Yonaen

Natively known as: yonaen /joˈnɛn/

...and he stood holding his hat and turned his wet face to the wind...
ju eo wirae chweu eo pinongpyil ju boltim eo myongpa taru si kongheut
Pronunciation: /ʨuː ʌ ˈwiɾɛː ʨʰwɯː ʌ pʰinoːŋˈpʰjiːɭ ʨuː ˈpoɭtʰiːm ʌ mjoŋˈpʰa ˈtaɾu siː ˈkoŋhɯt/
Yonaen word order: and he stood holding his hat and turned his wet face to the wind

Spelling & Phonology

Consonant inventory: d g h j k kʰ m n p pʰ s t tʰ w ŋ ɭ ɾ ʨ ʨʰ

↓Manner/Place→	Bilabial	Alveolar	Retroflex	Alveolo-palatal	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m	n				ŋ
Stop	p pʰ	t tʰ d				k kʰ g
Affricate				ʨ ʨʰ
Fricative		s					h
Approximant					j
Tap		ɾ
Lateral approximant			ɭ

Co-articulated phonemes

↓Manner/Place→	Labial-velar
Approximant	w

Vowel inventory: a aː e eː i iː o oː u uː ɛ ɛː ɯ ɯː ʌ

	Front	Back
High	i iː	ɯ ɯː u uː
High-mid	e eː	o oː
Low-mid	ɛ ɛː	ʌ
Low	a aː

Syllable structure: Custom defined
Stress pattern: No fixed stress
Spelling rules:

Pronunciation	Spelling
p	b / #_ !_ʰ
pʰ	p
ŋ	ng
ɭ	l
ɾ	r
ʌ	eo
ɯ(ː)	eu
ɛ(ː)	ae
j	y
ː
tʰ	t
kʰ	k
ʨʰ	ch
ʨ	j

---

Grammar

Main word order: Subject Verb Object (Prepositional phrase). “Mary opened the door with a key” turns into Mary opened the door with a key.
Adjective order: Adjectives are positioned before the noun.
Adposition: prepositions

Nouns

	Singular	Plural
Definite	If ends with vowel: Suffix -k Else: Suffix -ɯk onsaek /ˈonsɛk/ the dog	If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -ɯn onsaen /ˈonsɛn/ the dogs
Indefinite	If ends with vowel: Suffix -k Else: Suffix -ak onsaek /onˈsɛk/ a dog	No affix onsae /onˈsɛ/ some dogs

Articles

Yonaen encodes definite article ‘the’, and indefinite article ‘a’ in noun affixes. See Noun section.

Pronouns

1st singular	kyop /kjop/ I, me, mine
2nd singular	ta /ta/ you, yours
3rd singular masc	eo /ʌ/ he, him, his, it, its
3rd singular fem	pyi /pʰjiː/ she, her, hers, it, its
1st plural	yeu /jɯ/ we, us, ours
2nd plural	kwong /kwoŋ/ you all, yours (pl)
3rd plural	peo /pʰʌ/ they, them, theirs

Possessive determiners

1st singular	kyop /kjop/ my
2nd singular	ta /ta/ your
3rd singular masc	eo /ʌ/ his
3rd singular fem	pyi /pʰjiː/ her
1st plural	yeu /jɯ/ our
2nd plural	kwong /kwoŋ/ your (pl)
3rd plural	peo /pʰʌ/ their

Verbs

Present	No affix mep /meːp/ learn
Past	If ends with vowel: Suffix -ɭ Else: Suffix -aɭ mepal /meːˈpaɭ/ learned
Future	Suffix -op mepop /ˈmeːpop/ will learn

Imperfective aspect

The ‘imperfective’ aspect refers to ongoing actions, such as I am learning and habitual actions, such as I learn (something new every day).
Yonaen uses an affix for imperfective:

Imperfective

Suffix -op mepop /ˈmeːpop/ learns/is learning

Numbers

Yonaen has a base-10 number system:
1 - hyet
2 - hyeng
3 - rut
4 - kyon
5 - kweul
6 - ja
7 - jelgyi
8 - se
9 - nyeu
10 - bonhu
11 - bonhuhyet “ten-one”
100 - hyet jon “one hundred”
101 - hyet jon hyet “one hundred one”
200 - hyeng jon
1000 - hyet nyaeng “one thousand”

Derivational morphology

Adjective → adverb = Suffix -ɯ
Adjective → noun (the quality of being [adj]) = Suffix -i
Adjective → verb (to make something [adj]) = Suffix -eːŋ
Noun → adjective (having the quality of [noun]) = Suffix -u
Noun → adjective relating to noun (e.g. economy → economic) = If ends with vowel: Suffix -m
Else: Suffix -um
Noun to verb = If ends with vowel: Suffix -n
Else: Suffix -an
Verb → adjective (result of doing [verb]) = If ends with vowel: Suffix -ɭ
Else: Suffix -ɛːɭ
Tending to = If ends with vowel: Suffix -p
Else: Suffix -ip
Verb → noun (the act of [verb]) = Suffix -i
Verb → noun that verb produces (e.g. know → knowledge) = If ends with vowel: Suffix -p
Else: Suffix -ɯp
One who [verb]s (e.g. paint → painter) = Suffix -uːn
Place of (e.g. wine → winery) = Suffix -ʌ
Diminutive = Suffix -aːt
Augmentative = If ends with vowel: Suffix -k
Else: Suffix -ek

Dictionary

3264 Words.