Blylandic language

The Blylandic language (blyylęnsk tunge) is a language that is spoken in Blyland and surrounding regions. It is the official language of the Republic of Blyland, and is a recognised minority language in Likkra and Namari.

Vowels
Blylandic has ten short vowels, five long vowels and six diphthongs. The short vowels are listed below: /ə/ never occurs in stressed syllables.

The long vowels are listed below: Long /aː/ is extremely rare in native words, but does exist (e.g. the indicative past tense singular of sein "to see" is saa "I/he/she/it saw", with /aː/).

The diphthongs are /ai̯/, /ei̯/, /au̯/, /eu̯/, /iu̯/ and /ou̯/.

Nouns
Nouns in Blylandic can have one of three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter. They decline for two numbers (singular and plural) and four cases (nominative, accusative, genitive and dative). In general, there are three declensional classes of nouns, of which two are still productive.

Strong declension
The strong declension is one of the two productive declensional classes. Its declensional suffixes differ depending on the gender of the noun.

The following table demonstrates this declensional class:

Weak declension
The weak declension is the other productive declensional class. Unlike the strong declension, it has fewer distinct endings.

r-stem declension
The r-stem declension is a relic class, and is no longer productive.

Adjectives
Most adjectives have separate strong and weak declensional forms. The more distinct strong forms are used in the absence of a demonstrative, while the less distinct weak forms are used in conjunction with a demonstrative.

The strong declension is as follows:

The weak declension is as follows:

Some adjectives only have strong forms, while comparatives and ordinals (other than fyrst and anner) only have weak forms.

With the exception of comparatives, superlatives and a couple of irregular adjectives, adverbs are formed with the strong (if applicable) neuter genitive singular, while all adjectives use the strong (if applicable) neuter genitive singular when they are used as a predicate. Comparative adverbs remove the -e ending from the original adjective, while superlative adverbs have no ending.

Comparatives are formed by suffixing -ere to the adjective, while superlatives use -est. However, there are some exceptions, which are listed below:

Numerals
The following lists the cardinal numerals:

The numeral iin (1) declines as a strong adjective, albeit with an irregular neuter nominative/accusative singular iit. The numeral twii (2) declines as follows:

The cardinal numeral þrair (3) declines as follows:

The cardinal numbers from 4 to 19, with the exception of 8, decline identically. They form their genitives with -e and their datives with -em. The numeral atte (8) has an irregular declension:

The cardinal numerals from 20 onwards are syntactically nouns, not determiners, and thus require the noun to be quantified to be declined in the genitive plural. The decades behave as plural strong declension masculine nouns, hunderd and miklund as strong declension neuter nouns, and þausend as a strong declension feminine noun. Numerals that modify these nouns must agree in gender, and hunderd, þausend or miklund by itself (or with iin) is grammatically singular, meaning that adjectives and verbs that agree with it must use singular forms.

Additive numerals are formed in two different ways, depending on the magnitude of the numerals in question. For the decades, the lower value addend is placed before the higher value addend, as if the smaller addend modifies the larger addend as an adjective. The powers of 10 instead use the conjunction ǫk ("and") and place the smaller addend after the larger addend (only the last conjunction is mandatory, when combining multiple numerals).
 * As an example, 54,321 is rendered as fef miklunde föder þausender þrai hunderde ǫk iini twiiger.

Even larger numbers can be represented, with tund (hundred million), þrijund (trillion), and even higher powers of 10,000 (föderund, fefund) made by suffixing -und (which declines as a strong neuter noun) to a numeral. However, in practice, one typically does not see values requiring numerals larger than þrijund (just as "quadrillion" and larger numerals are uncommon in English).

The ordinal numerals are listed below: Additive and multiplicative compounds are formed identically to the cardinal numerals, except that ordinals are used instead. All ordinal numerals in compounds must agree with each other.

Personal pronouns
Blylandic has personal pronouns in the first and second person.

The genitive forms, if used attributively, behave as determiners that inflect as strong adjectives.

Interrogatives
Blylandic possesses three different interrogative pronouns. The general interrogative is declined as follows: This pronoun retains an instrumental form, wai (meaning "how"). This pronoun has no plural forms.

The other interrogatives are węr (which of many) and waþer (which of two), both of which decline as strong adjectives.

Demonstratives
Blylandic has three levels of demonstratives. The distal jein declines as a strong adjective, while the proximal hir and medial sa decline irregularly.

The medial demonstrative can also be used as a definite article.

Strong verbs
The following is an example of a strong verb, beren ("to bear"): A strong verb has five principal parts: the infinitive, the third person singular past indicative, the third person plural past indicative, the third person singular past subjunctive and the past participle. They form their past tenses by ablaut (what were once reduplicating subclasses in Old Blylandic have since been converted into ablauting classes).

Weak verbs
The following is an example of a weak verb, warnen ("to warn"): Weak verbs only have two principal parts: the infinitive and the past participle.

Preterite-present verbs
A small, closed class of verbs show an unusual conjugational pattern. These verbs, the preterite-present verbs, have present tense forms that behave as if they were the past tense forms of strong verbs, and have weak past tense forms.

The following is an example of a preterite-present verb, skolen (future tense auxillary): Preterite-present verbs have five principal parts, like strong verbs; however, their set of principal parts is different.

List of preterite-present verbs:

Irregular verbs
The copula wesen is the most irregular verb in Blylandic:

Related is the negative form of the copula, mesen: This verb has two present participles. The first participle, mesende, is only used in conjunction with an auxillary verb.

The other two irregular verbs are duun ("to do") and gein ("to go").

The weak verbs hęben ("to have") and wilen ("to want") are regular in Blylandic (past participles: hadd and weld, respectively), despite them being irregular in Old Blylandic.

Vocabulary
Family members: Note that the suffix form of dotter is -dutter (e.g. barnsdutter "granddaughter").
 * fader (m) – father
 * muuder (f) – mother
 * bruuþer (m) – brother
 * swester (f) – sister
 * sun (m) – son
 * dotter (f) – daughter
 * nefe (m) – nephew
 * nift (f) – niece
 * atte (m) – grandfather
 * amme (f) – grandmother

Colours:
 * roud – red
 * göl – yellow
 * greun – green
 * blöö – blue
 * braun – brown
 * wait – white
 * swart – black
 * gröö – grey
 * oranj – orange (borrowing from Dutch oranje)
 * roz – pink (borrowing from Latin rosa)
 * jol – purple (borrowing from Latin viola)

Compass points: The above are adverbial forms. The nominal forms (all strong neuter nouns) attach -r to the end (oustr, norþr, sonr, westr), while the adjectival forms attach -ren (oustren, norþren, sonren, westren).
 * oust – east
 * norþ – north
 * sonn – south
 * west – west

Time:
 * taime (m) – time
 * sekond (n) – second (borrowing from Latin secundum)
 * minut (f) – minute (borrowing from Latin minūta)
 * stunde (f) – hour
 * dag (m) – day
 * wike (f) – week
 * meineþ (m) – month
 * jeir (n) – year
 * natt (f) – night
 * morgen (m) – morning
 * middag (m) – noon
 * aftermiddag (m) – afternoon
 * eibenn (m) – evening

Relative time: Note that gister- is a prefix, and thus applies to any measure of time (e.g. gisterjeir "last year"); however, this is uncommon outside of gisterdag. The adjectives frumere ("previous") and niist ("next") are used instead.
 * forgisterdag – day before yesterday
 * gisterdag – yesterday
 * þedag – today
 * þemorgen – tomorrow
 * ubermorgen – day after tomorrow

Days of the week:
 * sondag – Sunday
 * meindag – Monday
 * tyysdag – Tuesday (Blyland)
 * uudensdag – Wednesday (Blyland)
 * þorsdag – Thursday (Blyland)
 * friirdag – Friday (Blyland)
 * lougerdag – Saturday (Blyland)
 * fyndag – Tuesday (Namari)
 * wętendag – Wednesday (Namari)
 * boumsdag – Thursday (Namari)
 * golsdag – Friday (Namari)
 * erþerdag – Saturday (Namari)

Seasons:
 * warr (n) – spring
 * sumer (m) – summer
 * hęrfst (m) – autumn/fall
 * wyntr (m, plural wintrer) – winter

Lists split off into their own articles:
 * Blylandic Swadesh list