Behalavian language

Behalavian (Behalavian: Бехалавскi язык, Behalavski jazyk) is a and is the official  of Behalavia. The language is organised as South Slavic based on its reflexes and evolution alongside Cozar Slavic and Kadolhan (See Phonology §Reflexes). The characteristic difference from Behalavian and other Southwestern Slavic languages is the level of retention relative to thereof, most notably, the retention of which is found in other Slavic languages such as Lipnitian, Kusian, etc. It has been influenced by, Kadolhan, Vretekan, and  due to geographical proximity and cultural exchange via contact and trade.

Definiteness
Behalavian nouns are divided between definite and indefinite nouns. The definite article is the the indefinite ending with the suffixes -ї, -я or interfixes -я-, -є-, -ю-. The definite article is optional and can be dropped if desired.

Number
Behalavian has three numbers: singular, dual, and plural. The dual, and not the plural, is used for nouns that are double. For example nouns found in natural pairs, such as eyes, ears, and hands.

Cases
The nominal case category distinguishes 7 cases for nouns.

Nominative
The nominative is used for the subject of a sentence, but it is only distinguished from the accusative in the neuter and feminine singular.

Vocative
The vocative is used instead of the nominative when a noun is used in isolation as an address or exclamation.

Accusative
The accusative case is used for the direct object of a sentence with transitive verbs.

Genitive
When used with nouns, the genitive frequently denotes the possessor of another noun or "the whole of which the other noun is a part", among other meanings. It is also used frequently with the numerals after five, and with certain pronouns, in the form of the partitive genitive

Locative
The locative case is used to denote the location in which something occurs. It very rarely occurs without a preceding preposition. Without a preposition, it is only used with place names, as a "locative of place". It is also used, for the "locative of time" to denote "in" a certain time.

Dative
The dative case is used for the indirect object of a sentence. In addition, it is infrequently used to denote the goal of a motion, but this is more typically shown by using the preposition ко followed by the dative. It is also used for verbs meaning "to seem", and "to be similar to". Additionally, it can be used with nouns and adjectives, particularly in impersonal constructions. It can also be used for a "dative of advantage", showing for whom an action was performed, and as an "ethic dative" that shows "emphasis or emotional involvement".

Instrumental
The instrumental case can show the "instrument" by which an action was performed, mark "a part of the body or state of mind accompanying the action", and denote the manner in which something was performed this is shown by using the preposition со followed by the instrumental. The instrumental can be used to denote measure following a comparison, how many times an action was performed with numerals, an instrumental of place showing over or through what a movement occurs, to denote the time of an action.

o-stems
Masculine nouns are divided between animate and inanimate nouns. This difference is only significant for the accusative singular. For inanimate nouns, the accusative singular is identical to the nominative singular. For animate nouns, the accusative singular is identical to the genitive singular.

Present
The present tense is formed by adding present-tense endings onto the present tense stem, which itself is sometimes hidden due to sound changes that have occurred in the past (more common verbs are listed):


 * bosti (bod-), vesti (ved- or vez-), krasti (krad-), iti (id-)
 * plesti (plet-), mesti (met-), greti (greb-), krasti (krad-)
 * reci (rek-), peci (pek-), modzi (mog-), teci (tek-)

There are several classes of verbs:

1. a-type verbs add the interfix -a- to the present stem. 2. e-type verbs add the interfix -e- to the present stem. 3. i-type verbs exhibit the same set of endings, but this time the interfix is -i-. In the first person singular one finds the processes of palatalisation and epenthesis. 4. t-type verbs usually add the interfix -je- to the present stem. 5. irregular type verbs don't have a specific interfix.

Consonants
The consonant system of Behalavian has 29 phonemes. Like most other Slavic languages such as Lipnitian, there is palatalised versus non-palatalised (hard–soft) contrast for some consonants.

Hard vs. Soft
The consonants ⟨д, з, л, н, р, с, т⟩, have a hard (ъ) and soft (ь) version. ⟨ж, ц, ч, џ, ш⟩ are also soft consonants but do not have a hard counterpart; a iotated vowel would therefore be de-iotated after these consonants such as in -jo and -ja stem nouns. ⟨ю⟩ is seldom used for jo.

Proto-Slavic final *ь
Like other South Slavic languages, where Proto-Slavic had final *ь it originally disappeared in speech. But in Behalavian, during the late 19th century with the growth of literacy, final ь was kept in writing to show the word followed soft declension which would otherwise be indistinguishable from a noun with hard declension. Because ь was mainly used to show a soft consonant, people started to pronounce the final ь in words where they were silent. It was made a feature of the standard language in 1947.

Epenthesis
The process by which platalised labials (m', b', p', v') were changed to mľ, bľ, pľ, vľ.

Vowels
The Behalavian vowel system is composed of six vowel qualities /a, e, i, o, u, ɨ/ and an additional vowel /ə/ which is optional in broad transcription. Although the difference between long and short vowels is phonemic, it is not represented in standard orthography, except in dictionaries. Unstressed vowels are shorter than the stressed ones by 30% (in the case of short vowels) and 50% (in the case of long vowels). Stressed vowels have the same pronunciation as long vowels (without /◌ː/) and carry one of the two basic tones, rising and falling. (See Phonology §Pitch accent) /ə/ is an allophone of /e/ and /o/ when *Cь>еC and *Cъ>oC, e.g. *esmь > сем /səm/, *modrъ > модор /môdər/, etc. Also in words from *Cь, *Cъ, or *Cъ(n); specifically if it is a preposition before a word starting with a consonant, e.g. *sъ syrom > со сыро /sə sɨ̂rɔ/, *kъ syru > ко сыру /kə sɨ̂rʊ/, etc. Additionally an allophone of /o/ when *ClъC > CъlC > Colc > CoC, e.g. *ablъko >>> ябоко /jâbəko/.

/i/ only softens preceding /n/, /l/, or /r/.

Iotation
Iotified vowels are preceded by a /j/ before a vowel, at the beginning of a word, or between two vowels in the middle of a word, creating a diphthongoid, a partial.

The original Cyrillic alphabet has relatively complex ways for representing iotation by devoting an entire class of letters to deal with the issue. There are letters which represent iotified vowels; the same letters also palatalize preceding consonants (with or without self-iotation), which is why iotation and palatalization are often mixed up.

Pitch accent
Behalavian allows two tones on stressed syllables and have distinctive vowel length and so distinguish four combinations, called pitch accent: short falling (è), short rising (é), long falling (ȅ), and long rising (ȇ).

Although distinctions of pitch occur only in stressed syllables, unstressed vowels maintain a length distinction. Pretonic syllables are always short, but posttonic syllables may be either short or long. These are traditionally counted as two additional accents. In the standard language, the six accents are realized as follows:

Thus, monosyllabics generally have falling tone, and polysyllabics generally have falling or rising tone on the first syllable and rising in all the other syllables but the last one. The tonal opposition rising ~ falling is hence generally possible only in the first accented syllable of polysyllabic words, and the opposition by lengths, long ~ short, is possible in the accented syllable, as well as in the postaccented syllables (but not in a preaccented position).

s, clitics that latch on to a following word, on the other hand, may "steal" a falling tone (but not a rising tone) from the following monosyllabic or disyllabic word. The stolen accent is always short and may end up being either falling or rising on the proclitic.

Letters
The Behalavian Alphabet is a variation of the Cyrillic alphabet used to write the Behalavian language. It is mainly based off of the Lipnitian alphabet, although it does contains elements borrowed from that of Cestrosian. The main difference between the Behalavian alphabet and other Cyrillic alphabets is the usage of and  (Both borrowed from Cestrosian ), rather than И and Й, borrowed from Cestrosian, for representation of /i/ and /j/.

Punctuation
Most symbols used in punctuation was ultimately borrowed from Cestrosian, although it was inherited through Old Church Slavonic. Their names and purposes (in general) are also borrowed from their original Cestrosian derivations.