á é í ó ú

sounds

**consonants**
	Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Labiovelar	Glottal
Plosives	p b	t d		k g		ʔ (q)
Nasals	m	n
Fricatives		s	ʃ (sh)
Approximants		l	j (y)		w	h
Trill		r

vowels
	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e		o
Open		a

grammar

Ilya is an agglutinating language. Its vocabulary consists of basic roots which can be extended into different parts of speech, their meaning changed or modified, with various suffixes. Most of the suffixes are optional, so that there is a choice of what sort of information to convey with a given word.

verbs

Ilya relies on verbs and their modifiers to express many subtleties of meaning, the Ilya verb can generally function as a verb, adjective, or preposition, but the rules of use are very simple.

tenses

Verbs have two tenses indicated by conjugation, past (-esh) and nonpast (-Ø). The semantic difference between present and future is not indicated by means of conjugation. Usually there is no ambiguity as context makes it clear whether the speaker is referring to the present or future. Voice and aspect are also indicated by means of conjugation, and possibly agglutinating auxiliary verbs.

gaqanemesh?

see.3sg-Q-PST

Did he see?

shayab

know.1s

I know.

verb modifiers

negative mood - x

nouns

number

x - horse
x - horses

gender

case

odom
- -Ø - the house [nominative / subject] NOM
odomwá
- -wá / -ó - in/to/for/about the house [oblique / dative / accusative / locative] OBL
odomyá
- -yá / -ái - of the house [genitive] GEN
odomék
- -hé / -ék - with the house, and the house [instrumental / comitative] COM
odomdú
- -(d)ú - O the house [vocative] VOC

pronouns

Both subject and object are marked on the verb; however, there is no indication of whether either is singular or plural (except for ‘you’ objects). For convenience I offer a table of all possible combinations.

shab
*to know*
	1s OBJ	2s OBJ	3s OBJ	other OBJ	1p OBJ	2p OBJ
1st person	x	shayaba I know you.	shayabu I know her/him.	shayabuk I know someone else.	x	x
2nd person	shahabi You know me.	x	x	x	x	x
3rd person	shaqabi S/he knows me.	shaqaba S/he knows you.	x	x	x	x

There are no personal pronouns - they aren’t needed, since persons are indicated on the verb. There are a limited number of deictics and quantifiers:

ku- - this
shu- - that (by you)
u- - that (over there); other; another
wa- - same; the same
ni- - each; every
le- - some
ba- - none

noun classes

x- - people; places
x- - trees; weather; natural phenomena
x- - groups of objects; collective
x- - tools; artifacts
x- - body parts and functions
x- - animals; noises
x- / a- - abstract; null

adpositions

locative affixes

x- - static location
x- - inside of an object
x- - under water
x- - into water
x- - on top of
x- - under
x- - through
x- - out of
x- - above or over
x- - in the air
x- - across

x- - on / at / away from
x- - along / back to
x- - over there
x- - to / towards

Ilya

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