Wanya
| Wanya | |
|---|---|
| Pronounced: | [ˈwan.ja] |
| Timeline and Universe: | here and now |
| Species: | humans |
| Total speakers: | 1 |
| Writing system: | alphabet |
| Genealogy: | isolate |
| Typology | |
| Basic word order: | SVO |
| Credits | |
| Creator: | Fenhl |
| Created: | from January 2011 onward |
| Links | |
| CALS | |
Wanya (Wan ya Fenxəl, Wan ya Fenxəl) is a conlang by Fenhl. It serves mostly as his personal language, although a conculture is slowly developing.
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.
Syllable structure
The structure of Wanya syllables can be described in pseudo-awkwords-code as:
((C)(L)/A)V(V)(N)
with the following parameters:
- C=b/d/g/w/p/t/k/δ/β/v/z/γ/m/n/ŋ/f/s/x
- L=l/λ/ꝛ/r/ɹ/y
- A=pf/bv/ts/dz/kx/gγ
- V=u/a/e/o/i/ə
- N=m/n/ŋ/s/ts/z/dz
This pseudocode does not reflect several details, like the fact that a diphthong may not consist of two instances of the same vowel.
Orthography
Wanya's native script is an alphabet: each phoneme is represented by one of several letters. Normally the language is written in small letters, but the first letter of a name, and the first letter of the first word of a sentence is a capital one. When a name consists of multiple words in the original language, it is written in PascalCase. Abbreviations are written in all-caps. Consonants have two letters — the capital and small letter — and vowels have four letters — capital and small versions of the standard and diphthong letters. The diphthong letters are only used for the second vowel in a diphthong, e.g. the i in rais would be represented by the small diphthong letter, while the ï in raïs would be represented by the small standard letter. In the table below, the diphthong letters follow the standard letters.
There are 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:
If you do not have the Wanya font installed, you will see a copy of the Unicode romanization instead of the alphabet.
| Phoneme | Alphabet | Unicode-based | ASCII-friendly | |||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| b | d | ɡ | Б | b | D | d | G | g | Б | b | D | d | G | g | B | b | D | d | G | g |
| w | ɹ | j | W | w | Я | ɹ | Y | y | 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 | P | p | T | t | K | k |
| ð | l | ʎ | Δ | δ | L | l | Λ | λ | Δ | δ | L | l | Λ | λ | Dd | dd | L | l | Y | y |
| i | ɘ | u | II | ii | ƎƎ | əə | UU | uu | I | i | Ǝ | ə | U | u | I | i | X | x | U | u |
| β | r | ʁ | B | β | R | r | Ꝛ | ꝛ | B | β | R | r | Ꝛ | ꝛ | Bb | bb | Rr | rr | R | r |
| v | z | ɣ | V | v | Z | z | Γ | γ | 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 | Ŋ | ŋ | M | m | N | n | Nn | nn |
| f | s | x | F | f | S | s | X | x | F | f | S | s | X | x | F | f | S | s | Kk | kk |
| ɛ | a | ɔ | EE | ee | AA | aa | OO | oo | E | e | A | a | O | o | E | e | A | a | O | o |
The Unicode-based romanization uses the diaeresis to indicate a vowel cluster, for example:
- rais [raɪʃ]
- raïs [ra.iʃ]
- kuäi [ku.aɪ]
- kuaï [kua.i]
- kuäï [ku.a.i]
Each example could theoretically be a different word. Kuai cannot be a Wanya word since triphthongs are not allowed.
Since the native alphabet doesn't use any punctuation marks, they are optional in the romanizations.
This article only uses the Unicode-based romanization, not the ASCII-friendly one.
Grammar
- The basic sentence structure is SVO.
- The subject is left out when the verb is in the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd person. (Unlike Spanish, not leaving the subject out for emphasis is very bad style.) Conversely, the 4th person requires the subject to be explicitly mentioned.
- the definition of a verb includes a list of thematic relation slots. Similarly to Lojban, objects listed after the verb are assumed to have the thematic relation of their respective slots. In order to leave a single slot empty, insert the null object ŋi ŋi. For two or three empty slots, use ŋiŋi ŋiŋi or ŋisti ŋisti, respectively.
- There is no number marking on nouns or verbs, i.e. no distinction between singular and plural.
Verbs
Verbs are inflected according to tense (present, future, past), modality (indicative, imperative, declarative), and person (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th).
Wanya verb stems always end on a vowel or diphthong. Verbs are inflected by removing that and adding the suffix from the table below.
| indicative | imperative | declarative | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| present | 1 | oy | ou | Vvoy |
| 2 | Vs | Vüs | Vves | |
| 3 | a | au | Vva | |
| 4 | (ə) | Vü | Vf | |
| future | 1 | oyə | oyV | Vzyo |
| 2 | eyə | əmV | Vdz | |
| 3 | ayə | amV | Vza | |
| 4 | (ə)yV | Vm | Vze | |
| past | 1 | oyVt | Vxyod | Vboy |
| 2 | ets | əxV | Vbve | |
| 3 | at | axV | oβa | |
| 4 | (ə)tV | Vx | əb | |
Notes
- A capital V stands for the vowel or diphthong from the verb stem.
- an ə in parentheses is only inserted if the inflected verb wouldn't fit into the syllable structure otherwise. It is always pronounced as [ə].
- The infinite suffix is -Vnda.
Adjectives
Adjectives are "augmented" by inserting one of the following infixes directly before the nucleus of the adjective's last syllable:
- iX — definitely
- ist — very
- ifaX — extremely
(where X is the first syllable's onset)
For example, with the adjective fis fis (happy), it would be fis, fifis fifis, fistis fistis, fifafis fifafis. With the adjective ani ani (long), it would be ani, aniï aniï, anisti anisti, anifaï anifaï.
Adverbs are to verbs what adjectives are to nouns, and Wanya treats them exactly this way.
Vocabulary
Moving to: Wanya/Vocabulary
- gluna — n. water
- guru — n. number
- geŋmo — n. band, belt
- gamboenda — v. to say your opinion, to comment
- gamtəmonda — v. to write your opinion, to comment
- gama — n. opinion
- wibu — n. horse
- wakirfunda — v. to go, travel swh. from swh. by sth. via swh.
- wan — n. language
- ɹənda — v. to exist
- yənis — adj. collected, united, assorted, complete
- yəna — n. group, collection
- yəöi — n. sentence
- ya — conj. by, from, of
- yoünda — v. to greet sb.
- pə — conj. which does (insert verb here)
- pəönda — v. to throw sth. at sth.
- plinda — v. to jump
- pare — adj. equal, balanced, just
- pan — conj. and (+ noun)
- pasta — n. replacement, successor
- pastonda — v. to replace sth. with sth., to switch (between two instances of) sth.
- tə — n. tea
- tə — adj. right (direction)
- təma — n. written message
- tsila — n. paper, sheet of paper
- təmonda — v. to write
- tera — n. link, connection
- tesda — n. hand
- taluyai — n. christmas
- tonda — v. to stop sb./sth. from sth. using sth.
- kyou — adj. all, every
- kudera — n. player
- kuda — n. game
- kudanda — v. to play
- kure — conj. start of adjectival phrase
- kusda — adj. rude, disrespectful
- katigonda — v. to rescue sb./sth. from sb./sth
- kala — n. list, index
- kalis — adj. main, principal
- kora — n. chest, safe, locker
- koronda — v. to store, keep, save sth. swh.
- konda — v. to have sth. swh.
- linsa — n. view, visual arrangement
- linsonda — v. to visualize, present sth.
- luna — n. night
- luŋonda — v. to fall
- lan — adj. reverse
- lanterenda — v. to disconnect
- lananda — v. to undo
- lomən — n. cloud
- əpyis — adj. hollow, empty
- əpya — n. cave, center of mouth
- uλan — adj. imaginary, nonexistant
- umyi — conj. of (defining attribute, talking about, + noun)
- βits — adj. left (direction)
- βeya — n. quote
- βoŋ — adj. closed, restricted, in a building
- zəꝛanda — v. to ride
- zuïyu — n. convention, standard, tradition
- γus — evid. can
- γouskəboen — n. expressed demand, order, task (spoken)
- γouskəboenda — v. to demand, order (spoken)
- γouskətəma — n. expressed demand, order, task (written)
- γouskətəmonda — v. to demand, order (written)
- γouska — n. wish, favorite, preference
- γouskonda — v. to wish for sth., to express a wish/favorite/preference
- mai — conj. end of adjectival phrase
- mau — evid. not
- mavin — adj. evil
- maöla — n. costume, mask
- nyeŋ — adj. cheeky
- nyo — n. sign, mark
- nunis — adj. quick, punctual
- nuna — n. time
- na — evid. hopefully
- naɹon — n. house
- ŋi — pron. null object
- ŋiŋi — pron. double null object
- ŋisti — pron. triple null object
- ŋoŋga — n. uvula, back of mouth
- ŋoŋgonda — v. to swallow
- fi — n. light, magic
- fidera — n. wizard
- fis — adj. happy
- funda — v. to walk swh. from swh. via swh.
- faŋ — n. fish
- xi — adj. green
- xupis — adj. empty
- xupa — n. void
- xuponda — v. to empty
- xai — adj. up
Example sentences
For more example sentences, see the translations on CALS.
Na benəmo fis ani
Na benəmo fis ani
/na bɛ.nə.mɔ fi ʃa.ni/
Hopefully live-IMP.FUT.2 happy long
May you live happy and long.
Inspired by the Vulcan salute, this is a common farewell in the conculture.
Kema emyəs altəto keꝛə λəna Ŋi dꝛəta kaska
Kema emyəs altəto keꝛə λəna Ŋi dꝛəta kaska
/kɛ.ma ɛm.jeʃ al.tə.tɔ kɛ.ʁə ʎe.na _ ŋi dʁe.ta kaʃ.ka/
Man last sit-IND.PST.4 LOC room Null work-4.IND.PST door
The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door...
The “world's shortest horror story”, as posted by Even Tolo Dybevik in the Conlangs Facebook group.
