Wanya

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Wanya
Pronounced: [ˈwan.ja]
Timeline and Universe: here and now
Species: humans
Total speakers: 1
Writing system: alphabet
Genealogy: isolate
Typology
Basic word order: SOV
Credits
Creator: Fenhl
Created: from January 2011 onward
Links
CALS

Wanya is a conlang by Fenhl. It serves as his personal language.

Phoneme inventory

Consonants
Bilabial Labiod. Dental Alveolar Post-alv. Palatal Velar Uvular Glottal
Nasal m n ŋ
Plosive p b t d k g
Fricative β f v ð s z x ɣ ʁ
Approximants w ɹ j
Trill r
Lateral Approximant l ʎ
  • In syllable codas, [ʃ] replaces [s].
  • In syllable codas, [ʒ] replaces [z].
  • [β] and [ʙ] are in free variation.
  • [ʁ] and [ʀ] are in free variation.
Vowels
Front Near-front Central Near-back Back
High i u
Near-high
High-mid ɘ
Mid
Low-mid ɛ ɔ
Near-low
Low a
  • In diphthongs, [ɪ] replaces [i].
  • In stressed syllables, [ɘ] and [e] are in free variation.
  • In unstressed syllables, [ɘ] and [ə] are in free variation.
  • [a] and [ɐ] are in free variation.

Orthography

Wanya's native script is an alphabet, curretly in development.

Wanya has two romanizations: the Unicode-based romanization which always has exactly one letter for one sound (or letter in the native script), and the ASCII-friendly romanization which only uses Latin capital and small letters, spaces, and optionally punctuation marks. Here they are in comparison:

Phoneme Unicode-based ASCII-friendly
b d ɡ Б b D d G g B b D d G g
w ɹ j W w Я ɹ Y y W w Ll ll J j
p t k P p T t K k P p T t K k
ð l ʎ Δ δ L l Λ λ Dd dd L l Y y
i ɘ u I i Ǝ ə U u I i X x U u
β r ʁ B β R r Bb bb Rr rr R r
v z ɣ V v Z z Γ γ V v Z z Gg gg
m n ŋ M m N n Ŋ ŋ M m N n Nn nn
f s x F f S s X x F f S s Kk kk
ɛ a ɔ E e A a O o E e A a O o

You can use the diaeresis like this:

  • rais [raɪʃ]
  • raïs [ra.iʃ]
  • kuai [kuaɪ]
  • kuäi [ku.aɪ]
  • kuaï [kua.i]
  • kuäï [ku.a.i]

Each example is a different word, and could theoretically have a different meaning.

Grammar

  • The basic sentence structure is SVO.
    • The subject is left out when the verb is in the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd person. Conversely, the 4th person requires the subject to be explicitly mentioned.
  • There is no number marking on nouns or verbs, i.e. no distinction between singular and plural.

Verbs

In Wanya there are two types of verbs which are inflected differently from each other. There are vowel verbs, whose stems end on a vowel, and consonant verbs. Wanya also has irregular verbs: their stem ends on a vowel, but they are inflected like consonant verbs.

The infinite suffix is -nda for vowel verbs, and -onda for consonant verbs.

Verbs are inflected according to tense (present, future, past), modality (indicative, interrogative, imperative, declarative), and person (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th). If you count the two verb classes and the infinite forms in, that makes 98 different verb suffixes.

Adjectives

Adverbs are to verbs what adjectives are to nouns, and Wanya treats them exactly this way.

Vocabulary

  • bunn. word
  • benondavc. to live
  • baunn. sheep
  • dꝛandavv. to work
  • wann. language
  • yaconj. by, from, of
  • kalan. list
  • kondavc. to have
  • δəconj. (together) with, containing, of
  • viyann. violet (flower)
  • zuïyun. convention, standard, tradition
  • mavinadj. evil
  • nyeŋadj. cheeky
  • naevid. hopefully
  • fin. light
  • fisadj. happy
  • faŋn. fish
  • sindavv. to read
  • anianj. long
  • ompfondavc. to eat

abbreviations

  • adj. adjective
  • conj. conjunction
  • evid. evidential
  • n. noun
  • nn. noun and name
  • vc. consonant verb
  • vv. vowel verb