Pyilot language

The Pyilot language is a Tamiun language spoken in Passuvria by the Pyikas people.

Vowels
/ɔ/ is only found in loanwords, and is written ⟨o⟩. For around a third of all speakers, it is not a distinct phoneme from /o/.

Phonotactics
Pyilot syllable structure is (C)V(C). At most two vowels can be adjacent within a word.

Nouns
Nouns are only declined for number. Pyilot distinguishes between singular and plural nouns. The singular form of nouns is always unmarked, and mass nouns are always grammatically plural.

Most nouns (around four-fifths, depending on the dialect) are pluralised using a suffix. More than twenty different suffixes are used to mark pluralisation, and the correct one must be memorised for each noun; in the Vedyuap dialect, the most common are -od, -aʔ, -kyaʔ, and -ve. The suffixes used vary between dialects, and some dialects have more than others, with the highly divergent Muenap dialect having only six.

Some other nouns instead have their last two syllables reduplicated. For example, the word tok "mosquito" becomes toktok "mosquitos", and maita "type of tree" becomes maitaita.

Demonstratives
Pyilot uses three demonstratives. Sev is used for things which are beneath the speaker, either physically or metaphorically, and is sometimes used as an insult; sol is used for things at the same elevation or level as the speaker, or for people of the same social status; and su is used for things which are physically or metaphorically above the speaker, or as an honorific.

Personal pronouns and prefixes
Pyilot distinguishes between person, number, and clusivity in its pronouns. As well as independent personal pronouns, it features a set of person prefixes.

Pronouns vary somewhat between dialects. The following table shows those used in the Vedyuap dialect.

The person prefixes are required before verbs, adjectives, and inalienable nouns. If a prefix is used with a word which starts with a vowel, the final vowel of the prefix is dropped.

The Muenap (Muʔenep) dialect is the most divergent, and has lost its number distinction in pronouns. Its remaining pronouns, used for singular and plural referents alike, correspond to the strictly plural pronouns of other dialects. The pronoun el is used as the first person singular pronoun in this dialect.