Scellan
Äivö is a close relative of Tíogall with mutations and vowel harmony.
Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Coronal | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m /m/ | n /n/ | ng /ŋ/ | |||
| Stop | voiceless | p /p/ | t /t/ | k /k/ | ||
| voiced | b /b/ | d /d/ | g /g/ | |||
| Spirant | voiceless | f /f/ | th /θ/ | kh /x/ | ||
| voiced | v /v/ | dh /ð/ | ||||
| Sibilant | s /s/ | h /h/ | ||||
| Liquid | r /r/ | |||||
| Approximant | l /l/ | j /j/ | ||||
Vowels
| Front | Back | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| unrounded | rounded | |||||
| short | long | short | long | short | long | |
| Close | i /i/ | ii /iː/ | y /y/ | yy /yː/ | u /ʊ/ | uu /uː/ |
| Close-mid | e /e/ | ee /eː/ | ö /ø/ | öö /øː/ | o /o/ | oo /oː/ |
| Open | ä /æ/ | ää /æː/ | a /ɑ/ | aa /ɑː/ | ||
Morphology
Nouns
The definite article is a suffix -me: duuvooŋ 'a teacher', duuvooŋme, 'the teacher'.
Feminine nouns must undergo lenition in the singular: khuuth 'an animal', khuuthime 'the animal'.
The plural suffix marked as follows:
- -a/-ä for masculine nouns ending in a consonant
- -ar/-är for feminine nouns
Copula
Äivö has a copula lädh which inflects regularly in the present tense.
As in Welsh, the copula is also used with progressive verbs: Laidh an dùbhòinn d'èinteach (The teacher is sleeping).
Verbs
The Äivö verbal system is very different from Tíogall, and much closer to Bhadhagha.
For one thing, Äivö analogized the analytic forms of verbs to all persons, and fused the personal pronoun with the verb:
molaigh ná -> molanna "I thank"
molaigh fiar -> molar "thou thankest"
molaigh hú -> molu "he thanks"
molaigh hí -> moli "she thanks"
molaigh -> mola "... thanks" (with nonpronominal subjects)
molaigh gámh -> molo "we thank" (both exc. and inc.!)
molaigh séid -> molad "ye thank"
molaigh hár -> molar "they thank"
Impersonal: moloov "one thanks"
The past tense is marked by a séimhiú on the verb as in Irish, except that the suffixes are the same as in the present tense. This comes from a construction that translates to "it was the case that ...", which also survives in Bhadhagha.
The future tense however has a special set of suffixes, derived from the Old Tíogall future tense:
moltanna, moltar, moltu, molti, molto, moltad, moltar
The verbal noun is much more regular than in Tíogall, and is consistently marked with -akh/-äkh.
Äivö is not split-ergative, unlike Tíogall.
Perfect tenses use the construction tänn followed by the verbal noun.