Wistanian

Wistanian [əˈniɡəˌlilɑn]
Spoken in:	Wistania
Conworld:	Vale
Total Speakers:	~ 50,000,000
Genealogical classification:	Taliv - Taliv-Nati Pidgin - Wistanian
Basic word order:	Verb-Subject-Object
Morphological Type:	Analytical/Agglutinative
Morphosyntactic Alignment:	Nominative-Accusative
Created by:
Paul A. Daly	Began: January 2017 Published: January 2018

Wistanian (IPA: /wɪsˈteɪni.ən/), natively known as anigalilaun (IPA: /əˈniɡəˌlilɑn/), is the first constructed language (conlang) by world-builder, writer, and professional amateur Paul A. Daly, written in 2017 and 2018. The language was created for a novel series. The first novel is near completion, but will likely remain unpublished until the author finishes his education.

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 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.

Wistanian is typologically an analytic language with elements of agglutination. Its grammar is initially simple to grasp, lacking noun gender and case, and possessing few verbal conjugations, although most of its difficulty is syntactic and lexical. Despite having a rather regular morphology due to pidginization, there are several groups of words within the same lexical category which operate differently from each other. Wistanian is primarily written using the Talivian Alphabet, but some alternate scripts do exist, namely the Diwa Alphabet and Nati Abugida.

Introduction

The island of Wistania

Setting

Wistanian is spoken on the fictional island nation of Wistania. The language stems from a pidgin created between the Nati and Taliv languages during The Wistanian War. After the peace treaty was signed, the Katapu, who were allied with Nati and Taliv but inactive in the war, documented and refined the Nati-Taliv Pidgin for use in the newly established government. Wistanian features mostly Taliv grammar, Nati vocabulary, Katapu influences, many Bwolotil loan words, and scientific terms, mathematics, and the lunar calendar derived from the work of the Uzin. Wistanian's native name, anigalilaun, is a compound of ani (language) and galilaun (peace). It is translated literally as "Peace Language."

The five different people groups of Wistania remained isolated from each other for part of the post-war era. However, trade and intermarriage became more commonplace, requiring a competent lingua franca. This is followed by religious evangelism by the Katapu, engineering from the Uzin, and entertainment from the Nati, all of which Wistanian was the primary language for distribution and promotion. Eventually, the language became taught as a mandatory subject in school. After only a couple centuries, Wistanian advanced from a government-only auxiliary language into the national language of the island, natively and fluently spoken by most of its citizens.

As a result, Wistanian is mostly regular, with a moderately small phonological inventory and vast dialectal variation. It is the most spoken and embraced by the Taliv and Nati people groups, and the least spoken by the Bwolotil people group, who often protest the language's difficulty. The other five languages are still spoken, especially the Bwolotil language which still has a number of monolingual non-Wistanian speakers. Both the Uzin and Katapu have important texts written in their languages, while Taliv and Nati have shifted into archaism, although they are still taught in school.

Goals

Wistanian was created with three goals in mind:

To be naturalistic, yet unique. It should have its own unique phonology, grammar, and lexicon, not identical to any natural language on earth, but still naturalistic and sensible.
To represent the Wistanian culture. This language was designed for songs and speeches, bedtime stories and battle cries, gentle wisdom and fierce ambition, hope and struggle. This language is designed for the Wistanians: their personality, their history, and their heart.
To be novel-friendly. Crazy letters and long words will confuse and alienate most readers, which is why Wistanian was designed to have short, easily readable words that readers can enjoy, one small sentence at a time.

Inspiration

Like most first conlangs, Wistanian started as an English 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 Spanish and Tamil, but their influence is mostly found in the lexicon while contributing only minimally to the grammar.

Phonology

Inventory

Consonants

The Wistanian symbol of peace, modelled after the zoraddin flower.

The consonants are as follows (allophones are in [brackets]):

		Labial	Alveolar¹	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n		[ŋ]²
Stop	voiced	b	d		ɡ
Stop	unvoiced	p	t		k
Fricative		v	z	ʒ	[ɣ]³	ɦ
Liquid		w ~ βʷ⁴	ɾ ~ r⁵	j
Lateral			l

Alveolars (except /ɾ ~ r/) are pronounced laminally.
n > ŋ / _[velar]
ɦ > ɣ / #_, [stress]_
/w/ is spoken in emphasized or slow speech, while /βʷ/ is spoken in quick speech. Whenever immediately following a consonant, this is always pronounced as /w/. In the Western Dialect, it is always pronounced as /w/.
/r/ is spoken in emphasized or slow speech, while /ɾ/ is spoken in quick speech. In some words, the trilled is preferred even in quick speech; for example, ggarauni (large) is almost always pronounced [kəˈrɑni].

Vowels

The vowels are as follows (allophones in [brackets]):

	Front	Central	Back
High	i [ɪ]¹		ɯ [u]²
Mid	e	[ə]¹
Low		a	ɑ [ɒ]²
Diphthong: ai̯

All vowels lengthen when stressed.
All vowels become breathy after /ɦ/.

/i/ and /a/ shift to [ɪ] and [ə] whenever unstressed. The only exception is when /i/ follows /j/, /w/, or /l/ or is at the end of a word.
/ɯ/ and /ɑ/ shift to [u] and [ɒ] after /w~βʷ/.

Phonotactics

Syllable Structure

Wistanian has a (C/Fj/Fw)V(C) syllable structure where C represents any consonant, F represents any fricative, V represents any vowel, and N represents any consonant that is not /j/, /w/, or /ɦ/.

Syllable onsets may be any consonant or any fricative followed by /j/ or /w/:

m, n, p, b, t, d, k, ɡ, v, vj, vw, z, zj, zw, ʒ, ʒj, ʒw, ɦ, ɦj, ɦw, w, r, j, l.

Syllable nuclei may be any vowel:

i, e, a, ɑ, ɯ, ai̯

Syllable coda may be any consonant that is not /j/, /w/, or /ɦ/.

m, n, p, t, k, b, d, ɡ, v, z, ʒ, ɾ, l

Stress

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.

Prosody

In Wistanian culture, speaking loudly is considered rude. Therefore, Wistanian language is typically spoken softly and clearly. It is arguably a stress-timed language that realizes stressed syllables and stressed words by lengthening vowel duration.

Orthography

Romanization

Wistanian employs its own script, but it is romanized with a system that reflects the script and its spellings. The romanization rules are as follows:

/m/, /n/, /b/, /d/, /ɡ/, /v/, /z/, and /l/ are represented with the corresponding IPA symbol.
/p/, /t/, and /k/ are represented by ⟨bb⟩, ⟨dd⟩, and ⟨gg⟩, respectively.
/ʒ/, /ɦ/, /ɾ~r/, /w~βʷ/ and /j/ are represented by ⟨j⟩, ⟨h⟩, ⟨r⟩, ⟨w⟩, and ⟨y⟩, respectively.
/ɯ/ and [u] are represented by ⟨u⟩.
/a/ and [ə] are represented by ⟨a⟩.
/i/ and [ɪ] are represented by ⟨i⟩.
/ai̯/ is represented by ⟨ai⟩.
/e/ is represented by ⟨aa⟩.
/ɑ/ and [ɒ] is represetned by ⟨au⟩.

The Wistanian script.

Script

Wistanian has an alphabet which represents the different sounds in Wistanian. The alphabet was inspired by Latin, IPA, and Greek, but is often described as Armenian-looking. The font, based on Cambria, was created using Autodesk Sketchbook for the iPad and converted into a font using Calligraphr and TypeLight.

The script, often referred to as araman taliv vahigza (lit. "dishes of the Taliv) began its evolution during the Diwa oppression when the Taliv people were secretly plotting escape by setting their dishes outside their homes in certain orders to convey messages. After their escape and resettlement on the Wistanian island, the dishes gave form to the written language.

Another interesting feature of the script is "compound glyphs." They are /k/, /t/, /p/, /e/, and /ɑ/, and they are made by doubling or combining two different glyphs together. This is why the romanization of Wistanian uses ⟨gg⟩ for /k/, ⟨au⟩ for /ɑ/, as well as the other digraphs.

Like the lexicon and grammar, Daly redesigned the Wistanian script multiple times - three, to be exact. The original script was an alphabet, but it did not capture the "spirit" of Wistanian, so it was scrapped for an abugida. The abugida, which was beautiful, was also difficult to learn and write, prompting yet another redesign. The original design is now considered as the old Diwa alphabet, while the abugida is an alternative script used by the Nati.

Syntax

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.

Word Order

Wistanian has predominant 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  din   naulam ggarauni ggaun zi       maumu.
carry-TEL fast store-LAT man young ACC three melon  large    BEN   3Sa.POSS mother.
"The young man quickly carried three large melons to the store for his mother."
*carried fast store to man young three melons large for his mother.

Questions

Questions will typically follow the same syntactic pattern as declarative sentences, except with rising intonation. Typically, Yes/No questions will consist of a statement followed by zau/baun (Yes/No). Non-polar questions will follow the same declarative-question word pattern.

All questions should end with the question particle a (Q). 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.

Polar:

magin va raul, zau a?
magin va  raul, zau a?
table COP red,  yes Q?
"Is the table red?” (Lit. "The table is red, yes?")

Non-Polar:

magin va raul, ari a?
magin va  raul, ari a?
table COP red,  why Q?
“Why is the table red?” (Lit. "The table is red, why?")

luva zaun a?
lu    -va  zaun a?
2S.NOM-COP who  Q?
“Who are you?” (Lit. "You are who?")

There is no Wistanian equivalent to the English "how," usually being replaced by "what" or "what method".

Imperatives

In imperatives, word order changes to VOS. In polite requests, a speaker uses the irrealis mood conjugation on the main verb and includes a subject noun (usually an honorific). In rude demands, the speaker does not use the irrealis mood conjugation nor includes a subject noun.

vigaj aa garauda baul.
viga-a    -j   aa  garauda baul.
eat -ATEL -IRR ACC food    HON.
"Please, eat the food, sir."

viga aa garauda.
viga-a    -∅ aa  garauda ∅
eat -ATEL    ACC food 
"Eat the food (as a rude demand)."

Morphology

Wistanian has a low morpheme-to-root ratio, most words being inflectionless and rather interacting with nearby words and word order to express grammatical (and sometimes lexical) distinctions.

Nouns

Wistanian nouns come in three classes: proper, improper, and pronouns. Proper nouns refer to names of people or places ("Wistania", "Alija"), while improper nouns refer to generic terms (e.g., "country", "man"), and pronouns refer to substitute words for other nouns and noun phrases. Proper nouns are never inflected, however, improper nouns can be inflected for number and position, be compounded, or undergo derivational morphology to become a verb or modifier. Pronouns can take on more inflections than improper nouns.

Number

Wistanian has three grammatical numbers: singular, paucal, and plural. Proper nouns do not inflect for number at all, improper nouns only distinguish between paucal and plural, while pronouns only distinguish singular and plural. This unique distinction arose as a result of Middle Taliv, which had a singular/paucal/plural distinction, then merged the paucal and singular before it transitioned to New Taliv. The pronouns, however, maintained the singular/paucal/plural distinction, then later lost the paucal, resulting in a singular/plural distinction in pronouns.

All count nouns can be declined into the plural number with the suffix -(a)n. For improper nouns, they are not conjugated as plural if a) there is only one or a few of a thing, or b) it is modified with a number.

Location

Nouns distinguish ten locative cases, all of which come from the Nati language and were adopted into the Taliv language during the pidgin era:

Inessive	`INE`	-ddal	ujadiddal	"in the house"
Elative	`ELA`	-al	ujadyal	"outside the house"
Lative¹	`LAT`	-wi	ujadiwi	"to/toward the house"
Ablative²	`ABL`	-igza	ujadyigza	"(away) from the house"
Adessive	`ADE`	-nuz	ujadinuz	"near the house"
Distantive	`DSTV`	-bin	ujadibin	"far from the house"
Superessive	`SUPE`	-jazid	ujadijazid	"above/over the house"
Subessive	`SUBE`	-bbaggu	ujadibbaggu	"below/under the house"
Antessive	`ANTE`	?	?	"before/left of the house"
Postessive	`POST`	?	?	"after/right of the house"

? indicates that a term for the particular case has not been decided upon.

The Lative is also used as the Dative case for indirect objects.
The Ablative is also used as the Gentive case to indicate possession.

Once a noun takes on a locative case, it is treated as a modifier, coming immediately after its head. However, it can still be given modifiers of its own that may intervene between the locative and its head. In this case, locative nouns take on their own group, alongside subject nouns and object nouns.

budai yau yi ujadiwi ggarauni.
buda-ai  yau    yi      ujadi-wi  ggarauni.
walk-TEL 1S.NOM 1S.POSS house-LAT large.
"I walk to my large house."

Pronouns

Pronouns come in five persons: first, second, third animate, third inanimate, and third person spiritual. These four persons are split into four grammatical categories:

Nominative (NOM) Used as the subject of the sentence.
Accusative (ACC) Used as the object of the sentence.
Possessive (POSS) Used for possession, as an alternative to using the ablative.
Adpositional (ADP) Used for pronouns conjugated for location.

1st Person

First person singular (1S) pronouns are used to refer to the speaker. First person plural (1P) is used to refer to the speaker and an indeterminate number of others.

	Nominative	Accusative	Possessive	Adpositional
Singular	yau	dau	yi	ya
Plural	yaun	daun	yin	yan

2nd Person

2nd person singular (2S) pronouns are used to refer to the listener/reader. 2nd person plural (2P) is used to refer to two or more listeners/readers.

	Nominative	Accusative	Possessive	Adpositional
Singular	lu	liv	luhi	luha
Plural	lun	livan	luhin	luhan

3rd Person Animate

3rd person animate pronouns are used to refer to people and some animals, especially pets and birds. They come as both singular (3Sa) and plural (3Pa).

	Nominative	Accusative	Possessive	Adpositional
Singular	auzi	auzi	zi	auza
Plural	auzin	auzin	zin	auzan

3rd Person Inanimate

3rd person inanimate pronouns are used to refer to wild animals, objects, events, and noun clauses. They come as both singular (3Si) and plural (3Pi).

	Nominative	Accusative	Possessive	Adpositional
Singular	vi	vai	vi	va
Plural	vin	vain	vin	van

3rd Person Spiritual

3rd person animate pronouns are used to refer to spirits, sacred objects and places, and the dead. They come as both singular (3Ss) and plural (3Ps).

	Nominative	Accusative	Possessive	Adpositional
Singular	ja	ja	ji	ja
Plural	jan	jan	jin	jan

Verbs

Verbs only conjugate four lexical aspects. There is no tense, but it is rather expressed through context and other modifier phrases. Only the irrealis mood is conjugated to the verb, while other moods are expressed through modifiers and context. Verbs do not compound with any other part of speech.

Aspect

The Wistanian understanding of aspect is different than what one will find in most natural languages. Rather than conjugating for grammatical aspect, Wistanian conjugates for lexical aspect. In other words, the very definition of a verb may change based on its conjugation.

The four lexical aspects are: stative, durative, telic, and atelic.

Stative verbs (STA) describe a situation or action that is unchanging over a long period of time. Stative verbs do not describe temporary actions, but rather the result of a temporary action or a series of temporary actions that identify the subject.
Durative verbs (DUR) are dynamic and indicate that an action is in progress from one state to another.
Telic verbs (TEL) are dynamic and punctual, describing an action with an endpoint. More specifically, it refers to any action that has been completed as intended. In most situations, it strongly implies the past or future tense and the perfective grammatical aspect.
Atelic verbs (ATEL) are dynamic and punctual, describing an action that does not have an intended endpoint. Like the telic, this aspect strongly implies the past or future tense, but is often grammatically imperfective.

     ASPECT
     /    \
STATIVE DYNAMIC
        /     \
  DURATIVE    PUNCTUAL
              /      \
          TELIC      ATELIC

For example, the verb bima means to "fall" in the telic, "precipitate" in the atelic, "descend" in the durative, and "to be fallen (i.e., lying on the ground after a fall)" in the stative. bima still expresses the same basic meaning — "the subject goes downward" — but its implications change based on its conjugations. This is also true of the verb ja, which means "like" in the stative, "fall in love" in the durative, "achieve or accomplish" in the telic, and "want" in the atelic. Again, the basic meaning remains — "the subject has a desire" — but the differing conjugations further explain what kind of desire is being had: an unchanging desire (stative), a growing desire (durative), a satisfied desire (telic), or an unsatisfied desire (atelic).

These aspects also imply certain grammatical features. Indeed, these aspects originally did refer to grammatical aspects a thousand years within Wistanian's history. The stative was once the gnomic aspect, the durative was once the continuous aspect, and the telic and atelic were once the perfective and imperfective aspects, respectively. This shift was slow, however, but it picked up mightily during the pidginization with the Nati, since lexical aspect could allow them to communicate using fewer verb roots, so words such to "to put on" were replaced with the durative conjugation for the stative "to wear".

Mood

Verbs are conjugated for the irrealis mood, which is used in polite requests, questions, and in conjunction with epistemic or deontic particles. This is done with the suffix ⟨-j⟩. Indicative negative verbs are not conjugated as irrealis.

NOMINAL	VERBAL
	STATIVE		DYNAMIC
			DURATIVE		PUNCTUAL
			DURATIVE		TELIC		ATELIC
	realis	irrealis	realis	irrealis	realis	irrealis	realis	irrealis
viga	vigiya	vigiyaj	viga	vigaj	vigai	vigaij	viga	vigaj
zani	zaniya	zaniyaj	zana	zanaj	zanyi	zanyij	zanya	zanyaj
hadu	hadiya	hadiyaj	hada	hadaj	hadwi	hadwij	hadwa	hadwaj

Modifiers

Modifiers immediately follow their head, except for colors, numbers, and possessives. Morphologically, there is no difference between an adjective and an adverb, since they rely on word order. Modifier phrases can be expressed either at the beginning or end of a sentence or after the verb, if it modifies it. Locative nouns, which are syntactically treated as modifiers, usually prefer after the verb. Temporal phrases prefer the beginning of the sentence.

Negation

Nouns, verbs, and modifiers can be negated using the prefix bau(n)-.

Particles

Particles in Wistanian are words which have a grammatical meaning rather than a semantic meaning. They also do not inflect. Particles always come before their head.

Object Particles

All non-subject, non-locative nouns are considered as objects in Wistanian grammar and are therefore featured at the end of the sentence, and are required an object particle. Object order depends on the following hierarchy.

ACC > INST > BEN/CAU

The noun particles are:

Accusative	`ACC`	aa	Marks the object of the sentence.
Instrumental	`INS`	il	Marks the means by which an action is done.
Benefactive	`BEN`	ggaun	Marks the reason for which something is done volitionally.
Causative	`CAU`	diri	Marks the reason for which something is done involitionally.

ila yau aa ujadi il divu ggaun yi jyaman.
ila  -a   yau    aa  ujadi il  divu ggaun yi      jyam -an.
build-DUR 1S.NOM ACC house INS wood BEN   1S.POSS child-PL.
"I am building a house with wood for my children."

Modal Particles

These particles are featured before the verb and indicate a deontic or epistemic mood. These moods, and therefore the terms for their use, are undecided.

Relativizer Particles

There are three relativizer particles that are normally expressed before a relative clause and after the noun that relative clause modifies. These can also be used as copula.

Copulative	`COP`	va	Indicated that the head is equal to something.
Possessive	`POSS`	na	Indicates that the head possesses something.
Active	`ACT`	vaun	Indicates that the head does something.

As relativizers, they can be translated as such: COP = which is, POSS = which has, and ACT = which does.

As copula, COP equates a subject noun with another noun, possessive pronoun, color, or number; POSS equates a subject noun with an adjective that's not a possessive pronoun, color, or number; and ACT doubles as a sort of gnomic aspect particle for intransitive verbs. Since these are particles, the word order for these particular types of sentences appears to change to SVO and the accusative particle is omitted.

wizddaaniya va ggarimalun.
wizddaaniya va  ggarimalun.
Wistania    COP large.island
"Wistania is a large island."

wizddaaniya na lazai.
wisddaaniya na   lazai.
Wistania    POSS great.
"Wistania is great." (Lit. "Wistania has great.")

wizddaniya gaun liya.
wizddaniya gaun liya.
Wistania   ACT  fly.
"Wistania fares well" (Lit. "Wistania flies.")

Technically, these are incomplete sentences, indicating only a noun and a relative clause without a compliment. However, they are considered perfectly viable sentences.

Coordinating Particles

Also known as conjunctions. These conjunctions have still yet to be decided upon.

Honorifics

Wistanian has a very exciting honorific system with several unique features. Honorifics are used for almost everyone: familial relationships and close friendships, authorities and superiors, and people who are younger than you. They are often said after a proper noun, take inflectional morphology, and can replace the 2nd person pronouns.

These honorifics are still under construction.

Semantics

The Wistanian Lexicon currently stands at 300 words as of May 2018, with a goal of accomplishing 2,500 words by the end of the year. A link to the lexicon can be found at the bottom of this article, under "Other Resources"

A typical Wistanian family

Kinship

Wistanian kinship is a modified version of the Hawaiian system common in most Malayo-Polynesian languages. In this system, siblings and first cousins share terms with only a gender and age distinction. Mothers are usually given a term of endearment by their children (usually mu), but a child's aunts will also be called "mother" and the father and uncles will share terms as well. Most of Wistanian culture is ambilineal and matrifocal, so that children live and associate closest to their mother and her side of the family. For this reason, a child's mother's brother will often be just as much of a father figure as the child's biological father, who may or may not be involved in the family.

daran	male older brother or cousin
yida	male younger brother or cousin
madya	female older sister or cousin
yima	female younger sister or cousin
imaun	uncle/aunt by marriage
maumu	mother/aunt by blood
vauhi	father/uncle by blood
yi daz	husband (lit. "my man")
yi laz	wife (lit. "my woman")
jyam	child, offspring
audi/aumi	grandfather/grandmother
aujyam	grandchild

The Bwolotil people are more nuclear, consisting of only a mother, father, and one or two children. They have their own kinship terms from their language. Some Katapu people share the typical family structure and kinship terms. However, most family structures are extended so that families live amongst the mother's extended family, and fathers are usually present in the home. Most of their kinship terms also come from the Katapu language, but some Wistanian terms are borrowed as well.

Colors

under construction

Numbers