Weyon

Weyon language
Weyón ela
Pronunciation	[/we.ˈjɔ́n.ˈè.lɑ/]
Created by	Raistas
Setting	planet Liifam
Ethnicity	Kuoleet
Language family	Settameric languages Mountains languages Weyon language
Early form	Proto-Settameric

Weyon is a group of closely related languages (or dialects of a single language), spoken in the central part of the Kahaaler Mountains to the west of the Northern continent. Weyon forms a dialect continuum from the north to the south, its dialects are divided into four major groups, which are often treated as separate languages, because of a low mutual intelligibility between them. These four groups are: Imára, Wealla, Renta and Últaun. The grammar and the examples used here are from the Wealla group, specifically from a dialect near the town Eraas, but data on other dialects will be given as well. It is spoken by approximately 40,000 people across the central part of the Kahaaler Mountains (Kuola eamet) on their western slopes. Imára and Wealla dialect continuum has no clear geographical boundary between these two groups and many Imára traits can be found in eastern parts of the Wealla territory. A similar situation is with some Wealla and Renta dialects, which can have more common traits between each other than with other neighbouring dialects. Últaun, the more obscure dialectal branch, is sometimes included in the Renta group, but it developed its own unique features not shared other branches. All branches still retain a degree of mutual intelligibility, higher than with the closest Weyon relative - the Yiraan language, spoken to the north.

Phonology

Consonants

		Bilabial	Dental		Alveolar		Palatal	Velar		Glottal
					central	lateral		plain	labialized
Nasal		m	n				ny /ɲ/
Stop	plain	p	t				ky /c/	k	kw /kʷ/
	aspirated	ph /pʰ/	th /tʰ/					kh /kʰ/
Fricative		f	θ	s	š /ʃ/	ł /ɬ/				h
Affricate			c /t͡s/		č /t͡ʃ/
Approximant		w	ð	r		l	y /j/

All varieties of Weyon have a distinction between aspirated and non-aspirated stops. Imara and Wealla groups retain the phoneme /θ/, which is realized as [ð] between vowels and word-finally and thus these consonants are in the allophonic distribution. In Renta /θ/ disappeared, while /ð/ is a separate phoneme. Most Wealla dialects contrast /l/ with /ɫ/ ("light" and "dark l") and also /n/ with /nˠ/, the "dark" consonants are pronounced longer and are noticeably velarised, compared to their "light" counterparts. Imara dialects merged their sibilants (/t͡ʃ/ and /ʃ/ are the same as /t͡s/ and /s/), which also occured in Renta. Ultaun dialects have the phoneme /ç/ where other dialects have /θ/, which can only appear word-initially. The phoneme /pʰ/ is rare in all dialects, except for Ultaun, other dialects usually have /f/ or /p/ instead.

Vowels

The vowel inventory of Weyon differs significantly from dialect to dialect. The North Weyon dialects underwent vowel mutation, which increased the amount of phonemes, compared to South Weyon, which instead had the southern vowel shift. Thus vowels in cognates can vary greatly between various dialects, for example: the word for "horse" is ilor in Imára, eloor in Wealla, eliir or äliir in Renta and yalin in Ultaun. The Ultaun group differs the most, as it lost the length distinction completely.

North Weyon Front Back Unrounded Rounded Short Long Short Long Short Long Close i [ɪ] ii [iː] ü [ʏ] üü [yː] u [ʊ] ū [uː] Mid e [e~ɛ] ee [eː] ö [ø~œ] öö [øː] o [ɔ] oo [oː] Open ää [æɪ~æː] a [ɑ] aa [aː]

Renta Front Back Short Long Short Long Close i [i] ii [iː] u [u] uu [uː] Mid e [e] ee [eː] o [o] oo [oː] Open ä [æ]* a [ɑ] aa [aː]

Ultaun Front Back Close i [i] u [u] Mid e [ɛ] o [ɔ] Open ä [æ]* a [ɑ~a]

• The phoneme ä [æ] is only found in a few dialects on the Renta-Últaun border.

Some Imára and Northern Wealla dialects have another phoneme /ɤ/, represented with "ë". This phoneme usually corresponds to "o", "a" or "ie" in other dialects, for example: mëëya "two", which is moya in the Northern group and mie in Southern Weyon.

Accentuation

In the Weyon language, stressed syllables may be pronounced in one of two prosodically distinct ways that are determined by accent and pitch, either the acute or rising accent, or the grave or falling accent. Stress is free and can occur on any syllable of the word. However, it usually falls on the first syllable. Most nouns and verbs have a fixed stress, that is, an accent remains on the same syllable in all the inflections, though there are some words (usually with an an initial grave accent) that have a mobile stress. Polysyllabic compound words and prefixed words, usually have one main stress, but can also receive a secondary stress, for example: keall-eniéka - "to pick blackberries" (imperfective), where only the main word receives stress (acute accent). In dialects, there are cases when words may be differentiated only by the use of accents. One example is where an accent determines the declensional case: haí "eye" and hài "with one's eyes"; sùuðe "he/she lies down" and suúðe "he/she lies". The are also words that only differ in accent: éla "mist" and èla "language", aràš "of blood, bloody" and aráš "saltiness"; however, this may differ significantly among various dialects. Some Renta dialects lost the difference in pitch accent, but instead the stress influenced vowel quality: uore "salty" - areeš "saltyness". A similar process occurred in Ultaun, but it kept the original pitch accent intact.

Grammar

Weyon a moderately inflected language with high levels of nominal and verbal inflection. Most of the fused morphemes are retained in the Northern Weyon dialects, especially in regard to verb conjugation, whereas South Weyon in comparison has moved towards more analytical word structures (mostly in nouns, as verbs tend to preserve better in the Mountains languages).

Nouns

Like in other Settameric languages, there are two noun classes: animate and inanimate. Verbs must agree in animacy with all its arguments. All nouns, are declined for case, number and obviation. Animate nouns are declined in thirteen grammatical cases, while most inanimate nouns have ten or even less cases, depending on a particular noun. The noun cases are represented in the table below:

"woman" (animate)
Case	Singular	Dual	Plural
Absolutive	áakki	áakki	áakket
agentive	áakka	áakku	áakkat
genitive	áakkaš	aakkáwaš	aakkáhaš
dative	óokkur	óokkuor	óokkurur
inessive	óokku	óokkuo	óokkut
elative	áakkomu	óokkumu	áakkottu
illative	áakkaš	áakkawaš	áakkataš
adessive	áakkoo	áakkuo	áakkoot
ablative	áakkei	áakkewi	áakketi
essive	áakkon	áakkawon	áakkaton
translative	áakkam	áakkawam	áakkatam
comitative	éakkii	éakkewii	éakketii