I should've introduced it sooner, what is Byna?
In modern day, Byna is a state of around 1.75 million people found off the coast of Western Europe between Ireland and France.
It is a member of the EU and NATO, with around 45 thousand km² (17.5 thousand mi²) of area across its islands. It has 6 official languages, 3 being indigenous, 3 being national languages of other European states. The history of Byna starts in 1925 when it gets transported from Asu Delusaje, though this is not known in world, then gets colonised by the British Empire after contact by 1926. Aftwards, many arrivals from other countries come, get invaded in WWII, and falls into a period of conflict over independence in 1961, ending in becoming two states in 1964. It eventually reunifies in 1994, joining the EU and NATO.
The history of Byna was already extensive, having been originally a province of the Taknitic Empire, which was in a stage of decentralisation, with local warlords funded by nobles. Byna was held by a few warlords held together with alliances. 4th of February, 1925, they were transported into Earth, make contact with Britain and Spain. Eventually in October the first Bynan civil war starts, Britain incorporates it as a part of its empire by January 1926. Many British settlers start coming in as settlers to occupy the land, as intense modernisation and urbanisation is done. By the 1930s, many people come from Europe due to rising tensions and possible opportunities in a British colony, disproportionately Jews, mostly from Poland Yugoslavia and Hungary, made possible through land redistribution.
In the 1940s, Byna participated in WWII, acting on the Allies' side, however there existed internal collaborationist groups among the Gjynna and Eubynans. These groups regained importance in the independence movements of the 1960s, with the islands becoming independent in 1961 and immediately plunging themselves into civil war, ending with the South, a communist state that recieved lots of military aid from Soviet states, thus causing more Yugoslavs and Poles there, and the North, a capitalist state more aligned with the British and US. The south ended up poorer and less developed due to the post-war effects and isolation from all nearby states. They reunited afterthe end of Cold War and cooling of tensions in 1994.
There are multiple cultural groups that can be found in Byna, some being exclusive to the islands, others being immigrant communities. The native population, which composes around 51% of the population nowadays. There are three main segments, being Ohui, Eubynan and Gjynna, each groups speaking unique languages. The Ohui compose the largest group, then Eubynans, then Gjynna, at around 22%, 18% and 11% respectively. The origins and relations of these groups to non-Bynan groups are mysterious and unknown to most people, with many conflicting and unprovable theories existing, no links tenable. These groups have influenced eachother over their history, Eubynans being the oldest group and the other two originating from a nearby other source. Many of these people in modern days are of mixed descent, however they retain the culture. The most common religion is Paganism, which in the country has 47 of it as adherents, however notable native Christian communities exist.
The main non-native groups all came within the 20th century. The oldest ones are the English, who started coming in the 1920s onwards, mostly arriving from the UK, composing 17% of the population. There are also Poles, comprising around 14% of the population, 4% therein being Polish Jews, who first starting coming in the 1930s; Yugoslavs, that being people of former Yugoslav states, are around 9% of the population, the smallest officially recognised minority, most having come in the 1960s during the civil war. The remaining 8% are composed of various ethnic groups from other countries, including but not limited to Hungary, Nigeria, Syria, Ukraine, Spain, India, China and Turkey. Though communities have existed since the 1940s, most arrived in the 2000s. Many of these groups, totalling to 49%, are Christian, however highly singificant segments are Atheist, Jewish, and Muslim, with much smaller segments of Hindu and Chinese folk religions.
There are 4 main islands, the largest containing most of the population. It can be split into a western section, Huarana, and an eastern section, Atlantic. Huarana is split into 4 provinces, Atlantic into 3. The two main islands south of the main island are together in South Islands province, and the ones north of Huarana are in North Islands province.
The Sedites are a people group that were found across Northwest Oreidica, with the main two members for my projects being Gjynna, the largest ethnicity for a significant part of history, and the Eubynans, native inhabitants of Byna. I have a good idea of their phonologies and possible vocabularies, however grammar less so.
One already defined feature of the Sedite languages is that, like nearly all other Chlopan influenced languages, use VSO word order. What makes Sedite languages notable is their generous use of adpositions.
V S O P is the basic structure, however that applies basically only to transitive verbs, and that won't do. Intransitive verbs are the next base, and this probably has some variation between branches. Both Gjynna and Neobynan are West Sedite, however Gjynna employs the structure of V S hu-P, whereas Neobynan uses just V S. This is because something something substrate.
Then, you have clauses which employ multiple objects indirect or direct, such as I gave you the stone or You carry the stone into the house. These mostly rely on additional adpositional phrases onto an already transiitve sentence, giving {I give the stone} to you, {You carry the stone} into the house. These will be described as {S V (P¹) O¹} P² O², P¹ being added to account for the Sedite love of adpositions. These get realised as V S O² P² O¹ (P¹) and V S O¹ P¹ O² P² in Neobynan and Gjynna respectively. In Neobynan, the main object's adposition is typically dropped, matching how it is also dropped in intransitive sentences. Any more adpositional phrases follow this sort of pattern reccursively
Passive constructions are also important. Unlike the half assed passives of Damnite languages where it just flips, it varies moreso in Sedite languages. Gjynna follows the structure of V wa S P (O P), O being the indirect object, which can be omitted. On the other hand, Neobynan passives are slightly more complex. Politeness can be expressed through making the person in question the subject of a sentence. This causes two passive particles to come into effect, a polite and impolite, to be described later in the politeness system. This causes a sentence to become PASS V S (O P), which looks very much like Damnite passives, though having evolved independently. If need be, you can place the former adposition after the verb.
To be able to communicate well, generally clauses need to able to come together, whether it is to create a comparison, provide context, or make a chain of events. Sedite languages handle this through using paired particles.
Gjynna has various particles it uses for each kind of relationship, such as hanu for X because Y, or ama for if X then Y. These have two forms, using affixes of ndu- and jẹ-, representing the initial and final part for the lack of a better word.
e.g.
ndu'ama A jẹ'ama B : When A, B.
This dualistic structure probably has more details, I'm not sure.
Neobynan also has this repetition of a particle, however I'm unsure of how it works yet. Definitely differently slightly.
Politeness is a feature which exists in West Sedite languages, having significantly eroded in East Sedite languages, and has manifested differently across different branches. Mostly, politeness is indicated through particles, use of adverbs and word order, the difference between registers isn't as large as in, for example, Javanese, where there are completely different lexicons.
NeoBynan has the simpler formality system. To show respect, a person's name may be placed instead of a pronoun, and placed as the subject. This causes the use of three particles, Intha, a polite passive particle, Naďå, a casual passive particle, and Nthañ, a polite active particle. Gjynna simply has Tsŷn- for its politeness prefix, however also using pronoun obfuscation.
Linking to another topic, ńå/na has many uses, either being a literal adposition, being used to form adverbs, or describing the state of a person. However, there exist separate versions of this adposition for each case, and these can be used in conjunction to positive qualities to seem more polite, think of it like calling someone "Your majesty", but less powerful.
The default word order is VSOP, so it's head initial. This means, to follow suit, adjectives should come after the noun. However, something more interesting could be done. Splitting the phrase as V S | O P, the parts before the | are head initial, so all adjectives would follow, and the inverse for what comes after.
Relative clauses and possesion both use the same adposition, ŷrgo/eŕǵó, shortened as R, which go after what they describe, following a structure of V S O P R, so for example describing a subject of a sentence itd be V S {V S O P R} O P, or an object, V S O {V S O P R} P.
Modal verbs are expressed through two forms, called X and Y. Form X uses the adposition na alongside the modal verb desired, and that being used as any adpositional phrase after in Gjynna, whereas in NeoBynan the adposition nsúk is used, and its placed between subject and object. This means a sentence such as "I want to see it" can be literally translated as "I see it in want". Form Y instead takes the desired outcome, and uses the R particle modifying a demonstrative to make it a relative clause, and then used as the object with the modal verb being the main verb. This can also be used to form 'in order to' constructions.
Imperatives are generally impersonal, with the subject being replaced with towa/ťuruñ, however if a specific object is desired, it can be made a possessive of towa/ťuruñ. If you want to make the imperative less forceful, more of a iussive, use bŷnwa/ǵoñruñ instead.
The West Sedite languages developed basic suffixes and inflection. The most common is the plural marker on nouns, -rhö/-ŕhå. In Neobynan, as in other Northern West Sedite languages, a past tense emerged, with for most verbs was a simple prefix j́úyañ-, however some common verbs underwent suppletion making them irregular.
Look, this makes little to no sense probably, mostly because it was written for the needs of a single project and be cohesive enough for it. I tried to be funky in a non-European way uniquely, probably failed, maybe not. I somewhat hate how disorganised this is, but for the work over just 19 days, good enough.
The latin alphabet, which is the most common script worldwide for all kinds of languages, was first introduced to Byna in the 1920s with the first contact. The first major texts were the translations of biblical passages by Joseph Samson, despite the fact that most text for those translations being in the native scripts. Various systems developed of writing the languages, as described here.
This alphabet, made in 1947 by Victor Ness originally to express the various living and extinct languages and dialects of Byna in a comparative way, the BPA became the default system, being modified depending on the group to form the modern official scripts.
The base consonant letters are b c d f g h j k l ł m n ń p r s t v w y z, representing in IPA /b ɮ d ɸ ɡ x ɣ k l ɰ m n ŋ p r~ɹ s t β ʋ ʔ z/. If a letter followed by q, n t d s z r l c y become /ɳ ʈ ɖ ʂ ʐ ɽ ʟ ʟ̝ ∅/. There are a handful of consonant modifiers, in the order around the consonants X, ň X ' î â ô û. ň indicates a consonant is prenasalised, ' is the classic ejective, î shows palatalisation, â makes a consonant emphatic, so velars into uvulars, or pharyngealisation, ô aspirates stops and fricatives (except c), or devoices other sounds, û labialises.
Affricates are represented with the stop followed by a fricative, treated as one letter, making pf bv ts dz tc dc kh gj khq gjq.
There are however exceptions to these rules for certain sounds, being yî yqî yîû wû /j ʔʲ ɥ w/
There are 7 main vowel symbols, a e ə i o ö u. These represent /a ɛ ɘ~ɨ i ɔ ɒ u/. Their reduced forms are expressed through adding an underdot, ạ ẹ ə̣ ị ọ ụ, being /ɐ e ə ɪ o ʊ/. Both î for back vowels or û for front vowels can be used to indicate the opposite roundedness. ñ is placed after the vowel to show it is nasalised, and various diacritics are used for further features, like ə̄ ə́ ə̀ for /əː ə́ ə̀/.
Nucleic consonants are indicated with the use of ŷ before the consonant, such as ŷw ŷr ŷł being /ʋ̩ ɹ̩ ɰ̩/.
Example of the system:
/ɡʷoɣri ɐlɛpɐ weju eɣʷɔ | ɟɬũjpʰ˦ kʷĩɦ˨ | umɛ ŋi ɰa ⁿte ɹ̩.ni ᵑkoɹ̊o esɒ | niⁿsˤũ ŋø̞ nikazo̞dˤu na/
gûọjri ạlepạ wûẹyîu ẹjûo | gîcôúñyîpô kûìñhô | ume ńi ła ňte ŷrni ňkọrôọ ẹsö | niňsâuñ ńeû nikazodâu na
The Ohui language uses a system closest to the BPA in the modern day, essentially just getting rid of diacritics.
The resultant system is as such:
b p t d ts dz k g ku gu : /b p t d t͡s d͡z k ɡ kʷ ɡʷ/
f v s z co h j hu ju wu yi : /ɸ β s z ɬ x ɣ xʷ ɣʷ w j/
r l m n i e a o u : /r l m n i~ɪ ɛ~e a~ɐ ɔ~o u~ʊ/
There are apostrophes in some words, such as g'e g'uo, ts'e ts'o, which is purely morphemic
However, an older system existed which was also used in Ohui, being:
b p t d c x k g qu gu : /b p t d t͡s d͡z k ɡ kʷ /ɡʷ
f v s ll h ch hu chu w j : /ɸ β s z ɬ x ɣ xʷ ɣʷ w j/
r l m n i e a o u : /r l m n i~ɪ ɛ~e a~ɐ ɔ~o u~ʊ/
With labiovelars, they were written as Ku before all vowels, except u where it was just Ku. Non-labialised velars before u were written with an i, as in:
ga giu gua gu : ɡa ɡu ɡʷa ɡʷu
t͡sr d͡zr sr zr kr gr xr jr were written as cz xz sz rz kw gw hw chw, mostly due to influences from far Huaranan dialects.
Here are examples of them in use:
/ɡʷoɣri alepa weju eɣʷo/
1. guojri alepa wueyiu ejuo
2. guochwi alepa weju echuo
This is what is stopping this section from being an article, insert sorrows. There are many methods, all of which I'm unsure of.
The oldest, both internally and externally, is independent of the BPA, using the base symbols as such:
n ng t d k g c x s z h ch r ł w j : /n ŋ t d k ɡ t͡s d͡z s z x ɣ r ɰ w/
After the consonants, q can be added to all except ł w, to make them uvular or pharyngealised.
n ng r ł w, nq ngq rq can have j to devoice them. Placing j after k g, kq gq makes them instead into affricates.
Prenasals at the starts of words are represented by writing n before it. For most affricates and fricatives, when non-initial, have their first letter doubled to prenasalise them. However, for kj gj kqj gqj have their second letter doubled into kjj gjj kqqj gqqj.
Vowels are writing as such:
i yi yu u e ye yo o a ya yö ö : /i y ɯ u e ø ɤ o a~ɑ ɒ a~ɑ ɒ/
The differences between a ya yö ö is mostly historical, having merged and shifted based on whether the previous consonant is emphatic or not.
These are followed by m to nasalise them.
As the pharyngealised coronals are more common than non-pharyngealised ones in Neobynan, an adaptation of the BPA has been used however with the change of coronals, non-emphatic and emphatic as Dî D, rather than D Dâ.
The third attempt at Neobynan orthography I made was using diacritics. The base letters were as such:
a á å e é i í o ó u ú : /a ɒ ɑ e ø i y o ɤ u ɯ/
n ŋ t k d g s x z j r l y : /n ŋ t k d ɡ s x z ɣ ɹ ɰ j/
ń ŋ́ ť ḱ ď ǵ ś x́ ź j́ ŕ ĺ ý : The emphatic equiavlents of that above.
Though compact, this script is somewhat difficult to type. ñ is used to mark nasals. The acute can for consonants be replaced with q if need be, like fonts.
There are also foreign labials, which come in through loans to the language. The variation varies, whether being pronounced as plain alveolars by many older more rural speakers, or as labials by younger, typically urban, speakers. There are two main systems, the first being writing the coronal, followed by the labial letter (typically a choice of m p b f v), as done in the first and third orthography, or as the second orthography does, replace î with û after the coronals.
Here are examples of all three orthography:
/niⁿsˤũ ŋø̞ nikazo̞dˤu na/
1. nissqum ngye nmikazvodqu na
2. nîiňsâuñ ńeû nûikazûodu nîa
3. ninśuñ ŋé nmikazvoďu na
Gjynna generally uses the BPA, with the slight variation of swapping ń ň ô h with ŋ m/n/ŋ h x, what ň changes into being based on the following letter's place of articulation.
Obligatory example:
/umɛ ŋi ɰa ⁿte ɹ̩.ni ᵑkoɹ̊o/
1. ume ŋi ła nte ŷrni ŋkorho
The Gayian peoples can be split into two groups, both descended from the ancient Chlopan peoples. The oldest groups in Gayistan are Chlopan settlers around the 18000s pF. Gayistan is at the mouth of the Nakad river, a round swampy area surrounded by mountains desert and sea on most sides. The Chlopans lived around the Nakad river and the Hakad rivers that connect to it, through there reaching the areas of Gayistan. This group, called the Downstream Chlopans, settled throughout, forming temples. A large amount came after the migrations of the Chlopans after their massive loss in the War of Two Rivers, between them and the Damnites, becoming an identifiable group of Ancestral Gayians. Later on, as further encroachments on the Chlopan territory on the rivers occurred, the Upstream Chlopans, arrived to Gayistan as a refuge against foreign rule. This split Gayistan in two, both languages now having spent enough time apart to be unintelligible. The new arrivals became the West Gayians, the descendants of the Ancestral Gayians became the East Gayians. The East Gayians are a significantly more conservative group, retaining more features from Chlopan culture and language, whereas West Gayians have more external influences from Damnite languages, however retaining features even after other languages lost them. Both cultures were endogamous, thus their cultures remained relatively unaffected by eachother for little to no intermarriage and separated areas.
The East Gayians lived in the foothills, which were drier and more protected, whereas the West Gayians, who were the larger group, lived in the lowlands and for a period of time even further up the Nakad. Both however had communities and revered the Rock of the Queen, which is a large hill in the centre of Gayistan, serving somewhat as a capital. Slowly, to defend against threats, these two communities formed their own kingdoms, even uniting. In the Great Waser Winter, the West Gayians suffered heavily, and got replaced by new Sedite settlers. This caused considerable conflict and assimilation of the groups, the last remnants being in isolated pockets of mountains. Even ignoring the ethnic proportions, the population of Gayistan had been significantly hit, with both Gayian groups going extinct around the 19700s.
Due to the different environments the two groups are in, differing styles of building their places of worship and storage. East Gayians formed their living areas by mining them into the ground, which was eaiding by their magic system of using controlled explosions or cracking in rocks to make mining them out easier. Holy spaces were placed deep underground, seen as being closer to the original world of the gods, new worlds and creation involving the original world being built upon through flooding it. Usually, the walls of these underground constructions had walls with foliage or wood, to give support and insulation. However they have generally decayed, giving the impression that the homes were larger than they actually were in use.
West Gayians instead built their homes as raised above the ground, due to the necessity of not making it be too wet. This was achieved either through placing them on stilts, or through making faux hills to build the houses on. Typically temples or homes of rulers were placed on taller mounds, and mounds in and of themselves were status symbols. These can be compared to ziggurats. The mythological explanation of this is that of emulating the Rock of the Queen, on which a large temple complex was located.
Gayian languages are quite underdeveloped, but here is what I have:
West Gayian has a somewhat complex syllable structure, with many consonants and above average amount of vowels, possibly an 11 vowel system. It was influenced by languages such as Common Damnite, but not much by others.
This language, and whatever features it ends up having, define East Gayian, so no further speaking on its descendant language
Phonology:
m /m/ | n /n̻/ |--------|-------|-------|
p /p/ | t /t̻/ | c /t̻͡s̻/ | k /k/ | q /q/ | ' /ʔ/
b /b/ | d /d̻/ | z /d̻͡z̻/ | g /g/ |-------|
ƀ /ɓ̰/ | đ /ɗ̰̻/ |--------|-------|-------|
f /f/ |-------| s /s̻/ -| y /ɰ/ | v /w/ | h /h/
------|-------|--------| l /ʟ/ |-------|
ĩ /n̻̍ʲ/ |--------| ũ /n̻̍/ -|
i /i/ -| ī /iː/ | u /u/ -| ū /uː/
e /ɛː/ | ẽ /ɛ̃ː/ | o /ɔː/ | õ /ɔ̃ː/
a /ɑ/ -| ā /ɑː/ | ą /ɑ̃/ -| ą̄ /ɑ̃ː/
The phonotactics of Ancestal Gayian are (C¹)(w)V(C²), both C¹ and C² being any sort of consonant. Medial /w/ is written as u
Grammar:
Ancestral Gayian is a VSO language, with a 3 level animacy system, where subjects need to be a higher or equal animacy, a la Navajo. The three animacies are inanimate, which is used for non-living objects, such as rocks, hills, wind, then there's semi-animate which includes dead humans, animals, plants, and finally animate which includes humans and gods.
Articles are the main way animacy is shown, with zuąq, used for animate or definite semi-animate words, which can be dropped, đo, which is used for indefinite inanimate and semi-animate words, and suī for definite inanimate words.
e.g.
suī yẽ : the river; đo yẽ : a river;
(zuąq) cĩt : the corpse; đo cĩt : a corpse
Verbs are inflected, though details are uncertain. Reduplication is used, such as lavanhe : I build; lalavanhe : we build
Ancestral Gayian is base 10, the numbers are as follows:
1 - đū' --------| 2 - hol ---| 3 - cāqtą̄n
4 - fĩ'u -------| 5 - gõdi --| 6 - mąđ
7 - suũb -------| 8 - zaq ---| 9 - ītban
10 - ūdgą̄/đū''ũ | 20 - hol'ũ | 100 - quid
There are also somewhere possessive prefixes, like yẽqe' : swamp; āyẽqe' : our swamp.
I'm in a polish learning server, and because why not, here is a translation I did there for someone:
Yeah so fun thing, this song had no lyrics available for it online, so I had to transcribe it too huzzah
Powiedz co tam u ciebie
A ja powiem co u mnie
Ale jak chcesz wiedzieć więcej
No to szybko gadkę utnę
Może kiedyś byłem cieniem
A może te słowa są puste
Na pewno chcę być na scenie
Drugi raz nie odpuszczę
Mogłabyś dowiedzieć się więcej chodząc
Tańczymy przy tej pioseńce
Tańczę sobie jak Elvis Presley
Uciekam głową ale jestem sercem
Moje mroczne dni są za mną choć przypominają mi
Że tak ucieć jest nam łatwo
Podaj rękę
Utopiłem się z demonami
Prawie zostaliśmy sami
Muszę mieć jakieś plany
Bobyśmy zwariowali
Bobyśmy zwariowali
Nie było tak samo i już nie będzie
Każdy z nas dorósł i rozmawiać nie chce
Byliśmy dziecakami a dzisiaj mam bliznę, pasję, wyjście
No i chcę podarować tobie serce
Bo kocham nienormalnie
Kocham tak jak umiem
Wszystko ze mną okej ale czasem czuję
Że mógłbym więcej prób, zrobić lepszych ujęć
Wszystko u mnie okej ale czasem serce kuje
A ja utopiłem się z demonami
Prawie zostaliśmy sami
Muszę mieć jakieś plany
Bobyśmy zwariowali
Bobyśmy zwariowali
Bobyśmy zwariowali
A ja utopiłem się z demonami
Prawie zostaliśmy sami
Muszę mieć jakieś plany
Bobyśmy zwariowali
Bobyśmy zwariowali
This isn't going to be some expert translation or smth, but moreso to convey what it is saying, bc why not
Say what's up with you
I'll say what's with me
But if you want to know more
Well, I'll quickly cut the chat short
Maybe once I was a shadow*
Or maybe these words are empty
I want to be for sure on the stage
I won't hold back a second time
You could've found out walking [with me]
We dance to this song
Dancing like Elvis Presley
I escape with my mind, though I'm the heart
My dark times are beyond me though they remind me
That escape is so easy for us
Give me [your] hand
I drowned with the demons
We almost remained alone
I must have some plans
Or else we'd go mad
Or else we'd go mad
It won't be the same and never will be
Each of us grew up and doesn't want to talk
We were kids, now I have scars, passions, escapes
And well, I want to give you [my] heart
Because I love atypically
I love how I can
Everything with me's alright but sometimes I feel
That I could have more tries**, make better tries
Everything with me's alright but sometimes [my] heart stings
Meanwhile I drowned with the demons
We almost remained alone
I must have some plans
Or else we'd go mad
Or else we'd go mad
Or else we'd go mad
Meanwhile I drowned with the demons
We almost remained alone
I must have some plans
Or else we'd go mad
Or else we'd go mad
brackets are basically just the occasional pronoun that yeah isn't there in polish but wouldn't work without in English
* - doesn't convey the meaning properly I think, if only I knew what it meant
** - either I don't know the grammar, I either mistranscribed it, or the lyricist had something off, but I think a 'mieć', to have, is meant to be there and it's not so idk