Na'awasa

Na'awasa, [näˈäwäʃä] ("whisper of the aetherling", "our language" or "people language") is an a priori funlang with an extremely minimalist phonetic library and vocabulary, and a strong focus on adjectivalisation and two-word compounding sentences. It is solely edited by FrathWiki user Fizz; the conlang is inspired by their friend.

Na'awasa is an artlang spoken by aetherlings (wasa) - angelic, genderless wisp spirits, invisible to humans (sa'ana) but ever observant of them. In concept, their language can be heard as wind or whispers of natural environments.

Phonology, consonant order and simplified transliteration

Phonology

Na'awasa only has four consonants (/v, w, ʃ, n/), and only three vowels (/æ, ä, u/). These sounds were chosen for their qualities of sounding like the wind.

Transliteration

For simplicity, these are the letters used for Latin transliteration:

⟨/v/⟩ → ⟨v⟩, ⟨/w/⟩ → ⟨w⟩, ⟨/ʃ/⟩ → ⟨s⟩, ⟨/n/⟩ → ⟨n⟩, ⟨/æ/⟩ → ⟨e⟩, ⟨/ä/⟩ → ⟨a⟩, ⟨/u/⟩ → ⟨u⟩.

Consonant order

The above shown order of the consonants has a meaning: aetherlings have a distinct hierarchical order of values to them.

1. v - the upmost holy and spiritual of concepts, such as existence itself or the heavens;
2. w - themselves (aetherlings);
3. s - living objects, such as humans, animals, plants and other wispy beings;
4. n - inanimate concepts and things, such as the wind.

Syllables

The language's word structure is composed of a simple consonant-vowel-(duplicate vowel), CV('V) syllabic system. Each word is composed of syllables that are exclusively composed of a consonant, then a vowel, and sometimes a stressed duplicate vowel if the word derives from a different word. There are no vowel dipthongs in this language. The last vowel of a word indicates if it's a (pro)noun (-a), verb (-e) or adjective (-u).

Grammar

The basic word order is object-verb-subject, however, this is rarely used and most sentences are directly compounded with only two words.

Na'awasa features an extreme amount of abstraction in speech, as aetherlings try to communicate their thoughts and conversations as fast as possible as to not be detected easily by mere fleshy beings. This formed a language which is mostly composed of two-compound word-sentences.

Derivates

Example: na'a is a derived noun, as it ends with a duplicated a vowel. Since it is duplicated, that means it derives from a different word, in this case, na'a - which means "speech", or "whisper", - comes from na, "wind". In a sense, this could be seen as a form diminutivisation.

Plural suffix

Each noun has a plural form, where a suffix is added to the noun with the same vowel, but the consonant follows the order shown in the consonant hierarchy, which is dependant on the noun's last consonant:

v → w → s → n → v → w → ...

For example:

• wa, meaning person ("me", "aetherling"), is turned into wasa, meaning people ("we", "aetherlings"), because w → s.
• sa'ana ("humans", "fleshlings") is a plural form of sa'a, "fleshling", which derives from sa, meaning "flesh"; its second syllable starts with n because s → n.

Adjectivalisation

Every single adjective is formed from nouns or verbs, which is a CV syllable suffix. The syllable's consonant follows the same rule as plural suffixes, but the vowel is always e.

• wasane - "aetherlings-like", or "aetherlings-esque".
• sa'ave - "human(-like)".

Vocabulary

See Na'awasa/Vocabulary.