Yacavestu

Yacavestu/Lexicon

Yacavestu (Yacɐvestu) is a language of Yaca Island in Tricin. It's inspired by Clofabosin, Khmer and Portuguese.

Phonology

The consonants of Yacavestu are p t ch c b d gh g m n nh l lh r f v s z y.

The vowels are a e i o u ɐ, with only ɐ i u allowed in unstressed syllables. In addition there are diphthongs and nasal vowels (written with a tilde).

Grammar

Nouns

Yacavestu has a two way grammatical gender system like Clofabosin: animate/inanimate.

• bantoch (lamp) - inanimate
• masil (food) - inanimate
• calh (man) - animate
• mulhɐ (nose) - animate

Verbs

Yacavestu verbs come in two tenses: past and nonpast, as well as several auxiliary suffixes. The bare nonpast is both a present habitual and a future tense, e.g. axurão (speaks).

Yacavestu is relatively unusual in that the verb stem alone is a tenseless negative form: axur (doesn't speak). Old Yacavestu used to have a consistent system of personal suffixes for verbs but in modern times, the 3rd person singular inanimate form became the default form for all persons and numbers.

There is no infinitive in Yacavestu (it uses subjunctives instead).