What if Volapük didn’t see the world through an extremely 19^th century lens? (And also what if it wasn’t trying to be an IAL so I can put some interesting stuff in there if I want to)

Phonology

Vowels

• You can write ü ö ä ï as ᵫ œ æ ꜵ if you want.
  • Lowercase ᵫ is U+1D6B. Capital  is not in the unicode standard (yet?), but some specialist medievalist fonts, such as the one I’m using here, have it in the private use area at U+E8C8 following the MUFI.
  • Œ œ are U+0152 and U+0153.
  • Æ æ are U+00C6 and U+00E6.
  • Ꜵ ꜵ are U+A734 and U+A735.
• In unstressed syllables, high vowels become lax, high central vowels become lax low central, and /ɑ/ becomes [ə].
• Word-initially before another vowel, /i y u ɯ/ become [j ɥ w ɰ].
• If, after applying the above rule, a vowel follows another, an approximant or fricative is inserted based on the second vowel:
  • [ʝ] before /i y/;
  • [ɣ] before /u ɯ/;
  • [j] before /e/;
  • [w] before /ø o/;
  • [ʢ] (approximant) before /æ ɑ/.
• TODO expand this

Consonants

Consonants are all written with the same letter as in IPA.

• An /s/ becomes /z/ next to a voiced consonant other than /l v/.
• /v/ becomes [f] after one of /s k/.
• /n/ becomes [ŋ] before /k ɡ/.
• /h/ becomes [ɣ] between two vowels.
• /l/ is velarised when it is after a back vowel or /æ/ and either before another consonant or at the end of a word. It is palatalised at the end of a word (only) when after a front vowel.
• The sequences /ks ts/ are written x z when they are not interrupted by a morpheme boundary.
• A [ʔ] is inserted between a word ending with a vowel and a word beginning with one (unless the latter becomes a glide).
  • te ob [te ʔob]; ni ob [ni ʔob]; la iäm [lɑ jæm]
    TODO examples with actual words
• TODO expand this

Phonotactics

This description is written in EBNF. Basically, parts in [square brackets] are optional, and parts in {braces} can be repeated (or skipped). A vertical bar | separates alternatives and a comma , just indicates a sequence of things.

In most cases a syllable break is between the first and second consonant of a cluster, but in cases like /–nk.s–/ it is between the second and third. The exact rules are:

1. If there is only one consonant, then the break is before it.
2. If there are more than one, then there is at least one consonant either side of the break.
3. The cluster after the break is accepted by init cons.
4. As many consonants are placed after the break as possible while still following the other rules.

Example words:

• TODO real words for examples

Verbs

Verb stems begin with one or more consonants, and end with exactly one.

• zero prs copula
  • “<pronoun> is <noun>” attaches the pronoun (not the verb subject marker) to the noun

Person & number

If the subject and/or [primary] object are pronouns, they are instead marked on the verb as suffixes. (TODO link to secundativity section) For first and second person, the subject marker is the pronoun itself, and the object marker is the pronoun with the initial o– replaced with i–. These vowels change to u– ä– respectively for the dual or plural. For third person it is just the vowel with no consonant. In this case, independent third-person pronouns can be used instead of verb markers if it makes the sentence less confusing.

If the subject or object are a noun phrase other than a single pronoun, they are not reflected on the verb at all.

Tense & aspect

Verbs have a distinction between past & nonpast, and imperfective & perfective. The tense/aspect marker comes directly after the person markers. blah blah blah

For the perfective, an n is inserted before the last consonant of the stem. It interacts with the consonant already there in a few ways:

• It is m before a labial consonant.
• After this new n/m, the letters f, v, l become p, b, n.
• A double nn or mm produced this way is pronounced the same as a single one.

Nouns

Noun roots end in either a vowel or a consonant other than s (or x/z). They have no restriction on what they begin with.

• dual number. why not
  • dual is –di after vowel or just –i after consonant
  • plural is s like in v, so nouns don’t end in that
• 4–5 cases, but not those ones. maybe nom, acc+loc+all, ins+thm, gen+abl
  • acc/loc/all sg is -u
  • list acc in the table last like people do with latin for some reason
• dechticaetiative secundative
• vocative prefix, probably sth like iä–.
  • i guess that’s a sixth case but i was thinking suffixes for the others
• fuck regularity this isn’t an IAL any more
• indefinite article but no definite. maybe from ‘this’. maybe a prefix

Pronouns

Personal pronouns have a distinction between inclusive/exclusive (I/E) first person, e.g. ov means “you and me”, but om means “me and someone else”. The third person singular is listed as ok, but that is only a default. People can choose to be referred to with o– plus any consonant or cluster that isn’t already another pronoun. Ok is used for strangers or objects, or for people who just want to be called ok.

TODO yes i know this isnt the only type of pronoun obviously

Word order etc

• VSOX by default but NPs can be shuffled around
• head initial NPs, prepositions [mostly?]