Vjaran 101

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Published:: 2025-02-16
Words:: 3010
Chapters:: 6/6

VjaranMan

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WHO ARE YOU?VjaranMan is the name and ever since the start of this year, language-making has been my game. I've been interested in linguistics for a long while now, and I've been wanting to make a language for just as long, but none of my projects ever went past the very basics... until now, at least! Let me tell y'all, it feels so good to actually finish what you start for once.
WHAT IS THIS?Vjaran is a naturalistic (well, I certainly think it is) a posteriori language I made over the course of a week or two last December. It's meant to be the language of a group of Vikings who decided to settle in the Azores Islands near Portugal, and is therefore heavily based off of Old Norse with some Portuguese loanwords thrown about. It ain't the most creative thing in the world, I know, but I'm proud of making something none the less and I want to show it off to the world for a while before I eventually get tired of it.WHY ARE YOU PUTTING THIS ON AO3 OF ALL PLACES?First of all, I've been (and plan to continue) translating fanfic I like into Vjaran, so it only makes sense to include its documentation on the same website where I'm posting the fics. Second of all, I'm just more used to using AO3 compared to other websites, such as Tumblr, YouTube, et cetera. And third of all... I'm gonna be honest with you, it's hard keeping track of this all myself. The amount of grammar mistakes my sleep-deprived self has made is embarrassing, especially considering the fact that it's
my own darn language.I understand most folks on here aren't linguistic nerds like me, so a lot of this will be dumbed down. Alongside this grammar, I've also made a dictionary which I invite you to leaf through, although I'll definitely admit it's in a shabby state.So, now that we've gotten that out of the way, on with the show!

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For those unaware, phonology is a fancy Greek word for all the sounds a language has, while orthography is a fancy Greek word for how a language is written. A lot of the time, phonology is showcased by placing symbols from the International Phonetic Alphabet into a chart like this, with the rows indicating how they're made and the columns indicating where in the mouth they're made. The letters in the ⟨angle brackets⟩ represent how that specific sound is written, if it's written differently than in the International Phonetic Alphabet.

CONSONANTS
Labial
Dental
Alveolar
Post-Alveolar
Palatal
Velar
Glottal

Nasal
m

ɲ ⟨nj⟩
ŋ ⟨ng⟩

Plosive
p, b

t, d

k, g

Fricative
f, v
θ ⟨þ⟩, ð
s, z
ʃ ⟨sc⟩

x
h

Affricate

ʧ ⟨c⟩

Approximant

Trill

There also exists a separate chart for vowels, with the rows based on how open your mouth is and the columns based on where your tongue is in your mouth.

VOWELS
Front
Back

Close
i y
u

Mid
e
o

Near-open
æ

Open
a

Don't feel too bad if you don't understand these charts, it took me a while to get it too. Below are examples where each sound appears in languages that y'all are probably familiar with.
m, n, ng, p, b, t, d, k, g, f, v, s, z, h, l - pronounced exactly as they are in English
nj - pronounced like ñ in Spanish
niño
þ - pronounced like th in English
thorn
ð - pronounced like th in English
either
sc - pronounced like sh in English shoe
x - pronounced like
ch in German Offenbach
c - pronounced like ch in English chief
j - pronounced like y in English
yes
r - pronounced like rr in Spanish arroz
a, e, i, o, u - pronounced exactly as they are in Spanish
y - pronounced like ü in German
über
æ - pronounced like a in English
cat

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Inflection is the way that words change in order to add new meaning. When this happens to pretty much anything that isn't a verb, it's called declension: for example, in English, dogs is the plural declension of
dog. Declension in Vjaran varies by part of speech, so this chapter will be split into parts.PRONOUNS

Nominative
Oblique
Genitive

1st Person

Singular
ec
mic
myn

Plural
vi
os
ver

2nd Person

Singular
þy
þic
þyn

Plural
id
iðar

3rd Person

Singular Male
han
hanum

Singular Female
hun
hen

Singular Neuter Sentient
þan
þanes

Singular Neuter Nonsentient
rizin
rizezin

Plural
þi
þira

I really wish AO3 tables had borders to them...Pronouns are put in the nominative case when they're the subject of the sentence and the oblique when they're... not. Words which don't seem to fit in either column use the same form for both cases, no matter what. Take, for example, the following sentence:

Ec slæ han. Han slæ mic.

I hit him. He hit me.
The genitive case is basically just the possessive, at least in regards to pronouns, as demonstrated here:

Þes es myn buk. Þat es þyn buk.

This is my book. That is your book.
There are also two pronouns not present on the table:
man (indefinite pronoun; equivalent to English one) and zic (reflexive pronoun; equivalent to English myself, yourself, himself, herself, et cetera). Neither of them inflect in any way.NOUNSNouns decline for case (nominative / genitive), number (singular / plural), and definiteness (a thing / the thing).There are two types of nouns: strong and weak. Strong and weak nouns are themselves split into classes. Depending on the noun class, they decline differently. Prepare yourself, because there's going to be a lot of tables.STRONG NOUNSCLASS 1

Singular
Plural