Aasti

Âsti
Pronounced:	/'ɒsti/
Timeline and Universe:	Aarð
Species:	Human
Spoken:	Âstâl (The Eastland)
Total speakers:	30,000 (approx.)
Writing system:	Ðanmarc
Genealogy:	Âsti Group Âsti
Typology
Morphology:	Inflecting
Morphosyntax:	Fluid-S
Word order:	SOV
Credits
Creator:	Navidel
Created:	June 6, 2007

Âsti is the language of the peoples of Âstâl, often referred to as the Aasti tribes. It is a fluid-S language, and uses SOV (Subject-Object-Verb) word order, meaning that the normal form of the sentence He saw her would be rendered as *He her saw.

Script

For our purposes, Âsti will be written using the Latin alphabet. (Note: Because the (mostly illeterate) speakers of the language live in a world where the Latin alphabet does not exist, in the rare cases that Âsti is written down by a native speaker, an adaptation of the common Ðanmarc Alphabet is used.) The general rules of pronunciation follow:

• a, e , i, o, u -- Pronounced as in Spanish or IPA, respectively like taco, play (Canadian), beet, row (GA), and beet.
• â -- Pronounced as in RP* bother (/ɒ/). In some dialects this vowel has unrounded to (/ɑ/), a sound similar to that (/ɑ/) found in RP* father .
• b -- Pronounced as in English boat, except before the vowels i or e, where it is pronounced like the v in very unless doubled (see h).
• c -- As in cat or car, except for before i or e (where most "soft" c's are found in English), where it is said like the sh in shout. However a cce or cci retains the k-like pronunciation. For the pronunciation of ch, see h.
• d -- As in dock or day, except before i or e, where it is pronounced like the th in that (not that in thin) unless doubled (See h).
• g -- As in game or goal, except when singly before i or e (where most "soft" English g's are found), where its pronunciation changes to a sound like French j or the s in vision.
• h -- Never on its own, Âsti h is found only in consonant clusters (i.e., following b, c, d, g, p, or t). In those cases, the cluster is pronounced like the soft form of the initial consonant (/v/ for b, /ʃ/ for c, /ð/ for d, /ʒ/ for g, /f/ for p, or /θ/ for t).
• l, m, n, r, s, z -- Same as English. Note that r is pronounced in all positions (as /ɹ/)
• p -- As in part or play except singly when followed by an i, e, or h, when it is said like the ph in phonetics or telephone (see h).
• t -- As in tired or try except singly when followed by an i, e, or h, when it is pronounced like the th in thrift or thin (but not that in that or the).
• x -- Pronounced as English single h or Spanish j (Sometimes an x, like that in México, is pronounced this way).
• f, j, k, q, v, w, and y are not used.

Note to speakers of American English: RP stands for Received Pronunciation, sometimes called "High British" or "Queen's English". I don't think I can explain about the Father-bother and Caught-cot mergers here, so if you can't find some other resource to explain this to you, try pronouncing a /æ/ as in cat and â /ɑ/ as in bother. Since /æ/ and /ɑ/ are not phonemic in Âsti and close to the actual pronunciations, the (fictitious) native speakers would probably perceive only a foreign accent.

Grammar

Nouns

• Plural nouns are usually formed by adding i to the end of a noun ending in a consonant or replacing the final vowel with i (change word-final diphthongs with i as the first letter to í). The major exception to this is that many words ending in o form their plurals in -or (For example uoreddio, meaning horse or stallion, becomes uoreddior).
• The feminine forms of nouns are usually formed in -a, except for those ending in o, which are formed by changing the o to an i (uoreddí mare).
• In addition the distinction mentioned above between masculine and feminine forms of some nouns, Âsti has five grammatical "genders", none of which have anything to do with physical gender. Gender I is a highly respectful form of address. The only nouns always in gender I are gods. Gender II includes all humans, male and female, whereas gender III includes animals and "semi-animate" objects, such as fire and running water. Gender IV includes all inanimate objects except those in gender III. All plural nouns, no matter what gender the singular form is in, have no gender. Nouns do not conjugate for gender, but verbs, articles and adjectives do.
• Nouns in genders I, II, and III are in the agentive by default, with the suffix -(u)ne forming the patientive, used as the object of transitive verbs and the subject of intransitive verbs when the action is considered involuntary. Gender IV nouns, on the other hand, are considered patientive by default, and can only take stative verbs (see Adjectives).
• The ablative case, used when a noun is the object of a preposition, is formed with the suffix -(e)mn.
• The suffix -z forms the genitive (adjective) forms of nouns ending in vowels, while -i does the same for those ending in consonants.

Verbs

Verb conjugations in Âsti may be the language's most complex feature. The table below gives a simplified form of the conjugations. The initial vowel of the conjugation is extremely variable, due to the fact that most Âsti verbs already end in vowels, and the resulting diphthongs may or may not be allowable. In addition, if the original verb is monosyllabic, conjugations for imperfective tenses change. Instead of adding an accent to the final vowel of the perfective form, an r is added to the end of the word.

	Past Perfect	Past Imperfect	Present Perfect	Present Imperfect	Future Perfect	Future Imperfect
1s (s)	-em	-el	-iâ	-uâ	-am	-ame
1p	-mie	-lue	-(l)ie	-(l)ue	-(l)it	-(l)ite
2s.I (gg)	-ea	-era	-ggis	-ggim	-er	-ere
2s.II (gg)	-en	-er	-is	-im	-ar	-are
2p	-ne	-re	-(o)lí	-(o)lím	-(i)d	-(i)de
3s.I	-sa	-san	-rai	-mei	-(e)s	-(e)se
3s.II (n)	-a	-al	-ai	-ei	-as	-ase
3s.III (t)	-o	-ul	-ui	-oi	-os	-ose
3s.IV z-eu	-e	-il	-z	-âz	-uz	-uze
3s.IV (i)tt-e	(i)-en	(e)-en	(i)-e	(e)-e	(i)-ia	(e)-ia
3p (tt)	-i	-iu	-am	-em	-igh	-ige
3p (i)tt-e	(e)-i	(e)-iu	(e)-iam	(e)-em	(e)-igh	(e)-ige

Pronouns

First Person

Singular

• Nominative: geâ
• Accusative: ceân
• Dative: ceâmn
• Genitive: geâxt

Plural

• Nominative: dzia
• Accusative: tsin
• Dative: tsimn
• Genitive: dzixt

Second Person

Singular

• Nominative: ttiia
• Accusative: tiian
• Dative: tiiamn
• Genitive: tiiaxt

Plural

• Nominative: uenna
• Accusative: uen
• Dative: uemn
• Genitive: uext

Third Person

Singular

• Gender I

• Nominative: aicia
• Accusative: aician
• Dative: aimn
• Genitive: aicht

• Gender II

• Nominative: iebe
• Accusative: iebhne
• Dative: iemn
• Genitive: iext

• Gender III

• Nominative: dixa
• Accusative: dixan
• Dative: dimn
• Genitive: dixt

• Gender IV

• Nominative: dhe
• Accusative: dha
• Dative: dhan
• Genitive: dhaxt

Plural

• Nominative: iol
• Accusative: ioln
• Dative: ione
• Genitive: ioext

See Also

• Aasti at Langmaker (archived page)
• The lexicon here