Vespiod (Language+

Natively known as: Vezøbe /vɤˈzøbɤ/

...and he stood holding his hat and turned his wet face to the wind... bo vzøpøe v̂ǔ vzøto zwo wewøzo bo vzøwǔ zwo totø zwopo wo wǔo Pronunciation: /bʊ vzøˈɓøɤ ⱱy ˈvzøtʊ zʋʊ ʋɤˈʋøzʊ bʊ ˈvzøʋy zʋʊ ˈtʊtø ˈzʋʊɓʊ ʋʊ ˈʋyʊ/ Vezøben word order: and stood he holding hat his and turned his face wet to the wind

Spelling & Phonology

Consonant inventory: /b t v z ɓ ʋ ⱱ/

↓Manner/Place→	Bilabial	Labiodental	Alveolar
Stop	b		t
Implosive	ɓ
Fricative		v	z
Approximant		ʋ
Tap		ⱱ

Vowel inventory: /y ø ɤ ʊ/

	Front	Back
High	y
Near-high		ʊ
High-mid	ø	ɤ

Syllable structure: (C)(C)(C)V Stress pattern: Penultimate — stress is on the second last syllable Word initial consonants: b, t, tʋ, v, vz, z, zʋ, ɓ, ʋ, ⱱ Mid-word consonants: b, t, tb, tz, v, z, zb, zt, ɓ, ʋ, ⱱ Word final consonants: N/A
Phonological changes (in order of application):

• v → u / V_V
• S → Ø / #_F
• v → w / #_
• v → f / _C
• t → r / _V
• S → S[-voice] / _#

Spelling rules:

Pronunciation	Spelling
y	ǔ
ɓ	p
ɤ	e
ʊ	o
ʋ	w
ⱱ	v̂

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Grammar

Main word order: Verb-Subject-Object-Oblique. "Mary opened the door with a key" turns into Opened Mary the door with a key. Adjective order: Adjectives are positioned after the noun. Adposition: prepositions

Nouns

Nouns have three cases:

• Nominative is the doer of a verb: dog bites man.
• Accusative is the done-to of a verb: man bites dog.
• Genitive is the possessor of something: dog’s tail hits man.

Nominative	No affix v̂øtøv̂o /ⱱøˈtøⱱʊ/ dog (doing the verb)
Accusative	Suffix -ɓɤ v̂øtøv̂ope /ˌⱱøtøˈⱱʊɓɤ/ (verb done to) dog
Genitive	Suffix -ⱱʊ v̂øtøv̂ov̂o /ˌⱱøtøˈⱱʊⱱʊ/ dogʼs

	Singular	Plural
Definite	Suffix -ⱱy v̂øtøv̂ov̂ǔ /ˌⱱøtøˈⱱʊⱱy/ the dog	Suffix -by v̂øtøv̂obǔ /ˌⱱøtøˈⱱʊby/ the dogs
Indefinite	Suffix -ⱱø v̂øtøv̂ov̂ø /ˌⱱøtøˈⱱʊⱱø/ a dog	No affix v̂øtøv̂o /ⱱøˈtøⱱʊ/ some dogs

Articles

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

Pronouns

	Nominative	Accusative	Genitive
1st singular	zo /zʊ/ I	bo /bʊ/ me	te /tɤ/ mine
2nd singular	zǔ /zy/ you	po /ɓʊ/ you	o /ʊ/ yours
3rd singular masc	v̂ǔ /ⱱy/ he	tø /tø/ him	zwo /zʋʊ/ his
3rd singular fem	vǔ /vy/ she	tǔ /ty/ her	wo /ʋʊ/ hers
1st plural	ze /zɤ/ we	ǔ /y/ us	vzø /vzø/ ours
2nd plural	v̂o /ⱱʊ/ you (all)	zø /zø/ you (all)	to /tʊ/ yours
3rd plural	vø /vø/ they	be /bɤ/ them	ve /vɤ/ theirs

Possessive determiners

1st singular	te /tɤ/ my
2nd singular	o /ʊ/ your
3rd singular masc	zwo /zʋʊ/ his
3rd singular fem	wo /ʋʊ/ her
1st plural	vzø /vzø/ our
2nd plural	o /ʊ/ your
3rd plural	ve /vɤ/ their

Verbs

Present	No affix zwozbø /ˈzʋʊzbø/ study
Past	Suffix -ⱱø zwozbøv̂ø /zʋʊzˈbøⱱø/ studied
Remote past	Suffix -ⱱy zwozbøv̂ǔ /zʋʊzˈbøⱱy/ studied (long ago)
Future	Suffix -zʊ zwozbøzo /zʋʊzˈbøzʊ/ will study

Perfect aspect

The perfect aspect in English is exemplified in ‘I have read this book’, which expresses an event that took place before the time spoken but which has an effect on or is in some way still relevant to the present. Vezøben uses the word for ‘finish’ tevøtǔ for the perfect aspect.

Numbers

Vezøben has a base-10 number system:
1 - vø 2 - pe 3 - zwo 4 - vo 5 - vǔve 6 - vǔbe 7 - v̂øpøbe 8 - boze 9 - tozo 10 - vøte 11 - vøtevø “ten-one” 100 - poze “hundred” 101 - poze bo vø “hundred and one” 200 - pe poze 1000 - v̂øv̂e “thousand”

Derivational morphology

Adjective → adverb = Suffix -zɤ Adjective → noun (the quality of being [adj]) = Suffix -ʋʊ Adjective → verb (to make something [adj]) = Suffix -ⱱø Noun → adjective (having the quality of [noun]) = Suffix -ʋʊ Noun → adjective relating to noun (e.g. economy → economic) = Suffix -zɤ Noun → verb (to create [noun]) = Suffix -ʋʊ Verb → adjective (result of doing [verb]) = Suffix -tɤ Verb → adjective (likely to do [verb]) = Suffix -tɤ Verb → noun (the act of [verb]) = Suffix -ⱱø Verb → noun that verb physically produces (e.g. build → building) = Suffix -ɓʊ One who [verb]s (e.g. paint → painter) = Suffix -tɤ Place of (e.g. wine → winery) = Suffix -ɓy Diminutive = Suffix -ʋʊ Augmentative = Suffix -tɤ

Dictionary

4302 Words.