Wiobian

Classical Wiobian
Writing system:	Wiobian script
Credits
Creator:	IlL

Modern Standard Wiobian
Writing system:	Wiobian script
Credits
Creator:	IlL
Created:	2200 v.C.

Lexicon
Wiobian Verse
engunn&fiungs mieh Wäls tur Wiob-Hien! ("View this page in Wiobian!")
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The term Wiobian language(s) or Wiobic languages collectively refers to an isolate branch of closely related but mutually unintelligible Gamedan languages, spoken in Wiobermin, that descend from Proto-Wiobian:

• Classical Wiobian
  • Modern Standard Wiobian (Greater Wiobian), based on the capital Tußtefar's dialect.
  • Gaufian dialect, the second-largest dialect
  • Kurmerian dialect, spoken in the Kurmerian Mountains
  • Bäntilian dialect
  • Watmerian dialect, the most conservative of the modern dialects

In-universe, Wiobian phonology and grammar has been greatly influenced by the language's position in the Jenkeric Sprachbund, including Naengic languages and other languages. Wiobian has been heavily influenced by neighboring analytic mono- or sesquisyllabic languages since Gamedan speakers first arrived at the plains of the Ihumber River (Especially by immigrant speakers of these neighboring languages who arrived for reasons of trade, etc.), and eventually itself took part in tonogenesis. As a result, Modern Standard Wiobian has 5 tones and is much more phonotactically restricted than Classical Wiobian.

In the real world, Wiobian and the Jenkeric Sprachbund are inspired by the German language and East Asian tonal languages, exploiting the similarities between them, for example minor syllables in both German and Old Chinese. (Note to self: also cf. Mizo.) Wiobian in particular was created out of the need to justify the peculiarities of the Trây script. Also, instead of compounds being written as one continuous word I'm trying hyphens and ampersands. Ampersands, you say?!? It's a full on Bad Conlanging Idea, "imagine a future where English sounds like Chinese."

Notes on notation

• ⁱ - denotes i-umlaut of the root.
• ^u - denotes u-umlaut of the root.

Orthography

See also: Wiobian/Script.

Wiobian is written in an alphabet (with characteristics of an abugida?). The spelling rules reflect Classical Wiobian pronunciation; subsequent sound changes have made the relationship between orthography and pronunciation more opaque. (Take every problem with English or Tibetan spelling. It's worse in Wiobian ^.^)The transliteration of Wiobian used in this article attempts to reflect the Wiobian orthographical spelling standardized near the end of the Classical Wiobian period and re-standardized in the modern period in 1811 v.C. using classical texts and internal reconstruction from Wiobian dialects (especially using the Watmerian dialect, known for its conservatism in unstressed prefixes). Another factor in the orthography is that literacy was limited to the upper class. Thus often the elites spoke one language while writing in a fossilized form of the language, so that e.g. case endings were still written even after most of them dropped out in the spoken language, which was, however, written in the strict syntax of the vernacular.

One of the great challenges that Modern Wiobian presents to the learner is, needless to say, its deep orthography. Compounding this difficulty is the fact that the language of the spelling is not even a direct ancestor of the language spoken in Tußtefar in 2200 v.C.! Classical Wiobian spelling is itself an artificial koiné, a result of splitting the pronunciation difference between dialects at the time.

Modern Standard Wiobian employs consonant alternations triggered by originally unstressed prefixes. One difficulty is that originally unstressed prefixes often don't change a word's pronunciation anymore, because the particular initial consonant is immune to the mutation caused by the prefix:

• mezz - 'wait'
• bemezz - 'long for'

are both pronounced /məi̯k˥/. The homophony was solved by compounding nouns and verbs with other words to disambiguate them, creating a wealth of compounds, as in Chinese.

Capitalization

Wiobian orthography has capital and lowercase letters. Wiobian capitalizes all nouns, but not necessarily words that are in the beginning of the sentence; this is reflected in the Romanization.

Punctuation

The Lusk-Frann ("binding mark") is a hyphen-like symbol used to link genitive nouns to their heads. It is transcribed with a hyphen (-).

The Je-Huy ("je-space"), also called the serializer in English, is used to link coordinated components in compounds and serial verbs. As its name suggests, it also indicates a missing je ('and') in poetry. The serializer is transcribed with an ampersand (&).

Historical phonology

Proto-Gamedan to Classical Wiobian

• PGam *h-, *ʔ- > *0
• PGam *z > *h
• PGam *s > *ts
• Lateral obstruents become palatal obstruents
• "Grimm's law"
  • PGam plain stops become fricatives
  • PGam voiced stops become aspirated stops
  • PGam ejective stops become voiced stops
• Uvulars debuccalize
  • Plain uvular stops /q ɢ/ become /ʔ/
  • Plain uvular fricative /χ/ merges with /x/ into /x~h/

Classical Wiobian

A major source for reconstructing the phonology of Classical Wiobian is borrowings from and into neighboring languages with stable and conservative phonologies, such as Trây.

Phonotactics

(C)(C)V(C)(C)(C)

Consonants

Change to Icelandic-like system? "voiced" plosives are unvoiced unaspirated but become voiced between resonants, "voiceless" plosives are aspirated. This will require an adjustment of Trây orthography though

Classical Wiobian features a greatly simplified system of 22 consonants (comparable to Themsarian, also with 22 consonants).

Unlike in English or German, voiceless plosives were not aspirated. (Und Achtung Deutschsprachige: Im Wiobischen kommt keine Auslautverhärtung vor! This is because I need more open syllables in Modern Wiobian)

Classical Wiobian consonants

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Labiovelar	Glottal
Nasal		m /m/		n /n/	[ɲ]	ng /ŋ/
Plosive	voiceless	p /p/		t /t/	z /c/	k /k/	qu /kʷ/	Ø, -h /ʔ/
	voiced	b /b/		d /d/	ɟ /ɟ/	g /ɡ/
Affricate				ß /ts/
Fricative		f /f~v/	þ /θ~ð/	[s]	s /ç~ʝ/	h, ch /x~ɣ/	ƕ /xʷ~w/	h /h/
Trill				r /r/
Approximant				l /l/	j, -y /j/		w, -v /w/

n assimilates before palatal plosives to /ɲ/ and before velar plosives to /ŋ/.

A syllable cannot begin with a vowel in Wiobian. The "null" initial in the orthography is actually the glottal stop initial.

In early Classical Wiobian /h/ and /x/ were allophones in free variation.

The gemination sign, transcribed as c, is often used in early classical texts. It acts like the Japanese sokuon symbol: mecl /mell/ 'slide! (2nd person singular)'. By late Classical Wiobian most gemination signs fell into obsolescence and were replaced with double letters. c only survived as part of the grapheme ch [x], which must have been in complementary distribution with h [h] by that time, in view of the fact that Nuß-Duom&Eik lists [h] and [x] as distinct sounds.

All fricatives (namely f, þ, s, (c)h, ƕ) are voiced between voiced segments. The phonemes /θ/ and /ts/ merged into /s/ in late Classical Wiobian; however, only former /θ/ displays the voicing alternation [s~z].

Vowels

The vowel system is more complex, distinguishing about 9 vowel qualities with length in stressed syllables.

Vowel length was not directly marked on the vowel. In Early Classical Wiobian each vowel had an independent length. This changed in Late Classical Wiobian when vowels before two consonants were shortened and vowels before one consonant were lengthened, so that the orthographic final came to determine vowel length. Thus, Tumm 'bird' and trum 'flat' are respectively pronounced in Early Classical Wiobian /tuːmː/ and /trum/, which in Late Classical Wiobian became /tumː/ and /truːm/.

Classical Wiobian vowels

	Front				Central		Back
	unrounded		rounded
	short	long	short	long	short	long	short	long
Close	i /i/	i /iː/	ü /y/	ü /yː/			u /u/	u /uː/
Close-mid	e /e/	e /eː/	ö /ø/	ö /øː/	e /ə/		o /o/	o /oː/
Open-mid	ä /ɛ/	ä /ɛː/					å /ɔ/	å /ɔː/
Open					a /a/	a /aː/

Diphthongs: au aü ei ia ie io iu uo üö, pronounced as expected.

The vowel å arises from a with u-umlaut.

Stress

Syllables may have primary or secondary stress. The first syllable of the root is heavily stressed, at the expense of prefixes and endings. The first component of compounds receives primary stress while the subsequent parts receive secondary stress.

Classical Wiobian to Early Middle Wiobian

The development of Classical Wiobian to Middle Wiobian saw tonogenesis and increasing analyticity.

Rimes

Stressed environments

Finals after a vowel:

• -b > [-ʷ˩]
• -f > [-ʷ˥]
• -d, -g > [-˩]
• -þ, -ß, -h, -ch > [-ː˥]
• -ɟ > [-j˩]
• -s > [-j˥]
• -l > [-w]/[-j] depending on the vowel
• -r > [-ː]

"Entering tone" finals:

• -p > [-p̚]
• -t > [-t̚]
• -z > [-c̚]
• -k > [-k̚]

2ndary stress

Not very common, analogized to primary stress due to increasing analyticity. Only occurs with some compound word components that have lost their meaning.

Early Middle Wiobian

The phonological inventory of Middle Wiobian is inferred from rhyme dictionaries, poetry and transcriptions to and from other languages.

Initials

Middle Wiobian initials

		Labial	Alveolar	Lateral	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	voiceless	/m̥/	/n̥/		/ɳ̊/	/ɲ̊/	/ŋ̊/
	voiced	/m/	/n/	/nˡ/	/ɳ/	/ɲ/	/ŋ/
Plosive/Affricate	plain	/p/	/t/	/tɬ/	/ʈ/	/tɕ/	/k/	/ʔ/
	voiced	/b/	/d/	/dɮ/	/ɖ/	/dʑ/
	aspirated	/pʰ/	/tʰ/	/tɬʰ/	/ʈʰ/	/tɕʰ/	/kʰ/
Fricative	voiceless	/f/	/s/	/ɬ/	/ʂ/	/ɕ/	/x/
	voiced	/v/	/z/		/ʐ/	/ʑ/	/ɣ/
Approximant		/w/		/l/		/j/

Initial alternations of Early Middle Wiobian

In Middle Wiobian, derivational prefixes have become silent but can trigger four types of initial alternations or mutations. (Stressed/non-silent prefixes are bolded.) Compounding causes mutation too at times.

The following tables show the usual outcomes of alternating environments; they are most valid for instances of initials that come from of simpler onsets. Alternations may be blocked for reflexes of certain complex onsets.

Lenition

This mutation is triggered by the prefixes be-, ge-, ger-, i- when the root begins in an aspirated plosive.

Phoneme	/pʰ/	/tʰ/	/tɬʰ/	/ʈʰ/	/tɕʰ/	/kʰ/
Lenited	/v/	/z/	/l/	/ʐ/	/ʑ/	/ɣ/

Nasalization

This mutation is triggered by the prefixes en- and wen-.

Phoneme	/p/	/pʰ/	/f/	/t/	/tʰ/	/s/	/tɬ/	/tɬʰ/	/ɬ//	/ʈ/	/ʈʰ/	/ʂ/	/tɕ/	/tɕʰ/	/ɕ/	/k/	/kʰ/	/w/	/x/	/ʔ/ < *h, *ʔ	/ʔ/ < *q
Nasalized	/b/	/m/	/v/	/d/	/n/	/z/	/dɮ/	/nˡ/	/l/	/ɖ/	/ɳ/	/ʐ/	/dʑ/	/ɲ/	/ʑ/	/ŋ/			/ɣ/, /ŋ/	/m/ or /n/	/ŋ/

Voicing

This mutation is triggered by the prefixes be-, ge-, ger-, i- when the root begins in certain fricatives.

Phoneme	/f/	/s/ <þ>	/ɫ/*	/ʂ/*	/ɕ/	/x/**
Voiced	/v/	/z/	/l/	/ʐ/	/ʑ/	/ɣ/

* Only consistently affected by productive prefixes and compounding (e.g. unstressed prefixes are not productive).
** Has exceptions, where the word takes the last consonant of the prefix as the initial.

Devoicing

This mutation is triggered by the prefixes deß-, les- in words beginning with nasals, resonants or aspirated plosives.

Phoneme	/m/	/pʰ/	/n/	/tʰ/	/nˡ/	/tɬʰ/	/l/	/ɳ/	/ʈʰ/	/ʐ/	/ɲ/	/tɕʰ/	/j/	/ŋ/	/kʰ/	/w/
Devoiced	/m̥/	/p/	/n̥/	/t/	/ɬ/	/tɬ/	/ɬ/	/ɳ̊/	/ʈ/	/ʂ/	/ɲ̊/	/tɕ/	/ɕ/	/ŋ̊/	/k/	/x/

Tones

Every stressed syllable has tone. There are three tones:

• level/modal tone
• glottalized tone
• breathy tone

Modern Standard Wiobian

Make everything more Polish?

Phonotactics

(C)V(C)^T

Words are mainly monosyllabic, occasionally trochees.

Compounds are left-headed and trochaic.

Initials

Modern Standard Wiobian initials

		Labial	Alveolar	Lateral	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		/m/	/n/	/nˡ/		/ɲ/	/ŋ/
Plosive/Affricate	plain	/p/	/t/	/tɬ/	/ʈʂ/	/tɕ/	/k/	/ʔ/
	aspirated	/pʰ/	/tʰ/	/tɬʰ/	/ʈʂʰ/	/tɕʰ/	/kʰ/
Fricative		/f/	/s/	/ɬ/	/ʂ/	/ɕ/	/x~h/
Approximant		/w/		/l/	/ʐ/	/j/

Rimes

A whole rime dictionary would be necessary to describe all the rimes, since the rules are so complex/irregular. Sorry

Nucleus

Modern Standard Wiobian monophthongs

	Front		Central	Back
	unrounded	rounded
Close	/i/	/y/	[ɨ]1	/u/
Mid	/e/		/ə/	/o/
Open	/æ/		[ɐ]2

¹ Allophone of /i/ and /y/ after dental and retroflex initials.
² Allophone of /æ/ after retroflex consonants.

Short vowels (which only occured in closed syllables) are fairly stably preserved.

Umlaut

• short u /u/ i-umlauts to short ü /y/
• io /y/? i-umlauts to ie /i/?
• ia /jæ/ i-umlauts to ie /i/?
• short o /o/ i-umlauts to short ö /e/
• short a /æ/ i-umlauts to short ä /e/
• short e /ə/ i-umlauts to short i /i/
• uo i-umlauts to üö
• short a /æ/ u-umlauts to short å /o/

Coda consonants

Only the following coda consonants may occur: [p t k m n ŋ j w].

Tones

Stressed syllables may have one of 5 tones.

• high falling
• low rising
• mid
• high
• mid falling

Grammar

Inflection

Classical Wiobian inflected nouns with endings. Case/number and personal endings were eventually elided or turned into tone distinctions. Writers were nevertheless expected to write all case and personal endings, until the 1811 v.C. re-standardization of the orthography abolished personal endings as well as most number/case endings.

Nouns

Gender

Nouns have two genders, animate and inanimate. Nouns of each gender take their respective verb endings and pronouns in Classical Wiobian; pronoun agreement is preserved to some extent into Modern Wiobian.

Number

Classical Wiobian has many morphological ways of forming plurals, some of which may be combined.

• -e suffix
• -er collective suffix
• -(e)t suffix
• þe- prefix
• ^U removing the umlaut from the singular stem (Þrömm 'wall' > Þromm 'walls')

The plural form of a noun was unpredictable. Thus many speakers, especially non-Gamedan speaking foreigners, found this system chaotic and opted for the most common number used, usually singular for highly individualized nouns and plural for collective nouns. Thus Modern Wiobian has grammatical number only for some common nouns referring to people.

Case endings

In Classical Wiobian, nouns are also inflected in 5 cases:

• Nominative: subject
• Accusative: direct object, some adverbial expressions
• Dative: indirect object, some adverbial expressions, instrumental.
• Genitive: it's your bog-standard genitive case.
  • The genitive is often "hyphenated" to the word it modifies because of its ambiguity. In particular, the genitive noun must be hyphenated to the head noun whenever the genitive noun is not modified by an adjective. Cf. similar rules for compounds in Trây.
• Predicative: predicate

In Modern Wiobian, there is no number inflection and there are only the nominative and the dative in nouns.

Wiobian declension
Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	[SINGULAR STEM]-Ø	[PLURAL STEM]-Ø
Accusative	[SINGULAR STEM]-e	[PLURAL STEM]-n
Genitive	[SINGULAR STEM]-Ø	[PLURAL STEM]-(e)
Dative	[SINGULAR STEM]-s	[PLURAL STEM]-ns
Predicative	[SINGULAR STEM]-e	[PLURAL STEM]-Ø

Wiobian uses the indefinite article ƕiem 'one' for indefinite singular nouns. This is one of the only ways number is still indicated in modern Wiobian.

Adjectives

Adjectives may take the same case endings as nouns or, more commonly, take no ending. Adjectives in the predicative position, however, must have the predicative ending.

Degree

Wiobian uses analytic constructions for degrees of adjectives.

In Classical Wiobian, to form the comparative one attaches the semi-serial verb &kloh ('cross') to the predicative form of the adjective. (The same applies to verbs.) The standard of comparison is in the accusative. The superlative is identical to the comparative.

in biule&klöhen mie Winkene.

[ʔin ˌbiuləˈkløːən ˈmiə ˌwiŋkənə]

1SG.NOM just-PRED=cross/PRES-1SG this-ACC.SG mortal-ACC.SG

I am more upright than this man.

Classical Wiobian forms the negative comparative by using the adverb quäs hioleng after the finite verb.

ofel in dräzztime luon quäs hioleng mis.

[ˈʔoːvəl ˈʔiːn ˈdrɛcːtiːmə luon ˈkʷɛːç ˌxioˈleŋː ˈmiːç]

behold 1SG.NOM sinful-PRED be/PRES-1SG less below this-DAT.SG

Indeed, I sin less than he.

Pronouns

The full case inflection is still upheld for personal pronouns in Modern Wiobian.

Personal pronouns

Person →	1		2
Number →	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Case ↓
Nominative	in	ƕind	i	lind
Accusative	inne	ƕie	ie	lie
Genitive	inno	ƕio	io	lio
Dative	ins	ƕiens	ies	liens
Predicative	inte	ƕinte	iete	linte

Verbs

Verbs have stem forms for present, past and verbal noun which are not always distinct. (A similar but more well preserved system is found in Themsarian). Verbs are often additionally marked by auxiliary words to disambiguate the tense, because most forms are identical or very similar.

The citation form is the present stem, which is also the short 2nd person singular imperative in Classical Wiobian.

Personal endings

In Classical Wiobian, the verb is also inflected for person.

The superscript ^U denotes umlaut of stems of "athematic" verbs.

Imperative endings
	Singular	Plural
1	-	[PRESENT]-n
2	[PRESENT]-(t)	[PRESENT]-l

Present tense endings
	Singular	Plural
1	[PRESENT]U-n	[PRESENT]-m(e)
2	[PRESENT]-e	[PRESENT]-l
3.animate	[PRESENT]-n	[PRESENT]U-e
3.inanimate	[PRESENT]U-s

Past tense endings
	Singular	Plural
1	[PAST]-n	[PAST]-m(e)
2	[PAST]-e	[PAST]-l
3.animate	[PAST]-n	[PAST]U-e
3.inanimate	[PAST]-Ø

Syntax

Word order

Constituents are arranged in SVO order in both Classical Wiobian and most modern dialects.

Noun modifiers almost always precede the modified noun.

Relative clauses

Relative clauses are internally headed: The head is the first constituent of the relative clause, and an anaphoric "co-relative pronoun" nie occurs after the relative clause that refers back to the head.

Derivational morphology

Some suffixes are pronounced differently depending on the final consonant of the root.

• ^U(-n): nominalization, patient
  • Þiem 'deed' < þiom 'do'
• be-: intensive/applicative/denominal verb prefix; common like in German
  • berast 'make powerful, strengthen' < Rast 'power'
• deß-: causative
• em-/en-: causative/perfective
• ^U-em: adjectival/attributive suffix
  • Jündemruoger 'tapestry of life'
• -er: collective/augmentative
  • Puoger 'throne' < Puog 'chair'
  • Jenker 'ocean, sea' < Jenk 'water'
• ger-: inceptive, dynamic
  • gerzißt: 'initiate' < zißt 'run' (intransitive)
• i- (< PWio *ī < PGam *hiz): negative
  • ibiul 'not straight, unjust' < biul 'straight, just'
• -makk: agent noun, someone associated with [NOUN]
• -null: prototypical member of a set
• -ng: collective, nominalization
• -srie: abstract noun, -ness/-hood
• -tim: characterized by [noun]
• uo- (< PWio *ā- < PGam *ʔāz-): augmentative
  • Uores, Uors 'wolf, predatory beast' < euphemistically derived from Rüös 'dog'
• wem-/wen-: perfective/telic