Vethari: Difference between revisions

Vethari is the official language of Vetharin, a kingdom located north in the Vetharin Peninsula, that goes off the northeast coast of India into the Bay of Bengal. It’s the mother tongue from 63.5 million people, that is 96% of the country’s population of 66.1 million, although it is not spoken so much on the west and south regions. On the other hand, it is spoken at a certain level on the other side of the border with India, with around 2 million speakers there. During World War II, a massive immigration from Vethari occurred, scattering speaker all across the world, but specially on England, Brazil, United States and Spain.

== Phonology ==

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=== Vowels ===

| '''à''' /ɒ/

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=== Phonotactics ===

Consonant clusters are permitted in onset position, but are subject to strict rules. Common onset clusters include stop + glide (e.g., /pj/, /kj/, /gj/) and stop + lateral (e.g., /pl/, /kl/, /bl/), though not all combinations are allowed. Retroflex and velarized consonants almost never appear in clusters, and instead tend to occur in singleton positions. Clusters in coda position are extremely limited and generally dispreferred; most codas contain a single nasal (/n/, /ɲ/, /ɳ/) or a stop (/p/, /t/, /k/).

Affricates /ʧ/ and /ʤ/ only occur syllable-initially, never in codas or clusters. They are often used in expressive or ideophonic vocabulary. Fricatives are more flexible: /f/, /s/, /ʂ/, /θ/, and /x/ can occur in both onset and coda positions, while their voiced counterparts /v/, /z/, /ð/, and /ʒ/ are mostly restricted to onsets. Palatal fricatives /ç/ and /ʃ/—written as cy and sy—appear only before front vowels and cannot occur after back vowels. The voiced palatal fricative /ʝ/ (gy) and the approximants /ɻ/, /j/, and /ɰ/ appear frequently in medial position, helping to transition between vowels.

Lateral consonants /l/, /ʎ/, and /ɭ/ have strict distribution. The plain /l/ is the most common and occurs freely in onsets and codas. The palatal lateral /ʎ/ (ly) only occurs before /i/ or /e/, and never after back vowels. The retroflex lateral /ɭ/ (rl) occurs almost exclusively in medial position, often within roots or compounds, and avoids front vowels entirely. These laterals never appear geminated or in complex clusters. Morphophonemic processes involving these sounds tend to preserve their quality rather than undergo assimilation.

Stress interacts with phonotactics by allowing heavier or more marked consonants in stressed syllables. For example, velarized and retroflex consonants are favored in stressed roots, while palatals and glides dominate in unstressed affixes. Final syllables are stressed when closed by a consonant or contain a lower vowel like /ɒ/ or /ɔ/, while otherwise, penultimate stress is the norm. Vowel reduction does not occur dramatically, but centralization of high vowels to /ə/ is attested in fast speech, particularly in grammatical endings. Words cannot end in consonants, and also, there aren’t geminated consonants.

=== Prosody ===

==== Rhythm, Intonation and Stress ====

* 94 words inherited from Proto-Austronesian and related languages

* 66 words inherited from Proto-Great-Andamanese and related languages

Because of being an advanced civilization, lots of techniques and scientific terms are native words. For example, from the 118 periodic elements, 37 have native words for it, since they were discovered before other words being borrowed for them. Basically, the other remaining elements are adapted borrowings from French and English, to fit into the phonotactics. Other recent technologies are usually borrowed from Telugu, Bengali, Burmese or Thai. The calendary is the Gregorian calendary and each month has its name based on things that happen on that time, for example the time to harvest, the month that is cold and more.

Kinship terms on Vethari are pretty complex. Terms change completely when the person is biologically female/masculine, since there are no genders in the language. Exclusive names go for at maximum every person related to you in 3 generations, including your spouse/husband, so those names changes if they are from your partner’s family. After that, people related but distant are called 'prakhninau'. There are names for lots of people, for example:  My mother’s-in-law mom is Gurunisyinumi. For people starting with 'step-', the suffix 'egu(l)-' is put. People starting with 'grand-', after the grand-grand-grand-???, is 'fyu(l)-'.

=== Idiomatic Phrases ===

=== Swadesh List ===

The most used list nowadays is the Swadesh 207-word list, adapted from Swadesh 1952.

== Dialects ==

The Coastal dialect, on the other hand, thrives on creative compounding and the reimagining of roots. It regularly generates new terms by combining common stems in playful or efficient ways, often shortening or streamlining them for ease of use. This dialect also borrows more readily from trade partners or neighbors, though such borrowings are adapted to the native morphological style. For example, instead of using an external word for “compass,” the Coastal dialect might coin a new term from “sea” and “circle.” These neologisms reflect the region’s outward-facing culture and openness to adaptation.

Despite their differences, both dialects are seen as prestigious within their own contexts. Literature, song, and oral tradition exist in both forms, and speakers often shift between dialects depending on setting, formality, or region. This duality adds richness to the language as a whole, fostering internal variation while maintaining a unified linguistic identity.

== Morphology ==

=== Verbs ===

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! *Mood

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! Voice

* Nouns lose their declension when incorporated into a verb, with only the root remaining, however, sometimes, only the case remains, when there is no affix following the noun.

* Because of Vethari being an Agentive-Default language, Agentive arguments are marked on transitive clauses, while the object is in the Patientive. When on intransitive clauses, the subject may be on either cases basing on volition. If it is Intentional/Not emotionally affected, it is marked with the Agentive case, otherwise, if unintentional or/and emotionally affected, it is marked with the Patientive case. For example: "She died" would be marked with the Agentive case, while "died her" would mean that it was unintentional and it is marked with the Patientive Case. Instead of having specific volitional affixes or infixes to mark emotions/affection or even polypersonal agreement, it has two types for each clause argument.

==== Volitional Verbs ====

There are some verb pairs that distinguish volition, some only used with Agentive subjects and others only with Patientive subjects. For example: Nimoku 'to see' (only Agentive) and Pasoku 'to look' (only patientive). The same way with English on the examples, with 'to see' being only intentional and 'to look' being unintentional. Other notable example is Dyirauku 'to hear' (only Agentive) and Misubuku 'to listen' (only Patientive). Although if the argument, in theory, has to be in the other case, it’s not possible to change, as they function as defective verbs, because they can’t change their cases.

In Proto-Vethari, verbs declined to volition, so, anyways, even being transitive, verbs could be marked as intentional or unintentional, knowing that currently only intransitive verbs can do that. However, those verbs that marked volition including on the infinitive, evolved into the current verb pairs that only have one subject case.

==== Irregular Verbs ====

:''Ta-cyi-'''rja'''-gusu'' fnu ''ta-cyi-'''rja'''-sifunari-kkepomidayu-Ø.''

:I had rejected money. (It is in the Perfect Aspect(formed by another verb), however the gloss is written for both)

| maku

| mei  

|-

| pume

| fedu  

| to whisper

|-

| syuo

==== Questions and Negation ====

: Vicyisoma''nuru''!?

: 2SG.AGT-IND-cry-NEG

: Don’t cry!

==== Noun Incorporation ====

Nouns, when they are incorporated into transitive verbs, lose their declension affixes, with only the root left. When nouns need to appear on an intransitive clause, they appear after the verb, with all the affixes. When on noun phrases, there is nothing special, with the nouns declining normally. There is no “class agreement”, instead of gender agreement, so adjectives don’t have any agreement with the object they are giving characteristics. All adjectives are singulare tantum. They also don’t decline.  Adjectives appear after the noun. There are no articles for adjectives.

=== Pronouns ===

Pronouns are quite difficult in Vethari. The basic forms, are the Agentive and Patientive affixes on verbs. They usually appear as affixes, but sometimes alone, like answering questions like: Who was it?  

Reflexive and Reciprocal pronouns also exist, for example: Write the text yourself!: Vitthittuugipu'vou', where 'vou' is the reflexive form of 'vi', ''Agentive you''. If in case of the object already being mentioned before, when replaced by 'it' then, it would appear in the default form after the first pronoun, being literally: Write yourself it. In this case, the phrase would be: Vitthittuvoul-e. Yes, when pronouns are clitics or just appear after, the first phoneme is transferred into the final of that group of affixes, so 'le', would be 'l-e', as seen in the example, however, this does not affect the pronunciation.  

Sometimes, when a clitic ends up somewhere where can’t be that specific cluster, an 'a' is put in the middle, if a consonant cluster, however if a big vowel cluster, a 'l' is put in between.

=== Nouns ===

====Classes of Nouns and their affixes====

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=== Derivation ===

== Syntax ==

=== Word Order ===

=== Conjunctions ===

== Sample Text ==

== See Also ==

* [[Proto-Vethari]]

* [[Naythiri]]

* [[Oralathi]]