User:Aquatiki/Sandbox

Wedish is a conservative Judeo-Christian language spoken only between a husband and a wife. It is meant to appeal to Indo-European and Semitic language speakers. It sounds like Anglish (Germanic English without Latin influence), has Hebrew/Aramaic verbs but a variety of other influences.

Phonology

Wedish generally has British English consonants, Hebrew vowels, and simpler phonotactics. The Roman alphabet (plus four other letters) is used as an abjad. The writing of vowels is typically skipped, except in dictionaries and some poetry. A, H, O, and E (and W and Y) are used a mater lectionis, i.e. hints as to the unwritten vowels. A usually means an /a/ at the beginning of a word, H at the end. O indicates /o/ or /u/ at the start of a word, but only means /o/ medially or finally. E indicates initial /e/ or /i/

I, and U are not used.

Consonants

Consonants in IPA
	Labial		Dental		Alveolar		Post-alv.		Palatal		Velar		Glottal
Nasal		m				n						ŋ
Plosive	p	b			t	d					k	g	ʔ
Fricative	f	v	θ	ð	s	z	ʃ	ʒ			x		h
Affricate							tʃ	dʒ
Approximants		w								j
Trill						r
Lateral Approximant						l

Consonants as Written
	Labial		Dental		Alveolar		Post-alv.		Palatal		Velar		Glottal
Nasal		M				N						NG
Plosive	P	B			T	D					K	G	A
Fricative	F	V	Θ	Ð	S	Z	C	J			X		H
Affricate							Ť	Ɗ
Approximants		W								Y
Trill						R
Lateral Approximant						L

Q is used for the sound /q/ (as in Quran/Koran), but it almost universally pronounced /k/. Speakers from non-rhotic countries pronounce R as trilled, while Americans tend to make it retroflex.

Vowels

Vowels
	Front		Near-front		Central		Back
High	i~ɪ							u
High-mid			e~ɛ					o
Mid					ə
Near-low			æ
Low					a

The Hebrew vowel points are used around Latin letters, with only slight modification. The glottal stop A is used here as a place holder.

Written	Sound	Name
Ạ	/i/ as in feet or fit	Hireq/ḤR̤Q
A̤	/e/ as in bet	Sereh/S̤R̤H
A̞	/æ/ as in Sally	Qæmets/Q̞M̤T̩S
ֻA	/u/ as in boot	Qibuts/Q̣B̖T̩S	3 dots is formal. A slanted line is becoming common, i.e. A̖
Ȧ	/o/ as in boat*	Holem/ḢL̤M
A̱	/a/ as in father	Pathach/P̱Θ̱X
ְA	/ə/ as in careen	Schwa/ְCW̱	In typed contexts, the schwa is often written as a line: i.e. A̩

The Schwa may or may not be indicative of a separate syllable (see Phonotactics below).

A tilde above a letter makes it syllabic, that is, the nucleus of a syllable. Only M̃, Ñ, NG̃ (often shortened to just G̃), R̃, and L̃ may take the tilde.

Grammar

Because this language is only ever spoken between two, specific people, a great deal of narrowing in scope is possible.

Person

Wedish has the typical 3-person distinction. However, there are different forms for the husband and wife is almost every circumstance. Additionally, something like possession of the subject is marked on the verb. In the 3rd person, any number of objects may be referred to: what matters is whose "sphere" they are thought to belong to.

#	Designation	Use	Example
1M	1st Person Masculine	Used by the husband to refer to himself.	AN /I am here
1F	1st Person Feminine	Used by the wife to refer to herself.	I am here
1D	1st Person Dual	Used by the couple to refer to themselves.	We are here
2M	2nd Person Masculine	Used by the wife to refer to her husband.	You are here
2F	2nd Person Feminine	Used by the husband to refer to his wife.	You are here
3M	3rd Person Masculine	Used by either to refer to that which is of the husband.	Your hair is gone
3F	3rd Person Feminine	Used by either to refer to that which is of the wife.	Your hair is perfect
3D	3rd Person Dual	Used by either to refer to that which is mutual.	Our children are eating (now)
3N	3rd Person Neither	Used by either to refer to that which is neither's.	Other people's kids are making noise.

Case

There are no cases, per se. The ergative, or subject of a transitive clause must come before the verb,unless it is emphatic or a question (similar to English). The absolute (when denoting the object of the verb) must come after the verb, unless the clause is emphatic or a question. Genitive relationships are expressed through via the independent participle OV or its allomorph, the suffix '-V (cp. English "of"). Dative relationships come by T/T-. Ablative is handled by BO/B-. Only pronouns have separate morphology for these cases.

There are no ditransitive verbs in Wedish. All truly modal auxiliary verbs take infinitive verb objects.

Number

Broadly speaking, Wedish recognizes three numbers: singular, dual, and plural. However, there are two different plurals: collective and distributive. As with most languages, the unmarked form of the word is the singular.

Word	Meaning
Ð̩TC̱YL̃D	the child (1)
Ð̩TC̱YL̃D̤M	the children (2)
Ð̩TC̱YL̃D̤Z	the children (many, as a group)
Ð̩TC̱YL̃D̤N	the children (many, as individuals)

Gender

There is not gender in Wedish, per se. Some nouns and pronouns refer to masculine things and some refer to feminine things, but there is no agreement necessary between parts of speech.

Definiteness

Exactly as in English, there

Verbs

Wedish verbs agree with the subject/actor in person only. Tense is the main idea encoded in the verb, with aspectual qualities typically requiring adverbs or postpositional phrases. Noun incorporation is common. Incorporated verb phrases may still take either an ergative or an absolutive subject, to indicate intentionality. There is poly-personal agreement.

The only (but exceedingly common)

Nouns

Relative clauses immediately follow the noun they modify, as do adjectives, demonstratives and numerals. Genitives are post-nominal, expressed by a postclitic.

Pronoun table

#	Ergative	Absolutive	Genitive	Dative	Ablative
1M	ANY	NXN	NW	NY	BNW
1F	AK/AX	MK/MX	MYN	MY	MR
1D	W	OS	ORS	WY	BRS
2M	AT	YK	YW	YY	KWN
2F	DW	DK/DX	DYN	DY	DR
3M	HW	O
3F	HY

Derivational Morphology

Grammatical parts of speech are somewhere stricter than in English. For example, adjectives cannot be used substantively without a suffix

Form	Expects	Produces	Meaning
-NS	Adjective	Noun	"The quality of being ..." (cp. -ness)
C-	Noun	Noun	"The language of ..." (cp. -ish)
YY-	Noun	Noun	"An inhabitant of ..."

Discourse Participles

XTATY

(Lit. Heb. "I have sinned") This is very much like the English opening phrase "I confess that". While (like everything) it is possible to abuse this phrase, it typically begins an utterance with an air of confession, humility and perhaps even admission of guilt.