Scellan

Scellan-English lexicon
Swadesh list

Scellan
sair Eivo
Pronunciation	[[Help:IPA|sail ɛivɔ]]
Created by	IlL
Setting	Verse:Tricin
Extinct	220 v.T.
Language family	Quihum Talmic Thensaric Scellan
Language codes
ISO 639-3	qth

Scellan is the dominant modern Talmic language; it descends from Old Bhadhagha. It's inspired by Icelandic, Welsh and Hmong.

Todo

• in reócht > rewtt /rɛwht/
• in már > mawr /mawl/ "tree"
• á > aw
• ae > ai
• ai > e
• aei, ái > ei
• éi > oi > ua
• ó > ow
• u > w
• ú > u /y/

Background

See also: Proto-Talmic.

Phonology

Consonants

m n ŋ pm tn kŋ (m n ŋ mm nn ŋŋ)

ʟ r~l χ r̥~ɬ (l r ll rr)

ph th kh (p t c)

hp ht hk (pp tt cc)

f θ s x h (f þ s ch h)

p t k (b d g)

v ð j (v ð j)

Vowels

/a ɛ i ɔ u œ y ə ai ei øy au eu iu ou iə yə uə/

a e i o w ø u y ai ei øu aw ew iw ow ia ua wa

Morphology

Main article: Thensarian/Morphology

Morphology

Äivö has no grammatical gender and no grammatical mutation. Äivö is also more agglutinative than its close relatives.

Nouns

The definite article is -me for nouns ending in a V or a resonant and -ime otherwise. It's placed after the plural suffix: duuvooŋ 'a teacher', duuvooŋme 'the teacher', duuvooŋa 'teachers', duuvooŋame 'the teachers'.

Historically feminine nouns undergo lenition: xuuþ 'an animal', xuuþime 'the animal'.

The plural is marked as follows:

• -a/-ä for nouns ending in a C
• -n for nouns ending in a V

Äivö has innovated new possessive suffixes, unlike Tíogall or Bhadhagha: skänänä, skäner, skänyy (his), skänii (her), skänäk (its), skänäy, skänäner, skänäd, skänäär

In the plural, these suffixes are: skänäränä, skänärer, skänäryy, skänärii, skänäräk, skänäräy, skänäräner, skänäräd, skänäräär (if the plural uses n, the n is changed to r).

For "of (a noun)", the ezâfe construction is used, with the word ri (rin before V) between the nouns: xaunskänme-ri-Leemi = 'Leemi's girlfriend'.

My girlfriend = xaunskänme-ri-naa or xaunskänänä

My tall girlfriend = xaunskänme-rin-aarde-ri-naa

Pronouns

• naw = I
• fiar = you
• hav = he
• hi = she
• ce = it
• caav = we (exc.)
• guad = we (inc.)
• suad = youse
• hawr = they

Adjectives

Adjectives must inflect for number. However, predicative vs. attributive is handled differently than in Tíogall: Textime aarde means "The child is tall", while textime-rin-aarde means "the tall child".

Copula

Äivö has no copula. Instead, the "predicate" or the focused constituent is fronted.

D'iant ci duvwŋ. = The teacher is sleeping.

Verbs

The Äivö verbal system is very different from Tíogall, and much closer to Bhadhagha.

Äivö analogized the analytic forms of verbs to all persons, and fused the personal pronoun with the verb.

Äivö is not split-ergative, unlike Tíogall.

Perfect tenses use the construction tänn followed by the verbal noun.

Present

molaigh ná -> molana "I thank"
molaigh fiar -> moler "thou thankest"
molaigh -> molu (he), moli (she), molak (it), molaar (they)
molaigh ámh -> molau "we (exc.) thank"
molaigh ná ag fiar -> molaner "we (inc.) thank"
molaigh séid -> molad "ye thank"
Impersonal: molaav "one thanks"

Analogously for front-vowel verbs (the following example is synem 'tune'):

synmänä, synmer, synmy, synmi, synmäk, ssynmäär, synmäy, synmäner, synmäd, synmääv.

Past

The past tense is marked by the particle go or g' which is used before the verb. This comes from a construction that translates to "it was the case that ...", which was used in pre-modern Bhadhagha.

Future

The future tense is derived from the Old Bhadhagha future tense:

moltana, molter, molta, moltaner, moltad, moltar, moltaav

Verbal noun

The verbal noun is much more regular than in Bhadhagha, and is consistently marked with -ax.

Syntax

Äivö is head-initial (with exceptions in poetry). It usually uses VSO word order; the focused constituent is fronted.

Noun phrase

ci and to are used as determiners before the noun. The "unspecified"/"irrealis" determiner to is used when asking question or in negative statements.