Nawuhu

Nawuhu
na’a wúhu
Flag of the Wuhu Autonomous Zone
Pronunciation	[na.a ˈwu.ɦu]
Created by	Jukethatbox
Date	2024
Native to	Wuhu Island
Ethnicity	Wuhu people
Native speakers	90 (2024)
Language family	language isolate Nawuhu
Writing system	Latin
Official status
Regulated by	Wuhu Autonomous Zone
Development body	Wuhu Island Community Discord

Nawuhu(na'a wúhu, Nawuhu: [na.a ˈwu.ɦu]), also called Wuhu or Nauhu is a language isolate that was once predominantly spoken by the inhabitants of Wuhu Island(wúhu, aijé wúhu [aiˌʑe ˈwu.ɦu]). It was spoken primarily by the civilisation that probably encompassed the entire island, the ruins of which can be seen on the southern half of the island. Today, it is only spoken by around 90 native speakers, most elderly.

Phonology

Orthography

Nawuhu is written in a form of the Latin script. There is one diacritic: the acute accent, ⟨◌́⟩, which signifies where stress is placed in a word.

Majuscule	A	B	C	K	D	E	G	H	I	J	L	Ł	M	N	O	P	S	T	U	V	W	Y	Z
Minuscule	a	b	c	k	d	e	g	h	i	j	l	ł	m	n	o	p	s	t	u	v	w	y	z
IPA	a	b	ɕ	k	d	e	g	h	i	ʑ	l	ʎ	m	n	o	p	s	t	u	ʉ	w	j	z
			ç			ɘ̯		ɦ												ɘ̯

Note that ⟨Vv⟩ is a vowel, representing the sound /ʉ/, as well as the sound /ɘ̯/ in intervocalic, non-syllabic positions.

Variations

The romanisation shown above is the Mark Mii romanisation system, which was developed following the Second World War by Mark Mii, who later became president of Wuhu Island, famously meeting with Richard Nixon at the 1972 Delfino Conference.

Consonants

	Bilabial	Alveolar	Alveolo- palatal	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	p b	t d			k g
Nasal	m	n		ɲ	ŋ
Fricative		s z	ɕ ʑ	(ç)		h~ɦ
Semivowel	w			j
Lateral		l		ʎ

/h/ and /ɦ/ are interchangeable, but most speakers only pronounced /ɦ/ in intervocalic positions(between vowels), hence the /ɦ/ in wúhu.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i	ʉ	u
Close-mid	e	(ɘ̯)	o
Front		a

/ɘ/ is an unstressed intervocalic allohpone of /e/ and /ʉ/, e.g. íean, "one", pronounced [ˈiɘ̯an].

Morphology

Nouns

Number

Nawuhu has five categories of grammatical number: singular, dual, paucal, greater paucal and plural. If there is not sufficient context, all nouns in a phrase have to be marked with suffixes denoting their number, including if the noun is singular. If a word ending in -a must be denoted as singular, the suffix -’a is placed instead.

Adjectives do not have to agree with nouns, though verbs do. Agreeing verbs have their own suffixes to indicate number, please see the Verbs section for more information.

Base suffixes for nouns

Singular	Dual	Paucal	Greater Paucal	Plural
-a	-an	-avn	-avne	-nóa

Pronouns

Personal

	Singular	Dual	Paucal	Greater Paucal	Plural
First	ja	jan	jv'vn	jvlván	ja'aon
Second	ádo	ádon	yuín	ná'ayun	neíyo
Third	ain	aina	avni	avnin	enawe

There are no gendered third person pronouns in Nawuhu, though some older translations of excavated texts translated the third person pronoun as "he". Today, most translators translate the ain pronoun as "they".

Demonstrative

Demonstrative pronouns are placed after the noun, and have to agree with the grammatical number of the noun.

	Singular	Dual	Paucal	Greater Paucal	Plural
Proximal	pa	pi’i	piwa	bevan	ni’imu
Speaker-Medial	co	coi	nvna	nvna‘a	a’anca
Addressee-Medial	jv	jv’v	mvna	mvna‘a	a’anja
Distal	nis	eonis	zola	zeóya	miła’a