Fourth Linguifex Relay/Wiobian

ei enswälzel! dullel meis!
mie engünfel Gungs Gungs Sneis!
tang lind mause bückne mungel,
Wiote Duzes duoɟ niens Kliten,
ionem' ƕind Benußes zungel;
Kuobs mes pepen, Ƕeiges miten.

Glossed

ei enswälzel! dullel meis!
O hearken-2PL.IMP hear-2PL.IMP now

mie engünfel Gungs Gungs Sneis!
this-ACC consider-2PL hour-DAT hour-DAT life-DAT

tang lind mause bückne mungel,
Indeed 2PL.NOM hither stationed-PRED come/PRES-2PL

Wiote Duzes duoɟ niens Kliten,
heaven-GEN grace-DAT PERF CORELATIVE-PL-DAT accomodation_as_guest-PL-ACC

ionemen ƕind Benußes zungel;
just-like 1PL.NOM judge-VERBAL_NOUN-DAT act-2PL

Kuobs mes pepen, Ƕeiges miten.
poor-DAT this-DAT give_charitably-1PL-IMP neighbor-DAT give-1PL-IMP

Notes

In Wiobian, all nouns are capitalized. However, words beginning a sentence need not be capitalized.

Typology

The language is SVO (with more variation in poetry), and prepositions are preferred to postpositions. However, nominal modifiers precede the modified noun.

Nouns

In Classical Wiobian, nouns have a singular-plural distinction and are inflected in 5 cases:

• Nominative: subject
• Accusative: direct object, some adverbial expressions
• Dative: indirect object, some adverbial expressions
• Genitive: it's your bog-standard genitive case
• Predicative: predicate

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

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.

Verbs

Verbs have stem forms for present, past and verbal noun which are not always distinct. They are often additionally marked by auxiliary words to disambiguate the tense, since many forms are very similar.

Inflection

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

Syntactic constructions

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.

Perfect tense

The auxiliary construction for perfect tense is: duoɟ + SUBJECT in the DATIVE case + VERB in VERBAL NOUN form in the ACCUSATIVE + ADDITIONAL ARGUMENTS in whatever case the verbal argument is supposed to take.