Scellan
Äivö (g:ghaaþime äivöme) is a close relative of Tíogall with mutations and vowel harmony.
Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Coronal | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m /m/ | n /n/ | ŋ /ŋ/ | |||
| Stop | voiceless | p /p/ | t /t/ | k /k/ | ||
| voiced | b /b/ | d /d/ | g /g/ | |||
| Spirant | voiceless | f /f/ | þ /θ/ | x /x/ | ||
| voiced | v /v/ | ð /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/ | ||
There are also many diphthongs, among them ie yö uo.
Morphology
Nouns
The definite article is a suffix -me for nouns ending in a V and -ime for nouns ending in a C: duuvooŋ 'a teacher', duuvooŋime, 'the teacher'.
Feminine nouns must undergo lenition in the singular: k:xuuþ 'an animal', k:xuuþime 'the animal'.
The plural suffix marked as follows:
- -a/-ä for masculine nouns ending in a consonant
- -ar/-är for feminine nouns
Adjectives
Adjectives must also inflect for definiteness, in addition to number and gender.
Copula
Äivö has a copula lä- which inflects regularly in the present tense.
As in Welsh, the copula is also used with progressive verbs: Lää duuvooŋime de ientäx. "The teacher (male) 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: molov "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. If the initial consonant of the verb is not lenitable, then the particle go or g' is used before it. 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, moltov
The verbal noun is much more regular than in Tíogall, and is consistently marked with -ax/-äx.
Äivö is not split-ergative, unlike Tíogall.
Perfect tenses use the construction tänn followed by the verbal noun.
Vocabulary
Äivö vocabulary is much more purely Talmic than that of either Tíogall or Bhadhagha; however, a handful of words are from an unknown substrate language, such as ysvä 'knot'.