Scellan

Scellan-English lexicon
Swadesh list
Names
Phrasebook
A fir mi dy Eevo (This page in Eevo)

Scellan
brits Eevo
Pronunciation	[[w:Help:IPA|brits ɛivɔ]]
Created by	IlL
Setting	Verse:Tricin
Language family	Quihum Talmic Thensaric Scellan
Language codes
ISO 639-3	qee

Scellan (/ˈɛivɔ/; English: /ˈeɪvoʊ/; from the word ébhó for "common language") is a Talmic language belonging to the Eevoic branch; as its name suggests, it was originally a koiné spoken in the Smewlan Peninsula and across northern Mainland Talma. Eevo is now the most dominant modern language in Tricin.

Eevo is official in three Talman countries: Smewla, Nøøvr and Phormatin.

It's inspired by Icelandic, Welsh and (literally read) Hmong.

Todo

• Goal: Duolingo course
• Old Eevo prefixes remain productive.
• silent leniting prefix
• Toiréir Grughaid > Tører Grwid
• Note to self: nd != nn in Eevo!!!
• Need more Netagin
• adjectives might be verbs
• Dyrring a bun armi dy ynang = the living fish swims in water
• Verbalizers?
• Numbers are determiners.
• Suffixes shouldn't be common.

Diachronics

• a > a
• á > aw
• ae > ai
• ai > e
• aei, ái > ee
• ao, aoi > øø
• e > y /ə/
• é > ee
• éi > oi > wa
• eó, éu > ew
• ei, i > e
• i > i
• iu > y
• iú > iw
• o > o
• oi > ø
• ó > oo
• ói, ua > wa
• u, io > w
• ui > y
• ú > u /y/
• úi > wi
• rb, rd, rg > rv, rð, rj
• -n > -m (at least after w)
• aw > o in unstressed syllables or before clusters

Notes: Pronouncing Eevo words in English

• /n/ → /n/; the allophony /n~l/ may be ignored.
• An epenthetic schwa may be inserted for Eevo clusters that English doesn't have.
• Voiceless resonants may be pronounced as their voiced counterparts: /hm hn hŋ r̥/ → /m n ŋ r/.
  • /χ/ should be rendered [h] or [x].
• Pronounce /ʀ~ʁ/ as /l/, preferably velarized or vocalized.
• Coda /h/ should be deleted.
• /p t k/ → /b d g/; /sp st sk/ → /sp st sk/
• /pʰ tʰ kʰ/ → /p t k/
• Vowels: /i y ə u ɛ œ a ɔ ai au ɛu iu ei øy ou iə uə oi~ui/ → /iː iː ʌ~ə uː ɛ ɛ æ~ɑː ɑ~ɔ aɪ aʊ oʊ juː eɪ eɪ oʊ iːə uːə oɪ/

Background

See also: Proto-Talmic.

Phonology

Eevo phonology has a wide range of realizations. In fact, some marginal dialects are tonal.

Consonants

		Labial	Dental/Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal		/m/	/n~l/		/ŋ/
Stop	unaspirated	/p/	/t/		/k/
	aspirated	/pʰ/	/tʰ/		/kʰ/
Affricate			/ts/	/tʃ/
Non-sibilant	unvoiced	/f/	/θ/	/ç/		/χ/	/h/
	voiced	/v~w/	/ð/	/j/		/ʀ~ʁ/
Sibilant	unvoiced		/s/	/ʃ/
	voiced		/z/
Trill	unvoiced		/r̥/
	voiced		/r/

• Aspiration is neutralized in coda.
• Post-vocalic /ʁ/ is realized as nasalization in many accents.
• /v/ is realized as [w] after labial consonants.

Orthography:

m n~l ŋ tn̥~tɬ kŋ m̥ n̥~l̥~ɬ ŋ̊ (m n ŋ nn ŋŋ hm hn hŋ)

ʁ r χ r̥ (l r ll rr)

ph th kh (p t c)

hp ht hk (pp tt cc)

p t k (b d g)

f θ s ʃ ç h (f þ s x ch h)

ts tʃ (ts tx)

v ð z j (v ð z j)

/n n̥ tn/ are pronounced [l ɬ tl~tɬ] before vowels.

n l r can be syllabic.

Coda /ç/ is disallowed; /h/ is used instead.

Vowels

Eevo has many vowels and diphthongs. It is often said to have 8, 11 or 13 basic vowel qualities depending on the analysis.

	Front		Central	Back
	unrounded	rounded
Close	i	y	ɨ~ə	u
Open	ɛ	œ	a	ɔ
Diphthongs	ai au ɛu iu ei øy ou iə uə oi~ui

Vowels in pausa are glottalized or followed by a final [ʔ] in many dialects.

Orthography:

/a ɛ i ɔ u œ y ə ai au ɛu iu ɛi œy ɔu iə uə ui/ ⟨a e i o w ø u y ai aw ew iw ee øø oo ia wa wi⟩

Diaereses (ä ë ï ö ø̈ ẅ) can be used on stressed vowels to distinguish them from diphthongs.

Stress

Non-initial stress is marked with an acute accent in the romanized orthography.

Diaphonology

Peninsular

See above.

Rrend Ew

• ee øø oo ia wa are all monophthongs: [e: ø: o: i: u:]
• i u w are lowered and lax.

Cdam Sre

• ee øø oo = [əi əy əu]
• /χ/ = pharyngeal h

Flian

Somewhat influenced by Adetsibic languages.

• /ç/ is fronted to [ɕ] and triggers retraction of /ʃ tʃ/ to [ʂ tʂ].
• /χ/ is retracted to [ħ].
• Coda /ʀ h/ is realized as nasalization, as in Peninsular Eevo.
• /m n ŋ/ are denasalized to [b d g] (except for /n/ before V where [n] > [l] occurs). Hence, the city Flian is pronounced [fʁiəd] or [fʁiːd].
• A chain vowel shift ("Flian Vowel Shift") affects the following non-nasalized vowels.
  1. /ɛu, ui/ > [ea, oa]
  2. /au, ai/ > [æw, ɑj]
  3. /ou, øy, ei/ > [ɑw, ɞʏ, æj]
  4. /u, y, i/ > [ʊw, ʏɥ, ɪj] or [uɣʷ, øʝʷ, iʝ] (fricated)
  5. /uə, iə/ > [uː, iː]

New World Eevo

Accent used in [uninhabited continent 1]; it has some similarities to the Flian accent.

• /ɛu, ui/ > [ea, oa]
• Coda /ʀ/ merges with coda [h] and becomes breathy voice.
  • Breathy voice becomes low tone in some New World accents.

Orthography

In-universe, Eevo uses the Clofabic script, unlike other Talmic languages (except Roshterian).

Morphology

Eevo morphology tends to be simpler than most other Talmic languages; for example, it has no grammatical gender and no construct state.

Nouns

Eevo uses a singulative-collective-plurative system. Singulative and plurative (called "singular" and "plural" below for convenience) refer to one resp. more than one specific instances of the noun. Collective refers to "[noun] in general" or "the set of all [noun]". Collective nouns are referred to with singular pronouns, not plural.

The plural is usually marked by -r. Nouns of Netagin origin in -ǿ may use an -ǿv plural.

The collective is marked by -n.

There is no marking for possessors or possessed nouns.

• brits "language" > britsr "languages", britsn "all languages"
• chamn "woman" > chamnr "women", chamnyn "all women"

Definiteness is not marked, unlike in Old Eevo and other modern Talman languages.

Pronouns

	I	you (sg.)	he	she	it	we (inc.)	we (inc.)	you (pl.)	they	relative
Direct	naw	fiar, iar, 'r	(h)av	(h)ee	(h)e	cawv	gwad	swad	(h)awr	car
Genitive	ren	rys	reev	ree	rec	riav	ryg	ryd	ryr	re char
Dative	llen	llys	lleev	llee	llec	lliav	llyg	llyd	llyr	lly char

Demonstratives

• mi, mend = near 1 (adnominal), (pronominal)
• si, send = near 1+2 (adnominal), (pronominal)
• ci, cend = near 2 (adnominal), (pronominal)

Prepositions

Most prepositions are not inflected, unlike in Thensarian or Old Eevo.

Adjectives

Adjectives behave like verbs in that they can take tense clitics. However, they can take degree inflection unlike adjectives and imperative constructions must use fa + ADJECTIVE.

Adjectives usually follow nouns; they may precede nouns in poetry.

Degree: -te = comparative; -ws = superlative

TODO: construct adjectives (cf. English faint of heart)

Derivational morphology

		From...
		Noun	Verb	Adjective	Adverb
To...	Noun	-a (Netagin female suffix) -wŋ (agentive) -os (instrument) -i (diminutive) -óm (augmentative) -emb (female suffix) ni- (non-) ir- (un-) bah- (sub-)	-ah (verbal noun) -ev (verbal noun) -wŋ (agentive) -os (instrument)	-e (abstract noun) -ev (abstract noun) -íra(abstract noun)
	Verb	(verbing)	ar- (applicative) as- (telic) ee- (co-, with) for- (causative) fw- (back, re-) gol- (up) oc- (from, out) ro- (down) so- (towards) sen- (well) mi- (mis-)
	Adjective	-att -on -ín (Netagin)	-i -in (-ee) -gon (-able, but ergative)	mo- (non-) ir- (un-)
	Adverb				-

Noun-noun compounds are head-final.

Syntax

Eevo is strongly head-initial (with exceptions in poetry). It usually uses VSO word order; the focused constituent can be fronted.

Eevo is split-ergative, the split being conditioned by aspect.

Noun phrase

a (að before a vowel or after a) is used as a determiner before the noun phrase (like Lushootseed ti and kʷi). Determiners are not used with prepositions or when the noun is used as a predicate.

Determiners can be omitted in elevated language.

There is a genitive particle re, but it is optional.

Predicates are fronted

Eevo has no copula. Instead, the "predicate" or the focused constituent is fronted:

e.g. Dy eell naw ee. = I love her; Ee a fa dy eell ren. = It's her that I love

When fronting of a noun occurs, the remaining verb phrase becomes a noun phrase, thus a determiner must be used.

Twm øráð syrng toxroréginan a go tarcǿma að smøøch sbenopatsan.

NEG only new evolve-PASS.PART-CLV DET PST.IPFV inhabit DET world s.-CLV

The world of the sbenopatsar was not solely occupied by the newly-evolved.

In some tenses (progressive, perfect) the particle fa can be used after the a when fronting.

Dy iant a duvwŋ.

The teacher is sleeping.

Duvwŋ a (fa) dy iant.

It's the teacher who is sleeping.

Ergativity

Eevo is split-ergative, with imperfective tenses using accusative morphosyntax and perfective tenses using ergative morphosyntax. The ergative preposition is rw.

It's conflated with the possessive pronouns in some dialects, where it is used even outside ergative tenses to mark an ergative subject in clauses with fronting, and the possessive pronouns are also used ergatively. Some even argue that a(ð) is on its way to becoming an absolutive case marker.

TAM marking

Verbs have little inflection, and the bulk of verbs are completely regular.

Imperative

Imperative: so [VERB] (from "do VERB")

Cohortative: [VERB] gwm, [VERB] wm (from "VERB with us")

Present

The present uses the unmarked form of the verb followed by the subject. For example, Mol naw a duvwŋ means "I thank the teacher" or "I used to thank the teacher".

Imperfect

The imperfect uses the particle go.

Progressive/Stative

To form the progressive, the particle dy is used before the verb.

Verbs referring to emotional states, as well as adjectives referring to states, commonly use the progressive. For example, Dy eell naw'r means "I love you."

Preterite

The preterite uses the ergative particle.

• Iantin naw. = I slept.
• Vesin rw naw að attynar. = I painted the pictures.

Perfect

Perfect: Yv iant naw. = I have slept.

Perfect progressive: Yv fatt dy VERB SUBJECT

Future imperfective

The future imperfective uses the -t affix inherited from Old Eevo.

Future perfective

The future perfective tense is formed with lly + VERB. It is ergative.

Relative clauses

• no relativizer is used when the head is the subject in the relative clause
• re is used otherwise
• for places, cach 'there' can be used as a resumptive pronoun

If... then...

I yv tøøch a barach, (coþ) gias a cnoo.

If it has rained, (then) the grass is wet.

Modal expressions

• Byð ren a... = I have to (lit. it is my part to)
• Cwlli llen a... = I can (lit. it is open for me to)
• Orr llen a... = I should...
• Dewm ren a... = I may... (lit. it is my right to)
  • The possessive pronoun can be omitted in casual speech.

Vocabulary

Eevo's basic vocabulary is largely Talmic. However, a large portion of Eevo vocabulary (comparable to English) is borrowed, for example from Netagin, Clofabic languages (including Tamil) or other Talmic languages.

Sample texts

Að Øøm Depanjẃn (Making Anisole)

NileRed: Making Anisole

Depanjẃn, re givolín pnaþafol tamer tlaméni e, að øømt riav rreem.

Today we're making anisole which is a somewhat nice-smelling organic liquid.

Twm øør að arbyrrahr tammẃx depanjẃnan hnoch, as gøørws ŋi bannẃts lly bishǿðr as efataþolr að arbyrr car e.

Anisole itself doesn't have many direct applications and it's mostly used as a precursor to perfumes and pharmaceuticals.

Eenand naw nai møø depanjẃn lly øøm tawnn arbóin cosgarjẃn, re cnee cia tyr nafte raw acly balniv e.

I plan to use the anisole to make something called anethole, which is 13 times sweeter than regular sugar.

The reaction that we'll be doing to make the anisole is called the Williamson ether synthesis, and I'll cover the mechanism later on in the video. In terms of chemicals, we have four major reagents: sodium metal, methyl iodide, phenol and methanol. We'll also need some sodium hydroxide, some dry calcium chloride, and some dichloromethane for the workup. To start things off, I added 150 mL of dry methanol to a round bottom flask. Once I'm done adding the methanol, I then move on to preparing the sodium metal. Before the sodium metal can be used, we first have to clean off the mineral oil that it was stored in, and then we have to chop it up into smaller pieces. Using a knife I took out a reasonably-sized chunk, and I tried to wipe away as much oil as I could using a paper towel. When I felt like most of the oil had been removed, I dropped the sodium into a beaker. I fill the beaker with toluene until the sodium is covered. Mineral oil is soluble in toluene, so this is just an added step to get rid of as much of the oil as possible. Using my very rusted knife, I try to agitate things as best as I can. After something like a minute, I felt like it had been washed decently enough, so I took it out and placed it on some paper towel. Now for the slightly more fun part where we get to cut the sodium and weigh out about 8 grams. Using my knife, I cut away some moderately-sized pieces and I place them on the scale. The freshly cut sodium is nice and silver, but it very quickly tarnishes. Once about 8 grams are weighted out, I put the sodium to the side and remove the scale. The sodium metal that is left over that we don't need is placed back under mineral oil for storage. Coming back to the round-bottom flask with the methanol in it, I go ahead and dump in all of the sodium. You can see that the sodium reacts quite vigorously immediately after being added. The reaction is going to heat the methanol to its boiling point, and a lot is going to boil off, so it's very important to have a high-efficiency condenser.

From a manifesto

Es dy ŋŋerlyn mawr savísi, ðrwanyn øølyv, as jysn hwrþol a tarchǿmy sawvn?

Q in trunk-COL tree towering, lake-COL heaven and mountain-COL craggy DET reside goodness-COL

Does good reside in the towering tree trunks, the heavenly lakes, the cragged peaks?

Ia, [dy chwm] fiar rys a steevi rec.

nay inside 2SG GEN.2SG DET dwell GEN.it

Nay, it dwells within thyself.

Tower of Babel

1. Go cia jawþ as cia brits dy smøøh aðer.

PST.IPFV one language and one speech in world throughout.

2. Ah arw go rrotta caran biarir lly nneev, samin awr a dooméxa dy Xinlar as inosin awr cah.

but when IPFV move people-COL residence to east, find-PFV 3PL DET plain in Shinar and settle-PFV there.

3. Coþ tavin awr lly [cia sdojir]: "Ai, øøm gwm atsenr, lly gollt heeg." As atsenr a þŋojétin llyr ŋi neldr, as llawh a ŋi wpet.

then say-PRET 3PL DAT each_other VOC make COH brick-PL DAT bake hard and brick-PL DET serve DAT.3PL as stone-PL and tar DET as cement