Ov language

Written by Orikrin1998

Ov (autonym: Yhngnäs, /yːŋ͡næs/) is the most spoken language in Allwanduir. Spoken by 212 million people as a native language, it is the official lingua franca of Allwanduir with approximately 1.3 billion second language speakers.
Ov is the main language of the Okhakian language family, which has a total of 417 million native speakers, making it the largest language family of Allwanduir.

The word Yhngnäś comes directly from Proto-Ov *oxa qneopepets, which translates as "language of the peoples". *Oxa also has a direct descendant in yh, "psalm", and *qneob gave rise to the modern word ngnäb, "tribe".

History

The ancester of Okharian languages appeared in 9,200 BN, but Ov emerged only in 6,712 BN when the first duly dated document, showing Okharian inscriptions, was discovered.

Ov retrospectively gave its name to the Proto-Ov language, as it is now the most spoken language in Allwanduir and therefore the most representative of the Okharian family. Old Ov itself gave birth to several widely spoken and closely related languages, the Okhar-Shkenzi subfamily.

Writing System

The writing system of Ov is an alphabet named Ofsar.

It also has an ornamental font.

Phonology

Ov has a reasonably large consonantal inventory consisting of 19 phonemes: three nasals /m n ŋ/, six plosives /p b t d k g/, six fricatives /f v θ s ɕ x/, three liquids /l ɫ̪ r/ and an affricate /t͡ɕ/.
The vocalic inventory is relatively large, with 10 different vowels by quality (/i: y: ɪ ʏ e æ u ɤ o ɑ/), of which 5 can also be distinguished by length (adding the following to the inventory: /e: æ: u: o: ɑ:/.

Arguably, /i: y:/ are also distinguished by length compared to /ɪ ʏ/ but their quality is also different, which makes them separate phonemes (same goes with German, or English regarding the /ɪ/). The vowel /ɤ/ is the only vowel that cannot be lenghtened outside of these two.
The short vowels are slightly lower than their long counterparts.

Allophony

Ov undergoes quite a bit of allophony in consonants. In vowels, we can simply notice the very common /ɪ u/ → [j w] in contact with another vowel.
Many voiced fricatives lack, but [ð] for /d/ is found before /r/, as well as [ɣ] for /g/ in many environments.
The liquid /r/ has such a widespread allophone in [ɾ̝] that many linguists consider this should be the actual phoneme by now, and a dialectal variation.
Ov completely lacks phonemic palatal consonants, but after a front vowel (except in <rł>) or <p>, [ç] is the allophone of /x/. This feeds a transformation of /n/ into [ɲ] before that latter allophone.
Finally, /θ/ can combine with many consonants to form an allophonic [ɬ], or even the cluster [t͡ɬ].

Stress

Stress in Ov is not lexical, yet the language is heavily stress-timed. There is no tone nor secondary stress, and slight vowel reduction occurs.
The base rule for the position of stress is the following:

• stress is final if the word ends in a plosive consonant (zëvit [t͡ɕɘ.ˈvɪt]
• stress is penultimate if the word ends in any other phoneme (lougwiś [ˈl̪ow.gʷɘs]; iełema [ʝɛ̈.ˈçe̞.mə]).

Now for the exceptions:

• compound words keep the stress of their first item (skueiëcan [ˈɕkʷe̞ɪ̯.θn̩]; śyhfkaizean [ˈsyːf.kəɪ̯.t͡ɕən]
• long vowels are always stressed, no matter the first rules (Azihtkana [ə.ˈt͡ɕiːt.kə.nə]).

Vowel Reduction

Ov undergoes vocalic reduction on unstressed vowel, not as strong as in Russian, yet enough to cause syncope.
Here is the general pattern:

• /ɪ,ʏ/ > [ɘ,ɵ]
• /u/ > [ʊ]
• /e̞,o̞/ > [ɛ̈,ɔ̈]
• /æ,ɑ,ɤ/ > [ɐ~ə]

Syncope is not bound to rules, it's more generally linked to the "feel" speakers have of their language, and it varies a lot dialectally. Yet, it often happens with asonantal endings such as plurals (this is shown in Future Ov, where syncope was sometimes lexicalized and caused the spelling of some flexions to diverge). For example, dalyhryk has five ways of being very narrowly marked down:

• [dɑˈlyːɾ̝ʏk] (unreducted; rare or emphatic) ;
• [dəˈlyːɾ̝ɵk] (reducted trivocallically, formal speech) ;
• [dəˈlyːɾ̝ɵ̥k] (reducted and unvoiced trivocallically, common in casual speech with or without dialectal influence) ;
• [dəˈlyːɾ̝k] (syncopated, also common in casual speech with or without dialectal influence) ;
• [d͡ɮʏɾ̝k] (doubly syncopated, super fast speech).

Retaining the vowel can be done for epenthesis, but the epenthetic particle ea will be preferred for that purpose.
Other examples:

• /mo̞.nɑ.ly:.ɾ̝ɑm/ → [mɔ̈.n(ɐ).ˈly:.ɾ̝ɐm]
• /ɪç.nɒɪ̯.stɪ.ŋjæ/ → [ɘç.nɐɪ̯ˈstɪ.ŋjə]
• /θe̞.ɕwe̞ɪ̯.o̞ɑ.stɑn/ → [θɛ̈ɕ.wɛ̈ɪ̯.wəˈstɑn]
• /ʏf.me̞.to̞:l.kɤ/ → [ɵf.mɛ̈.ˈto̞:l.kə]
• /ki:.ɾ̝ɒn.læ.me̞ɪ̯l/ → [ˈki:.ɾ̝ɐn.lɐm.ɛ̈ɪ̯l]

Morphology

Ov is moderately synthetic, which contributes to its look made equally of long and short words. The roots are usually monosyllabic but many words are formed through composition. Verbs are also usually formed by null derivation from the nouns.
All paradigms are widely based upon assonances. Usually, an ending is supported by the optional addition of the last vowel into the paradigm: -at + -t = -atat. The future tense is in this case (nuksar, "to allocate", becomes nuksarsan, "I will allocate"), but the past and present tenses differ: they both use the first vowel of the word as a break (nuksar becomes nuksarus, "I allocate") but since the past tense uses an -in- infix, the <i> is always used for it (ninuksaris, "I allocated").

Nominal morphology

There is no grammatical genders, but four numbers: singular, plural, indefinite ideal ("any") and total ("all").
There are two sets of declensions: the syntactic paradigm, which is numbers distinguished by nominative or ergative, and the semantic paradigm, constituting of benefactive, instrumental, genitive, inessive, ectessive and locative.
Additionnally, the declensions are distinguished through three different kinds of harmonizations that impacted the proto-words. Nowadays, these patterns are called consonantal harmony:

• the plosive harmony is the paradigm for words of which the last consonant is among /m n ŋ p b t d k g/;
• the fricative harmony is the paradigm for words of which the last consonant is among /f v θ s ɕ x/;
• the null harmony is the paradigm for any other words (ending in /r l ɫ̪/ or no consonant).

Ov also expresses possession through affixes that adapt to the consonantal harmony. Remarkably, there are two kinds of possession: direct possession, where the possessee is actually owned, and indirect possession, for cases that would translate in English as "my son" or "my problems", where the possessee does not belong to someone, nor is held by them. A construct case is also used when the situation is inambiguous.
The absolutive case is only marked for animate nouns and uses a vocalic shift rather than an ending. The same kind of shift is visible for definite plural (a plural ending applying on items of which the amount is clearly known and above 3).

Verbal morphology

The tense system of Ov is misleadingly simple: it consists only of present, past and future distinguished in first, second and third person and their plurals. This is highly regular. The system stands out from the comparison with occidental languages by its synthetic passive paradigm.
The Ov verbal system also has four moods: causative (now dated), negative, imperative and subjunctive. The subjunctive can agree with the present or the non-present tense. Additionnally, all these moods can agree with the active or passive voice.
The subjunctive is triggered by the modal verb onto the main verb, or by relative clauses. The language is heavily verb-initial, to the point that all verbs of a given clause will be stacked at the beginning of the sentence. This is where complex rules of verbal agreement, varying a lot depending on formality and obsoleteness, come into play.

Syntax

Ov is VSO and strongly verb-initial. All the verbs of a given sentence are stacked at the beginning.
Ov is an ergative language and generally head-initial, but that isn not a strict rule for adjectives and nouns. Ov speakers will normally go for euphony. There is even an epenthetic particle, ea, that is used at will to break consonantal clusters across word boundaries.
Quite notably, Ov uses postpositions.

Relative clauses

Relative clauses are taken care of in two different ways.
The first way looks like what English does: a relative pronoun is used and the clause follows normally, with the exception that it triggers subjunctive on the verb.
The second way is more tricky but also more common. It is quite difficult to tackle for non natives as the boundaries of the relative clause are not clearly shown anymore, as there is no relative pronoun in this case. The verb is put in the future tense and the following noun in the ergative.

Vocabulary

The Ov language as we know it encompasses over 5,900 words. Here is an excerpt.

Ar /ɑɾ̝/

Life

Cëp /θɪp/

Tooth

Cíel /θiːe̞l/

Love (v./n.)

Crohszt /θɾ̝oːst/

Bitter

Ëps /ɪpɕ/

Action

Kohp /koːp/

Bone

Läś /læs/

Sky / heaven

Nara /nɑɾ̝ɑ/

Death

Plöië /ɫ̪ʏɪ̯/

Work (v./n.)

So /ɕo̞/

Be able to

Storvek /ɕto̞rve̞k/

Beach

Swa /ɕvɑ/

Water

Vytín /vʏtiːn/

Red

Wäi /væɪ̯/

Cat

Root Languages

• Okharian languages

Common Phrases

Cíelis niw.

I love you.

Ofor tiereë bonkszyhr.

The duck is learning mathematics.

Ylyś moi yngs luś?

When do we get the free food?

U ënszoks ioul iämszäsäl.

Steel is heavier than feathers.

Common Female Names

Käsztsyn, Celyn, Välcin, Yhzä

Common Male Names

Śäs, Dorkin, Doran, Dengan