Vezhuan

Introduction

The Peshpeg language, or Peshpeg humbi todak inlak "true humans speak this way", is a highly endangered language in the valleys of the Kilmay Rī Mountains and the prefectures of south-central Minhay. The language is considered moribund: according to the last census, only about ninety fluent speakers remain, all older than sixty years. Younger generations speak only Minhast, from either the Wolf Speaker, Stone Speaker, or City Speaker dialects. Efforts to revitalize the language have been largely unsuccessful; with the exception of the City Speakers, most Minhast are either apathetic or even actively hostile to revitalization efforts. Social and economic discrimination towards the Peshpegs has only accelerated the decline of the language.

Peshpeg is classified as a language isolate. Any similarities to the Minhast language are due to language contact, with most of the influences being unidirectional; only a handful of Peshpeg words, most of them related to the fauna and flora of their original homeland, have been adopted by the Wolf Speaker and Stone Speaker dialects. However, Minhast has had an enormous impact on the Peshpeg language; close to 70% of the Peshpeg lexicon comes from Minhast, the original base-10 numerical system has been supplanted by the vegisimal system of the dominant language, and most noticeably the original morphosyntactic alignment has shifted from a nominative-accusative type to an ergative-absolutive one. Some linguists have explored the possibility of a relationship with Ín Duári, another endangered, non-Minhast language, but plausible evidence for such a relationship has not been demonstrated.

Morphology

Determiners

There are three types of determiners in Peshpeg that occur either as suffixes, such as the definite and demonstrative suffixes, or as quantifiers, independent words that precede their noun heads to which they are joined with the linker mon, e.g. Vadzini mon Golahách mon nodorzhi uzanio pepak "Many of the Ín Duári slaves revolted that day".

The definite marker refers not only to specific or highly referential nouns, but may also refer to an abstract noun class that would normally be considered concrete e.g. gazhda < *gal-gda "the (class of animals known as) horse". The definite marker is also used to nominalize verbs, e.g. lozha < loz-sha "singing". The definite marker, which occurs as a suffix, has different forms that agree in number and gender with their noun heads; however, it does not mark for case. The forms for the definite marker are as follows:

	Singular	Plural
Masculine	-g-	-gda-
Neuter I	-n-	-vda-
Feminine Neuter II Collective	-sh-

The definite marker suffixes directly to the noun root before case markers are applied. In the following example, the masculine plural form of the definite marker -vda- is attached to the noun root gal ("horse") before the comitative case suffix is applied

galvdanda
/gav'dandʌ/
gal-vda-nda
horse-DEF.MP-COM
with the horses

Cases

	Masculine		Neuter I		Feminine Neuter II Collective
	Sg	Pl	Sg	Pl	Sg	Pl
Nominative	-∅	-za	-da	-nda	ri
Accusative	-ri	-tari
Dative	-ska	-task	-ka	-nka
Ablative	-vi	-mva
Allative	-rini	-drina
Comitive	-dan	-nda
Locative	-mi	-ma
Genitive	-za	-zada
Oblique	-∅	-za

Verbs

Peshpeg verbs mark for tense and aspect. Verbs fall in three broad classes, based on how they mark the past vs. the non-past tenses: the zu-/vu- class, the etymologically related z-/v- class, and the u-/u- class. Another feature of the verb is that plural verb stems get truncated, e.g.zeganuadzh "I spoke", from the stem -egan-; vs. zegzua "We spoke", from the stem -eg-.

Syntax

Constituent order

Old and Middle Peshpeg exhibited VSO order, but the modern language is now an SOV language due to Minhast influence. Because the nominative and accusative cases have merged into the direct case, word order is strict.

Example texts

Vadzini mon Golahách mon nodorzhi uzanio pepak
/va.'dzini mon go'latʃ mon nodoɚʒi u'zanjo 'pepak/
vadzini mon gola-hat-sh mon nodor-sh-ri zu-zan-io pepak
many CONN infestation-DENON-DEF.CL2.P CON slave-DEF.CL2.P PST-create.chaos-CL2.P that.day
Many of the Ín Duári slaves revolted that day