Wistanian: Difference between revisions

The language is spoken on the fictional planet Vale, on a large yet isolated island called Wistania. The language belongs to the Talivian sub-family, which evolved steadily throughout the Taliv's existence. After having been settled on by the Taliv for several hundred years, the island became the new home for the Bwolotil people, who had fled to the island to hide a large collection of magical and extremely dangerous ajmastones. The Bwolitil were originally apathetic toward the Taliv until they discovered that the Taliv held one such ajmastone as a central symbol of their culture. The Bwolotil, therefore, engaged in war with the Taliv to apprehend their ajmastone. Three separate people groups also inhabited the island during this war, one of which was the Nati people who allied with the Taliv to win the war. This alliance led to the formation of the Taliv-Nati [[w: Pidgin|pidgin]], which was later named ''anigalilaun'', which means "the language of peace". During the events of the novel series (about 300 years after the end of the war) Wistanian is the majority language of the island. The language also has a number of influences from the Katapu (sister peoples to the Nati and known for their religious traditionalism), the Uzin (a people distantly related to the Bwolotil who settled the island shortly after the beginning of the war), and the Bwolotil.

Like most first conlangs, Wistanian started as an English [[w: Relexification|relex]] (but without tense and articles). However, after nearly four mass revisions over a year, Wistanian has become its own unique language. It's influenced by several languages, especially [[w: Spanish_language|Spanish]] and [[w: Tamil_language|Tamil]], but their influence is mostly found in the lexicon while contributing only minimally to the grammar.  

Stress usually falls on the first non-lax vowel (/ai̯/, /i/, /e/, /a/, /ɯ/, or /ɑ/). But there are many exceptions, especially where the vowels /i/ and /a/ come into place since you must know whether or not those sounds are the stressed /i/ or /a/ or the lax [ɪ] or [ə]. A prime example is between the words '''''viman''''' and '''''viman''''', which are spelled identically. When stress is on the /i/ as in [ˈvimən], the word means “sugar”, but when stress is on the /a/ as in [vɪˈman], the word means “sky.” Stress is realized through vowel lengthening and sometimes a higher intonation.

Wistanian follows a rigid syntax and tight grammar due to its analytical tendencies. However, these strict standards, along with the simple phonology, help Wistanian people groups to remain understandable and intelligible among each other.  

Wistanian has predominant [[w: Verb–subject–object|Verb-Subject-Object]] word order, modifiers that follow their head (except for possessive pronouns, numbers, and colors), post-positional suffixes, and particles that come before their head. Modifier phrases will usually come at the beginning or end of the sentence.

  '''azavyi ravu miramwi daz ilam aa din naulam ggarauni ggaun zi maumu.'''

  azavi-i  ravu miram-wi  daz ilam  aa  naulam ggarauni va  din  ggaun zi       maumu.

  carry-TEL fast store-LAT man young ACC melon  large    COP three BEN  3Sa.POSS mother.

  *carried fast store to man young three melons large for his mother.

Questions will typically follow the same syntactic pattern as declarative sentences, except with rising intonation. All questions should end with the question particle '''''a''''' (<code>Q</code>). This is especially important in writing since the Talivian Alphabet does not have an equivalent to the question mark. However, some dialects and informal registers do not include it in speech.