Agisian language

Agisian
Agiṣiv
Pronunciation	[ɔːˈkɛɪ̯θˤʏf]
Native to	Agisia
Ethnicity	Agisian people
Native speakers	X
Language family	Ashno-Verethian Verethian Western Verethian Agisian
Early forms	Old High Hashdezi Middle Agisian
Writing system	Verethian common alphabet
Official status
Official language in	Agisia
Recognised minority language in	List Hashdezi Empire Oldirian Union

Agisian (Agiṣiv [ɔːˈkɛɪ̯θˤʏf]) is a Western Verethian language. It descended from Old High Hashdezi, which was the official language of the Hashdezi Empire. Its closest relative is Hashdezi, with which it shares many similarities. Until the independence of Agisia in 4598 CY, it was only recognised by the Hashdezi government as a dialect of the Hashdezi language as opposed to a distinct language. To this day, most Agisian speakers also have some degree of proficiency in Hashdezi.

History

Old High Hashdezi

Main article: Old High Hashdezi language

Phonology

Consonants

Consonant phonemes in Agisian

		Labial	Alveolar/ Dental		Retroflex	Palatal	Velar/ Uvular	Glottal
			plain	pharyn.
Nasal		m	n
Stop	Lenis	p	t	tˤ		c	k
	Fortis	pʰ	tʰ				kʰ
Fricative	voiceless	f	s	θˤ	ʂ	ç	χ	h
	voiced	v		ðˤ	ʐ			ʁ
Affricate			(t͡ɬ)
Approximant			l

Consonants in Agisian undergo several allophonic shifts which results in the orthography being somewhat fossilised. The dorsal consonants /c χ/ palatalise to [ç] around the front vowels æ e i y. The lateral /l/ becomes an affricate [t͡ɬ] after vowels, unless it is followed by another vowel. Old clusters and geminate consonants also underwent sound changes: Middle Agisian /n:/ has shifted to a pre-stopped nasal cluster [tn̥], while stop clusters have dropped the second consonant, e.g. sædb [sat], cigd [çʏk]. The dental fricatives /ð θ/ shifted to [v h] and are even dropped in word-final position.

Vowels

Vowels in Agisian follow a long-short distinction depending on the openness of the syllable. If the vowel has no consonant coda, the syllable is considered open and the vowel will be long, unless word-finally in polysyllabic words. Otherwise, the syllable will be considered closed and the vowel will be short. Long and short vowels have undergone sound shifts and thus drifted from each other, making long-short pairs harder to associate.

Vowel phonemes in Agisian

	Short		Long
a	[ɛ]	xas	[ɔ:]	jatyr
æ	[a]	gæsneg	[e:]	fæty
i	[ʏ]	vid	[ɛɪ]	igæś
u		kuś	[œʏ]	ku
e	[ɪ]	ðej	[i:]	ẓekaj
y		dennyr	[ø:]	c̣yvig
o	[ʊ]	þov	[u:]	hopø
ø	[ʌ]	ðæzgøv	[y:]	jøregy

Morphology

Verbs

Much like most other Verethian languages, Agisian's verbs feature polypersonal agreement in transitive verbs, while intransitive verbs make no person distinction. For transitive verbs, the subject is marked as a prefix while the object is marked as a suffix.

Personal affixes in transitive verbs

Person	Subject	Object
1SG	unmarked	-id
2SG	i-	-is
3SG	zi-	-ej
1PL	ga-	-ek
2PL	je-	-ug -yg
3PL	jæ-	-ez

The past tense is marked with -(y)f- infixed between the verb stem and object suffix, e.g. tevis "[I] see [you]" → tevyfis "[I] saw [you]". For intransitive verbs, it is marked with -afy, e.g. pet "know" → petafy "knew".

Nouns

Agisian nouns decline according to four cases: nominative, accusative, dative and genitive. As opposed to the other Verethian languages, Agisian does not distinguish definite and indefinite nouns, therefore making the animacy distinction irrelevant. The case suffixes are the following:

• Nominative is unmarked.
• Accusative is marked with -v, with an epenthetic y inserted after consonants.
• Dative is marked with -c, with an epenthetic y inserted after consonants.
• Genitive is marked with -k, with an epenthetic y inserted after stops.

The plural is formed by adding -nny before the case suffixes: -nny, -nnyv, -nnyc, -nnk.