Vrkhazhian: Difference between revisions
Line 274: | Line 274: | ||
!Vrkhazhian | !Vrkhazhian | ||
|- | |- | ||
| who? || ''ʾilma'' | | | who? || ''ʾilma'' || which? || ''ʾilma hawa'' | ||
|- | |- | ||
| what? || ''maʾlima'' | | what? || ''maʾlima'' || which? || ''maʾlima hawa'' | ||
|- | |- | ||
| where? || ''ʾalmaya'' || at which place? || | | where? || ''ʾalmaya'' || at which place? || ''ʾalmaya hawa'' | ||
|- | |- | ||
| when? || ''ʾaŏra'' || at which time? || | | when? || ''ʾaŏra'' || at which time? || ''ʾaŏra hawa'' | ||
|- | |- | ||
| why? || ''paʾlumi'' || for which reason? || | | why? || ''paʾlumi'' || for which reason? || ''paʾlumi hawi'' | ||
|- | |- | ||
| how? || ''ʾalmawi'' || by which manner? || | | how? || ''ʾalmawi'' || by which manner? || ''almawi hawi'' | ||
|- | |- | ||
| how many? || '' | | how many? || ''ʾumwati'' || which amount? || ''ʾumwati hawi'' | ||
|- | |- | ||
|} | |} |
Revision as of 19:27, 30 September 2018
Vrkhazhian (Šat Vṛḵažaẇ) is a West Takshian language that is spoken by the Vrkhazhians who live in the Empire of Yatvṛḵaž. The earliest form of this language, known as Classical Vrkhazhian, was spoken as early as 887 years ago.
Vrkhazhian Šat Vṛḵažaẇ, Vṛḵažšəya Šada | |
---|---|
Pronounced: | /ˈçat βr̩ˈxaʝɑo̯/, /βr̩xaçˈçəja ˈçada/ |
Spoken: | Vrkhazh (Vṛḵaža) |
Writing system: | Vṛḵažšəya ʾAḵvaha |
Genealogy: | Haxyakian Languages
|
Typology | |
Morphological type: | moderately fusional and agglutinative |
Morphosyntactic alignment: | nominative-accusative |
Basic word order: | SOV (active voice)/VSX (passive voice) |
Credits | |
Creator: | Malcolm G. Holborne |
History
Dialects
Vrkhazhian is analyzed as having two major dialects:
- Uzirshaya is spoken in the south-west of Vrkhazh and named after the city from which it originated, ʾUzaĕra-Toma.
- Mukhebshaya is spoken in the north-east of Vrkhazh and named after the city Miḵba-Toma.
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. Phonemes in blue are found only in the Mukhebic dialect while phonemes in red are found only in the Uzerian dialect.
Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Central | Lateral | |||||||
Nasal | m [m] | n [n] | ṉ [ŋ] | ṉ [ɴ] | ||||
Stop | Voiceless | p [p] | t [t] | c [c] | k [k] | q [q] | ʾ [ʔ] | |
Ejective | ṗ [pʼ] | ṭ [tʼ] | ċ [cʼ] | ḳ [kʼ] | q̇ [qʼ] | |||
Voiced | b [b] | d [d] | j [ɟ] | g [g] | ||||
Fricative | Voiceless | f [ɸ~f] | s [s] | ś [ɬ] | š [ç] | ḵ [x] | ḥ [χ] | |
Voiced | v [β~v] | z [z] | l [ɮ] | ž [ʝ] | ḡ [ɣ] | |||
Liquid/Trill | r [r] | l [l] | y [j] | w [w] | h [ɦ] |
Vowels
Vrkhazhian possesses the following monophthongs:
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
Close | i [i] | u [u] | |
Mid | e [e̞] | ə [ə] | o [o̞] |
Open | a [a] |
Vrkhazhian also has four diphthongs, which are found only in Uzirian:
Front | Back | |
---|---|---|
Mid to mid | oẏ/oĕ [ɔe̯] | eẇ/eŏ [ɛo̯] |
Open to mid | aẏ/aĕ [æe̯] | aẇ/aŏ [ɑo̯] |
In Mukhebic, the diphthongs instead become the vowels ē [eː], ō [oː], ī [iː], and ū [uː].
Allophony
- The nasal consonants /m n ŋ/ undergo the process of neutralization where they are analyzed as [m] before labial consonants, [n] before alveolar consonants, [ɲ] before palatal consonants, and [ŋ] before velar consonants (including /w/).
- Consonants assimilate in voicing with adjacent consonants directly following them.
- The consonants /j w/ are analyzed as [ʝ β] before voiced consonants and [ç ɸ] before voiceless consonants.
- The consonant /h/ assimilates in place of articulation and voicing with adjacent fricatives directly before them.
Syllable Structure
The syllable structure of Vrkhazhian is analyzed as (C)CV(C)(C), where C stands for a consonant, V stands for a vowel, diphthong, or syllabic consonant. More specifically, words can only have consonant clusters of up to two adjacent consonants. This means the first syllable can have a maximal syllable of CCVC, medial syllables can have maximal syllables of CVC, and the last syllable can have a maximal syllable of CVCC.
Words cannot have a vowel hiatus, thus the epenthetic phonemes /j w h/ are inserted between two adjacent vowels. Additionally, since syllables must be preceded by a consonant, words that would have historically begun with a vowel have a glottal stop preceding them. However, the glottal stop has since been elided word-initially in most dialects.
Prosody
Stress in Vrkhazhian is right-leaning and based on syllable weight; stress is placed on the second-last (penultimate) syllable if the last syllable is open (ending in a vowel or diphthong) and placed on the last (ultimate) syllable if the syllable is closed (ending in a consonant). Stress also occurs in a iambic pattern, alternating between unstressed and stressed syllables.
Vrkhazhian exhibits sandhi over word boundaries, which often cause coalescence between word-final and word-initial vowels. The sandhi may also cause changes in the stress patterns of many words in a sentence, including making unstressed monosyllables stressed.
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 maḡimud (singular maḡimu). 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 C₁ṛC₂aC₃. Below is an example adjective derived from the verb s-ḡ-b (to decay, to rot):
Adjective (masc.) | Adjective (fem.) | |
---|---|---|
Singular | sṛḡab-i | sṛḡab-a |
Plural | sṛḡab-i-n | sṛḡab-a-n |
Roots where the last two consonants are the same take the form C₁aC₂C₁aC₃. Below is an example adjective derived from the verb d-n-n (to be heavy):
Adjective (masc.) | Adjective (fem.) | |
---|---|---|
Singular | dandan-i | dandan-a |
Plural | dandan-i-n | dandan-a-n |
Verbal morphology
- Main article: Verbs in Vrkhazhian
Vrkhazhian verbs are called madsiran (singular madsira). Because Vrkhazhian is a triconsonantal root language, the fundamental part of the verb form is the transfix, a discontinuous affix inserted between a root (which is collectively called masčiši and translated as "pattern"), though they primarily only convey the grammatical voices (active, passive, causative, and reflexive). There are five tenses (past, past progressive, present, present progressive, and future) and these are indicated by prefixes attached to the base form. There is only one aspect: the perfect, called saẕkera, which is indicated by reduplicating the entire verb. Additionally, there are also five moods (indicative, jussive, subjunctive, commissive, and propositive) and these are also indicated by prefix, placed closer to the base form than the tense prefixes. 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 d-s-r (to do, to perform, to execute, to act). 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 dasur because that is the active present singular form of the verb.
Pronouns
Personal Pronouns
In Vrkhazhian, there are 11 pronouns, each of which have their own forms for each of the five cases. In singular and plural, the 2nd and 3rd persons differentiate gender, while the 1st person does not. Instead, the 1st person plural pronouns are distinguished by clusivity: the inclusive 1st person plural includes the speaker and the addressee, while the exclusive 1st person plural excludes the addressee.
Nominative | Accusative | Genitive | Allative | Ablative | Instrumental | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Person | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |
1st | inclusive | ʾama "I" | yeš "we" | šadib | matib | šadik | matik | šadeš | mateš | šadat | matat | šadju | matju |
exclusive | ṉal "we" | ṉalib | ṉalak | ṉaleš | ṉalat | ṉalju | |||||||
2nd | masculine | ši/šeŏṉi "you" | šin/šeŏṉin "you" | šib/šeŏṉib | šinib/šeŏṉinib | šek/šeŏṉek | šinak/šeŏṉinak | šiyeš/šeŏṉiyeš | šineš/šeŏṉineš | šiyat/šeŏṉiyat | šinat/šeŏṉinat | šiju/šeŏṉiju | šinju/šeŏṉinju |
feminine | ša/šaŏṉa "you" | šan/šaŏṉan "you" | šeb/šaŏṉeb | šanib/šaŏṉanib | šak/šaŏṉak | šanak/šaŏṉanak | šaheš/šaŏṉaheš | šaneš/šaŏṉaneš | šahat/šaŏṉahat | šanat/šaŏṉanat | šaju/šaŏṉiju | šanju/šaŏṉinju | |
3rd | masculine | ḳi/ḳeŏṉi "you" | ḳin/ḳeŏṉin "you" | ḳib/ḳeŏṉib | ḳinib/ḳeŏṉinib | ḳek/ḳeŏṉek | ḳinak/ḳeŏṉinak | ḳiyeš/ḳeŏṉiyeš | ḳineš/ḳeŏṉineš | ḳiyat/ḳeŏṉiyat | ḳinat/ḳeŏṉinat | ḳiju/ḳeŏṉiju | ḳinju/ḳeŏṉinju |
feminine | ḳa/ḳaŏṉa "you" | ḳan/ḳaŏṉan "you" | ḳeb/ḳaŏṉeb | ḳanib/ḳaŏṉanib | ḳak/ḳaŏṉak | ḳanak/ḳaŏṉanak | ḳaheš/ḳaŏṉaheš | ḳaneš/ḳaŏṉaneš | ḳahat/ḳaŏṉahat | ḳanat/ḳaŏṉanat | ḳaju/ḳaŏṉiju | ḳanju/ḳaŏṉinju |
Demonstrative Pronouns
There are three kinds demonstrative pronouns for three kinds of deixis: proximal, medial, and distal. The proximal indicates an object near the speaker, the medial indicates an object near the addressee, and the distal indicates and object away from both the speaker and the addressee. Demonstrative pronouns always mark their referent as definite.
Number | Proximal | Medial | Distal |
---|---|---|---|
Masculine singular | ʾibi "this" | ʾani "that" | mayi "yonder" |
Masculine plural | ʾibmin "these" | ʾanmin "those" | maẏmin "yonder" |
Feminine singular | ʾiba | ʾana | maya |
Feminine plural | ʾibman | ʾanman | maẏman |
Interrogative Pronouns and Adverbs
Vrkhazhian possesses a complex set of interrrogative pronouns:
English | Vrkhazhian | English | Vrkhazhian |
---|---|---|---|
who? | ʾilma | which? | ʾilma hawa |
what? | maʾlima | which? | maʾlima hawa |
where? | ʾalmaya | at which place? | ʾalmaya hawa |
when? | ʾaŏra | at which time? | ʾaŏra hawa |
why? | paʾlumi | for which reason? | paʾlumi hawi |
how? | ʾalmawi | by which manner? | almawi hawi |
how many? | ʾumwati | which amount? | ʾumwati hawi |
Relative Pronouns
The declension of the relative pronouns are as follows:
Number | Nominative | Accusative | Genitive | Allative | Ablative |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Masculine singular | noki | lazi | safi | ṇkeši | ṇkati |
Masculine plural | nokmil | lalmin | safmin | nokimšin | nokimtin |
Feminine singular | noka | laza | safa | ṇkeša | ṇkata |
Feminine plural | nokman | lalman | safman | nokimšan | nokimtan |
The relative pronoun agrees in gender and number with its referent. Additionally it changes the word order of a relative clause to OSV if the referent is an object of a relative clause in the active voice. If the relative clause is in the passive voice then the word order is always changed to SVX.
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.
Numbers | Cardinal
(masc.) |
Cardinal
(fem.) |
Ordinal
(masc.) |
Ordinal
(fem.) |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | tibsi | tibsa | ʾayuni | ʾayuna |
2 | susri | susra | hessori | hessora |
3 | limni | limna | hermoni | hermona |
4 | zařzi | zařza | hezřozi | hezřoza |
5 | yurpi | yurpa | heylopi | heylopa |
6 | mastali | mastala | hemostali | hemostala |
7 | ʾařṭami | ʾařṭama | heřṭomi | heřṭoma |
8 | šervi | šerva | hešlovi | hešlova |
9 | zaḡgi | zaḡga | hezḡobi | hezḡoba |
X (10) | yaqmi | yaqma | heyqomi | heyqoma |
E (11) | ḵteli | ḵtela | heḵtoli | heḵtola |
10 (12) | seẕki | seẕka | hesẕoki | hesẕoka |
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 ṛ-Vakkam Vṛḵažaẇ, ʾIḥmeki ʾArašjuṉ, noki tutṗusa ḳak numḥuḥ. "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 |
---|---|---|---|
ṛ-Vakkam | emperor | nominative construct state | Apposition |
Vṛḵažaẇ | Vrkhazh | genitive feminine singular | |
ʾIḥmeki ʾArašjuṉ | Ihmeki Arashjung | masculine singular | Proper Noun (subject) |
noki | who | nominative masculine singular | Relative clause |
tutṗusa | people | accusative feminine singular | |
ḳak | his | third person genitive masculine singular | |
numḥuḥ | unite | 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:
- ʾEšoli ʾuldel ṛ-t-ʾeldan ʾuldam.
ʾEšoli | ṛ-ʾuldel | ṛ-t-ʾeldan | ʾuldam |
All-DET.MASC | soldier-NOM.MASC.PL | DEF=ACC-civilian-FEM.PL | guard\ACT.PRES-PL |
- "All of the soldiers guard the civilians."
vs. a passive sentence:
- Nikšemam ṛ-makšiman ṛ-maśkafan zwaHiqala.
Nikšemam | ṛ-makšiman | ṛ-maśkafan | zwaHiqala |
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:
|
|
|
|
Mukhebic-only letters
The table below lists the letters that are only found in Mukhebic Vrkhazhian:
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.
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] |
Letter | Name | Phoneme |
---|---|---|
Yava Ṛwada | ẏ [e̯] | |
Wadi Ṛwadi | ẇ [o̯] |
Numerals
Numeral | Number | Name |
---|---|---|
0 | Šemta ("none") | |
1 | Tibsa | |
2 | Susra | |
3 | Limna | |
4 | Zařza | |
5 | Yurpa | |
6 | Mastala | |
7 | ʾAřṭama | |
8 | Šerva | |
9 | Zaḡga | |
10/X | Yaqma | |
11/E | Ḵtela |