Jatsyti (Language)

Map showing the geographical distribution of the Jatsyti language.

**Jatsyti** (Jatsyti: Ja'tsy'ti) is a Veshkic language spoken by the Jatsyti people of Jutynt and surrounding islands, mostly within the dynastic kingdoms of the Woiton, Kosktonek, Sensen, and Tsecsen, but also partially in the Kingdom of Veshdyn as a minority language. It came into its own as a language in roughly 800 UA as a descendent of Old Veshkis, making it a sister-language to Veshkis.

## Classification

*Main Articles: Veshkic Languages, West Veshkic Languages*

Jatsyti is a member of the Veshkic language family and is of the West Veshkic group. Jatsyti descended from Old Veshkis like Veshkis, having diverged from its mainland relatives due to the physical barrier and linguistic influence from the native inhabitants of Stinjel (especially Zorr). It is to a large degree mutually intelligible with its West Veshkic relatives, especially Veshkis.

## Geographical Distribution

Jatsyti is spoken entirely within Stinjel (Jatsyti: Tsop'ju), mostly on the Eastern shore of Jutynt and outlying islands in the kingdoms of the Woiton, Kosktonek, Sensen, and Tsecsen. Heading inwards and along the Northern and South coasts, populations of Jatsyti exist within Veshdyn and are often mixed with Veshkis settlers and native Zorr.

### Jatsyti Outside of Stinjel

Jatsyti outside of Stinjel is extinct in any meaningful capacity, but there are two notable populations that used to exist. Firstly, while not as widespread as their Veshkis counterparts, Jatsyti speakers migrated to Dracanél (Jatsyti: Tyk'an'coi) and the Astor Delta (Jatsyti: Net'pan'coi bok Jas'taes) and took their language with them during the Veshdynis raids and conquest of parts of Ásdend. These Jatsyti speakers were quickly assimilated into the Veshkis settler culture/language, and then into Ásdaro. The other group of interest are the Kosktonek, who originally fled Jutynt after the failure of the Revolts of 921 and 922 and found refuge in the Szöhaúmu Empire, setting up a small Jatsyti enclave in the country that gradually stopped speaking the language. Ultimately, this population of Jatsyti would return to Jutynt.

## Phonology

The phonetics and phonology of Jatsyti are more or less rigid and hardly differ amongst the various Jatsyti dialects. The information provided represents standard Jatsyti spoken by most of the population (with notable exceptions being the Kosktonek variety and Tsecoi). The symbols used below are from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

### Phonemes

*Note: CA = co-articulated, and all consonants not listed below are transcribed within the graph as they are in both Romanized Jatsyti (RJ) and English*

* q is not a sound in English, but is the "intended" sound in English words such as *Iraq*
* ts is not a sound in English, but is similar to "ts" in English
* tʃ is typically written as "c" in RJ and as "ch" in English
* p̪f is typically written as "pf" in both RJ and English
* j is typically written as "j" in RJ and as "y" in English

Jatsyti will often aspirate certain consonants such as "p" at the start of syllables, but this is not a contrastive difference and is of little importance to the language's pronunciation and understanding.

### Phonotactics

Jatsyti has relatively well defined and standard phonotactics, with some exceptions made primarily for loan words. The standard syllable structure of Jatsyti is based around either a consonant-vowel or vowel-consonant, being (C)CV(CC) or (CC)VC(C), with every vowel having to be paired with at least one consonant. Vowels in Jatsyti have very few restraints otherwise, but generally speaking the diphthongs "oi" and "ae" occur at the end of syllables (this is a trend and is not as strict as most Jatsyti phonotactics). Jatsyti has three phonotactical groupings of consonants and their clusters: opening, closing, and flexible. Opening may only occur at a syllables start, closing the end, and flexible anywhere. There are exceptions to these rules, mostly from loanwords.

* Opening: f, j, mj, nj, ts, w
* Closing: d, gs, ks, kt, l, ls, lt, lv, mt, nt, pf, ps, pt, q, v
* Flexible: b, c, g, k, m, n, p, s, st, sk, t

## Grammar

Jatsyti is a grammatically standard and highly predictable language, being overall conservative in its grammar and adopting very little from the natives. It is very standard for a Veshkic language. Like all Veshkic languages, Jatsyti follow a SVO word order. Jatsyti distinguishes between at least 6 major word classes: verbs, nouns, adjectives (including adverbs), determiners (including articles), prepositions, and conjunctions. Jatsyti primarily uses analytic construction over noun-cases.

One of the only major quirks of Jatsyti is the suffix *-ton* (or sometimes *-on* if the word ends in a "t") which can be applied to nouns, adjectives, and verbs all the same. It works as an amplifier, roughly translating as "x of x's". In some cases this suffix can become engraved in words, forming entirely new concepts separate from the intuitive pattern of meaning.

### Nouns

Jatsyti nouns are only inflected for plurality, with the exception that pronouns are sometimes inflected for possession. New nouns are frequently created through changing the position of simple-present conjugated verbs. Nouns are divided between proper nouns and common nouns.

All nouns, including pronouns, have the option to attach a gender suffix to the end. Specifying gender is never grammatically required in Jatsyti, but can be convenient in conversation. The suffix *-ad* is used to refer to masculine, and *-at* for that which is feminine.

Plurals are the only inflection of non-pronoun nouns, and are created by adding the suffix *-neq* (or *-eq if the word ends in an "n")* to the end of the word.

* Singular: *tyk'an*, *tsun'bu*
* Plural: *tyk'an'eq*, *tsun'bu'neq*

Possession has two routes of being implemented, via inflection for pronouns with dependent possession with the suffix *-ac* and via the use of the word *bok* (English: of) for all else. They are interchangeable for dependent pronoun possession.

* Dependent Pronoun Possession: *tuk'ac cykt*, *tsed'ad'ac tsy'tu*
* Standard Possession: *cykt bok tuk*, *tsy'tu bok tsed'ad*

Nouns can form noun phrases in ways generally intuitive and may incorporate many different parts of speech.

### Adjectives (Including Adverbs)

Adjectives in Jatsyti have no grammatical casing and as such are not given inflection. Degrees of comparison are typically communicated with the words for "more", "most", "less", and "least", but also with the suffix *-ton* or *-t'on*. All adjectives are applied before the noun or verb they are altering, except for negation words and a few exceptions which occur after. Adjectives in Jatsyti are often found fossilized at the end of words instead of the beginning, being relics from an older form of the language where adjectives were likely applied after nouns. Adjectives may also be found at the end of proper nouns with a hyphen (with exceptions), forming a new word such as in the city name Tol-Cym.

### Pronouns

Jatsyti pronouns are simple and relatively few in number as they don't differentiate between subject/object and gender (although gender can be marked with an optional suffix). When realizing that the dependent possessive can be replaced at will with the independent possessive, and that the reflexive tense is more a clarification than a core part of grammar, it can be concluded that only subject-object and independent possessive tenses are really used frequently in conversation.

### Prepositions

Prepositions in Jatsyti are typical, being used to describe movement, place, and other relations between different entities, and on occasion to specify the meanings and functions of verbs.

### Verbs

Verbs in Jatsyti are divided into two categories that differ marginally in their inflections for tense and follow identical patterns for inflecting in regard to aspect. Jatsyti verbs use auxiliary adjectives (adverbs) for aspect and require no grammatical agreement (conjugation) with other parts of speech. Jatsyti does have exceptions to these rules, mostly from loanwords, although they are common enough in native lexicon as well. The chart displayed below shows regular-v conjugation using the verb *jy'cev* (English: to know) as an example.

Jatsyti Regular-V Verb Conjugation
 Past
 Future

In regular-ps verbs, the grammar stays most the same. The only principle change required (in non-exception words) is the changing of the simple present/universal progressive suffix *-lv* to *-pt*. In other words. The suffixes *-g* and *-l* are unchanged as are the auxiliary adjectives. The chart below uses the regular-ps verb *tent'seps* (English: to say) to show conjugation.

Jatsyti Regular-Ps Conjugation
 Past
 Future

In reference to aspects, the inflection of the verb is consistent for both conjugations of regular verbs, wherein all verbs in the progressive aspect are given a present inflection regardless of their actual tense. Likewise, all perfect and perfect-progressive aspect verbs are given a past inflection whether they are in the past tense or not.

The other component of Jatsyti conjugation are the auxiliary adverbs. In all non-simple tenses, the adverbs are segregated amongst the tense, with *wog'es* applying to the present, *begs* applying to the past, and *buls* applying to the future. In perfect-progressive tense the suffix *-ton* is also used in an atypical way, being a mere product of grammar without a direct translation as in most words. All of these auxiliary adverbs also happen to be standard adverbs with their own meaning, applied before the verb like all other Jatsyti adverbs and adjectives.

## Vocabulary

The vocabulary of Jatsyti is primarily Veshkic in origin with substantial influence from the pre-Veshkic languages of Stinjel, with roughly 85% of words being native Veshkic and 10% being Zorr loan words. Remaining words are from a variety of sources, mostly from Szöhaúmu through the Kosktonek and from the Ásdaric languages of Ásdend due to historical influence.

The Lounge Dictionary (Including Jatsyti)