Dhimze language

Dhimze
Jmidzi
Pronunciation	[ˈd͡ʒmid͡zi]
Native to	Dhimrai
Ethnicity	Dhimze people
Native speakers	X
Language family	Yasgan Dhimzic Berisic Dhimze
Early forms	Common Dhimze Classical Dhimze Imperial Dhimze
Writing system	Yasgan alphabet
Official status
Official language in	List Dhimrai New Dhimrai Dhimrai colonies
Recognised minority language in	List Gharzere Giidirtschizmii Dwichmii Niichstschüzrii
Areas where Dhimze is the majority language   Areas where Dhimze is a minority language

Dhimze (jmidzi [ˈd͡ʒmid͡zi]) is a Dhimzic language of the Yasgan family. It descended from Common Dhimze, which was the lingua franca of the ancient Dhimze civilisation. Most of its closest relatives from the Dhimzic family are now long extinct, with the exception of Gharzi, which also descended from Common Dhimze. Throughout its history, Dhimze has been a prestige language in Yazland and other regions, but its use as a scientific and artistic language has faded out since the end of the Copper War.

An attempt to preserve Dhimze has been made in Neo-Dhimze, a revival attempt of Common Dhimze with modernised pronounciation. Neo-Dhimze was primarily for use by the nobility and was later adopted by conservative writers and journalists. In 4550 CY, roughly 19% of the population claimed to have some understanding of Neo-Dhimze, and by 4610 CY only about 4% claim to speak it to some degree.

Dhimze is spoken across the Dhimze colonial empire, which spans several continents from Huo to Ashnan. In Dhimze proper, approximately 83% of the population speaks Dhimze as their first language, and in total 94% claim to be fluent. In New Dhimze, approximately 42% of the population speaks Dhimze as their first language, and in total 51% consider themselves fluent.

Varieties

• Modern Standard Dhimze
• Southern Dhimze
  • Cernzishdzi Dhimze
• Ashnan Dhimze
• Etzavazi Dhimze
• Islander Dhimze
• Huo Dhimze
  • Dhimze creoles

Phonology

Consonant phonemes in Dhimze

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal/ Postalveolar	Velar	Uvular
Nasal		m	n
Stop	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ		kʰ	qʰ
	voiced	b	d		ɡ
Fricative	voiceless	f	s	ʃ	x
	voiced	v	z		ɣ
Affricate	voiceless		t͡s	t͡ʃ		(q͡χ)
	voiced		d͡z	d͡ʒ
Liquid	approximant		l
	rhotic		r			ʀ̝̊

Vowel phonemes in Dhimze

	Front	Back
Close	i	u
Mid	e	o
Open	a

Morphology

Verbs

Dhimze verbs follow an agglutinative structure, starting from a verb stem and adding on affixes depending on tense, person, number, mood, voice and deixis. The pattern of affixes is the following: deixis-person-stem-voice-mood-tense-number. Most of the affixes do not feature vowels, and an epenthetic i is usually added to break up clusters as well as at the end.

• Verbal deixis has three levels of distinction:
  • stative, for stationary actions, is unmarked.
  • venitive, for incoming actions, is prefixed with m-.
  • andative, for outgoing actions, is prefixed with k-.
• There are three grammatical persons:
  • the first person is marked with -v-.
  • the second person is marked with -gh-.
  • the third person is marked with -m-, which becomes -n- if any of the surrounding consonants are labial.
• There are only two degrees of grammatical voice: active (unmarked) and passive (marked with -r-).
• There are three grammatical moods:
  • indicative is unmarked.
  • irrealis, for actions not known or certain to happen, events that are hoped or expected, or events that are assumed, is marked with -ṙ-.
  • conditional, for actions that depend on another condition, is marked with -sh-.
• There are four tenses, which correspond to certain tense-aspect combinations:
  • the present tense is marked with -kh-.
  • the imperfect tense, for ongoing actions in the past, is unmarked.
  • the preterite tense, for single punctual actions in the past, is marked with -v-.
  • the future tense is marked with -t-.
• Finally, the plural is marked with -m-, which becomes -n- if any of the surrounding consonants are labial.

All of these affixes combine into an extensive conjugation system, with complex forms such as mghrvnrshvin "[You] could have come to be spoken", from the stem -rvn- "to speak".

Nouns

Dhimze nouns decline according to three grammatical classes (animate, neuter and inanimate) and six cases (nominative, direct, oblique, genitive, locative, vocative).

Examples

	deli "daughter" (an.)	jadzin "voice" (n.)	tovsi "rake" (inan.)
Nominative	deli	jadzin	tovsi
Direct	delin	jadzim	n/a
Oblique	n/a	jadzai	tovri
Genitive	delikhs	jadzikhs	tovks
Locative	delkh	jadzt	tovki
Vocative	deli	jadzi	tovia

Dhimze uses differential object marking in its nouns depending on their animacy class and definiteness.

• Animate nouns are always marked with the direct case.
• Inanimate nouns are always marked with the oblique case.
• Neuter nouns are marked differently depending on their definiteness:
  • Definite neuter nouns are marked with the direct case.
  • Indefinite neuter nouns are marked with the oblique case.

Plurals in Dhimze are highly irregular, being inherited directly from Proto-Yasgan's pluralisation system, the pattern of which has since been lost. The various plural endings that can be found are the following:

Plural endings

	Example
-si	qaṙ → qaṙsi
-gi	kni → kingi
-mi	ghari → gharmi
-a	jvzirin → jvzira
-ia	tovsi → tovia
-ai	ṙeqiin → ṙeqiai
-e	teta → tete

However, some nouns also have consonantal changes due to irregularities, e.g. dzi "language" → dzisha "languages", vdi "fish" (sg.) → vsia "fish" (pl.).

Pronouns

Pronouns in Dhimze are distinguished based on person, number and, in the third person, animacy. Additionally, the reflexive pronouns are formed by adding the suffix -sva "like, as" for the first and second person or the word smtusi "body" for the third person.

Pronouns in Dhimze

	1st person		2nd person		3rd person
	SG	PL	SG	PL	SG	PL
Nominative	eqi	dzai	bi	e	idi (an.) ini (n.) dzi (inan.)	inai
Direct	ti	dini	jvalni	eni	imi (an., n.) dzi (inan.)	imia
Genitive	tmi		jvmi	emi	nikhsi (an., n.) diksi (inan.)	nikhsia
Reflexive	eqsva	dzaisva	bisva	esva	idi smtusi (an.) ini smtusi (n.) dzi smtusi (inan.)	inai smtusi