Velyan

Velyan is one of the two main classical languages of the continent Pellargos, on the planet Máa. Máa is an alternate Earth planet.

Phonology

Vowels

There are 12 vowels, each of which can be short or long.

Vowels
	Front		Near-front		Central		Near-back		Back
High	i	y								u
Near-high
High-mid			e	ø						o
Mid
Low-mid
Near-low			æ
Low					a

Consonants

Consonants
	Bilabial		Labiod.		Dental		Alveolar		Post-alv.		Palatal		Velar		Uvular		Glottal
Nasal		m				n							ŋ
Plosive	p					t							k		q
Fricative						s	ʃ					(x)	h		χ
Approximant	ʋ											j
Trill								rː
Flap								ɾ
Lateral Approximant								l

Tone

Velyan has three basic tones, called high, mid and low. The high and low tones are marked with accents, whilst the mid tone is the default tone and is not marked. The high tone is marked by an acute accent over back and neutral vowels (á é í ó ú) and by a double-acute accent over front vowels (a̋ ő ӳ); similarly, the low tone is marked by single or double grave accents: (à ȁ è ì ò ȍ ù y̏).

Long vowels and diphthongs have tone sequences, which can be either mid (aa, äi), high (éé, éí), low (íí, íó), high-falling(1) (áu, éÿ) or (2) (íù, íy̏), rising(1) (ùe, èӱ) or (2) ( ')

Vowel harmony

Velyan phonotactics restrict the vowels that can appear in any one word to a subset of the entire inventory. Vowels are divided into three groups: front vowels (ä, ö, ü), back vowels (a, o, u) and neutral vowels (e, i). All vowels in a word must be either front vowels, or back vowels, but not both (though neutral vowels can appear in words with either front or back vowels.)

Initial Consonant Mutation

In Velyan, consonants at the beginning of words undergo a process of initial consonant mutation', whereby an initial p, t, or k is mutated to its equivalent nasal consonant (respectively m, n or ŋ under certain conditions. Conversely, under the same conditions the consonants m, n or ŋ mutate to the consonants p, t or k. The conditions under which this happens are explained more fully in the section on Syntax.

Consonant Gradation

The phenomenon of consonant gradation arises due to a restriction in Vielan words, that prohibits a "strong" syllable from ending in a consonant. A strong syllable is a syllable that begins with a consonant and is preceded by another ending in (at least) one consonant. When this happens, the consonant or cluster at the beginning of the final syllable undergoes lenition or softening (although it can be historically explained as a process of fortition or hardening).

The following changes occur as a result of consonant gradation:

1. Geminate phonemes change to simplex ones, e.g. tt -> t, rr -> r, ss -> s.

The remaining changes only affect plosives and clusters containing plosives: Clusters change as follows:

1. Nasals:
   1. Nasal + voiceless plosive changes to geminate nasal, e.g. mp -> mm, nt -> nn
2. Liquids:
   1. lt -> ll
   2. lp -> lv
   3. lkU -> lvU
   4. rkU -> rvU
   5. lkI -> lji
   6. rkI -> rji
3. Consonant clusters beginning with s:
   1. sp -> sv
   2. st -> *sr -> rs
   3. sk -> ss
4. Consonant clusters ending with s:
   1. ps -> *vs -> sv
   2. ts -> rs
   3. ks -> s
5. Simplex consonants
   1. t -> r
   2. p -> v
   3. k -> Ø
   4. iki -> iji
   5. -UkU -> UvU
   6. v -> w

Transcription

Below is a table of the IPA sounds of Velyan, with transcription.

IPA	Letter
a	a
æ	ä
e	e
h	h
i	i
j	j
k	k
l	l
m	m
n	n
ŋ	ŋ
o	o
ö	ö
p	p
q	q
r	r
ɾː	rr
s	s
ʃ	š
t	t
u	u
y	ÿ
ʋ	v

Notes:

1. Long vowels and geminate consonants are written double, e.g. aa, kk. Note that /ɾː/ is the geminate counterpart of /r/.

Morphology

Nouns

Nouns are divided into noun classes and inflect for quality, dimension, age, tense/aspect, number, case, possessor, destination and deixis. Suffixes (there are no prefixes or infixes in Vielan) are added to the noun, or (more often) to the oblique stem.

Noun Classes

There are several noun classes, reflecting the division of nouns into several semantic categories. The noun classes are added to a notional form of the noun known as the base. In some cases, the base of a noun ends in one of the letters l, n, r, s, or t, and the noun is in Class IX, which has no suffix; in these cases the base form does surface.

The class suffixes are as follows:

Class		Meaning		Suffix
I		Divine Female		-tAri
II		Divine Male		-tAr
III		Female Human		-O
IV		Masculine Human		-A
VI		Female Professional		-jA
V		Male Professional		-ri
VII		Animate (Non-Human)		-e
VIII		Inanimate I		∅
IX		Inanimate II		-i
X		Abstract		-U
XI		Small Place		-lA
XII		Large Place		-mA
XIII		Instrument		-in

Number

Number in Velyan distinguishes the following categories: general, singular ("one"), dual ("two"), paucal ("more than two, upto about 10 or a dozen"), plural ("more than ten or a dozen") and collective ("all"). The general form of the noun is the form used when citing the noun in general contexts. as in the English equivalents The lion is a member of the cat family. The number suffixes differ depending on whether the suffix is the last suffix on the noun, or is followed by a suffix beginning with a consonant or a vowel.

Deixis

In English, the demonstratives "this", "these", "that" and "those" are used to point out objects located in space or time. In Vielan, the demonstratives occur as prefixes on the noun, and, in addition, there is a three-way distinction as opposed to the two-way distinction of English (similar to Spanish esto, eso, aquel or the archaic "this, there, yon".

The suffixes are as follows:

Demonstrative Suffixes
		Near	Medial	Far
		-ŋi	-ði	-mi

These forms are clearly related to the possessive suffixes (below).

Possession

Nouns take suffixes to show possession.

Verbs

Verbs are divided into two groups: the transitive conjugation and the intransitive conjugation. Verbs in the intransitive conjugation inflect for person, class/gender and number of the patient; gender and number of the addressee; tense; aspect; voice; mood and verbal number. Verbs in the transitive conjugation also inflect for person, class/gender and number of the agent, indirect object and beneficiary. There are also evidential suffixes and non-finite forms, comprising infinitives, participles, and gerunds.

Tense

There are four tenses: present, past, remote past and future.

Compound Tenses

There are compound tenses formed from the past participles of verbs in all moods plus the appropriate tense of the verbs ralta (an old verb meaning "to have") for verbs of the transitive conjugation, or halka (the full form of the existential verb which now survives as a suffix on nouns) for verbs of the intransitive conjugation.

Aspect

There are seven aspects: aorist, imperfect, perfective, continuative, inchoative, habitative, and conclusive.

Voice

There are five voices: active, passive, antipassive, medial and reciprocal.

Mood

There are eight moods, comprising the indicative, the imperative, the hortative, the optative, the desiderative, the necessitative, the obligative, and the similitive,

Infinitives

There are infinitival (non-personal) forms for all tenses and aspects except the imperative.

Numbers

The numbers from 1 to 20 are:

hanki 1 rotpi 2 tÿötki 3 papsi 4 vuusi 5 kauvi 6 kirpi 7 lÿÿlli 8 saunnyi 9 muupi 10 hankimuupi 11 rotpimuupi 12 työtkimÿÿpi 13 papsimuupi 14 vuusimuupi 15 kauvimuupi 16 kirpimuupi 17 lyyllimÿÿpi 18 saunnyimuupi vappi 20