Vula

Vula (/'vu.lɑ/) is a language spoken in Western Serrona in Eldham, namely among ethnic Vulpur peoples. It is a member of the Lausan language family and is closely related to languages like Batu and Eldurlac; but Vula has notable features and has been demographically separate from its sister languages for hundreds of years resulting in a relatively unique grammar and vocabulary.

It is almost always seen as an "informal language" by the Vulpur people, being used in everyday conversational speech and communications. However the language of Vulpin - which is entirely unrelated to Vula and is a different language - is almost always preferred in formal settings; such as courtship, religious rituals, sermons, government broadcasts, and so forth.

It has been a major, or first language, in nations ranging from Vulpinia, Vulperium, Vulpenfell, Amar, and more. It was also commonly spoken by some in nations like the Federation of Southern Stars.

Vowels
Vula is one of very few languages in the world of Eldham to have a three-vowel system; especially compared to some of its related languages. Lo'Oi for instance, which it is relatively distantly related to, has a seven-vowel system.

Orthography
The full alphabet of Vula is the "Fuhuku".

Vowels
There are three vowel phonemes in Vula, and they are written simply as "I/i", "U/u", and "A/a". These accordingly represent the /ɪ/, /u/, and /ɑ/ IPA phonemes.


 * The /ɪ/ phoneme can be seen in English words like "bit" or in German "bitte."
 * The /u/ phoneme can be seen in English words like "rude."
 * The /ɑ/ phoneme can be seen in English words like "hot" in most dialects.

Consonants
There are 16 consonants in the Vula language, and 13 letters used to represent them. While some phonemes like /m/ are predictably used to represent the letter "M/m" such as in English, there are a number of orthographic traits that you will have to keep note of:


 * The phoneme /θ/ is always spelled as "Th/th". This is the voiced sound that we associate with words like "both" in English.
 * The phoneme /ð/ is always spelled as "Dh/dh". This is the unvoiced sound that we generally associate with words like "bathe" in English.
 * The phoneme /ɲ/ is always spelled as "Ng/ng". This can be seen in Italian words like "bagno" or the Spanish word "español".
 * The phoneme /ɾ/ is always spelled simply as "R/r". This is the only rhotic ("r sound") in Vula and is a tapped sound associated with words like the Scottish pronunciation of the word "three" in English or the Turkish "ara".

The remainder of the consonant phonemes (see above) are spelled predictably the same as their IPA symbols and in most words of Standard English.

Articles and Nouns
The grammar of the articles in Vula differs from Standard English in a few ways:


 * The indefinite article "na" is never used for unspecified quantities of nouns. For instance, if you were to ask someone if they'd like some dessert; but that can be any number or types of deserts; you would not use the indefinite article. You could however use it to say that you had some dessert; if you have/know the specific quantity and type in mind or specify it outright.
 * The definite article "nu" is always used to describe proper nouns/personal names when speech is in the third person. For instance, you would have to literally say "The Brock fought in the battle" as opposed to writing it as you would in English - being "Brock fought in the battle."
 * You always use the definite article "nu" to describe countable nouns. For instance you would have to say "I like the ocelots" as opposed to "I like ocelots."

Grammatical structure
Vula always follows an SVO word order, like most of its sister languages. This means Subject-Verb-Object and is the same sentence order that Traveller's Tongue/English uses.

The syllables in words in Vula always follow a (C)V(C) structure; being a consonant followed by a vowel, and generally ending in another consonant. Words will never start with a vowel in Vula; instead always beginning with a consonant, and every single word must end in a vowel. These words always follow a Penultimate stress pattern, meaning the stress in a word is generally placed on the second-to-last syllable. For instance, the word 'nimathu' (/nɪ.'mɑ.θu/) would have the stress placed on the "ma" syllable, as opposed to "thu" or "ni."

Adjectives in Vula are always placed before the noun, so you would write it as "brown dog" as opposed to "dog brown."

Vula uses prepositions as opposed to postpositions (such as modern Mandarin or Turkish) when using adpositions.

You can form a plural of a noun by applying the prefix "za-". For instance, a "bibi" is a rabbit, while a "zabibi" is two or more rabbits.

Adjectives can be transformed into a verb with the prefix "ku-", for example when something is baked, it would be the word "hana", but to make something would be the word "kuhana". Similarly, the prefix "li" means the place of something, for example a "dhidula" is a potato, while a "lidhidula" is somewhere that grows potatoes. By applying the prefix "mu" to a noun/verb, it becomes an adjective stating that the subject has features or is like the noun/verb in question. For example, the word "hugnahali" is the word for emerald, and to say someone is rich, you would call them "muhugnahali".

Verbs
Unlike its sister languages which places a participle after the verb to indicate its tense, Vula is the only one in its family to place it before the verb.


 * The participle "lu" is used to indicate future tense. For example, "Lu hazdu" (/lu 'hɑz.du/) would translate to "Will learn."
 * The participle "ga" is used to indicate past tense. For example, "Ga hazdu" (/gɑ 'hɑz.du/) would translate to "Learned."
 * Uniquely, there is also a participle that can be used in present tense. This is for when you do something habitually and constantly as opposed to merely once. It is always used as a prefix as opposed to stand-alone word. This prefix is "na-". For example if you were to say "I do running" you would have to say "Sa nami dura" (/sɑ 'nɑ.mi 'du.ɾa/), "dura" being the verb "to run" and "mi" being the verb "to do". This sentence indicates that you habitually do running, possibly as a hobby or exercise. If you are using a present tense verb that is progressive or is simply happening once and not habitually, you do not have to place a participle and you can simply use the verb in its base form.

Greetings and common phrases
TBA

Exonyms and transliterations
TBA

Buildings, places, and locations
TBA

Common items and objects
TBA

Animals and mobs
TBA

Verbs and actions
TBA

Prepositions
TBA

Pronouns
Vula has a unique aspect to its pronouns not found in its sister languages in that it has an authoritative pronoun, as in one given to a position of moral authority. This may take the form of a religious or political leader; or even deities. It is "Sagna" and its forms. There is no accusative version of it however.

Loanwords
Vula has numerous loanwords; namely from Eldurlac, Batu, Bardon, and Vulpin. The first two had close contact with Vula do to their geographical proximity to the Vulpur people. Vulpin obviously had words introduced into Vula, as many are bilingual in both languages. Bardon however is unique in that its loanwords arrived through merchants with the Eldham Trade Company which annexed parts of Batu and briefly had geographical proximity to Vula speakers.