Vrkhazhian

Vrkhazhian (Šat Vərḵažaw) 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 Vərḵažaw, Šada Vərḵažšəya
Pronounced:	/ˈçat βərxaˈʝau̯/, /ˈçada βərxaçˈçəja/
Spoken:	Vrkhazh (Vərḵaža)
Writing system:	ʾAḵvahi Vərḵažšəyi
Genealogy:	Haxyakian Languages Haxyakian Himoshian Old Takshian West Takshian Classical Vrkhazhian Modern Vrkhazhian
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, ʾUzayra-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.

Vrkhazhian Consonantal Phonemes
		Bilabial	Alveolar		Palatal	Velar	Glottal
		Bilabial	Central	Lateral	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m [m]	n [n]			ñ [ŋ]
Stop	Voiceless	p [p]	t [t]		c [c]	k [k]	ʾ [ʔ]
	Ejective	ṗ [pʼ]	ṭ [tʼ]		ċ [cʼ]	ḳ [kʼ]
	Voiced	b [b]	d [d]		j [ɟ]	g [g]
Fricative	Voiceless	f [ɸ~f]	s [s]	ś [ɬ]	š [ç]	x [x]
	Ejective		ṣ [sʼ]	ṣ́ [ɬʼ]	ṣ̌ [çʼ]	x̣ [xʼ]
	Voiced	v [β~v]	z [z]	l [ɮ]	ž [ʝ]	ǧ [ɣ]
Liquid/Trill			r [r]	l [l]	y [j]	w [w]	h [ʕ~ɦ]

The sonorants /r n/ also have syllabic counterparts /r̩ n̩/, which are romanized as ⟨ṛ ṇ⟩.

Vowels

Vrkhazhian possesses the following monophthongs:

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i [i]		u [u]
Mid	e [e̞]	ə [ə]	o [o̞]
Open	a [a~ɑ]

Vrkhazhian also has two diphthongs, which are found only in Uzerian:

	Front	Back
Open to high	ay [ai̯]	aw [au̯]

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] when geminated as well as 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 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 C₁ərC₂aC₃. Below is an example adjective derived from the verb s-ǧ-l (to be old):

"Old"
	Adjective (masc.)	Adjective (fem.)
Singular	sərǧal-i	sərǧal-a
Plural	sərǧal-i-n	sərǧal-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):

"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

Indicative Pronouns

In Vrkhazhian, there are 19 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.

Personal Pronouns - Indicative
		Nominative		Accusative		Genitive		Allative		Ablative		Instrumental
Person		Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
1st	inclusive	ʾama	yəv	šadib	yəvib	šadik	yəvik	šadeš	yəveš	yəvat	matat	šaduḵ	yəvuḵ
1st	exclusive	ʾama	ṉal	šadib	ṉalib	šadik	ṉalak	šadeš	ṉaleš	yəvat	ṉalat	šaduḵ	ṉaluḵ
2nd	masculine	ši	šin	šib	šinib	šek	šinak	šiyeš	šineš	šiyat	šinat	šiyuḵ	šinuḵ
2nd	feminine	ša	šan	šeb	šanib	šak	šanak	šaheš	šaneš	šahat	šanat	šahuḵ	šanuḵ
2nd	masculine	ḳi	ḳin	ḳib	ḳinib	ḳek	ḳinak	ḳiyeš	ḳineš	ḳiyat	ḳinat	ḳiyuḵ	ḳinuḵ
2nd	feminine	ḳa	ḳan	ḳeb	ḳanib	ḳak	ḳanak	ḳaheš	ḳaneš	ḳahat	ḳanat	ḳahuḵ	ḳanuḵ

Modal Pronouns

Personal Pronouns - Modal
		Directive		Subjunctive		Commissive
Person		Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
1st	inclusive	ʾamuṉu	yəvuṉu	ʾamaśi	yəvaśi	ʾammər	yəvvər
1st	exclusive	ʾamuṉu	ñaluñu	ʾamaśi	ñalaśi	ʾammər	ñallər
2nd	masculine	šuñwi	šuñwin	šaśeyi	šaśeyin	ššəri	ššərin
2nd	feminine	šuñwa	šuñwan	šaśeya	šaśeyan	ššəra	ššəran
3rd	masculine	ḳuñwi	ḳuñwin	ḳaśeyi	ḳaśeyin	ḳḳəri	ḳḳərin
3rd	feminine	ḳuñwa	ḳuñwan	ḳaśeya	ḳaśeyan	ḳḳəra	ḳḳəran

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"	maymin "yonder"
Feminine singular	ʾiba	ʾana	maya
Feminine plural	ʾibman	ʾanman	mayman

Interrogative Pronouns and Adverbs

Vrkhazhian possesses a complex set of interrrogative pronouns:

Interrogative Pronouns
English	Vrkhazhian	English	Vrkhazhian
who?	ʾilma	which?/like who?	ʾalwam bi
what?	maʾlima	which?/like what?	maʾlim bi
how many?	hawa	which?/like how many?	haw bi

Interrogative Proadverbs
English	Vrkhazhian
where?	ʾalmay bar
when?	maʾlim saḡaw bar
why?	ʾina maʾlim žanay bar
how?	ʾina maʾlim dasraway ha

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.

Numerals
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 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	Apposition
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]

Mukhebic-only 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.