Wistanian Language

Wistanian is a Talivian language and lingua franca spoken among five tribes on the large island nation of Wistania. Its native name, aningali translates as "peace language." There are approximately 50 million speakers, comprising of 95% of the island's population. Of that number, 60% are native in the language and 20% speak it exclusively. It is considered the language of government, economy, and education, and it is mandatorily taught in most schools. It is written in a young, native alphabet that is completely phonetic.

Wistanian is classified as a mixed language, drawing its roots from the Taliv, but borrowing a large number of words, phrases, and grammar from the Nati, Katapu, Uzin, and Bwolotil languages, spoken by the five people groups that occupy the island.

Dialects of Wistanian are broadly split into three categories: the Standard Dialect, spoken in the central mountains, major cities, and among the Taliv and Nati people groups; The Western Dialect, spoken by a majority of Bwolotil and Uzin speakers; and The Northern Dialect, spoken by the Katapu and some Uzin. Each dialect is mostly mutually intelligible, although some variations have diverged enough to be confusing to the standard listener. These dialects vary in pronunciation, lexicon, and sometimes syntax.

Background
Wistanian, natively known as aningali, is spoken by around fifty million people on the island of Wistania. It arose as a creole between the Taliv and Nati peoples as they fought together in a war against the Bwolotil. That war concluded with a peace treaty that included the Bwolotil, Taliv, Nati, and Katapu peoples. Later, a final people group were included in the Treaty, the Uzin.

For several years after the Treaty, the linguistic landscape of the island re-mained mostly the same. In the beginning, the creole was used only in government and trade, then it expanded into education and religion, and finally to entertain-ment. After only four or five generations, almost all Wistanians speak Wistanian as either their only language or a second language. The Taliv and Nati languages have for the most part fallen into archaism, while the Katapu and Uzin languages are rarely used. There are still many monolingual Bwolotil speakers, but most of the younger generations are growing up immersed in Wistanian.

Phonology
Wistanian has sixteen consonant phonemes and six vowel phonemes. They are:

Some phonemes change in relation to other phonemes nearby. This is called allo-phony. Although many different varieties and accents of Wistanian have their own allophony, the most common forms of allophony are:


 * Word-initial lenis plosives /b d ɡ/ are prenasalized to [mb, nd, ŋ¬ɡ] if the first syllable is stressed.
 * /n/ and /m/ shift to velar [ŋ] before other velar phones.
 * /v z ʒ/ shift to [f s ʃ] immediately before fortis plosives.
 * /ɦ/ shifts to [ɣ] word-initially and in the beginning of a stressed syllable.
 * /w/ is often in free variation between [w] and [βʷ].
 * Word-medial /r/ is often in free variation between [r̻] and [ɾ̻].
 * /ɯ ɑ/ round to [u ɒ] after /w/.
 * Vowels become breathy after /ɦ/.

Stress
Wistanian has three layers of vocalic stress:


 * primary stress, in which the vowel is tense and held longer
 * secondary stress, in which the vowel is tense but not held as long
 * tertiary stress, only applied to /i a ɯ/, in which the vowel is short and laxed to [ɪ ə ʊ].

Stress placement in a word is somewhat predictable as it lands on the first tense vowel of a word. However, /i/ and /a/ can be either tense or laxed in a somewhat unpredictable manner. For example, viman. When stress is on the /i/ as in [viːmən], the word means “sugar”, but when stress is on the /a/ as in [vɪmaːn], the word means “sky.” The vowel /ɯ/ is more predictable as it is (almost) always and only laxed word-initially in a polysyllabic word.

Syllables are structured as ({C1,FA})V(C2). This means that every syllable has a nu-cleus at its center, which must be a vowel phoneme or diphthong (notated as 〈V〉). The onset, which comes before the nucleus, is optional and can be any consonant phoneme (notated as 〈C1〉) or fricative-approximant cluster (notated as 〈FA〉). The coda, which comes after the nucleus, is also optional and can be any consonant phoneme except for /j/, /w/, and /ɦ/ (notated as 〈C2〉).

Most Wistanians speak softly and clearly, usually speeding up or slowing down de-pending on how excited they are. It is mostly inappropriate to shout in Wistanian culture.

Lexical Categories
Wistanian has six lexical categories - or ‘parts of speech.’ They are verbs, nominals, particles, honorifics, coordinators, and interjections.

Verbs
Verbs are almost always featured first in a simple sentence and describe the action or state of the subject nominal.

viga dari. viga-a   dari eat-IPV  boy “The boy is eating.”

Verbs conjugate for three aspects:


 * perfective denotes that an action is completed in the topic time
 * e.g., hadu → hadwai = “learned”
 * imperfective denotes that an action is not completed in the topic time
 * e.g., hadu → hadwa = “(is) learning”
 * stative denotes a state as result of the action.
 * e.g., hadu → hadiyu = “knows”

The dictionary form of verbs are their deverbalized form in which they do not re-ceive any marking. They refer to the action as a whole and are syntactically and morphologically nominals. e.g. hadu = “the act of learning.”

Statives have two lexical forms: the active stative and the passive stative. Actives refer to the result of having done the action, while passives re-fer to the result of having the action done to it. For example:

vigiya alin. vig‹iy›a alin eat‹STA› mouse “The mouse is full (because it ate something).”

vigiya aa alin. vig‹iy›a aa alin eat‹STA› ACC mouse “The mouse is eaten (because something ate it).”

Verbs have three stems: -a, -i, and -u. Their conjugation patterns are as follows:

Sometimes, an epenthetic 〈a〉 or 〈h〉 will be inserted between the verb root and the /  suffix to comply to Wistanian’s syllable structure.

Verbs can take on two prefixes: the negative bau(n)- (noting that the action does not happen) and completive u(l)- (noting that the action happens completely).

All verbs also have irrealis conjugations which are used for events that have not happened. These include actions/states in the future as well as conditionals, potentials, hypotheticals, and polite requests.

Nominals
Nominals, also known as nouns, are the agents and patients of the actions or states represented by the verb. These are usually people, places, things, and ideas.

When two nominals are beside each other, the second is an attributive nominal and modifies the first nominal rather than acting as an argument to the verb. Some examples:

A single head nominal can also have multiple attributives:

auvi garauni iraa din bird+large+red+three “Three large red birds”

Nominals can also be split into count nominals and mass nominals. Count nominals are those things that are countable in the Wistanian language, therefore being able to be modified by a number and take on the “plural” affix -(a)n, which denotes five or more objects. Mass nominals cannot be counted nor take on the plural affix.

For most nominals that end with a vowel, the plural affix is just 〈-n〉 (e.g., alvi → alvin). Some nominals, called h-nominals, also end with a vowel, but an /ɦ/ is in-serted between the root and the plural affix (e.g., ilau → ilauhan).

Particles
Particles are grammatical words that modify verbs and nominals for their role in the sentence. The most important particles are the nominal particles (n. part.) that mark oblique nominals (i.e., any nominal that is not the subject of the verb.) Those particles are expressed before the nominal they modify.

Verbal particles (v. part.) indicate various other moods and aspects to the verb.

Honorifics
Honorifics are polite pronouns and titles that are applied to people depending on their social status relative to the speaker’s (kind of like English’s “Mister” and “Miss”). Wistanian has honorifics for superiors and inferiors, adults and children, and there are even some family-specific honorifics. They can also vary among dif-ferent people and almost act as a nickname in some cases.

Coordinators
Coordinators are words that connect two nominals, verbs, or phrases. Nominals are typically connected by ya (and), vil (with, alongside) or i (or), and oblique nominals often remove coordinators and repeat the nominal particle instead. Ver-bal and phrasal coordinators are more complex, accounting for chronology and sen-sitive to switch-reference.

Interjections
Interjections are words that can stand alone and usually express an exclamation or phatic expression (e.g., ‘hello’, ‘thank you’, etc.). These also include ideophones that represent sounds and some ideas.

Sentence Structure
The typical Wistanian sentence is verb-initial, followed by the (unmarked) nomina-tive agent or experiencer, and then the (marked) oblique nominals. Any particles will come immediately in front of their head. For example:

auwinai yau aa did garauni ggaun aumi. auwina-ai yau    aa  did+garauni   ggaun aumi buy-PV   1SG.NOM ACC lettuce+large BEN   grandmother “I bought a large head of lettuce for (my) grandmother.”

Although the word order is usually rigid, it sometimes moves around, bringing more important nominals forward. Omitting the subject is normal under two condi-tions: the subject is already well-established, or the verb is passive (i.e., the topical nominal is the patient of the verb rather than the agent).

Nominal phrases and quotations are typically marked with a demonstrative.

jaha yau aa id, dazjyaij waz aa da il zanju. ja-a    yau     aa  id  dazji-aij   waz     aa  da      il  zanju want-IPV 1SG.NOM ACC PRX give-PV.IRR 2SG.NOM ACC 1SG.OBL INS shoes “I want you to give me the shoes.” (lit.) “I want this: you give me the shoes.”

Commands are also verb-initial, but the accusative nominal is typically fronted ahead of the nominal. The verb is usually irrealis, especially when the command is polite.

zigwaij aa bba luhi, bin. zigu-aij      aa  bba+luhi       bin pick.up-PV.IRR ACC trash+2SG.POSS HON “Pick up your trash, child.”

Content questions are wh- in situ; that is, the sentence is structured as normal, ex-cept that the missing information is replaced with the question pronoun. The ques-tion pronoun a takes primary stress, surfacing as [aː].

yigai auzi il a. yiga-ai   auzi     il  a  speak-PV   3SGa.NOM INS Q  “What did he say?” (lit.) “He said what?”

Yes/No (polar) questions do not use the question pronoun a, but rather employ a combination of three elements: 1) both the affirmative and negative forms of a verb, 2) the irrealis applied to both verbs, and 3) the disjunction i.

i vigaij i bauvigaij lu. i viga-aij   i  bau-viga-aij   lu  or eat-PV.IRR or NEG-eat-PV.IRR 2SG.NOM “Did you eat?” (lit.) “Did you eat, or did you not eat?” (or) “You either ate or did not eat (which one?).