Suwáá

Suwáá is highly diglossic; this page describes the modern "High Sjowaázh" register. For the other varieties, see the subpages devoted to individual varieties.

Suwáá/Classical

Suwáá/'Onáp'aañ

Suwáá/Jighoó'ii

Suwáá/Cyamányeñh

Suwáá/Wordlist

Suwáá/Swadesh list

Suwáá
Sjowaázh dashég
Pronunciation	[/stsʊwɑ̌ːʐ̊ tɑʂˑɛ́k/]
Created by	IlL
Setting	Tricin
Language family	Sjowaazhic

Forms of Suwáá (English: soo-WAHZH; High Sj. Sjowaázh da·shég /stsʊwɑ̌ːʐ̊ tɑʂˑɛ́k/, gloss: Sjowaázh 3pl-language) are the dominant languages in Sjowaázh daZóol in Verse:Tricin/Txapoalli. Sjowaázh is a polysynthetic language with a complex verbal morphology. It is primarily inspired by Navajo, Polish, and Hungarian.

Suwáá forms a single dialect continuum and is otherwise an isolate, though some speculate that Suwáá is related to the Quame languages.

Diglossia

Sjowaázh is strongly diglossic, with the diglossia influenced by social class. High Sjowaázh, the prestige variety, is a mixture of 'Onáp'aañ Sjowaázh and Classical Sjowaázh and is the standard language used in literature, formal writing, newsreading, public announcements. High Sjowaázh plays a similar role to the RP accent in British English: it is natively spoken mostly by people from highly educated and wealthy families. On the other end of the spectrum, the lower class speak local lects which are sometimes mutually unintelligible. The diglossia is also influenced by gender: urban women are more likely than other groups to use more neutral forms and accents (i.e. closer to some abstract "women's lect"). Since the 1340s (fT), a greater permissiveness towards regional and "nonstandard" varieties of Sjowaázh has taken hold in education; however, due to greater travel and the mass media, marked features in Sjowaázh varieties have also begun to disappear.

The hierarchy of lects is roughly as follows:

• Upper class: High Sjowaázh
• Professional class: accented High Sjowaázh
• Middle class: local vernacular + High Sjowaázh
• Working/lower class: broad local vernacular

High Sjowaázh is the variety taught in Sjowaázh schools and also the variety that is often first taught to non-natives. Though most natives are able to speak the proper language to some extent, they only choose to use it in certain situations, like greeting a customer, or talking to a stranger over the phone.

The language encountered in Sjowaázh pop culture can be much less posh, depending on the region and the social class of the characters. The most frequently used Sjowaázh varieties in pop culture are the urban middle-class lects (most creators live in or near one of the major urban centers, e.g. 'Onápaañ, Jighó'ii, Cyamányeñh). Using more unusual lects mark certain types of characters (e.g. rural lects for country hicks, broad urban lects for hypermasculine bros, a caricatured "women's lect" for ditzy teenage girls, High Sjowaázh for posh villains, ...)

Todo

• Wackernagel, "magna cum laude" order
• Head-marking
• Badly irregular ablaut like Navajo
• Should be different from Navajo and Roshterian but still polysynthetic
• Numbers: chiíñ, shjhed, naájy, hoók', shaáb, k'al, ghoól, lagh, pijh, lóoh (change some of these numbers)
• Some Quame-ish words
• Pluractional prefix
• Should Modern High Sjowaázh be different from Classical Sjowaázh?
• expressive/discourse verb forms, not using them will make you sound stilted (High Sjowaázh has less of these, except in poetic Classical/High Sjowaázh)
• Some dialects have Meeussen's rule to turn some instances of HH to HL
• páañgy = person

i loved you = alisjhegy
i will love you = lóosjhezyañ
-in shd also be an affix
i fall in love with you (active counterpart) = shelisjhaágy
do you want reduplication?
sounds ok
how is -in for an attributive clause
or relative clause
verb+in
so it's a nominalizer
clofab intensifies
yeah
shiilyohookh+in = that piles up
😍1
and that could ablaut to -iin or -iín?
in some forms like intransitive attributive
most C(C)oC verbs should inflect like sjhogy
maybe
sjowaazh should be non-config
noun phrases are head-final and they use relational nouns
shiilyohookh would inflect like

khashiilyohookh
akheshiiñlyohookh
khóoshigyoñhookh?
inceptive should use t
yeah
or d
because of quame future
quihumists would relate that to thensarian -tē-
yeah
that "let us soar party" 😀
and for the fun of it...
the t should be an infix!
sjhodagy-
😍1
should mean to fall in love

Phonology

Consonants

Suwáá has a large consonant inventory:

Consonant phonemes in Suwáá

		Labial	Dental	Retroflex	Alveolo-palatal	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m /m/	n /n/			ny /ɲ/
Plosive	tenuis	b /p/	d /t/			gy /c/	g /k/	' /ʔ/
	aspirated	p /pʰ/	t /tʰ/			ky /cʰ/	k /kʰ/
	ejective	p' /pʼ/	t' /tʼ/			ky' /cʼ/	k' /kʼ/
Fricative	lenis		z /z̊/	zh /ʐ̊/	zy /ʑ̊/		gh /ɣ̊/
	fortis		s /sˑ/	sh /ʂˑ/	sy /ɕˑ/		kh /xˑ/	h /h/
Affricate	tenuis		j /ts/	jh /tʂ/	jy /tɕ/
	aspirated		c /tsʰ/	ch /tʂʰ/	cy /tɕʰ/
	ejective		c' /tsʼ/	ch' /tʂʼ/	cy' /tɕʼ/
Approximant			l /l/		ly /ʎ/	y /j/	w /w/

All consonants are long, compared to English: with plain stops the hold is longer, with aspirated stops the aspiration is longer, and with affricates the frication is longer. The voice onset time of the aspirated and ejective stops is twice as long as that found in most other languages.

Stops and affricates

All stops and affricates, except for the bilabial and glottal, have a three-way laryngeal contrast between unaspirated, aspirated, and ejective. The labials /p, pʰ, m/ are found mainly in grammatical affixes and loanwords. Most of the contrasts in the inventory lie within coronal territory at the alveolar and palatoalveolar places of articulation.

The aspirated stops /tʰ, kʰ/ (orthographic ⟨t⟩, ⟨k⟩) are typically aspirated with velar frication [tx, kx] (they are phonetically affricates — homorganic in the case of [kx], heterorganic in the case of [tx]). The acoustic difference between an affricate and a stop + fricative consonant cluster is the rate of increase in the amplitude of the frication noise (i.e. the rise time); affricates have a short rise time, consonant clusters have a longer rise time between the stop and fricative. There is variation within Suwáá, however, in this respect: some speakers lack strong velar frication having instead a period of aspiration.

Similarly the unaspirated velar /k/ (orthographic ⟨g⟩) is realized as with optional voiced velar frication following the stop burst: [k] ~ [kɣ].

While the aspiration of stops is markedly long compared to most other languages, the aspiration of the affricates is quite short: the main feature distinguishing /ts/, /tʂ/ and /tɕ/ from /tsʰ/, /tʂʰ/ and /tɕʰ/ is that the frication is half again as long in the latter: [tsʰˑ], [tʂʰˑ], [tɕʰˑ]. The ejectives /ts'/, /tʂ'/, /tɕ'/, on the other hand, have short frication, presumably due to the lack of pulmonic airflow. There is a period of near silence before the glottalized onset of the vowel.

Continuants

Suwáá fricatives are noisier than the fricatives that occur in English.

Suwáá also does not have consistent phonetic voicing in the "voiced" fricative members: /z, ʐ, ʑ, ɣ/ may be partially devoiced during the constriction. In stem-initial position, /ʐ/ has a slight tendency to be voiceless near the offset, /z/ and /ʑ/ are often mostly voiceless with phonetic voicing only at the onset, /ɣ/ is also only partially voiced with voicing at onset. A more consistent acoustic correlate of the "voicing" is the duration of the consonant: "voiceless" consonants have longer durations than "voiced" consonants.

Glottal(ized) consonants

Consonants involving a glottal closure — the glottal stop, ejective stops, and the glottalized sonorants — may have optional creaky voice on voiced sounds adjacent to the glottal gesture. Glottal stops may also be realized entirely as creaky voice instead of single glottal closure.

Vowels

Suwáá has only 4 vowel qualities, although there is phonemic vowel length and nasalization.

Suwáá oral vowels

	Front		Back
	short	long	short	long
Close	i /ɪ/	ii /iː/	o /ʊ/	oo /uː/
Open	e /ɛ/	ee /ɛː/	a /ɑ/	aa /ɑː/

Suwáá nasal vowels

	Front		Back
	short	long	short	long
Close	iñ /ĩ/	iiñ /ĩː/	oñ /õ/	ooñ /õː/
Open	eñ /ɛ̃/	eeñ /ɛ̃ː/	añ /ɑ̃/	aañ /ɑ̃ː/

Pitch accent

Standard High Suwáá has a pitch accent system - every word will have at least one high pitched mora but may have more than one, especially in longer words. A mora with high pitch is marked with an acute accent.

Other Sjowaázh lects have different tonal systems or none. For example, the Cyamányeh topolect has a simple pitch accent system like that of Ancient Greek – namely, only one mora per word receives high pitch.

Orthography

High Sjowaázh is written in its own native script, an abugida descended from the Naquian script.

There are two letters for /pʰ/ p and two letters for /h/ h. This reflects the merger of Old Sjowaázh /pʰ/ with /v/ and Old Sjowaázh /h/ with /f/ respectively.

Sandhi

All Sjowaázh lects have extensive sandhi systems. The following describes High Sjowaázh sandhi.

Morphology

Sjowaázh is strongly head-marking, like many indigenous languages of North and Central America.

Nouns

Number

Sjowaázh has singular, dual and plural numbers. (The dual is not used in most other dialects.)

Grammatical number is not marked on nouns, rather verbs index the number of their argument nouns.

Relational nouns

Sjowaázh uses relational nouns instead of adpositions.

Pronouns

Todo: singular, dual, plural pronouns

Possessive prefixes

• kha-: 1sg
• mé-: 2sg
• wa-: 3sg animate
• éñ-: 3rd person inanimate
• gyeé-: 1du
• ze-: 2du
• boñ-: 3du
• ché-: 1pl
• ólo-: 2pl
• da-: 3pl animate
• 'a'- : indefinite/impersonal

Obligatory possession

Obligatory possession is used for family members.

Examples:

• 'mother': kheemáñ, méemáñ, weemáñ, gyeemán, zemáñ, boñmáñ, cheemáñ, óleemáñ, deemáñ, 'a'eemáñ
• 'father': khány, mány, wány, gyeény, zány, bomány, chány, ólany, dány, 'a'ány
• 'son': kha'ízh, mé'izh, wa'ízh, gyeé'izh, ze'ízh, boñ'ízh, ché'izh, ólo'ízh, da'ízh, 'a'ízh
• 'daughter': kháziil, méziil, wáziil, gyeéziil, zéziil, boziil, chéziil, ólosyiil, dáziil, 'áziil

Emphatic pronouns

• khabóoh 'I'
• mé'aj 'you (sg)'
• wojhá' 'he/she'
• chée'i 'we'
• ólosdo 'you (pl)'
• badaá' 'they'

Verbs

The number of the subject and object is indexed on the verb if the noun is animate.

Verb template

• mood/adverbial
• global directional
• local directional
• inverse
• personal affix
• STEM/(TAM & voice ablaut)
• causative
• reflexive
• TAM
• negative
• discourse marker/nominalizer

Adverbial preverbs

• shii-: again and again, one after another
• gladly
• unwillingly
• all of a sudden

Directional preverbs

Directionals fall into two types:

• Global directionals describe movement towards a final destination or describes a global shape.
• Local directionals describe movement from the speaker's point of view or from a small-scale perspective. These directionals are used especially for fluids and for individual behavior in groups of people or animals. Ex: "locally inwards", "locally outwards", "shearing", "with turbulent motion", "with some local movement opposite to the global direction", etc.

Some directional preverbs:

• lyo-: 'forming a line'

Verb stem

Highly irregular ablaut when inflecting for different TAMs.

Personal affixes

• kha-: 1sg
• mé-: 2sg
• wa-: 3sg animate
• 0-: 3rd person inanimate
• gyeé-: 1du
• ze-: 2du
• boñ-: 3du
• ché-: 1pl
• ólo-: 2pl
• be-: 3pl animate
• 'a'- : indefinite
• li-: 2 > 1
• zyi-: 1 > 2
• gi-: inverse with verbs with a third person
  • follows the animacy hierarchy 2 > 1 > 3, 3AN > 3INAN; 3PROX > 3OBV

Voice

• Transitivizer/Causative
• Detransitivizer/Passive

Discourse affixes

Sjowaázh lects use discourse verbal affixes to reflect the speaker's attitude, degree of surprise, or other things; not using them may come across as clinical, stilted, or overly posh. High Sjowaázh normally uses discourse affixes less often than do other Sjowaázh lects, and uses "degree of surprise" affixes more frequently than attitudinal affixes. On average, female High Sjowaázh speakers use attitudinal affixes more frequently than male speakers.

Poetic High Sjowaázh may use archaic discourse affixes used in Classical Sjowaázh.

Incorporation

Incorporation is not productive in modern High Sjowaázh. It is considered poetic.

Numerals

Numerals are really verbs: "one", "two", etc. are verbs meaning "to be one", "to be two", etc.

Syntax

Word order

Sjowaázh is non-configurational. Noun phrases are head-final.

Relative and complement clauses

Relative and complement clauses are formed by attaching the nominalizing clitic =in after the clause. On the other hand, verbal nouns are not used.

Example:

• lisjhógy /lɪ̀ʂtʂʊ́c/ = 'I love you' > lisjhógyin /lɪ̀ʂtʂʊ́cɪ̀n/ = 'the fact that I love you'
• shiilyohóokh = 'they pile up forming a line' > shiilyohóokhin = (a type of scale used in Sjowaázh music)

Vocabulary

Sjowaázh, in addition to native words, uses many loans from Naquic and Tsimulh languages. Borrowed words are almost all nouns.

To abbreviate words, Sjowaázh almost always uses clipping.

Study by non-native speakers

Due to the popularity of Sjowaázh pop culture across the globe, Sjowaázh is commonly learned by Sjowaázhophile otakus. Sjowaázh is considered one of the most daunting languages for speakers of most Talman, Etalocian and Bjeheondian languages, due to its morphological complexity and high degree of diglossia.

Poetry

Sjowaázh poetry uses quantitative meters, like Sanskrit meters

(LLLLSLLSSSSSSLLSLLSLL)

(LLLSSLSLSSSLLLSLLSL)

Lyoóshaañt’ ólo·sjecyida'eech’ óna' da·sk’onyáad shéb (LLSSSSSLSSSSLS)
Gáadeéñcyok’ ooñ·táshojyekaad wehacóozh bijháalyin (LLSLSSSLSSLSLS)

Phrasebook

• Lisjhógy /lìʂtʂʊ́c/ = I love you