |
| future | 1 | () | | |
| 2 | () | | | |
| 3 | () | | | |
| 4 | () | | () | |
| past | 1 | | | |
| 2 | | | | |
| 3 | | | | |
| 4 | () | | | |
The in parentheses is only added when required by the syllable structure
- The infinitive form of a Wanya verb (as used in the vocab list and when a verb is used as a noun) always ends on a vowel or diphthong, followed by -. Verbs are inflected by removing that and adding the suffix from the table above.
- Adjectives are "augmented" by inserting one of the following infixes directly before the nucleus of the adjective's last syllable:
- — definitely
- — very
- — extremely
Concerning education
First, a big stone appeared. Then, there was also a small stone. The two stones sat on the hillside, lacking any ambition. The big stone said to the small stone, “I wonder what's behind the hill.” The small stone answered, “there's nothing there that I would ever know for certain.”
One day, 16777216 years later, the first bird and the first wolf appeared. The bird told the stones, “you are lacking any ambition.” The small stone answered, “there's nothing behind the hill that I would ever know for certain.” The bird said, “That is not a problem. The wolf and I will go behind the hill. Then we can see whatever is over there with our own eyes.”
Without further ado, the bird started flying behind the hill. And soon enough, the wolf went up the hill onto the top.
A not very long time later, the bird came flying back. It said, “I have been there and seen four fallen trees with my own eyes. And there is a vast valley, all covered in violets, with a wide, shimmering river running through it.”
The big stone said, “I cannot go behind the hill”, while the small stone said, “there's nothing there that I would ever know for certain.”
Two and a half hours later, the wolf came back, too. It said, “I have seen many badgers with my own eyes, and thorny bushes at the river. And squids. They were delicious.”
The big stone said, “I cannot go behind the hill”, while the small stone said, “Thank you for telling me this, I can now be happy”, and smiled.
