Aksish

Aksish (/ˈæ.ksɪʃ/ A-ksish, also /ˈæk.sɪʃ/ AK-sish is a West Slavic language mainly descended from Polish, with strong influence of Russian and weaker influence of Aksish languages. It is spoken by Aksians in Sleepy Aks.

Aksish
Аксөй/Aksój
Pronunciation	[ˈäksɤj]
Created by	SleepyAks
Date	????
Setting	Alternative history, Sleepy Aks
Native to	Sleepy Aks
Ethnicity	Aksians
Native speakers	22,000,000 (2021)
Language family	Indo-European Balto-Slavic Slavic West Slavic Lechitic Polish Aksish
Writing systems	Cyrillic Latin
Official status
Regulated by	Aksish Language Council (Справа Аксөйго Ӗзӱка/Sprava Aksójgo Jęzųka)

History

Aksish is a result of prolonged Soviet occupation. Most probably it first was created as a code. Aksians decided to rely on Polish to blend in better (Polish was and still is a language widely used across the entire country), but coined their own words for strategically important terms ("надсаве̄ц/nadsavjec" - (military) victory, literally "above Soviets") and for terms fundamentally altered by the newly introduced to Sleepy Aks communism ("њимой/ńimoj" - property, literally "not mine"). These words after the war slowly lost their negative connotation and displaced Polish-derived words, altering their meaning or voiding them completely. Aksians soon saw the newly-created language as a way to stay not understood by anyone - it was similar enough to Polish, that Aksish could be learnt and taught rather easily, yet different enough, that the two are mutually unitelligible to a significant degree. Aksians brought in to Aksish a few vowels of Old Aksish origin and started adding words on a mass scale (mostly taking them from Polish and Russian for unclear reasons). This resulted in the language being a completely unstandardized mess. In the spite of that Aksish was continuing to develop and crystalise, it became a language in its own right somewhere in 1970 or 1971.

Phonology

Main article: Aksish phonology

Aksish has an abnormally high for Slavic languages number of vowels (12) and slightly more consonants than other Slavic languages (34). It additionally has a complex system of allophony, with full series of post-alveorals/retroflexes and alveolo-palatals.

Consonants

			Labial				Coronal					Dorsal						Laryngeal
			Bilabial		Labiodental		Alveoral		Post-Alveoral/Retroflex		Alv.-pal.		Palatal	Velar		Uvular
Nasal				m				n					ɲ
Plosive			p	b			t	d						k	ɡ	q	ɢ
Affricate							t͡s	d͡z	t͡ʂ	d͡ʐ	t͡ɕ	d͡ʑ				q͡χ˖
Fricative					f	v	s	z	ʂ	ʐ	ɕ	ʑ		x		χ ~ ħ ~ ʜ ~ h			ʕ
Approximant													j		w
Trill/Flap								r ~ ɾ
Lateral								l							ɫ~ʟ

Vowels

	Front		Central		Back
Close	i	(y)		ʉ		u, ũ
Near-close			ᵻ
Close-mid	e			ɵ, ɵ̃	ɤ
Mid			ɜ~ə
Open-mid	ɛ, ɛ̃					ɔ, ɔ̃
Open	a~ä				ɑ, ɑ̃

All vowels except for ɑ̃, ɵ̃ and ũ can be iotated.

Allophony

Aksish has an extensive system of consonant allophony, with full post-alveoral/retroflex, alveolo-palatal, post-palatal and uvular series. The table below shows allophonical variations of all consonants in all possible contexts:

Letter	Normal/other context	Palatal context		Uvular/phar. context
		Before iotated vowels	Before other palatals
б/b	b	bʲ	b
ц/c	t͡s	t͡sʲ	t͡s
ҵ/dz	d͡z	d͡zʲ	d͡z
џ/č	t͡ʂ ~ t͡ʃ	t͡ʂʲ ~ t͡ɕ	t͡ʂ ~ t͡ʃ
ҹ/dž	d͡ʐ~d͡ʒ	d͡ʐʲ~d͡ʑ	d͡ʐ~d͡ʒ
ч/ć	t͡ɕ	-	t͡ɕ
ҷ/dź	d͡ʑ	-	d͡ʑ
д/d	d	ȡ	d̠ ~ ɖ	d
ф/f	f	fʲ	f
г/g	ɡ	ɟ˗ʲ	ɟ˗	g˗ ~ ɢ̟
ѓ/ǵ	ɢ	ɢ͢ɟ˗ʲ	ɢ͢ɟ˗	-
ґ/ğ	ʕ	ʕɒj	ʕɒ	-
х/x	x	ç˗ʲ	ç˗	x̠ ~ χ˖
һ/h	χ ~ ħ ~ ʜ ~ h	χ͢ç˗ʲ ~ ħɒj ~ ʜɒj ~ hɒj	χ͢ç˗~ ħɒ ~ ʜɒ ~ hɒ	-
ћ/ħ	q͡χ˖	q͡χ˖͢c͡ç˗ʲ	q͡χ˖͢c͡ç˗	-
й/j	j	-	j (_ɲ), j˖ (_[+alveolo-palatal])	j
к/k	k	c̠ʲ	c̠	k̠ ~ q˖
ќ/ḱ/q	q	q͢ç˗ʲ	q͢ç˗	-
л/l	l	ȴ	l̠ ~ ɭ
љ/ĺ/ľ	ɫ ~ ʟ	ʎ̠ʲ	ʎ̠	lʶ ~ ʟ̠
ԯ/ł	w	ẅʲ	ẅ	w̠ ~ χ˕˖ʷ
м/m	m, ɱ (_[+labiodental])	mʲ	m
н/n	n, ɱ (_[+labiodental]), ŋ (_[+velar])	-		ɴ
њ/ń	ɲ		ȵ	ɲ
п/p	p	pʲ	p
р/r	r ~ ɾ	r̠ʲ ~ ɟ̆˖	r̠ ~ ɾ̠ ~ ɽ ~ ɽr	r ~ ɾ
с/s	s	sʲ	s
ш/š	ʂ ~ ʃ	ʂʲ ~ ɕ	ʂ ~ ʃ
ҫ/ś	ɕ	-	ɕ
т/t	t	ȶ	t̠	t
в/v	v	vʲ	v
з/z	z	zʲ	z
ж/ž	ʐ ~ ʒ	ʐʲ ~ ʑ	ʐ ~ ʒ
ҙ/ź	ʑ	-	ʑ

Orthography

Aksish uses two different scripts interchangeably - Latin and Cyrillic. While in the past 55 years Cyrillic has been consistently more used, Latin script is used more and more every year. Even in the earliest years of existence of Aksish some people wanted to use Latin script instead of Cyrillic, because Cyrillic script reminded them of Russians and their occupation of Sleepy Aks. Thus, in 1981 Latin was recognised as a valid script for writing in Aksish and now all documents have to be released written both in Latin and Cyrillic scripts. Currently, Aksish is starting to drift away from Cyrillic for a number of reasons, such as the Russo-Ukrainian war and an overall bad opinion on Russians and their culture (and so, by extension, their alphabet) as a whole. Latin Aksish alphabet differs quite heavily from Aksish Cyrillic alphabet, mainly with the number of letters (Latin has 48 while Cyrillic has 65), but also with the qlphabet order. Below is a table summarizing every Cyrillic character, each with a corresponding Latin character or digraph and precisely transcribed (i.e. put in square brackets) pronounciation.

Cyrillic	Latin	Pronounciation
а	a	a ~ ä
ӑ	ă	ɑ ~ ʌ̞
ӓ	ą	ɑ̃ ~ ʌ̞̃
ѩ/ꙗ	ja	ʲa ~ ʲä
ѭ/ꙗ̆	jă	ʲɑ ~ ʲʌ̞
б	b	b
ц	c	t͡s
ҵ	dz	d͡z
џ	č	t͡ʃ ~ t͡ʂ
ҹ	dž	d͡ʒ ~ d͡ʐ
ч	ć	t͡ɕ
ҷ	dž	d͡ʑ
д	d	d
е	e	ɛ
ё	ę	ɛ̃
е̄	je	ʲɛ
ӗ	ję	ʲɛ̃
є	é	e
ѥ	jé	ʲe
э	è	ɜ ~ ə
э̄	jè	ʲɜ ~ ʲə
ф	f	f
г	g	ɡ
ѓ	ǵ	ɢ
ґ	ğ	ʕ
х	x	x
һ	h	χ ~ ħ ~ ʜ ~ h
ћ	ħ	q͡χ˖
и	i	i
ӣ	ji	ʲi
й	j	j
к	k	k
ќ	ḱ/q	q
л	l	l
љ	ĺ/ľ	ɫ ~ ʟ
ԯ	ł	w
м	m	m
н	n	n
њ	ń	ɲ
о	o	ɔ
ӧ	ǫ	ɔ̃
ю	jo	ʲɔ
ю̈	jǫ	ʲɔ̃
ө	ó	ɤ
ө̄	jó	ʲɤ
п	p	p
р	r	r ~ ɾ
с	s	s
ш	š	ʂ ~ ʃ
ҫ	ś	ɕ
т	t	t
у	u	u
ӱ	ų	ũ
ӯ	ju	ʲu
ү	ú	ɵ
ү̈	ų́	ɵ̃
ү̄	jú	ʲɵ
ұ	ù	ʉ
ұ̄	jù	ʲʉ
(у́)	ý	y
(ў)	jý	ʲy
в	v	v
ы	y	ᵻ
ы̄	jy	ʲᵻ
з	z	z
ж	ž	ʐ ~ ʒ
ҙ	ź	ʑ

Grammar

Main article: Aksish grammar

Aksish is a highly fusional, pro-drop language. It makes extensive use of both declensional and lexical affixes (with declensional being mostly suffixes and lexical nearly exclusively prefixes).

Nouns declense for 2 number and 9 cases. While both numbers and 7 of the 9 cases were inherited from Slavic languages, ablative and allative cases come from Old Aksish and work based on Old Aksish' principles, making them seem completely unpredictable, especially when the word root ends in a vowel.

Verbs differentiate between imperfective and perfective aspects, with either of them always being an inalienable property of a verb. Verbs also conjugate for 5 moods, 4 tenses, 2 numbers, 3 persons and 5 genders. Aside pluperfect tense, whcich was inherited from Old Aksish (Polish does have pluperfect tense, but it is and was at the time of Aksish' forming already largely archaic), and optative and precative moods, which split from Polish' subjunctive mood, all forms have been inherited from Slavic languages (with most coming from Polish). Additionally, Aksish verbs have a complex system of gerunds and participles inherited from Polish.

Adjectives fully agree with nouns they describe, but additionally declense for gender. Adjectives (and adjective-derived adverbs) also have three degrees of comparativity.