Vjin

Vjin (v̂v́v́jín, roughly /ɸ͎̋ɸ͎́ɸ͎́ʑ́ín/) is the most common Griavin language. It is assumed to have formed from the amalgamation from two separate languages due to its distinct inclusion of whistle sounds.

Writing System

Vjin uses a flowing script derived from calligraphy. Each word is written from left to right in one continuous line barring diacritics, clicks, and whistle syllables. After each line, the overall writing direction alternates, but the writing direction within words remains left to right. Front and back consonants use the same base symbol with the corresponding back consonant marked by a simple line diacritic. High tones use a taller variant of the symbol for the neutral tone, while low tones use the same symbol flipped below the baseline. The table below shows the vowels and regular consonants of the writing system. Where two characters are shown, the character on the left is used at the start of words. <currently being updated> Whistle characters use a system related to musical notation. Short dashes are written in three possible positions, with ticks above for raising the tone and ticks below combined with a slight lengthening of the dash to indicate long whistles (i.e. two whistles of the same tone in sequence). The middle height (denoting neutral tone) does not take the raising notation. To integrate whistle symbols into writing, lead-in and lead-out connectors are used. When whistle sounds are written as part of a word containing other characters, the connecting marks are used at all points where whistle symbols are next to regular characters. Punctuation directly adjacent to whistle characters also always causes a connector to be used inbetween. Standalone whistle-only words are followed by a connecting mark, though there may be one on either side if the word is preceded directly by punctuation. In some cases, the connecting mark on standalone whistle-only words without any punctuation may also be moved to the beginning for aesthetic reasons.

Phonology

The Griavin vocal tract is markedly different from that of humans, and as such the pronounciations given below represent the closest equivalent humans are able to produce. In particular the whistle is a rough approximation, since it is produced by a dedicated structure in the breathing apparatus of the Griavin, and they are unable to produce a labial sound as it is described in this article.

Consonants

	Front	Back
Nasal	n /n/
Stop	d /d/	g /ɡ/
Fricatives	z /z/	j /ʑ/
Trill	r /r/
Click	t /ǀ/	x /‼/
Whistle	v /ɸ͎/

Sounds in this table represent the nominal pronounciations. The sounds represented by n and r may shift back in some consonant clusters.

Vowels

Front	i /i/
Back	a /a/

Tones

The language uses tones with most of its phonemes. Tones are often omitted in transliterations intended for audiences not familiar with the language. There are three classes of tones:

Vowel Tones

The vowel tone system applies to a and i and uses three tones; neutral, low and high. In the transliteration, these tones are notated as diacritics:

High	á /á/	í /í/
Neutral	a /ā/	i /ī/
Low	à /à/	ì /ì/

Consonant Tones

Some of the consonants can also have tones added. By default, consonants take the pitch of the nearest vowel in the same syllable, but an added tone emphasizes the consonant and raises its pitch above that of the vowel. The possible consonant tones are as follows:

ń: /n̄/, /ń/, /n̋/
ź: /z̄/, /ź/, /z̋/
j́: /ʑ̄/, /ʑ́/, /ʑ̋/

Whistle Tones

Finally, the whistle consonant has five distinct pitches. There are two common ways of notating this in the transliteration:

ɸ͎̋	v̂	vꜛꜛ
ɸ͎́	v́	vꜛ
ɸ͎̄	v	v
ɸ͎̀	v̀	vꜜ
ɸ͎̏	v̌	vꜜꜜ

An alternative system of notating whistle syllables simply marks the whistle by a v, followed by the tone sequence in brackets, for example writing v[544]jín.

Phonotactics

Vjin has two distinct syllable structures. One consists exclusively of 1-5 whistle sounds, while the other does not include any whistle sounds and has the following structure:

(C1) (C2) V (V) (V) (C3)

where:

C1 is any of d /d/, g /g/, z /z/, j /ʑ/, t /ǀ/, or x /‼/.
C2 is any of n /n/, z /n/, j /ʑ/, or r /r/. If C1 is present and is a fricative, C2 cannot also be a fricative.
V is either vowel.
C3 is n /n/ or r /r/.

Morphology

Verbs

Verbs in Vjin always have a root with three vowels, the tones of which are used for declination. Declinations are made according to the following table:

	High	Medium	Low
First Vowel	3rd person	1st person	2nd person
Second Vowel	Collective	Singular	Plural
Third Vowel*	Future	Present	Past

*Note that a constant pitch over three instances of the same vowel is not allowed. If such a situation occurs, another instance of the same vowel with a different (usually adjacent) pitch is added after the first two.

Aspect and Mood

Vjin marks verbs with a suffix that combines aspect and mood. The suffix must also agree in number, as shown in the tables below.

Sg./Coll.Inc.	Indicative	Optative	Hypothetical
Imperfective		-dja	-dna
Perfective	-gja	-gjaí	-gnaí
Attenuative	-nía	-día	-zía
Experiential	-ra	-tra	-zra

Coll.Ex./Pl.	Indicative	Optative	Hypothetical
Imperfective	-jaà	-djaà	-naà
Perfective	-gza	-gzaì	-gnaì
Attenuative	-nizà	-dizà	-zià
Experiential	-ràì	-tàrì	-zàrì

The following aspects exist:

Imperfective - indicating an action in progress or a state
Perfective - indicating an action viewed in its entirety
Attenuative - used to diminish the importance of an action
Experiential - used to signify the experience of the speaker

The attenuative and experiential aspects are often used for politeness; the attenuative aspect is used to downplay the significance of the speaker's actions, and the experiential is used to emphasize that statements are the subjective experience of the speaker. The following moods exist:

Indicative - indicating known fact
Optative - expressing a wish or desire of the speaker
Hypothetical - expressing a hypothetical or assumed situation

The optative mood is used in place of the imperative mood present in other languages, while the hypothetical mood can be used similarly to both the conditional and potential moods.

Nouns

Nouns have a root of at most two vowels and never end in an open syllable with a single vowel. Tones are not directly used for any kind of declination and may distinguish between similar words. Nouns are marked with a suffix which is defines both case and number. The following number categories exist:

Singular
Collective Inclusive - a coherent group of people including the speaker
Collective Exclusive - a coherent group of objects or people not including the speaker
Plural - any group of objects or people

There are no strict rules for when to use the collective forms over the plural - using the collective emphasizes commonalities, while using the plural emphasizes differences, and this difference often communicates nuance.

Cases

Absolutive and Ergative Vjin features Ergative alignment. The actor of an intransitive verb construction and the direct object of a transitive verb construction are both marked by the absolutive case, while the actor of a transitive verb is marked by the ergative case.

ántaí jáiìngja
ántaí-ABS speak-3.P-SG-PAST-PERF
Ántaí spoke

ántaíri ín jáiìngja
ántaí-ERG-SG I-ABS speak-3.P-SG-PAST-PERF
Ántaí spoke to me

Dative The dative is primarily used to mark indirect objects.

tànzìn zràíra jíiár
ship-ABS moon-DAT-SG fly-3.P-SG-FUT
the ship will be flying to the moon

Genitive The genitive marks one noun as modifying another, and is often used to mark possession.

íinná zràí
we-GEN-COL.INC moon
our moon

Perlative The perlative case is primarily used to mark movement through a location or medium, but is also used similar to an instrumentative for more abstract concepts such as languages.

tànzìnta gj́iárar jíiar
ship-ABS-PL space-PERL fly-3.P-SG-PRES
the ships are flying through space
ántaíri ín v[544]jínar jáiìngja
ántaí-ERG-SG I-ABS vjin-PERL speak-3.P-SG-PAST-PERF
Ántaí spoke Vjin to me

Vocative The vocative case is used when addressing people.

ántaíza ín v[544]jínar jáiìngja
ántaí-VOC-SG I-ABS vjin-PERL speak-3.P-SG-PAST-PERF
Ántaí, (you) spoke Vjin to me

The markings for all combinations of case and number are shown in the table below. Consonants in parentheses are omitted if the noun ends in a consonant.

	Singular	Coll. Inc.	Coll. Ex.	Plural
Absolutive			-ta	-ta
Ergative	-(r)i	-(r)í	-ti	-tì
Dative	-(r)a	-(r)á	-raà	-ràà
Genitive	-na	-ná	-naà	-nàà
Perlative	-(j)ar	-(j)ar	-(j)ar	-(j)ar
Vocative	-za	-zá	-zàn	-zàn

Adjectives

Unlike verbs and nouns, adjectives are not declined. The phonetic structure of adjectives is identical to that of nouns.

Syntax

Though the case-marking system allows for fairly free word order, the convention is to use a Subject-Object-Verb word order. Adjectives follow the noun or verb they describe.

Negation

Negation of verb phrases uses the hypothetical mood and the verb aii (to not do, to refuse).

jàiindna àiidía
speak-2SG-PRES-HYP-IMPERF not do-2SG-PRES-OPT-IMPERF
I wish that you were not speaking (= please be quiet)

Comparatives

Comparatives and superlatives in Vjin use the verb driaazrìn (to compare) using the hypothetical mood in combination with adjectives. The comparative "more <Adj>" takes the form <Adj> driaazrìndna <Adj> (lit. "if I were to compare to something <Adj>, it would be <Adj>"), while the superlative "the most <Adj>" takes the form <Adj> tnaì driaazrìndna <Adj> (lit. "if i were to compare to the entirety of <Adj>, it would be <Adj>"). Comparing two objects functions similarly; the construction "A is more <Adj> than B" takes the form B <Adj> driaazrìndna A <Adj>

Relative Clauses

Relative clauses are formed by inserting a particle after the verb, followed by the noun which the relative clause is modifying. The particle used must match the noun in gender (see pronouns section below for a more detailed explanation) and the verb in time.

	Male	Female	Jraní	Unknown
Present	xin	tir	tín	axin
Past	xìna	tìra	tíin	axiìn
Future	xín	tír	taín	xáin

ratí dzàara tíaítna tíin rìrxan
that day-DAT.SG wear-2SG-PST REL.PART mask
The mask you were wearing that day

Passive Voice

As Vjin uses ergative alignment, the passive voice may be considered the default. As the absolutive case may be used for both the subject and the object, ambiguity can occur if the actor of a transitive verb is omitted. In these cases, an explicit passive clause without a specified actor may be formed using the special noun zá, which is always considered to be in the ergative case without any declension.

zá rìrxan tíaitna
PASS.ACTOR mask wear-3SG-PRES
The mask is being worn.

Vocabulary

Questions

All questions are prefixed with the verb nanaiav̌vv̂ in the optative mood, and followed by the particle náá. When no specific interrogative is used in the sentence, this results simply in a true/false question.

nanaiav̌vv̂dja gríav̀inti xìrgìnzia gángj́iárna v́v̂íar nàjíáìrgza náá
know-1.SG-OPT griavin-COLL.EX-ERG <UDSA>-ABS create-3.COLL-PST-PERF Q.PART
Did the Griavin found the UDSA?

Interrogatives

Interrogatives are formed using the adjective ártni, which has no direct translation. This adjective is applied to whatever word is sought to be specified in the answer, with an arbitrary level of precision already applied.

Affirmatives & Negatives

To answer a yes/no question, the verb zaii (to agree) is used. Depending on politeness, different combinations of mood and aspect are used to signify different levels of politeness, as shown in the table below. The meanings of these expressions are closer to "I agree" and "I do not agree" than "yes" and "no", so their use is sometimes mistaken by native english speakers. Note that the Vjin analog to "no", while commonly translated as "I do not agree" and in practice having that meaning, literally translates to "I would like to agree".

	"yes"	"no"
Polite	zaiira (EXP.IND)	zaiidía (ATT.OPT)
Informal	zaii (IMPERF.IND)	zaiidja (IMPERF.OPT)

Pronouns

Pronouns in Vjin have the following categories:

Gender: There are four gender categories corresponding to the three biological sexes of the griavin (male, female and jraní) as well as an unknown category. Note that the unknown category is explicitly for cases where the gender of a person is not known, rather than being a gender-neutral pronoun, and there are no nouns for objects which are used with this category. When referring to groups of multiple genders, jraní has the highest precedence, followed by female, with male at the lowest precedence. The unknown form in plural is only used for groups of people where the gender of no member of the group is known.
Number: The number system follows the same system as nouns as described in the morphology section of this article, with the categories of singular, collective, and plural. Note that the collective inclusive/exclusive distinction is implicitly handled by the first/second/third person in the case of pronouns.
Person: Vjin pronouns follow the common first person/second person/third person distinction.
Formality: There are three levels of formality: informal, formal, and exalted. The exalted form is never used to refer to oneself, and as such no exalted first person pronouns exist.
Ingroup/Outgroup: Vjin pronouns distinguish between people within the speaker's ingroup (typically referred to as the "swarm" for historical reasons) and those who are not. When talking about groups of people which include both ingroup and outgroup, the outgroup forms are used.

Informal			Male	Female	Jraní	Unknown
1st Person	Singular		áín	áin	in	-
	Collective	Ingroup	iin	íín	íin	-
		Outgroup	ìin	ììn	iìn	-
	Plural	Ingroup	ìni	ìnì	inì	-
		Outgroup	ìi	ìì	iì	-
2nd Person	Singular	Ingroup	áír	áir	ir	i
		Outgroup	árír	árir	rir	ri
	Collective	Ingroup	iir	íír	íir	í
		Outgroup	ìir	ììr	iìr	ì
	Plural	Ingroup	àri	àrì	arì	arí
		Outgroup	ài	àì	aì	aí
3rd Person	Singular	Ingroup	íár	íar	ar	aa
		Outgroup	írár	írar	rar	ará
	Collective	Ingroup	aar	áár	áar	á
		Outgroup	àar	ààr	aàr	à
	Plural	Ingroup	ìra	ìrà	irà	iá
		Outgroup	ìa	ìà	ià	irá

Numbers

Vjin numerals use a base-12 system. Digits are generally treated as nouns and may receive case markers, which apply as if they were singular regardless of the number.

Digit	word
1	ia
2	rá
3	xir
4	níí
5	ragi
6	nái
7	jiina
8	àtì
9	nian
A (10)	xàra
B (11)	iran

Number	word
0	jàìtin
12	gir
144	íjraír
1728	aitnìda
20736	zaájir

The genitive case marking is used to signify multiplication when constructing numbers, and the word zín (and) is inserted before the last digit. For example:

13 (11₁₂) → gir zín ia
24 (20₁₂) → girna rá
156 (110₁₂) → íjraír zín gir
311 (21B₁₂) → írjaírna rá gir zín iran
727 (507₁₂) → írjaírna ragi zín jiina

To construct numbers above 12⁵, a number marked in the ergative case is prefixed to zaájir to create a number of the form 12⁴ⁿ. For example, rári zaájir means 12⁸ (429981696), and even very large numbers such as 12⁵² (approx. 1.3×10⁵⁶) can be constructed using forms such as gir zín iari zaájir.

Counter Adjectives

When using numbers to indicate counts and measurements, the noun being counted takes a counter adjective, which depends on the word being counted or measured. In the case of measurements, this is typically the unit of measurement. Some examples of counter adjectives are shown below. Note that some situations may allow the use of multiple counter adjectives, and which of them is used can convey additional nuance.

Counter	Usage
anní	people/sapient beings
jaár	other forms of life (including plants)
àjáin	light objects (typically things light enough to be significantly affected by air currents)
ráaji	heavy objects (complement to the above category)
dzár	"day" (measurement of time which the UDSA Standard Date unit is based on)
nantìr	measurement of distance approximately equal to 1.62m

When using measurements, in many cases secondary nouns or placeholder nouns are used to specify what is being measured. The verb najíraian (to measure) is also often used together with measurements, often in the hypothetical mood.

Fractional Numbers

Fractions are formed simply by marking the corresponding number as a perlative. If the number consists of more than one word, only the final digit is declined. Fractions simply place then numerator after the denominator. Radix point notation is implemented similarly, with the digits in the absolutive case and the fractional exponents in the perlative. In this case, zín is always placed before the first non-integer digit. For example:

1/3 (1/3₁₂) → xirar
1/17 (1/15₁₂) → gir zín ragijar
6/7 (6/7₁₂) → jiinajar nái
1.333... (1.4₁₂) → ia zín nííjar
21.125 (19.16₁₂) → gir nian zín girar ia íjraírar rá

Examples

gríav̀inta anní xàra - ten griavin
iàgni dzár girna àtì zín níí - 100 UDSA Standard Date units (approx. one earth year)
ántaí najíraiàngnaí zanxá nantìr ia zín girar jiina íjraírar ragi áaì - ántaí was 2.62m (1.75₁₂ nantìr) tall

Ceremonial Numbers

There is a secondary number system used in some official documents, referred to as ceremonial numbers or administrative numbers (xìrgìnzianaà ríandjar), which are based on prime factorization. These numbers stem from a period in which multiplication was considered to be the more "proper" operation to base a numbering system on, leading to griavin high society introducing various complex systems for avoiding addition. While these systems have mostly fallen out of use, the ceremonial number system is still commonly seen in some documents for somewhat small numbers. In this system, words are assigned to prime numbers. Primes are multiplied together using genitive marking, with powers created using ergative marking similar to regular numbers. Non-prime powers are also constructed using prime factorization, leading to potentially very complex numbers. In the case of a constructed power, the particle jaín (with) is inserted at the start of the construction. Numerals are not used when writing ceremonial numbers, they are always written out phonetically. Books containing large lists of names for prime numbers were created during the time the system was created, leading to Vjin being the language with the most unique words for numbers currently known. Besides some of the one-digit primes preserving archaic forms of the corresponding digits, most of these ceremonial primes have names starting in àáj-.

Number	Word
2	rán
3	ixir
5	àájata
7	ájina
11	àájran

Number	Word
13	girnía
17	àájatíxna
19	àájítinnà
23	àájraìgá
29	àájnaángni

Some examples of ceremonial numbers:

6 → 2×3 → ránna ixir
8 → 2³ → ixira rán
16 → 2^2² → rána rána rán
90 → 2×3²×5 → ránna rána ixirna àájata
729 → 3⁶ → jaín ránna ixira ixir

Dictionary

55 Words.

The name of the language written in its native script.

Common Phrases

naaáajàinía

I (humbly) greet (you); common greeting comparable to "hello"

j́ìiárdja

I wish you will soar; common greeting comparable to "farewell"

zràízàn

(oh) worlds; common exclamation