Agisian language
Agisian | |
---|---|
Agiṣiv | |
Pronunciation | [ɔːˈkɛɪ̯θˤʏf] |
Native to | Agisia |
Ethnicity | Agisian people |
Native speakers | X |
Ashno-Verethian
| |
Early forms | Old High Hashdezi
|
Verethian common alphabet | |
Official status | |
Official language in | Agisia |
Recognised minority language in |
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
Middle Agisian
Modern Agisian
Geographic distribution
Etzsavaz
Agisian diaspora
Varieties
Current status and importance
Phonology
Consonants
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.
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:] |
Writing system
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.
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, -nnyk.