The Vouard language is a group of largely mutually-intelligible dialects spoken by the native inhabitants of the Vouard exoplane. A large number of Vouard-speaking refugees have resettled within Andorith. This is a brief overview of the standardized version of their language.

Vouard is highly analytic and nominative-accusative. It is a stress accent language with fixed stress on the final syllable. Roots are written and pronounced as separate words, and word order is determined by the grammatical aspect of a sentence. A small amount of derivational morphology in the language is derived from reduplication. Both adjectives and verbs are closed classes. There are no verbal person markings or numeral classifier systems.

Phonology

Consonants

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Post-alveolar / Palatal
Nasal	m		n
Plosive	p b	t d		t͡ʃ d͡ʒ
Fricative	f v	θ ð	s z	ʃ ʒ
Tap			ɾ
Approximant			l	j

The consonants are written as b, ch (t͡ʃ), d, dh (ð), f, j (d͡ʒ), jh (ʒ), l, m, n, p, r, s, sh (ʃ), t, th (θ), v, y (j), and z. The least commonly used consonant, Y, has largely been absorbed by diphthongs.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e		o
Open		a

Diphthongs: /ei/ /oi/ /ai/ /au/ /ua/
/au/ is written as "ou."

Abbreviations Used in this Article

V: verb
S: subject (nominative)
O: object (accusative and/or dative)
1st: first person, "I"
2st: second person, "you"
3rd: third person, "he/she/singular they/it"
HUM: humanoid noun class
AN: non-humanoid animate noun class
IN: inanimate noun class
Nom: nominative
Acc: accusative
Dat: dative
INTRANS: intransitive particle
NEG: negation particle
QUE: question particle

Word Order & Aspect

To understand how to order words in a Vouard sentence, you must be able to identify the phrases of your sentence. Think of a Russian nesting doll. The outermost doll is the sentence. The next doll from the outmost is a clause. Sentences are made of actors (subjects) and actions (verbs) that are related to each other. Now, just as sentences are made of clauses, clauses are made of phrases, a word or words within the clause that form a meaningful grammatical unit. The third doll inward is a phrase. Take the sentence "I played the piano for her."

The boundaries of Vouard noun phrases are very, very clear. The noun phrase begins with the noun and ends with a marker indicating the noun's case ...nominative, accusative, or dative. The required and consistent placement of the noun and the case marker allows phrase order to be very flexible within a clause.

A Vouard sentence's word order is dependent on how its verb describes an event, action, or state over time, i.e. its aspect. When it comes to word order, Vouard indicates whether an action is perfective (a complete event), continuous/progressive (an unfolding process), or habitual (a usual, ordinary, or customary event). Tense such as past, present, or future may be suggested by a sentence's aspect, but it is more commonly implied through context and adverbs.

Aspect	Word Order	Example	Translation
Perfective	VSO	Tizuor dhu mad ber chevu.	He daydreamed. [The action is done once]
Continuous/Progressive	SVO	Mad ber tizuor dhu chevu.	He was daydreaming. [The action may or may not be completed]
Habitual	OVS	Chevu tizuor dhu mad ber.	He daydreams. [He daydreams habitually; he was/is a daydreamer]

Verbs

Vouard has 94 simple verbs; all other verbs are a combination of one of these simple verbs paired with a noun without a case marker. When negating a sentence, the negation must come before the simple verb, not the noun.

Simple Verb	+ Noun	Complex Verb
Dafa	+ artem	artem dafa
To heat, to cook	+ a rock	to bake
Dafa	+ ti.zu.or	tizuor dafa
To heat, to cook	+ a wish	to daydream
Fer	+ bodu	bodu fer
to ascend, to begin	+ a chin	to admire
Fer	+ ir.oi.ne	iroine fer
to ascend, to begin	+ a job, labor	to commence the workday

Copulas

Copulas ("to be" verbs) are required in predications. Predications are statements that declare something about a noun, such as "It is red" or "She is a doctor." Vouard's three copulas are locative, equative, and existential.

The locative copula doi indicates where something is located. It is always transitive.

We were located at the park.
Locative copula + 1st + numeral + HUM+Nom + park + IN+Acc [Perfective]
Doi di athe ber dazo neir
Where is my cup?
Locative copula + cup + of + 1st + IN+Nom + where + IN+Acc + QUE [Perfective]
Doi tirsunam fou di pu dovi neir maia?

The equative copula va equates the subject with something else. It is always transitive. Note that a sentence using the verb va (is/equals) requires only nominative case markers, because the subject and object are the same.

This is my mother. (This person equates to my mother.)
My favorite school subject is rhetoric. (My favorite school subject equates to rhetoric)

The intransitive existential copula, azi, denotes that something is present or exists, and that existence is habitual, common, or expected.

There are multiple peoples on our planet. (Multiple peoples exist on our planet.)
Ghosts are real.

The English sentence "We are on the kabaddi field" could be translated with any of the three Vouard copulas and technically be correct. However, which copula is used emphasizes or implies something different in the sentence.

Locative copula usage: Where were you guys?
We were on the kabaddi field. [emphasis on the location]
Equative copula usage: Who was the person on the kabaddi field last night?
I was the one on the kabaddi field last night. [emphasis on describing the subject]
Existential copula usage: Do you guys ever visit the kabaddi field?
We are regularly present on the kabaddi field. [emphasis on the subject(s) expected existence or presence]

Auxiliaries

Auxiliary verbs are placed directly after the simple verb they support. This placement doesn't change in serial verb constructions, i.e. when two or more verbs or verb phrases are stacked together in a single clause.

Grammatical moods are expressed through auxiliary verbs.

Nouns

A word is a noun if it can take a case marker, and its animacy/inanimacy class determines which case markers it takes. Marked cases in Vouard are nominative (subject), accusative (direct object), and dative (indirect object). A noun without a case marker is in its "bare" form and can be combined with a verb to make a new verb.

Vouard nouns are classified as humanoid, animate, or inanimate. A noun's sound doesn't predict its animacy class, but class can often be determined logically. A being whose self-awareness, communication, and rough intelligence resembles those of a human are classified as humanoid nouns. Such beings often have a human-like physical shape, but, within the diverse interdimensional universe that the Vouard reside, that is not always the case.

Living animals, cosmic bodies, growing plants, and divine/mythological beings belong to the animate noun class. Objects, land forms, abstract things, picked fruits and vegetables, body parts, and dead things are all classified as inanimate.

A Vouard noun phrase will always consist of a minimum of two words, the head (a noun, pronoun, or determiner) and the case marker. The head will always begin the noun phrase, and the case marker will always end it. Adjectives, demonstratives, numerals, and relative clauses all follow the noun but proceed the case marker. Because nouns always require case markers (see Pronouns for an exception), there are ambiguous markers when animacy/inanimacy is unknown, veija and uneimu.

Beisha as a 1st and 2nd person inanimate case marker is primarily used in stories and poetry. It also means "dough."

Case Markers	1st Person	2nd Person	3rd Person
Unknown Animacy	-	Vei.ja	Un.ei.mu
Humanoid Nominative	Ber	Ber	Ber
Humanoid Accusative	Thei	Thei	Thei
Humanoid Dative	Sha	Sha	Sha
Animate Nominative	Vuor	Asfa	Asfa
Animate Accusative	Vuor	Jai	Jai
Animate Dative	Vuor	Douten	Douten
Inanimate Nominative	Beisha	Pu	Pu
Inanimate Accusative	Beisha	Neir	Neir
Inanimate Dative	Beisha	Yiznu	Yiznu

Plurality

Vouard nouns don't change for number. If a noun is plural, that plurality is inferred through context or indicated by the addition of a number. Counting numbers are used to specify noun quantities.

How many cats do you have?
Poait jai tei thucha jho ber maia?
Cat AN+Acc number+possess [possess some number] You HUM+Nom QUE? [Habitual aspect]
I have two cats.
Poait boujha jai thucha di ber.
Cat two AN+Acc possess I HUM+Nom. [Habitual aspect]

How many people can your boat hold?

The thieves will soon be judged by way of a moot.
Thief four HUM+Nom justice+
Friends, welcome to my party.

Numerals

Numerals
One	Dho.un
Two	Boujha
Three	Mei.po
Four	A.the
Five	Mou.tit
Six	Beysu
Seven	Ul.ai.to
Eight	Doimin
Nine	Tar.tit
Ten	Sha.dem.shi

Pronouns

Like other nouns, pronouns take case markers that change based on the pronoun's animacy/inanimacy class. Like all nouns, pronouns have no plural form. When a noun is plural, plurality is inferred through context or indicated by the addition of a number.

Instrumental Reduplication

When a subject acts, achieves, or accomplishes something with the help of a physical or abstract noun, that noun is acting as an instrument. A noun is shown to be instrumental by suffixing the final consonant of a word plus "a+l" to the beginning of the word.

Instrumental nouns nouns take dative case markers.

She is writing in the sand with a stick.
3rd ber word + prepare sand Instru+stick IN+Dat

Benefactive Reduplication

When an action is taken for the benefit of someone or something other than the actor, the recipient of the action takes on the semantic role of the beneficiary. In English, this change is marked by using the preposition "for," as in "I am baking a cake for the kids." In Vouard, the name of the recipient is partially reduplicated by prefixing the last syllable of the beneficiary's name to the beneficiary's name.

kid: ulei
for the kid: eiulei
justice: diart
for justice: artdiart

This reduplication is the same whether the recipient is a common or a proper noun. Benefactive nouns take dative case markers.

I am baking a cake for the kids.
1st HUM+Nom rock+heat cake 3rd+IN+Acc Ben+kid numeral HUM+Dat [Progressive]
Di ber arjtem dafa virtut neir eiulei meipo sha.

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