Yrkyr

Yrkyr language
Jyrkyr
Pronunciation	[/ˈjər.kər/]
Created by	Raistas
Setting	planet Morev
Ethnicity	Jyrwutyr
Native speakers	70 000 (271 local year)
Language family	Yrharian Yrkyr language
Early forms	Proto-Yrharian Proto-North-Yrharian

Yrkyr (Yr: jyrkyr /ˈjər.kər/, or jyrharkyr /jər.ˈhɑr.kər/) is a North Yrharian language, spoken in the northeastern part of Mtovrex (Turix/tʷu.ˈrʲix/) in the Irgva continent (Kynon /kə.ˈnʌn/). The name of the language means "the speech of the local people". The other living Yrharian language is Yhkagur /jə.ʰka.ɣʷur/ spoken further north between the White Mountains and the Shallow Sea, which is unintelligible to Yrkyr. Both languages evolved from a common ancestor approximately 2 000 years ago and still remain in contact, allowing new words entering easily. Yrkyr also underwent a slight Mtari influence by the contact with the Mtari people. It is reflected by the presence of many Mtari loanwords in its vocabulary, however they were adapted to the Yrkyr phonology and thus may be almost completely unrecognizable to a Mtari speaker.

The Yrkyr language has approximately 70 thousand native speakers, most of whom are monolingual and illiterate. Some also learned Mtari due to the modern compulsory education policy, which requires children to get a basic education in boarding schools.

Yrhu

Yrhu (jyrhu /jər.ˈɦu/) is a dialect of Yrkyr spoken next to the Shallow Sea. While being mutually intelligible with Yrkyr to some degree (with Yrhu speakers understanding Yrkyr more than vice versa), it differ in vocabulary and grammar from the inland language. It shares some more lexical similarity with Yhkagur, while phonologically it is almost identical to Yrkyr. Yrhu is most notable for its breathy-voiced vowels at the end of many words and final /r/ and /l/ devoicing to /r̥/ and /ɬ/ respectively. Some consonant clusters, found in Yrkyr, are simplified to geminated consonants (all instances of /sn/, /t͡ʃŋ/, /t͡sn/, /tn/ become /nː/, /ln/ becomes /lː/ and /mn/ becomes /mː/. Most instances of /nt/ and /rt/ also become /tː/ and /t͡sː/, while /lt/ becomes /ɬ/ without gemination). Also the /x/~/s/ alteration in Yrkyr was leveled to /ɦ/ in Yrhu - tox ("rabbit") - tosyx ("rabbits") is toh - tohyx. However, /ɬ/ is preserved in every position, while in Yrkyr the sound almost completely merged with /l/. The phoneme /t͡ɬ/ is also never substituted with /r/ which does not appear word-initially at all in Yrhu, even in loanwords. One of the smaller features is /h/ which is voiced [ɦ] except word-finally. A few villages next to the sea also preserve an ancient phoneme /ɸ/ (only word-initially), which merged with /h/ in all other North-Yrharian dialects, so such words as hahr /ɦɑːr̥/ "human" and fahr /ɸɑːr̥/ "mountain meadow" sound differently, while in Yrkyr they are both pronounced /hɑːr/. The word for "coast" is wytwal in Yrhu, which preserves the marginal phoneme [tʷ], since /tw/ cluster is not allowed, while in Yrkyr it became wytul where [tʷ] is an allophone of /t/. Some Yrhu speakers, living next to the area, where Yhkagur is spoken, also have palatalized consonants marginally.

Phonology

Consonants

Like other Yrharian languages, Yrkyr lacks a voiceless/voiced distinction in consonants, which is present in Mtari and thus makes a noticeable accent in Yrharians trying to speak it. Consonant clusters are not allowed word-intially and finally in native words, and only two consonants are allowed together medially, creating a steady rhythm while speaking the language. This rule is also applied to loanwords from Mtari, which allows long consonant clusters. Even the name of the language is Tari in Yrkyr. Syllables ending in a consonant are considered heavy and usually receive a stress, which is otherwise unpredictable.

	Bilabial	Dental	Post-alveolar		Velar		Glottal
			central	lateral	plain	labialized
Nasal	m	n			ŋ	ŋʷ
Plosive	p	t			k	kʷ
Affricate		t͡s	t͡ʃ	t͡ɬ
Fricative		s	ʃ	(ɬ)	x	xʷ	h (ɦ)
Approximant			j	l		w
Trill			r

Palatalization and labialization are two unique Yrharian features. In Proto-Yrharian almost every consonant had a palatalized and a labialized variants. But a sound change, that resulted in lowering of North Yrharian high vowels, allowed to eliminate them as phonemic everywhere, except for velars, which still preserve labialized counterparts. In modern language both palatalization and labialization occure before /i/ and /u/ respectively, but these features are not phonemic anymore. Instead new consonant alterations derived from the change.

Vowels

There are five vowels, four of which contrast in length. The quality of long vowels mostly overlaps with the quality of short vowels, except long ones are pronounced slightly more closed, while short vowels are slightly centralized. The only exception is /aː/ which is fronted noticeably comparing to its short counterpart. Long vowels are denoted with a silent "h" before consonants in the orthography, since the consonant /h/ appeares in this environment, while conjugating various words. In Yrhu the final "h" is pronounced as a weak aspiration, but it is still silent before other consonants, lengthening a preceding vowel.

	Front		Central	Back
	long	short		long	short
Close	iː	i		uː	u
Mid			ə
Open-mid	ɛː	ɛ		ʌː	ʌ
Open			aː		ɑ

The high vowels /i/ and /u/ along with their long counterparts influence a preceding consonant: /i/ always palatalize it, while /u/ always labialize the consonant. This is a type of an assimilation process. The feature is very noticeable in Yrkyr speech despite not being phonemic.

Phonotactics

Most basic Yrkyr word roots are monosyllabic. Typical syllable structures are V, CV and CVC, where C is a consonant and V is a vowel. The first two types are called light syllables, which take part in vowel alterations and don't receive stress, when there is a heavy syllable of a CVC structure nearby. There are no limitations to which consonant may appear word-initially or in consonant clusters, which are only possible on syllable boundaries. Root final clusters are not allowed, an epenthetic [ə] being inserted between the consonants, when such a cluster would appear. Vowel sequences are also not allowed, except between different words. Nearby consonants and vowels are affecting each other, creating a comlex system of alterations, some of which became unpredictable with time, for example: lyči /ˈlə.t͡ʃi/ - "to see", lyteŋ /lə.ˈtɛn/ - "I see it", where /t/ always palatalizes to /t͡ʃ/ before /i/; kʷocawun /kʷʌ.t͡sɑ.ˈwun/ - while bathing, lykʷos /lə.ˈkʷʌs/ to wash (something) - kʷoskyŋ /ˈkʷʌs.kəŋ/ "I wash up", laxkʷohŋ /lɑx.ˈkʷʌːŋ/ - "I took a bath", where /t͡s/ becomes /s/ and dissappears.

Morphology

All Yrkyr words fall into one of three, clearly differentiated, classes; verbs, nominals, and particles. The latter class is a collecting term for various non-inflecting words. Nominals may be derived from verbal stems but apparently no verb is derived from a nominal stem, instead a nominal root is attached to an existing verb - a process, called noun incorporation. Adjectives and adverbials derive from either verbs or nominals, but all of them behave like stative verbs, so they are not listed as a separate class. Yrkyr is between agglutinative and fusional types of language and inflections are often essential to clear understanding and transmission of information. It is also fairly regular in its nominal morphology, but more irregular in the verbal one. There are dozens of old irregular verbs with completely unpredictable conjugation patterns, resulted from various sound changes. Proto-Yrharian is considered to had been far more regular polysynthetic language, but over time all of its descendants gained more and more irregularities.

Nominal morphology

Yrharain has two nominal declensions based on animacy: animate and inanimate. Each declension has its own set of case markings. Most animals, people, some weather phenomena like thunder, and supernatural entities are animate, while most non-living things, insects, abstract and collective nouns, plants, and sky/weather features (such as clouds) are inanimate. Animate nouns typically take the ergative case, while inanimate - either absolutive or instrumental cases, when two are present in a sentence, regardless of their actual role as a subject and an object.

Nominals are inflected for seven cases and three numbers (singular, dual and plural). Any animate noun can take dual number, while only naturally paired inanimate nouns can take it. The rest usually take plural. Reduplication is a non-productive element of derivation. It is occasionally used to indicate a collective group. Mass nouns do not have plurals but new nouns can be derived from them by attaching a plural marker. They would still be declined as singular ones, while the plural marker becomes a suffix. This process is called suffixaufnahme. It can also occure with genitive and dative markers, which become suffixes and can receive new endings. For example, toj - "side", tojiha "sideways" (of the side), become tojihka "to the side", tojihcan "suddenly" (out from the side).

Case endings

	Animate			Inanimate
	Singular	Dual	Plural	Singular	Plural
Absolutive	-Ø	-Ø/-i	-x	-Ø	-x
Ergative	-an/-ahn	-yn	-iŋ	-i/-ih	-nyŋ
Dative	-ka	-yŋka	-iŋa	-ki	-nyŋa
Instrumental	-o	-(u)jo	-no	-o	-jo
Genitive*	-aha(t-)	-yjxa(t-)	-iŋka(t-)	-iha(t-)	nyŋka(t-)
Commitative	-oš	-uš	-noš	-	-
Ablative	-acaŋ	-ycaŋ	-incaŋ	-icaŋ	-yncaŋ

• Genitive case can serve a locative case function when a -t suffix is added and then a locative particle is attached to the suffix.

In order to mark possession, genitive case is used. But Yrkyr does not have separate possessive pronouns like English "my" or "her". Instead there are possessive suffixes, attached to the end of a word. Possessive suffixes are almost the same as person markers in verbs, which they are derived from.

Possessive suffixes

	Singular	Dual	Plural
1st person	-ŋ	-(k)uŋ	-toŋ
2nd person	-š	-kus	-x(t)oŋ
3rd person	-(k)e	-we	-kʷoŋ

Nominal compounding was relatively rare but becomes more common and is generally used to refer to new elements and terms introduced by the Mtari people, for example: kʷottyš - "glass" ("ice stone" from kʷor "ice" and tyš "stone"). However, when a Mtari word is short and easy to pronounce, it would be used instead, like tarot "money" from Mtari dareot. Glass is pkraˁ in Mtari, which is very difficult to pronounce for a native Yrkyr speaker.

Derivational morphology

Yrkyr has a rather comlicated system of vowel and consonant alterations, which arose from various vowel contractions and consonant changes in clusters that formed afterwards. The system, depsite being very old, is still mostly productive and new words can be created using it. Traces of it are thought to have been present already in Proto-Yrharian.

Most common derivation types are listed in the table below. Stress is marked with an acute accent above a vowel.

Derivation types

Reduction	Full vowel	-aha- infix	-w- infix
jýr	háhr	hássar	wutýr
Yrharian	person	village	people
ewýn	éxʷa-	éxʷahan	k-exun
stream	to drag	sledge	wheel
ásna	ocán	ocanáhr	okʷín
tree	wood	forest	storage

Pronominal morphology

Yrkyr has no separate personal pronouns, like English "I" or "you", instead this information is incoded in verbs by using person markers. There is no separate pronoun class either - Yrkyr uses a special set of pronominal clitics that are attached to nouns in order to make a full pronoun. Those are called correlative clitics, some of which are present below.

Pronominal clitics

Indefinite			Demonstrative			Other
negative	ŋa-	no	proximal	taskʷ-	this (near me)	relative	te-	who/which
distributive	nu-	each	medioproximal	tat-	that (near you)	interrogative	kʷo-	who?/what?
elective	je-	any	mesiodistal	čit-	that (not far)	inalienable possessive*	ja-	my, your etc.
alternative	kʷi-	other	distal	tukʷ-	that (far)	emphatic	lhi-/le-	-selv/the one who...

• Inalienable possessive marker can be used either with or without a possessive marker, depending on the context. For example, one can say jatese wakynne "his/her eyes are blue", when he/she is a new topic, but jates wakynne when it is known from the context, which person is being talked about.

The most common nouns used with these prefixes are tlat "place, location", to "side", ne "way", šon "time, occasion", hahr "person". However, the prefixes may be used with any noun, so a large number of pronouns can be created this way.

Verbal morphology

Verbs are the most complex element of the Yrkyr morphology. They are composed of a stem to which inflectional or derivational affixes are added. The stem itself is composed of a root and an aspect marker. Sometimes there is also a thematic suffix fused to the stem. The affixes that occur on a verb are added in specified more or less rigid order according to affix type. Positions of those types are called templates. A verb doesn't need to have all templates filled, but every verb must have at least one full template. Below is a table of all the Yrkyr verb templates:

Preverb	Prefixes					Stem			Suffixes
	-6	-5	-4	-3	-2	-1	0	1	2	3	4	5	6
	thematic prefix	negation	evidentiality	valence	modality	aspect	root	thematic suffix	inverse marker	impersonal marker	verb type modifier	object	subject

Although prefixes are generally found in a specific position, some may change order via metathesis. Suffixes are typically more rigid and when a consonant cluster would form, /ə/ is inserted to break a prohibited cluster. Sometimes an unexpected vowel or consonant may appear and their appearance should be memorized, since such alterations are no longer predictable. Typically e appears after the root and before suffixes in some old verbs ending. For example: wynnu "to find out" - wynneweš "You've found it out".

Preverb

Some prefixes, put into this template, indicate various spatial and temporal relation. Their meaning is similar to English prepositions that are used with nouns, but in Yrkyr they are used with the verb instead. Some nouns are also incorporated into the verb and put into this template. Preverb can be analized as separate word from the verb but it always strictly precedes the verb it modifies. The noun incorporation of this type is falling out of use, instead nouns tend to fuse with pronominal particles when possible. The only frequent preverb is te-, which is used to indicate motion along something or that the action may progress. Others are he- indicating a downward movement and nam- indicating action on the surface of something.

Prefixes

• Thematic prefix is usually present in verbs as it is used to derive new verbs to convey new meanings. Meanings for each of those prefixes are very approximate, and there are numerous examples of each that do not seem to match. They likely originate from incorporated nouns in Proto-Yrharian and had become fully grammaticized and productive. Several prefixes may stack onto one another, when a new prefix is added to a verb already having one.

Thematic prefixes

Prefix	Meaning	Examples
t-	irrealis marker	t-ena "to plan"
k-	action, work	k-y-ŋʷa "to describe"
p-	living	p-al(-in) "to occure"
ip-	position, place	ip-an "to sit"
l-	transitive verb	l-y-či "to see"
xʷ-	transform	xʷ-ys "to walk through"
c-	event in nature	k-y-c-on "to thaw"
lis-	social interaction	lit-us "to chat"
wyt-	mental state	wyt-li "to sing"
myl-	tool usage	myl-na "to sew"

Thematic prefixes may be partially or even fully fused with the next template in the verb, for instance: wyt-nu - wynnu "to find out", where t is assimilated to the following sound.

• Negation is marked with a negative prefix im-. The interrogative prefix haj- is also put into this template. If two prefixes are used, they fuse into one prefix jahm-.
• Evidentiality is marked on a verb by means of several prefixes, which are listed in the table below:

Evidentiality

Prefix	Meaning
Ø-	experienced by the speaker
ytn-	been just seen by the speaker
ošk-	heared from a reliable source
lha-	hypothetical, assumed

• Valence is indicated via three prefixes:

Valence

Prefix	Meaning
ax-/ix-	reflexive
ajŋ-/ijŋ-	reciprocal
aŋ-/iŋ-	benefactive
ak(a)t-/ik(i)t-	causative

• Modality markers indicate ability, possibility and likelyhood of an action. It is often used together with a t- thematic prefix.

Modality

Prefix	Meaning
xa-	ability
el-	certitude
un-	possibility
yxt-	doubt

An example, where all the prefixes slots are full: lisilhajŋuŋkorinoŋ (lis-im-lha-ajŋ-un-kor-in-oŋ) "It seems they might not have talked to each other yet". Such words are occasionaly used in common speech to convey as much information as the speaker would like to, despite looking complex and cumbersome. However, usually shorter verbs are preferred.

Stem

Yrkyr has different aspectual and modal distinctions indicated by an aspect prefix or, sometimes, a combination of several aspect prefixes fused together. Yrkyr lacks a grammatical tense. There are primary and secondary aspects, with the secondary aspects being used only in combination with a primary ones.

Primary aspect	Prefixes	Secondary aspect	Prefix
Imperfective	yš-/yt-	Continuous	-l-
Perfective	Ø-	Momentaneous	-s-/-t-
Stative	aw-/wa-/u-	Terminative	-k-
Iterative	as-/axʷ-	Quotative	-o(x)-/-os-
Optative	kʷ-/ku-	Necessitative	-r-/-n-

• The imperfective indicates an event/action that has begun but remains incomplete and can usually be translated into English using present continuous tense: wytli - "to sing", wytytliŋ - "I'm singing".
• The perfective indicates an event/action that has been completed. It usually corresponds to English simple past or future perfect: taxkyŋ - "I arrived"/"I will have arrived".
• The stative or the habitual specifies an action as occurring usually, ordinarily, or as a fact, for example: wakoryŋ "I speak", "I have an ability to speak"
• The optative indicates a positive or negative wish or desire and is also used as English imperative. Yrkyr lacks a separate imperative mood. For example, tlykukorŋeš - "talk to me please" expresses wish, not a command or obligation.
• Secondary aspects only specify the duration of an action or whether it was (or will be) stopped (terminative) or is/will be ongoing (continuous) and are rarely used in everyday speech, except when necessary. Momentaneous aspect is used to indicate the action happened in an instant. Quotative marks quoted speech and typically the evidential prefix ošk- is used instead, if the speaker believes the source. Necessitative indicates the action that should be done, usually used together with optative as the prefix kur-.
• Some verb roots have an irregular conjugation pattern, when a vowel or a whole syllable may appear. This is called a thematic suffix. The usual suffix is -e- which appears in a few old verbs with roots ending in -u or -i. Sometimes the consonant /h/ may appear if a root contains a long vowel: walhuh "to put away" - lytlyheŋ "I put it away".

Suffixes

• In Yrkyr noun declensions usually give enough information about which noun is the subject and which is the object. But this was not the case in Proto-Yrharian, which marked this distinction on the verb only. Modern Yrkyr inherited this system and innovated the other one so now it is marked twice. Animacy plays an important part in Yrkyr morphology. Generally, the most animate noun in a sentence should be the agent while the noun with lesser animacy is a patient. If both nouns are of an equal animacy then the roles are inferred from noun cases only. In all other cases an inverse marker -sw/-ru is used to indicate that the action is performed by someone of lower animacy. For example: both Eŋahn čilh lyteje and Čilh Eŋahn lyteje means "Enga listens to the jay", and in order to say "The jay listens to Enga" an inverse marker is used, since the jay is a bird and thus has lower animacy and can not be in the ergative case: Eŋahn čilh lytiswi. This can also be translated as "Enga is being listened to by the jay".
• The impersonal marker -su is used either when the agent is unknown, like the English word "someone" or in general statements, that are true of any person, similarly to English "one" or "they say".
• The verb type modifier is a special suffix attached to the verb in order to change or clarify the meaning of it. These modifiers are used to derive new verbs.

Suffix	Meaning	Example	Translation
-u	State	ta-t-n-u	to be here
-as/-at	Act	my-rap-as	to cut with a knife
-in	Event	s-ul-in	to rain
-kyt	Motion	kʷa-kyt	to go forwards
-kʷe	Position	ip-an-kʷe-ŋ	I sit to the left (from something)

Pronominal inflection

Yrkyr verbs have person suffixes and mark both subjects and objects. The suffixes are inflected according to person and number. The subject suffix is always at the end of the verb. There is no animacy hierarchy in personal suffixes and the system in general is fairly simple:

Person suffixes

Number	Subject suffixes			Object suffixes
	Singular	Dual	Plural	Singular	Dual	Plural
First	-ŋ	-uŋ	-toŋ	-ŋ	-kuŋ	-k
Second	-š	-tos	-soŋ	-š	-kus	-kta
Third	-e	-us	-oŋ	-e	-se	-ce
Third (inverse)	-i			-(e)j

When the subject is the third person and has a lower animacy than the object and vice versa, then the third inverse person marker is used. Sometimes this marker may be fused to the stem in old verbs. According to another analysis of these suffixes, the actual third singular person marker (both direct and inverse) is zero and vowels -e-/-i- appear during alterations in the stem of the verb.

Postpositions

Yrkyr uses postpositions, some of which can be attached to nouns in the locative case, to mark various spatial and temporal relations. If standalone, all postpositions must take a person suffix, which is the same as possessive suffixes of nouns. For example: neke "away from it", kʷaŋ "towards me", čittyšihaskʷa "towards that stone".

Numerals

Like the Mtari language, Yrkyr uses a decimal (base-10) numeral system. Only numerals from one to four are local, higher numerals are borrowed from Mtari.

	base numeral		+10			x10
1	pej		ektani	(11)		–
2	lakʷ		sylyktani	(12)		sylkanihs	(20)
3	lheš		jaxtani	(13)		jaxanihs	(30)
4	mes		uxoštani	(14)		uxosanihs	(40)
5	ahat		ahattani	(15)		axtanihs	(50)
6	ahm		amytani	(16)		ahmanihs	(60)
7	iwom		umytani	(17)		umonihs	(70)
8	šijom		šijtani	(18)		šijonihs	(80)
9	sytyneh		syttani	(19)		sytkemys	(90)
10	nihs		–			kehm	(100)

Words for hundreds and even higher numbers are formed in the same way (-kehm is added to make hundreds, -mek - for tens of thousands and -kyrom - for millions). In the compound numerals the lesser numeral is simply put after the bigger one: sylkanihs ahm - "twenty six". In order to make an ordinal numeral, the prefix tla- is added to the corresponding cardinal numeral. Exceptions are lapyn - "first", tlakʷa - "second" and tlaš - "third".

Vocabulary

Almost all of Yrkyr basic vocabulary is of a native Yrharian origin, but the vocabulary size is still fairly small. The core vocabulary (kinship and geographic terms, words for celestial bodies, body parts, animals and some plants) can be traced to Proto-Yrharian, while a large amount of other native words can be found only in the North-Yrharian branch or in Yrkyr only. Prior to the Mtari colonization Yrkyr did not borrow much from its neighbouring languages, instead it invented new native words for newly introduced terms and cultural items. Even after the Mtari colonists took over much of Yrharian lands and almost wiped out other native population there, the Yrkyr people were still living in a relative isolation in northern taiga regions. Around a century ago contacts with the Mtari became much more frequent, they introduced new technologies to Yrharians, most notably metals and agriculture and thus many new loanwords entered Yrkyr, which were soon adapted to its phonology, since most of the population remained monolingual. Nowadays a large portion of Yrkyr words (primarily nouns) are of the Mtari origin. Bilingual speakers tend to simplify the grammar, especially the verb morphology in their speech, using calques from Mtari instead, and thus the language changes very quickly.

Syntax

In terms of basic word order, Yrkyr has been classified as the SOV (Subject–Object–Verb) language. But the actual word order is completely free, since the language is not subject-prominant, like English, but instead a topic-prominent one, meaning that the first word in a sentence is usually the topic of discussion regardless of its grammatical function. In neutral (zero-focused) sentences the noun of the highest animacy will be the first and the verb - the last word. But generally speaking, word order is not fixed by syntactic rules. The only compulsory part of the sentence is the verb, which due to its complex morphology can convey meaning of the whole sentence on its own, like in Myltešarmotorkyrapaŋ (myl-te-yš-árym-o-tórk-ráp-as-ŋ ) - "I’m cutting this piece of fabric with a knife", which is formed from the verb root rap meaning "to cut" and the noun arym - "fabric".

In terms of the head directionality Yrkyr is considered mostly head-final, except for complementizer phrazes where a complementizer can come either before or after its complement. Still, this is the only case of head-iniality in Yrkyr. Overall the syntax is very simple, since most information, that would be expressed by the syntax in English, is conveyed via morphology.