Nawuhu
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Nawuhu | |
---|---|
na’a wúhu | |
![]() Flag of the Wuhu Autonomous Zone | |
Pronunciation | [na.a ˈwu.ɦu] |
Created by | Jukethatbox |
Date | 2024 |
Setting | Wii Sports Resort |
Native to | Wuhu Island |
Ethnicity | Wuhu people |
Native speakers | 90 (2024) |
language isolate
| |
Early form | |
Official status | |
Regulated by | Wuhu Autonomous Zone |
Development body | Wuhu Island Community Discord |
Nawuhu is classified as Definitely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger.[1] | |
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.[2] Today, it is only spoken by around 90 native speakers, and Ethnologue marks Nawuhu as a definitely endangered language.
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.
An apostrophe marks syllable separation between identical vowels. Thus, /ae/ would be written ⟨ae⟩, but /a.a/ would be written ⟨a’a⟩. The apostrophe is written in a specific form: ⟨’⟩, instead of the more common ⟨'⟩, though in the original specifications of the Mark Mii system, the more common form of the apostrophe was described as being interchangeable with ⟨’⟩.
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. Although this has remained the standard romanisation system of the language since Mark Mii's tenure, some have called for orthographic reform and in some radical cases a completely new system. For example, one topic of controversy is the use of the letter ⟨v⟩ to indicate a vowel(taken from its original pronunciation in Classical Latin) which many learners, as well as some professional linguists, have expressed disdain towards. The admittedly rather archaic use of ⟨v⟩ to represent a vowel has led many to claim that this contributes to a wider problem with the structure of the romanisation system.
Indeed, the system itself was built quickly out of necessity by Mark Mii as a way to transliterate ancient Nawuhu writing, and he himself admitted he did not take verbal transcription into account when making the system. Nevertheless, it was the first serious attempt of its time, and thus it was rapidly adopted by most of the Wuhu Island archaeologist community, many members of which were personal friends or acquaintances of Mark Mii himself.
Since its establishment as the official romanisation of Nawuhu, some other systems have tried to replace the Mark Mii system. One strong competitor is the Apakäaka system. This system, created by an actual native Nawuhu speaker, is quite different from the Mark Mii system; for example, /j/ is written ⟨j⟩, /ɕ ʑ/ are written ⟨ś ź⟩ and /e/ is written ⟨ä⟩, /ʉ/ is written ⟨ŭ⟩ and the identical vocalic syllable separation is unmarked instead of marked with an apostrophe. This system is mostly used by Nawuhu native political exiles, with its creator also being a political exile currently residing in Hawaii due to his opposition towards the Almondrian regime. Thus, this romanisation system is not used officially on the island, though it still appears overseas in research papers of the island.
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].
Stress and pitch
Stressed syllables have their vowels marked with an accute accent to denote its stress. Historically, Classical Nâuxu had a single pitch accent, the falling tone, akin to the pitch accent in Swedish or Serbo-Croatian. Orthographically, this is most often represented by a circumflex accent, ⟨◌̂⟩, such as in the word Nâ-uxu "[Classical] Nâuxu", [nâ.ʉhʉ].
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.
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 | nva | nvna | anca |
Addressee-Medial | jv | jv’v | mva | mvna | anja |
Distal | nis | eonis | zola | zeoya | miła |
Verbs
Nawuhu verbs are inflected on mood, aspect, number and tense.
Mood
Weak verbs are inflected with mood suffixes. Strong verbs, like oí, "to be", or gvé, "to have", have their own specific mood, tense, aspect and number conjugations.
Indicative | Conditional | Optative | Imperative | Jussive |
---|---|---|---|---|
- | -neá | -ci | -ta’a | -tási |
In Nawuhu, imperative indicates commands or demands towards the addressee, while jussive indicates commands or demands to a person aside from the speaker or addressee.
Aspect
There are four aspects in Nawuhu: simple present, past simple, past progressive and future simple. They are, again, marked with suffixes on weak verbs.
Present Simple | Past | Future Simple | |
---|---|---|---|
Simple | Progressive | ||
- | -sen | -seán | -mai |