Zefāzh

Zefāzh is a language developped in the early-mid twenty-first century, spoken at first primarily by devoted followers of the World-Maker Zef; within a decade, it had become the lingua franca for those from all over the world immigrating to Zefasja, a nation founded on a partially esoteric philosophical movement referred to varyingly as "Zefism," "Poetic Imperialism" or "Trinitism."

Vocabulary

The first occurence of the Zefāzh language was the Endese Zauka ("The Last Days"), a text reportedly written by Zef after he emerged from a coma of several months. While Zef himself understood the language, it was months before it was analysed by linguists with his help, and when the major analysis was complete, the vocabulary of the language was broken down into its origins.

The largest group of words appear to be generic Germanic derivatives, though no pattern for derivation has been detected; German plays the largest role, but germanic English words also appear, and often words show up which are halfway between their German and English cognates; this might be explained by the fact that Zef himself spoke only English and German with great fluency. The second largest group of nouns appear to have little or no relation to natural languages, and their origins are for the most part a mystery.

A smaller group of nouns is derived from Russian, potentially due to the relatively large presence of Russians in the Exile in the last year before Zef's coma. A few of the nouns are also from other Slavic languages, or appear to be Slavic without any particular link to any known words. Many of these Slavic words are less recognizable than the germanic terms, because Slavic words with complexe consonant clusters are extremely watered-down, to the point where some completely lose half their consonants.

Finally, there are a handful of words derived from Mandarin Chinese (Yishū, art; zhintī, today; etc.), and an extremely small number of terms (the most often cited figure is seven words) are derived from Ancient Greek, or their modern international derivatives. The most well-known of these is Xeishon, meaning "harmonic chaos" and derived from the word chaos, itself of Greek origin.

Phonology

Consonants

Consonants
	Bilabial		Labiod.		Dental		Alveolar		Postalveolar		Palatal		Velar		Uvular		Coarticulated
Nasal		m						n						ŋ
Plosive	p	b					t	d					k	g
Fricative			f	v	θ	ð	s	z	ʃ	ʒ	ç	ʝ			χ		ɕ	ʑ
Approximant												j
Tap								ɾ
Trill								r							ʀ
Lateral Approximant							l	ɫ

Vowels

Vowels
	Front	Near-front	Near-back	Back
Close	i			u
Near-Close		ɪ	ʊ
Close-Mid	e			o
Open-mid	ɛ			ɔ
Open	a			ɑ

Romanization

The various phonemes are represented with the Latin Alphabet as they are in English, with the following additions/exceptions:

/θ/ - th

/ð/ - dh

/ʃ/ - sh

/ʒ/ - zh

/ç/ - c

/ʝ/ - j

/χ/ - x

/ɕ/ - ś, or sj

/ʑ/ - ź, or zj

/ɾ/ - r

/r/ - rr

/ʀ/ - rh

/l/ - l

/ɫ/ - ll

/ɪ/ - i

/i/ - ī, or ii

/ɛ/ - e

/e/ - ē, or ee

/a/ - a

/ɑ/ - ā, or aa

/ɔ/ - o

/o/ - ō, or oo

/ʊ/ - u

/u/ - ū, or uu

The following diphthongs may be found, and are written thus:

/aj/ - ai

/ɛj/ - ei

/ɔj/ - oi

/ʊj/ - ui

/aw/ - au

/ɔj/ - ou

Syllable Structure

Zefāzh has a rather restrictive syllable structure, where the most complicated possibility is CCVC. While any consonant can form the onset and coda in a (C)V(C) syllable, only the following clusters are permitted at syllable onsets:

/f, v, θ, ð, s, z, ʃ, ʒ, ç, ʝ/ + /n, m, ŋ/

Any plosive or fricative + /ɾ, l, ɫ, j/

Mutation

In addition, when certain phonemes meet up at syllable boundaries (such as with affixes, inflection or conjugation), certain mutations may occur. The following mutations occur during inflection of nouns and adjectives:

Dative Case

/ɾr/ - /r/

/ʀr/ - /ʀ/

/χr/ - /ʀ/

/θr/ - /θɾ/

/ðr/ - /ðɾ/

Genitive Case

/zs/ - /s/

/ʃs/ - /ɕ/

/ʒs/ - /ʑ/

/ɕs/ - /θ/

/ʑs/ - /ð/

Instrumental Case

/ʒʃ/ - /ʃ/

/ɕʃ/ - /ʃ/

/ʑʃ/ - /ʒ/