Sedunnic language (Pacifica)

Sedunnic
Sedunnejj
Pronunciation	['seːd̪ɵ̞n̪ej]
Native to	Sedunn
Ethnicity	Sedunners
Native speakers	17 million native speakers (2020)
Language family	Beilltemmic Teggic Sedunnic
Early forms	Duric Nevesum Sedunnic Old Sedunnic
Writing system	Sedunnic alphabet
Signed forms	Signed Sedunnic
Official status
Official language in	Sedunn CPSC World Forum
Recognised minority language in	Ikoania Huawan (Nesvem Bay) Ryccia
Regulated by	Sedunnic Language Council
Language codes
Language code	sed

Sedunnic (Sedunnejj ['seːd̪ɵ̞n̪ej]), sometimes alternatively Duric (Durejj ['dʉːrej]), is a Teggic language of the Beilltemmic language family and is spoken natively by about 17 million people, predominantly in the country of origin, Sedunn, where it is the sole official language. It is also an official minority language in Ikoania and in Nesvem Bay in Huawan. It is the most widely spoken of the Teggic languages with which there is no mutually intelligibility. Sedunnic is taught as a second or third language in several nations around the South Pacific Ocean due to the historic presence of Sedunnic merchants.

Modern standard Sedunnic evolved from prestige dialects spoken along the river Setru, which themselves where a mix of several other Sedunnic dialects. While generally considered a conservative language, favouring existing vocabulary instead of loaning words, the spelling is highly phonologically oriented, meaning the spelling rules are frequently updated to reflect spoken standard Sedunnic. Modern Sedunnic is classified as an agglutinative language, but more recent development has for example introduced prepositions, more conjunctions and some auxiliary verbs, which has reduced the complexity of the inflection system somewhat. Still, there are 18 different noun cases and 19 different verb tenses, aspects, voices and moods. The standard word order is similar to that of Austral, but is generally freer. The almost total absence of diphthongs in Standard Sedunnic is a notable feature.

Classification

Sedunnic is a Beilltemmic language that belongs to the Teggic branch together with Varallic and the extinct Leifish language. Much of Leifish has however been preserved in the Hazelbrustian creole. Compared to other Beilltemmic languages, for the Teggic languages there never was a fusional shift. The definite article suffix -d, the partitive and causative cases, many grammatical moods such as jussive, as well as the exclusive form of the personal pronoun have been preserved from the old Beilltemmic ancestor. The Teggic languages separated mainly by several consonant and vowels shifts, as well as the partial collapse of the case system in Leifish predating its creolisation.

Geographic distribution

Sedunnic has about 17 million speakers, mainly in Sedunn where it originates from. Sedunnic is the only official in Sedunn, and has status as a regional minority language in Ikoania and in Nesvem Bay in Huawan. There are a few smaller Sedunnic-speaking minorities in several nations around the South Pacific Ocean, who mainly are descendants of Sedunnic merchants. Sedunnic is taught as a second or third language in many of these nations, as well is in nations allied to Sedunn. Sedunnic is also an official working language in the CPSC along with Austral (Austral has a more wide use), and in the World Forum but not as a working language.

Phonology

The phoneme inventory of Sedunnic is relatively small. There are six vowel qualities that differ in duration (i.e. being long and short), thus 12 different vowel phonemes in total. There are 15 consonant qualities that also differ in duration (gemination), meaning there are 30 consonant phonemes in total. Preservation of phoneme quality is strict, but in some dialects the vowel quality may change with duration, and the consonants /k/, /p/ and /t/ are aspirated in the beginning of words if the following vowel is short. Additional consonants exist in some dialects. A consonant following a short vowel is always long.

Sedunnic does not have diphthongs which is a distinguishing feature of the language. Stress is almost always on the first syllable and does not modify vowel quality, but secondary stress on short vowels may occur in longer compounds.

Consonant clusters of three or more phonemes are not uncommon, especially in compounds. Though not present in modern standard Sedunnic, Sedunners rarely have problems with phonemes such as /sh/ or /th/.

	Front				Central		Back
	unrounded		rounded
	short	long	short	long	short	long	short	long
Close	i	iː	y	yː	ʉ	ʉː	u	uː
Close-mid	e	eː
Open							ɒ	ɒː

		Labial	Dental/ Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n̪
Plosive	voiceless	p	t̪		k
	voiced	b	d̪		ɡ
Fricative		f	s̪			h
Approximant		v	l̪	j
Rhotic			r

Writing system

Alphabet

The Sedunnic alphabet consists of 21 letters, containing six vowels and 15 consonants. All vowels can occur with a macron, but these are not considered separate letters. Uppercase vowels with a macron are uncommon.

Uppercase	A	B	D	E	F	G	H	I	J	K	L	M	N	O	P	R	S	T	U	V	Y
Lowercase	a	b	d	e	f	g	h	i	j	k	l	m	n	o	p	r	s	s	u	v	y
Macron	Ā			Ē				Ī						Ō					Ū		Ȳ
	ā			ē				ī						ō					ū		ȳ

The names of the letters in Sedunnic follow a simple pattern. The names of the vowels are how their long versions are pronounced, and the names of consonants are how they are pronounced in their short versions followed by a long /a/. The macron is called vejt in Sedunnic, and a letter with a macron is said to be "lined", e.g. vejtejj e for ē.

Spelling

Each phoneme quality has its own grapheme. Duration is represented in several ways. A vowel is always long if it has a macron or if it directly precedes another vowel or a single occurrence of a consonant. A vowel is always short if it is followed by a double occurrence of a consonant or an apostrophe, or if it comes last in a word and has no macron.

Vowel duration used to be represented by double occurrences of the grapheme until the 1648 spelling reform which aimed to reduce the amount of letters in print. The apostrophe between vowels marks the loss of a voiced glottal fricative -/ɦ/. Aspirated consonants are not indicated.

Inflections and compounds

If adding an affix or word to another word results in double consonants, the consonant in the affix or the word being added is omitted and marked by an apostrophe. If a suffix or another word is added to a word that is ending with a short vowel, an apostrophe is added in between them.

Grammar

Syntax

The standard word order is subject (S), verb (V), and object (O) - SVO, but the numerous noun cases make syntax less important. Adjectives appear before the noun while adverbs appear after the verb.

Questions

There are two ways to form question. Either the interrogative mood can be used, then the word order remains SVO, or the word order can be changed to OVS. If the OVS order is used, the question is written in the form O,VS?, and the subject is stressed extra, and the intonation raises towards the end. The object marker is sometimes omitted. The use of the interrogative mood is about five times more common.

Nouns

Sedunnic has a rich noun case inventory, with more than 20 noun cases. Nouns have no grammatical gender and two grammatical numbers – plural and singular.

Plural and definite forms

Plural is formed by adding the plural suffix -lē to the noun. The definite suffix -d is added to the noun or its plural form. If the noun ends with d, an e is inserted before the definite suffix d. There is no singular indefinite form or article.

Determiners

There are four determiners: quantifiers, distributives, interrogatives, and demonstratives. The demonstratives are sy ("this"/"these") and sydd ("that"/"those").

Cases

Sedunnic has 18 to 23 noun cases depending on which classification system is used.

Case	Header text	Explanation
genitive	-ō	house’s, of (a) house
accusative	-s	indicates the direct object of a transitive verb if the speaker is the subject, the suffix often is omitted, even in formal speech
dative	-is	indicates the recipient or beneficiary of an action if the speaker is the subject, the suffix often is omitted, even in formal speech
inessive case	-un	basic meaning of "in": for example, "in the house"
elative/ablative	-jā	basic meaning "out of/from"
illative	-ik	basic meaning "into"
causal-final	-in	expressing the meaning "for the purpose of, for the reason that"
adessive	-all	basic meaning of "at", "towards", "in the direction of"
allative	-ty	basic meaning of "onto"
instructive	-lam	basic meaning of "with (the aid of)"
abessive	-kuv	basic meaning of "without"
?	-res	basic meaning of "between"
?	-rit	basic meaning of "around/outside"
prepositional	-s	marks the object of a preposition and a postposition (cannot be combined with accusative)
instrumental	-ir	indicates that a noun is the instrument or means by or with which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action
partitive	-it -lī -ip -nī -sī	"none of" "any of" "one of" "some of" "all/each of"
essive	-un	as something: "as a composer my brother is unique"
translative	-mim	indicates a change in state of a noun, with the general sense of "becoming X" or "change to X", e.g. “he made a canoe of the tree”
comitative	-me	together (with)

Constructing nouns

Nouns may be formed by compounding and various affixes. There are three noun compound categories: quality and location/duration that result in a single word, and recipient, that results in several words and which uses the dative case. E.g, the Austral noun compound glass table, which could mean that the table is made of glass (i.e. the quality category) or that it is made from any material and is designed to have glass on it (i.e. the recipient category). In Sedunnic it would be ymmdofp for a table made of glass and dofp ymmis for a table that is designed for items made of glass to be put on it (or in some other way benefit from the table). (Ymm = glass, dofp = table.) The location/duration category encompasses word compounds like "sea legs", "five-day trip" or "ground control".

The list below provides common modern noun-specific suffixes. For more affixes that also can be used for constructing verbs and adjectives, see General affixes. The suffix is added to a verb (V), noun (N) or adjective (A).

Suffix	Austral equivalent (use)
-ul	-tion, -ment, -age, -al, -ery, -ship, etc (action/instance of V-ing, state of being N)
-ib	-er, -ant, -ent (person/tool who V-s, person concerned with N)
-er	-ry (place of V-ing)
-er	-ry (place of V-ing)
-si	(diminutive form or something having the quality of A or being useful as N)
-on	(augmentative form)
-ara	-cy, -ness (state or quality of being A)
-st	-ism (doctrine of N)
-as	-age (collection of N)
-yn	ee (result/product/object/beneficiary of V-ing)