Cuuyamu [CUY]
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Registered by
[Deactivated User] on 2 January 2016
Language type
A priori
Species
Human/humanoid
About Cuuyamu
Cuuyamu is a language spoken by a people called the Shàalilu who live as a group of individual clans in a forest with many rivers, mountains to the east, and a sea to the west. They live as hunter/gatherers with some basic agriculture, and they have a rich oral history and storytelling tradition.
This is a language I am inventing for my own personal enjoyment. It's an excellent excuse to learn more about linguistics and how languages all over the world convey information in different ways. I intend Cuuyamu to be naturalistic, but I don't fret too much about the details of realism if it conflicts with my personal aesthetic of what I'd like the language to do.
It's primarily VSO and highly synthetic (with some polysynthetic tendencies), having lots of affixes that fall somewhere between fusional and agglutinative. The verbs require agreement for both subject and object, but nouns don't normally inflect at all, except occasionally when they can act as verbs. Animacy is a significant distinction in multiple parts of the grammar and is mostly semantically defined. The animate category consists of humans, animals, and some abstract nouns that originate from people (such as stories and traditions). There are four phonemic tones but each word can only have one, so you might call it a pitch accent language.
This is a language I am inventing for my own personal enjoyment. It's an excellent excuse to learn more about linguistics and how languages all over the world convey information in different ways. I intend Cuuyamu to be naturalistic, but I don't fret too much about the details of realism if it conflicts with my personal aesthetic of what I'd like the language to do.
It's primarily VSO and highly synthetic (with some polysynthetic tendencies), having lots of affixes that fall somewhere between fusional and agglutinative. The verbs require agreement for both subject and object, but nouns don't normally inflect at all, except occasionally when they can act as verbs. Animacy is a significant distinction in multiple parts of the grammar and is mostly semantically defined. The animate category consists of humans, animals, and some abstract nouns that originate from people (such as stories and traditions). There are four phonemic tones but each word can only have one, so you might call it a pitch accent language.
Sample of Cuuyamu[view] Ali bayiçuuja yúu ñimutjaz tali yúulilu yash cuuyaiya tuum bayiçuupaqi dzaal yúu cipa. Paa daz shùuamñaali taadziiupu dzaal ta Shinal dziq tali ùud, tuum tadziq saaluutsñuju. Asii yiçu cuuyauadtu cu “Shíid çatsimupaqi waci dzaal tsíída tuum jùuts açtani wuujcamipaqi.” Asii túubiupaqi dzaal busa dub tsíída tuum jùuts paaba luqibañiupaqi. Asii cuuya...[view all texts]
Language family relationships
Phonology
| Consonants | Bilabial | Alveolar | Post- Alveolar | Palatal | Labio- velar | Velar | Uvular | |||||||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | |||||||||||
| Plosive | p | b | t | d | c | [k]1 | q | |||||||
| Fricative | s | z | ʃ | ʒ | ç | |||||||||
| Affricate | t͡s | d͡z | ||||||||||||
| Lateral approximant | l | |||||||||||||
| Approximant | j | w | ||||||||||||
- Before or after high vowels, allophone of /q/
| Vowels | Front | Back | ||
| Close | i i: î: í: ǐ: | u u: û: ú: ǔ: | ||
| Open | a a: â: á: ǎ: | |||
Orthography
Below is the orthography for Cuuyamu. This includes all graphemes as defined in the language's phonology settings - excluding the non-distinct graphemes/polygraphs.
 CuuyamuOrthography [edit] | |||||||||||
| Aa/a/ | ÁÁ áá/á:/ | ÀA àa/â:/ | AA aa/a:/ | ÁA áa/ǎ:/ | Bb/b/ | Çç/ç/ | Cc/c/ | Dd/d/ | DZ dz/d͡z/ | Ii/i/ | ÍI íi/ǐ:/ |
| ÍÍ íí/í:/ | ÌI ìi/î:/ | II ii/i:/ | Jj/ʒ/ | Ll/l/ | Mm/m/ | Ññ/ɲ/ | Nn/n/ | Pp/p/ | Qq/q/ | Ss/s/ | SH sh/ʃ/ |
| Tt/t/ | TS ts/t͡s/ | Uu/u/ | ÚU úu/ǔ:/ | UU uu/u:/ | ÙU ùu/û:/ | ÚÚ úú/ú:/ | Ww/w/ | Yy/j/ | Zz/z/ | ||
| ✖ Unknown alphabetical order [change] | |||||||||||
Latest 8 related articles listed below.
Forming a sentence in Cuuyamu
The joys of syntax!
29-Oct-16 21:13The care and feeding of verbs
Forming verbs in Cuuyamu
27-Oct-16 17:50Pronouns of Cuuyamu 22-Oct-16 19:22
Syntax Samples Part 2
More test cases for Cuuyamu
22-Oct-16 18:00Complex sentences in Cuuyamu
Some things just take too long to explain
12-Feb-16 17:47Counting in Cuuyamu
Cardinal and ordinal numbers
12-Feb-16 04:14Folktales
Tales from the Shàalilu
03-Feb-16 13:57Syntax Samples
Test cases for the syntax of Cuuyamu
01-Feb-16 03:33
