Wunal language

Wunal
ጀዊ፡ዉነለ᎐በኽቶ (Yawi Wunala'baǩto)
Pronunciation:	/ˈwʊ.nɨl/?
Native to:	Variyako‎, Odokcraca
Native speakers:	47,409,000
Language family:	Neiran
Early forms:	Old Neiran Wuiybak
Major dialects:	Midwestern, Southern, Mestatan, Northern, Justvakaun, Zeleovkian, Odokcracian, Šamolai
Writing System
Writing system(s):	Wunal abugida
Period:	~4,500 BCE - present
Sister system(s):	Tzolkese abugida
Read:	Right-to-left (vertical), Left-to-right (horizontal)
Official Status
Regulated by:	Imperial Language Council of Variyako
Official language in:	Variyako‎, Odokcraca, Umlokovy, Zeleovki
Minority language in:	Atraelish Neira, Tzolkun, Likadja, Xhequa
The Wunal speaking world
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Wunal (ጀዊ፡ዉነለ᎐በኽቶ, Yawi Wunala'baǩto, pronounced ^?[ʝa.wiː wu.ɴa.ɾaʔ.ˈba.xə̆.tɔː]) is a language spoken by the Variyakoi, Odokcracian, Zeleovkian and Justvakaun peoples of Neira, and is the official language of the nations of Variyako‎ and its protectorates, and in Odokcraca.

History

In contemporary, mainstream linguist opinion the Wunal language is considered to be part of the Neiran language family, a language isolate, which emerged and developed thousands of years ago parallel to the mother tongues of central Cymlun. This assumption has largely been supported by the apparent uniqueness of the Neiran languages, specifically with their employment of prepositional and adjectival articles and a tense system unlike anything seen in other world languages, as well as its use of phonemes seemingly unrelated to neighbouring languages.

The modern advancement of anthropological and linguistic study however has put this assumption in question. In particular, older Abatan dialects spoken in Nasu - belonging to the Central Cymluni language family - have been marked as showing frequent similarities to the Neiran languages, convincing several linguists to lump the Neiran languages in with a proposed "Proto-Central Cymluni language family" that includes the Seonmic, Abata and Neiran language groups.

Grammar

Main article: Wunal grammar

Wunal is a gendered, agglutinative language that features inflection for articles and pronouns to achieve prepositional, numerical and even limited descriptive functions, conjugation of verbs for tense, and a free word order facilitated by a several noun cases.

In speaking the language, Wunal is often mentioned by native speakers of Atraelish, or any of the analogously soft Amleian languages, as harsh and uncompromising. Grammatically however, Wunal is regarded - specifically by many contemporary western linguists - as an efficient and largely intuitive language, with a great allowance for freedom of expression and descriptive capability that far outstrips the common languages of the western and even old worlds.

Its descriptive capability is largely owed to its specific usage of words and fluidity of word classes, i.e. nouns, verbs, adverbs, etc. Rather than rigidly defined adjectives and adverbs or specifically nuanced nouns and verbs, Wunal instead agglutinates words (i.e. creates compound words) together to both describe and to reinforce clarity of meaning. Wunal has little restriction on which word can agglutinate with another, with even word classes themselves being incredibly fluid, freely allowing all nouns and verbs to function as descriptive words, or even one-another (nouns functioning as verbs, verbs functioning as nouns, etc), with only a few words - referred to as "dependant words" - existing solely for the purpose of description. Owing to this, concepts or objects or things can then be described with a wide range of depth and specificity, since any two or three words can be combined to create one anew. Such results include - but are not limited to - incredibly specific terms (e.g. "sword-wound", "westward-industrial-train", "fast-run-exhausted", etc), double negatives, or contradictory words ("lie-truth", "good-bad", "yes-no", etc). The organised syntax of Wunal sentences additionally disallows words from being misinterpreted, usually due to the appearance of certain suffixes.

Beyond this, Wunal employs inflection, which is is the modification of words to express different grammatical categories. It relies on noun cases to determine subjects and objects rather than a strict word order. There are seven noun cases: nominative, genitive, ablative, dative, accusative, instrumental, and prepositional.

For tense, plural and place, Wunal utilises a further distinct system of inflection. Pronouns are given suffixes for case and/or plural; verbs are conjugated for tense, with eight usable tenses. Plurals are revealed through inflected articles rather than suffixes to words. Additionally, articles are also inflected for prepositional functions. With this, Wunal prepositions can quickly appear to act strangely if compared to the employment of auxiliary words found in English (i.e. "against" or "from").

Dialects

See also: Wunal grammar: Dialects

Wunal is a notably inhomogeneous language in its dialectal variation, split into hundreds of regional dialects and creoles across the length and breadth of the continent of Neira and beyond. The Imperial Language Council of Variyako, the sole legally endorsed body responsible for standardising, recording and classifying the Wunal language, has long been subject to national and international criticism due to its whitewashing of the rich diversity of Wunal dialects and Neiran languages in general, with its criteria for discerning dialects from languages being a frequent point of linguistic and cultural controversy. As of the present date, the Council recognises only seven Wunal dialects, them being Midwestern, Southern, Mestatan, Northern, Justvakaun, Zeleovkian, Odokcracian, and one creole, the Šamolai language of Xhequa. This categorisation of dialects, whilst never officially stated by the Council, is demonstrably coloured according to nationality and ethnicity rather than differences in phonemes, grammar and so fourth, with the term "language" reserved for Neiran languages spoken outside of Variyako and its present and former protectorates.

In a much more linguistically correct sense, the legal term "Wunal" in fact encompasses four separate - though closely related - languages. Though the Midwestern, Southern, Mestatan and Northern dialects of Variyako are true dialects in the broadest sense of the term, Justvakaun, Zeleovkian, and Odokcracian exhibit enough differences in their vocabulary, pronunciation and grammar to be classified as separate languages within the Neiran language that, along with "Variyakoi" Wunal, share a common ancestor.

Alphabet

Wunal is written in an abugida. Atraelish transliterations of the language utilise general Atraelic letters supplemented with diacritics for additional consonants, i.e. a caron diacritic on the letters č, ǰ, š, ǩ, and ž, and an acute on the letter ć. Long vowels (marked by ᎖ and ᎕ in Wunal), when they appear, are either represented by a caron on any of the letters ǎ, ě, ǐ, ǒ and ǔ, or by double letters when the vowels are especially long.

All other letters are generally analogous to their Atraelish counterpart, however they do feature some unique elements that appear especially in the most isolated of dialects.

Key: English letter /IPA symbol/^{Link to audio example}

	a /a/	e /ɛ/	i /i/	u /u/	o /ɔ/	∅ /ə̆/
b /b/?	በ	ቤ	ቢ	ቡ	ቦ	ብ
v /v/?	ቨ	ቬ	ቪ	ቩ	ቮ	ቭ
d /d/?	ደ	ዴ	ዲ	ዱ	ዶ	ድ
s or c /s/?	ሠ	ሤ	ሢ	ሡ	ሦ	ሥ
š /ʂ/?	ሸ	ሼ	ሺ	ሹ	ሾ	ሽ
ć /c/?	አ	ኤ	ኢ	ኡ	ኦ	እ
č /ç/?	ቸ	ቼ	ቺ	ቹ	ቾ	ቻ
t /t/?	ተ	ቴ	ቲ	ቱ	ቶ	ት
k /k/?	ከ	ኬ	ኪ	ኩ	ኮ	ክ
ǩ /ʡ/? or /x/?	ኸ	ኼ	ኺ	ኹ	ኾ	ኽ
p /p/?	ጰ	ጴ	ጲ	ጱ	ጶ	ጵ
g /ɡ/?	ገ	ጌ	ጊ	ጉ	ጎ	ግ
f /f/?	ፈ	ፌ	ፊ	ፉ	ፎ	ፍ
r /ʀ/? or /r/?	ረ	ሬ	ሪ	ሩ	ሮ	ር
l /ɾ/?	ለ	ሌ	ሊ	ሉ	ሎ	ል
z /z/?	ዘ	ዜ	ዚ	ዙ	ዞ	ዝ
ž /ʐ/?	ዠ	ዤ	ዢ	ዡ	ዦ	ዥ
n /ɴ/? or /n/?	ነ	ኔ	ኒ	ኑ	ኖ	ን
h /ɦ/?	ሀ	ሄ	ሂ	ሁ	ሆ	ህ
w /w/?	ወ	ዌ	ዊ	ዉ	ዎ	ው
m /m/?	መ	ሜ	ሚ	ሙ	ሞ	ም
j or y /j/?	የ	ዬ	ዪ	ዩ	ዮ	ይ
ǰ /ʝ/?	ጀ	ጄ	ጂ	ጁ	ጆ	ጅ

There are also symbols used for isolated vowels.

a /a/	e /ɛ/	i /i/	u /u/	o /ɔ/
ፀ	ፄ	ፂ	ፁ	ፆ

Numerals

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
× 1	፩	፪	፫	፬	፭	፮	፯	፰	፱
× 10	፲	፳	፴	፵	፶	፷	፸	፹	፺
× 100	፻
× 10.000	፼

Punctuation

᎖ medium vowel

᎕ long vowel

᎙ aspirates previous sound ([◌ʰ])

᎘ opening quotation mark

᎑ closing quotation mark

᎐ agglutinated word joiner

፠ section mark

፡ word separator

። full stop (period)

፣ comma

፤ semicolon

፥ colon

፦ preface colon

፧ question mark

፨ paragraph separator