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viesa

Viesa is a speakable systematic alteration of the English language with minor grammar modifications. It was first published in April 2018, and underwent many changes before stabilizing into its current form later that year.

Under my own nomenclature it is classified as a "cipherlang"; however, this term may be a bit misleading, as it may imply that Viesa is intended to obfuscate one's speech and make the meanings of sentences impenetrable to those who do not know the language. This is not really the case; Viesa's ciphering is mostly just switching vowels around, which isn't really enough to distort a language beyond recognizability. Rather, Viesa is just a silly means of speaking English but slightly differently which I haphazardly created many years ago. I percieve Viesa as being not so much a "conlang" or even a "cipher" as it is a more extreme version of those contrived English "condialects" you might find on MicroWiki, such as Slin-Englysh. That is to say, the appeal of Viesa is getting to speak in a slightly different way than usual, just because you feel like it.

This page provides a complete description of Viesa, intended for people with some basic linguistics experience. It includes some clarifications and descriptions of smaller ideosyncracies that weren't present in the previous documentation.

links

Resources:

• Cheat Sheet (PDF)

Legacy material:

• Old Guide (PDF)
• Older Viesa page, with legacy material for older versions of the language

Miscellaneous:

• History of Viesa (TBA)

phonology

Viesa's ciphering process handles consonants based on their phonemic pronunciation, while handling vowels based on their spelling. As a result, Viesa's phonology uses a consonant inventory very similar to that of English, in combination with the classic five vowel system found in languages like Spanish and in countless other conlangs.

consonants

The consonant inventory has the following differences from English:

• No marginal phonemes such as /x/ and /ʍ/ that aren't in my dialect
• No /w/
• The rhotic ("R-sound") is an alveolar tap /ɾ/ instead of English's alveolar-ish approximant /ɹ/

vowels

diphthongs

The sequences <ai>, <au>, and <oi> are all pronounced as the diphthongs /ai̯/, /au̯/, and /oi̯/ (similar to the vowels in "fly", "how", and "toy") and thus constitute a single syllable. All other sequences of vowels are pronounced as separate syllables. Examples:

• laun /lau̯n/ (1 syllable)
• þairi /θai̯.ri/ (2 syllables)
• doi /doi̯/ (1 syllable)
• bruen /bru.en/ (2 syllables)
• viesa /vi.ˈe.sa/ (3 syllables)

orthography

Viesa has two official orthographies. One is the traditional Cyrillic orthography, which was the only official orthography from 2018 until 2024. The other is the newer Latin orthography, which will be used throughout this document for the benefit of people who can't read Cyrillic. Below are two tables showing all the letters (and digraphs) of both the Latin and Cyrillic orthographies, and their pronunciations in the IPA.

latin orthography

If under technological restraints, the letters <ň š ž þ ð> may be substituted with <ng sh zh th dh>.

cyrillic orthography

Viesa's Cyrillic orthography uses only letters that are found in the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet, and therefore can be typed using existing Serbian Cyrillic keyboard layouts commonly available on most operating systems.

The digraph <нг> is used for /ŋ/. The <г> in this digraph is removed when preceding /k/ or /g/. Examples:

• ћенг /θeŋ/ (thing)
• фенгар /ˈfeŋgaɾ/ (finger)
• ункла /ˈuŋkla/ (ankle)

basic rules

The main rule of Viesa is that each vowel letter in a word is shifted to the one preceding it in alphabetical order (wrapping around to the end if necessary). Therefore:

• a → u (wrapping around to the end)
• e → a
• i → e
• o → i
• u → o

Examples:

• bin → ben
• lack → luck
• knife → knefa
• accept → uccapt
• tension → tansein

The consonant letters of the word are generally then transcribed according to their phonemic pronunciation. The exceptions include the special handling of the letters 'r', 'w', and 'y', described later. Some examples:

• bin → ben /ˈben/ (the 'b' and 'n' are pronounced /b/ and /n/ respectively, so nothing really changes)
• lack → luk /ˈluk/ (the 'ck' is pronounced /k/, so it simply becomes 'k')
• knife → nefa /ˈnefa/ (the silent 'k' is removed)
• accept → uksapt /ukˈsapt/ (the first 'c' is pronounced /k/ while the second is pronounced /s/, so they are written accordingly)
• tension → tanšein /ˈtanʃein/ (the 's' is actually pronounced /ʃ/, so it is written as 'š')
• usual → ožoul /ˈoʒoul/ (here the 's' is pronounced /ʒ/)
• train → truen /ˈtɾuen/ (not "cruen"; many people do pronounce this word [tʃɹeɪn], but this phenomenon is not considered phonemic in English)
• drum → drom /ˈdɾom/ (not "jrom"; same situation as the above, but voiced)

R, W, and Y

All instances of the letter 'r', regardless of pronunciation, carry over to the Viesa word and are pronounced as a tapped /ɾ/.

• rain → ruen /ˈɾuen/
• create → krauta /ˈkɾauta/
• part → purt /ˈpuɾt/
• iron → erin /ˈeɾin/

All instances of the letter 'w', regardless of whether they are pronounced at all, become 'v'.

• water → vutar /ˈvutaɾ/
• twinkle → tveňkla /ˈtveŋkla/
• write → vreta /ˈvɾeta/
• two → tvi /ˈtvi/

The sequence 'wh' also becomes 'v' regardless of its pronunciation.

• where → vara /ˈvaɾa/
• who → vi /ˈvi/

This rule almost completely removes the phoneme /w/ from the language, since to my knowledge there is no native English word where /w/ is represented by a consonant letter other than 'w'. Obscure edge cases will only arise if you insist on Viesa-izing, say, the name of the Polish city Łódź (/wutɕ/, often anglicized as "Lodz" /wutʃ/). In these cases, the /w/ should be turned into a /v/ just to be thorough; so "Lodz" could become Vic /vitʃ/, although trying to Viesa-ize foregin names in this manner may not be advisable.

Whenever the letter 'y' follows a vowel, it becomes 'g'.

• play → plug /ˈplug/
• toy → tig /ˈtig/
• eye → aga /ˈaga/

Otherwise, whenever 'y' is pronounced as a vowel, it becomes either 'i' if it's pronounced /i/ or /ɪ/, or 'ai' if it's pronounced /aɪ/.

• fairly → fuerli /ˈfueɾli/
• cycle → saikla /ˈsaikla/
• physics → fizeks /ˈfizeks/

Otherwise, consonantal 'y' is treated as a regular consonant according to the normal rules.

• yes → yas /ˈjas/
• year → yaur /ˈjauɾ/

double letters

All double letters become single letters in Viesa.

• keep → kap /ˈkap/
• middle → medla /ˈmedla/
• cool → kil /ˈkil/

This rule does unfortunately produce many ambiguous words which are discernable only through context. For example, gid can mean both "god" or "good", and pil can mean either "pool" or "poll".

stress

The stress of a Viesa word (that is, which syllable of the word should be pronounced with greater emphasis) is determined by which vowel is stressed in the original English word.

• hello → hali /ha.ˈli/
• translation → trunzlušein /trunz.ˈlu.ʃe.in/

If the stressed vowel in the original English word is written with a digraph which becomes two separate syllables in Viesa (and not a diphthong), the first of the two resulting syllables is stressed.

• diamond → deumind /ˈde.u.mind/

The sole exception to these stress rules is the name of the language itself, Viesa, which is pronounced with stress on the second syllable: /vi.ˈe.sa/. However, the generic word viesa (which means "voice" and is the origin of the language's name) is pronounced with stress on the first syllable as per the normal stress rules: /ˈvi.e.sa/.

difficulties

Obviously, not everyone pronounces English words the same way, and while most of English's dialectal differences lie within its spoken vowels (which Viesa has no concern for), its spoken consonants are not without contention either. In such cases, the speaker may freely choose to Viesa-ize the word in the way which corresponds to their own pronunciation of it (unless the word contains a consonant that isn't in Viesa such as /x/). For instance, "picture" could either become pekšora or pekcora.

grammar

Viesa makes several modifications to English's grammar. Knowledge of these grammatical modifications is necessary to form the majority of sentences.

pronouns

Viesa replaces English's personal pronoun system with one that is far more regularized. Below is a table of Viesa's base personal pronouns:

Unlike English, Viesa does not have separate subject and object pronouns ("I" and "me" are both ma), nor any gender or animacy distinction in the third person singular pronouns ("he", "she", and "it" are all na). There is, however, a distinction between singular "you" (ya, when addressing a single person) and plural "you" (ga, when addressing multiple people).

Posessive pronouns ("my", "your", "hers", etc.) are formed with the suffix -k.

• mak: my/mine
• yak: your/yours
• nak: his/her/hers/its etc.
• vak: our/ours
• gak: y'all's
• dak: their/theirs

Reflexive pronouns ("myself", "yourself", "himself" etc.) are formed with the suffix -salf.

• masalf: myself
• yasalf: yourself
• nasalf: himself/herself/itself etc.
• vasalf: ourselves
• gasalf: yourselves
• dasalf: themselves

contractions

Viesa does not use any contractions; all contractions must be expanded into their constituent words. The grammatical modifications of Viesa already remove most contractions automatically, but not all of them.

suffixes

Viesa introduces a handful of suffixes that are placed on words to indicate certain morphological information, taking the place of the English words or suffixes which normally indicate such information. These suffixes are summarized below:

• -(e)s: plural suffix
• -(e)p: past tense suffix
• -(e)š: future tense suffix
• -(e)g: negative suffix
• -(e)k: genitive suffix

For each suffix, the 'e' is included if the word ends in a consonant, or excluded if the word ends in a vowel.

plural suffix

The -(e)s suffix is placed onto a singular noun to create a plural noun. Unlike in English, there are no irregular plurals.

• hiosa (house) → hiosas (houses)
• fit (foot) → fites (feet)
• glus (glass) → gluses (glasses; including spectacles!)

Note that this suffix does not apply to words which may look plural, but actually behave as singular nouns, for example words ending in "-ics".

• leňgoesteks (linguistics), not leňgoestekes

past tense suffix

The -(e)p suffix is placed onto verbs to form the past tense. There are no irregular past tense verbs in Viesa.

Note that this suffix is not used for passive participles; those are left unchanged in Viesa.

future tense suffix

The -(e)š suffix is placed onto verbs to form the future tense. This replaces English's auxilliary verb "will".

negative suffix

The -(e)g suffix is placed on verbs to negate them.

genitive suffix

The -(e)k suffix is placed on nouns to indicate possession. This works much like English's "-'s" clitic; however unlike in English, the genitive suffix in Viesa must always be placed on the actual noun, and never on the end of the entire noun phrase.

combination of suffixes

Multiple suffixes can be placed onto the same word. When this happens, the suffixes must be placed in a specific order.

For verbs, the negative suffix '-(e)g' must always follow the tense suffixes '-(e)p' and '-(e)š'. For nouns, the genitive suffix '-(e)k' must always follow the plural suffix '-(e)s'.

The past tense suffix '-(e)p' and the future tense suffix '-(e)š' may combine (in that order) to form past future verbs.

verbs

English's verb conjugation is heavily simplified in Viesa. All verbs (except participles) simply become their bare form. The bare form of a verb is usually the infinitive form minus the word "to". This means, among other things, that:

• "be", "is", "am", "are" all become ba
• verbs do not have an "-s" suffix added for third person singular subjects; "eats" becomes simply aut

Examples:

Perfect and continuous verbs are formed by placing the words huva ("have") and ba ("be") respectively before a verb. This is the same as how perfect and continuous verbs are formed in English, except that the main verb is left unchanged, and is not converted into a participle. Below is a table illustrating all combinations of verb aspects and verb tenses in Viesa:

Active participles and passive participles are left unchanged in Viesa, except when used for continuous or perfect verbs. Gerunds are also unaltered.

auxilliary verbs

English has a few modal auxilliary verbs which don't have infinitive forms. Their Viesa equivalents are:

• kun (can)
• kiod (could)
• šul (shall)
• šiod (should)
• mug (may)
• met (might)

These function in much the same way as their English equivalents, except that tense suffixes may be placed onto them in somewhat inventive ways. Below is a table demonstrating each auxilliary verb in each tense:

Notice how the past forms of every auxilliary verb except kunep can also be expressed by converting the main verb into a perfect verb; for example, "Ma kiodep gi" is equivalent to "Ma kiod huva gi". Which form you choose is simply a matter of preference. Additionally, the future forms of every auxilliary verb except kuneš are difficult to translate and virtually never used.

questions

To form a question with a yes/no answer (or a multiple-choice question), the word di is placed at the beginning of the sentence (while leaving the word order of the original sentence intact).

Other types of questions are formed with a question word such as "what", "why", etc. placed at the beginning of a sentence, but without altering the order of any other words. In other words, direct questions such as "Why does he want to leave?" are formed in the same way as "indirect questions", such as in "I don't know why he wants to leave".

sample

Here are a few sample texts in Viesa, presented in both the Latin orthography and Cyrillic orthography.

Article One of the UDHR (Latin)

Ul homun baeňes ba birn fra und akoul en degneti und retes. Da ba andivad veþ rauzin und kinšeansa und šiod ukt tivurdz ina uniðar en u speret iv briðarhid.

Article One of the UDHR (Cyrillic)

Ул хомун баенгес ба бирн фра унд акоул ен дегнети унд ретес. Да ба андивад већ раузин унд киншеанса унд шиод укт тивурдз ина униђар ен у сперет ив бриђархид.

The North Wind and the Sun (Latin)

Ða Nirþ Vend und ða Son bap despota vec bap ða striňgar van u truvalar kimap uliň vrupad en u vurm kliuk. Da ugrap ðut ða ina vi ferst soksadep en mukeň ða truvalar tuka nak kliuk if šiod ba kinsedarad striňgar ðun ða iðar. Ðan ða Nirþ Vend blivep uz hurd uz na kunep, bot ða mira na blivep ða mira klisali ða truvalar fildep nak kliuk uriond na; und ut lust ða Nirþ Vend gevap op ða utampt. Ðan ða Son šenap iot vurmli, und emadeutali ða truvalar tukap if nak kliuk. Und si ða Nirþ Vend bap iblejad ti kinfas ðut ða Son bap ða striňgar iv ða tvi.

The North Wind and the Sun (Cyrillic)

Ђа Нирћ Венд унд ђа Сон бап деспота веч бап ђа стрингар ван у трувалар кимап улинг врупад ен у вурм клиук. Да уграп ђут ђа ина ви ферст соксадеп ен мукенг ђа трувалар тука нак клиук иф шиод ба кинседарад стрингар ђун ђа иђар. Ђан ђа Нирћ Венд бливеп уз хурд уз на кунеп, бот ђа мира на бливеп ђа мира клисали ђа трувалар филдеп нак клиук урионд на; унд ут луст ђа Нирћ Венд гевап оп ђа утампт. Ђан ђа Сон шенап иот вурмли, унд емадеутали ђа трувалар тукап иф нак клиук. Унд си ђа Нирћ Венд бап иблеџад ти кинфас ђут ђа Сон бап ђа стрингар ив ђа тви.