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Gaju
Gaju
Pronunciation	[[Help:IPA|'gäɟu]]
Created by	–
Setting	Rttirria
Native to	Rtuha, Uya, eastern Tyami, eastern Manamuki
Language family	Rttirrian South Rttirrian Old Gaju Gaju

Gaju (English: /'gɑːd͡ʒuː/, Gaju: ['gäɟu], Rttirri: [ˈkɑcu]) is a minority language in Rttirria, spoken by the Gaju people in the eastern part of the country. It is a member of the Rttirrian language family, descended from the Proto-South-Rttirrian langauge that is also the ancestor of modern Rttirri, the nation's official language.

Phonology

Consonants

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m /m/ hm /m̥/	n /n/ hn /n̥/	ny /ɲ/	ng /ŋ/
Plosive	p /pʰ/ b /p/	t /tʰ/ d /t/	ty /cʰ/ j /c/	k /kʰ/ k /k/
Fricative	f /f/	s /s/ sh /ʃ/	sy /ç/	kh /x/	h /h/
Affricate		ts /t͡s/ ch /t͡ʃ/
Approximant	w /w/ hw /ʍ/	l /l/ hl /l̥~ɬ/

In addition, the following consonants are allowed in loanwords: hng /ŋ̊/, hny /ɲ̥/, y /j/, hh /ʔ/.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i /i/		u /u/
Near-high	ii /ɪ/
Mid	e /e/	uu /ə/	o /o/
Near-low	ee /ɛ/		aa /ɔ/
Low		a /ä/

Tones

Gaju distinguishes four tones: high, low, rising, and falling. They are distinguished in the Latin script as follows:

• High: a aa e ee i ii o u uu
• Low: à àà è èè ì ìì ò ù ùù
• Rising: â ââ ê êê î îî ô û ûû
• Falling: ǎ ǎǎ ě ěě ǐ ǐǐ ǒ ǔ ǔǔ

The rising and falling tones are uncommon, being found only in loanwords and in a small number of native words where elision of VCV sequences has caused high-tone and low-tone syllables with the same vowel to occur adjacently to each other.

Grammar

Gaju morphology is significantly more analytic than that of Rttirri.

Verbs

The following slots are allowed for affixes on the verb.

Verb Slot	Allowable Inputs
Mood	fa- (polite imperative) nang- (subjunctive) kan- (conditional) khaa- (imperative)
Tense	-bu-/-bo-/-du-/-do-/-ju-/-jo- (past) -mi-/-me-/-ni-/-ne-/-nyi-/-nye- (future)
Verb Root	any verb
Auxiliary Verb	-(k)àng ("to be able to") -(à)kà ("to need to") -(d)èng ("to want to") -(g)ùng ("to force to") and others

Nouns

Nouns can take the following cases:

Case	Suffix
nominative	(none)
accusative	-(g)e (singular) -(d)i (plural)
dative	-(ty)â
ablative	-(d)a
locative	-(l)î
comitative	-(aa)daa
instrumental	-(w)ǎm
vocative	-(a)saa

Pronouns

The following pronouns are used. They were not affixed to the verb, but stood in the place of other nouns.

	Singular		Plural
	Nominative	Accusative	Nominative	Accusative
1st person	na	ni	ma	mi
2nd person	kom	kim	tsa	tsi
3rd person	la	ge	daa	di

Genitive pronouns follow the nouns they modify. The third-person singular plural is a recent innovation, derived from fòkom ("there").

English	Old Gaju
my	nà
your	kòm
his/her/its	fôm
our	mà
all of your	tsà
their	dàà

Independent particles

The following particles can be used to express aspect and politeness; the default is imperfective.

	Informal	Formal
Imperfective	—	tya
Perfective	nam	nyem
Habitual	shu	tya shu

The following question words are used:

English	Old Gaju
who/whom	ta
what	ti
when	dìn
where	dâng
why	dìtà
how	dûng