Vrkhazhian

Vrkhazhian (Śāt Warḫālu) is a West Takshian language that is spoken by the Vrkhazhians who live in the Empire of Wērxāla. The earliest form of this language, known as Classical Vrkhazhian, was spoken as early as 887 years ago.

Vrkhazhian Śāt Warḫālu
Pronounced:	/ˈɬaːt waːrˈxaːɮu/
Spoken:	Vrkhazh (Wērḫāla)
Writing system:	???
Genealogy:	??? Languages ??? ??? ??? ??? Classical Vrkhazhian Modern Vrkhazhian
Typology
Morphological type:	moderately fusional and agglutinative
Morphosyntactic alignment:	nominative-accusative
Basic word order:	SOV
Credits
Creator:	Malcolm G. Holborne

History

Dialects

Vrkhazhian is analyzed as having two major dialects:

• "Uzarian" (Uzārâ) is spoken in the south-west of Vrkhazh and named after the city from which it originated, Uzār.
• "Mukhbic" (Muḫbâ) is spoken in the north-east of Vrkhazh and named after the city Muḫba.

Despite being considered dialects of the same language, they are somewhat mutually unintelligible to each other.

Phonology

Consonants

The table below shows the consonant phonemes found in the major dialects of Vrkhazhian.

	Peripheral				Coronal				Glottal
	Bilabial		Velar		Central		Lateral
	Plain	Ejective	Plain	Ejective	Plain	Ejective	Plain	Ejective
Nasal Stop	m		ŋ ⟨ñ⟩		n
Oral Stop	p b	pʼ ⟨ṗ⟩	k g	kʼ ⟨ḳ⟩	t d	tʼ ⟨ṭ⟩			ʔ ⟨ʾ⟩
Fricative			x ⟨ḫ⟩ ɣ ⟨ǧ⟩		s z	(t)sʼ ⟨ṣ⟩	ɬ ⟨ś⟩	(t)ɬʼ ⟨ṣ́⟩
Liquid	w		j ⟨y⟩		r		ɮ~l ⟨l⟩

Vowels

Vrkhazhian possesses the following monophthongs:

	Front	Back
Close	i iː	u uː
Open	ɛ ɛː	ɑ ɑː

All consonants and vowels distinguish length phonemically. Long consonants are represented in writing as double consonants while long vowels are written with a macron (ā, ē, ī, ū) or a circumflex (â, ê, î, û). The usage of a circumflex in writing is mainly to indicate vowel coalescence as a result of the contraction of the weak consonants /ʔ j w/. Phonetically, long vowels are one-and-a-half times as long as short vowels when they are unstressed and twice as long as short vowels when they are stressed.

Allophony

Plosives

• The plosives /p pʼ b t tʼ d k kʼ g/ assimilate in voicing when they precede a plosive of the same place of articulation. An example of this allophony is demonstrated with the noun wadde "shield": under normal circumstances its bound form is wad; however, when the first person singular possessive suffix -ti is added, it becomes watti "my shield"
• The plosives /t tʼ d/ also assimilate in voice and manner of articulation when they precede the fricatives /s sʼ z ɬ ɬʼ ɮ/

Nasals

• The nasal consonants /m ŋ/ assimilate in place of articulation when they occur before the consonants /m ŋ p pʼ b k kʼ g x ɣ/.
• The nasal consonants /m n ŋ/ are denasalized when they precede the consonant /r/.

Fricatives

• the fricatives /s sʼ z ɬ ɬʼ ɮ/ assimilate in voice and manner of articulation when they precede another fricative of the same place of articulation.

Syllable Structure and Prosody

The basic syllable structure is maximally (C)V(V)(C) whereby any syllable can begin with any consonant except for /ʔ/ and any syllable can end with any consonant except for /ʔ j w/. Vrkhazhian strongly dislikes consonant clusters in the onset or coda of a syllable and typically inserts vowels to break the offending clusters. The epenthetic vowels typically mirror the adjacent vowel.

Stress in Vrkhazhian is highly predictable as it is based on syllable weight, of which there are three: light (V, CV); heavy (CVC, CV̄, CV̂), and superheavy (CV̄C, CV̂C) and stress is always placed on the final heaviest syllable of a word. Superheavy syllables are generally dispreferred and usually resolved by epenthesis (/i/ if coronal and /u/ if peripheral) or shortening.

Grammar

Morphology

Overview

Vrkhazhian is a highly inflecting language, and morphologically, it is a triconsonatal root language: a kind of non-concatenative morphology whereby its roots consist of an abstract set of consonants which a pattern of vowels called transfixes are placed between. Most of these roots consist of three consonants (triliteral), though there are many words that consist of two-letter (biliteral) and four-letter (quadriliteral) roots. Very rare, however, are five-letter (pentaliteral) roots, all of which are entirely nouns.

Nominal morphology

Main article: Nouns in Vrkhazhian

Vrkhazhian nouns are called maḡyiman (singular maḡyima). They are declined for case, gender, and number. Specifically there are five cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, allative, and ablative) and two numbers (singular and plural). Additionally, Vrkhazhian has two grammatical genders: masculine and feminine.

Adjectival morphology

Adjectives in Vrkhazhian are marked for gender and number in agreement with the noun they modify. They always follow the noun and are almost entirely derived from verbs, with a few exceptions.

Most adjectives take the form C₁aC₂C₂VC₃. Below is an example adjective derived from the verb s-ǧ-l (to be old):

"Old"

	Adjective (masc.)	Adjective (fem.)
Singular	saǧǧal-e	saǧǧal-a
Plural	saǧǧal-en	saǧǧal-an

Verbal morphology

Main article: Verbs in Vrkhazhian

Vrkhazhian verbs are called narīban (singular narība). Because Vrkhazhian is a triconsonantal root language, the fundamental part of the verb form is the transfix, a discontinuous affix inserted between a root, though they primarily only convey the grammatical voices (active and passive). There are only two tenses (future and non-future) and these are indicated by prefixes attached to the base form. Additionally, there are also two moods (indicative and subjunctive) although the indicative is unmarked. Lastly, verbs are also conjugated for number, singular and plural, with the plural indicated by the suffix -am.

When referring to a particular verb pattern, they are referred to by a derivation of the canonical (exemplary) verb ṣ-r-s (to throw, to say). For example, when referring to the verb pattern of the citation form of a verb, which is the active present singular indicative, it is called ṣaras because that is the active present singular form of the verb.

Pronouns

...

Indicative Pronouns

		Nominative		Oblique		Possessive Suffix
Person		Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
1st		atu	amu	etêk	emêk	-ti	-mi
2nd	masculine	śūme	śūmen	śūmi	śūmin	-śe	-śen
	feminine	śīna	śīnan	śīnu	śīnun	-śa	-śan
3rd	masculine	ḳāwe	ḳāwen	ḳāwi	ḳāwin	-ye	-yen
	feminine	ḳāya	ḳāyan	ḳāyu	ḳāyun	-ya	-yan

Demonstrative Pronouns

There are two kinds of demonstrative pronouns for two kinds of deixis: proximal and distal. The proximal indicates an object near the speaker or the addressee and the distal indicates an object away from both the speaker and the addressee. Demonstrative pronouns always mark their referent as definite.

Demonstrative Pronouns - Indicative

		Nominative		Oblique
Deixis		Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Proximal	masculine	eḫḫe	eḫḫen	eḫḫi	eḫḫin
	feminine	eḫḫa	eḫḫan	eḫḫu	eḫḫun
Distal	masculine	mê	mên	mî	mîn
	feminine	mâ	mân	mû	mûn

Interrogative Pronouns

Vrkhazhian possesses a simple set of interrrogative pronouns and adverbs:

Interrogative Pronouns

Interrogative
English	Vrkhazhian
who?	ʾēzza?
what?	māta?
which one?	???
how many?	???

Numerals

Vrkhazhian uses a base-12 system of numerals, which is a positional notation numeral system using twelve as its base. In this system, the number ten can be written as ⟨X⟩, and the number eleven as ⟨E⟩. The table below lists the numbers from 1 to 12.

Ṣ́unyīʾan "Numbers"

Glyph	Numeral	Cardinal	Ordinal
	1	tibs-	tabbas-
	2	śiṭṭ-	śaddaṭ-
	3	meǧēl-	maǧǧal-
	4	ṣebēs-	ṣabbas-
	5	kuri-	karra-
	6	tuǧt-	taǧǧat-
	7	menēp-	mannap-
	8	ḳerēd-	ḳarrad-
	9	yasn-	yassan-
	X	naḫr-	naḫḫar-
	E	???	???
	10	ḫerēṭ-	ḫarraṭ-

Syntax

Main article: Syntax in Vrkhazhian

Nominal phrases

Relative clauses follow the noun while numerals and appositions precede the counted noun. All adjectives except colours follow the noun. An example of some of these features is the nominal phrase rVakyam Vərḵažaw, ʾIḵmeki ʾArašhijun I, kay tuṗtus ḳek numḵuḵ. "Ihmeki Arashjung, the Emperor of Vrkhazh, who united his people" which is analyzed in the following table:

Word	Meaning	Analysis	Part of the nominal phrase
rVakyam	emperor of	nominative construct state	Apposition
Vərḵažaw	Vrkhazh	genitive feminine singular
ʾIḵmeki ʾArašhijun I	Ikhmeki Arashijun the First	masculine singular	Proper Noun (subject)
kay	who	nominative masculine singular	Relative clause
tuṗtus	people	accusative feminine singular
ḳek	his	third person genitive masculine singular
numḵuḵ	united	active past singular

Sentence syntax

There are two basic word orders in Vrkhazhian that are used depending on the grammatical voice of the sentence. In sentences with the active voice, the basic word order is Subject-Object-Verb (SOV), while in sentences with the passive voice, the basic word order is Verb-Subject-Oblique (VSX). Compare an active sentence:

ʾUlden perje t-ʾildan ʾaldəm.

ʾUlden	perje	t-ʾildan	ʾaldəm
soldier-NOM.MASC.PL	all-MASC	ACC-civilian-FEM.PL	guard\ACT.PRES-PL

"All soldiers guard civilians."

vs. a passive sentence:

Nikašməm zHaqla makšimən kafaw maśšəya.

Nikašməm	rmakšimən	rkafaw rmaśšəya	zuHaqla
PASS.PST-build\PASS-PL	DEF-golem-NOM.FEM.PL	DEF-mercury-FEM.PL	Hiqala-ABL.FEM.SG

"The mercury golems were built by Hiqala"

The verb root ʾ-l-d (to guard), in the first example, is conjugated for active past singular in the active sentence agreeing in number with the subject "soldiers", while the verb root k-š-m (to build [physical]) in the second example is conjugated in the passive past plural, agreeing in number with the subject "the mercury golems".

Writing System

The Vrkhazhian Akhuva (ʾAḵva Yatvṛḵažaẏka [axβa jatβɹ̩xaʝæe̯ka]) is the official writing script of Vrkhazhian. The script consists of 33 letters, 12 numeral glyphs, and 6 vowel diacritics. The writing direction of the script is boustrophedon, and can start in any horizontal direction preferred, though the most common starting direction is Right-to-Left.

History

The script has been in use for at least 950 years, with few changes and alterations to the letter forms since it's inception. The script is a descendant of the Proto-Vrkhazhian logographic script.

Letter names

Standard letters

The table below lists the 34 letters of the Akhva that are shared by both Uzerian and Mukhebic:

ʾAḵva Yat-Vṛḵažaẏka Letter Name Meaning Phoneme ʾAlaḵa wind, breath ʾ [ʔ] Ḵava human ḵ [x] Vawa cane v [β] Hita lock h [h] Data skull d [d] Ẕima fruit, blood ẕ [t͡s] Bala path b [b] Suma tunnel s [s] Žati helmet ž [ʝ] Ṭama Ṭama horn, curve ṭ [θ] Yava scythe y [j]

ʾAḵva Yat-Vṛḵažaẏka Letter Name Meaning Phoneme Kafa water k [k] Geba wing g [g] Lama hand l [l] Maʾa bowl, cup m [m] Neši peace n [n] Ḡaẏma name ḡ [ɣ] Ṗasi Ṗasi poison ṗ [ɸ~ʍ̝~w̝] Paka head p [p] Jima pillar j [ɟ] Ruḡi snake r [ɹ] Faši vulture f [ɸ]

ʾAḵva Yat-Vṛḵažaẏka Letter Name Meaning Phoneme Šima house š [ç] Wadi shield w [w] Ćona Ćona fish ć [t͡ɬ] Tali gate t [t] Ṟaša Ṟaša shoulder ṟ [ʀ] Čita hook č [c] Zaba branch z [z] Řata fear, tail ř [r] Śama tree ś [ɬ] Ḥaka roof ḥ [χ] Qaẇta sheep q [q]

ʾAḵva Yat-Vṛḵažaẏka Letter Name Meaning Phoneme Ṉoda ear ṉ [ɴ]

Non-standard letters

The table below lists the letters that are only found in Mukhebic Vrkhazhian:

ʾAḵvah Yat-Vṛḵažaẏkah

Letter	Name	Meaning	Phoneme
ʾAlaḵa Miḵbaẏka	ʾAlaḵa Miḵbaẏka	Mukhebic Alakh	ʾ [ʔ]
Ḳuna	Ḳuna	sky	ḳ [kʼ]
Q̇usa	Q̇usa	hide	q̇ [kʼ]
Ñiṟa	Ñiṟa	root	ñ [ɲ]

Vowel diacritics

The Akhuva is an abjad, thus vowels are not represented in most texts. However, vowel diacritics may be used to aid learners in reading the text and to reduce ambiguities.

Mambinud Yat-Vṛḵažaẏkud

Letter	Name	Meaning	Phoneme
	Maʾlibi	exposed	a [a]
	Mařkiki	fallen	e [e̞]
	Yata	ground	i [i]
	Ḵoṭa	circle	o [o̞]
	Ṃḵepa	emptiness	ə [ə]
	Ḥomli	throne	u [u]