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'''Gaju''' (English: /'gɑːd͡ʒuː/, Gaju: [' | '''Gaju''' (English: /'gɑːd͡ʒuː/, Gaju: ['käcu], [[Rttirri]]: [ˈkɑcu]) is a minority language in [[Verse:Rttirria|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. | ||
The language has been documented from the [[Old Gaju]] period in the 14th century. While it was used widely across much of eastern Rttirria at that time, its homeland has slowly shrunken over time into the countryside, small towns, and jungles as Rttirri has come to dominate the national landscape. The Gaju community, as well as some ethnically Rttirri Easterners resenting Western cultural influence, has pushed for greater recognition and representation of Gaju and other minority languages. In the 1970s, it became an official language of all of Rttirria; citizens have the right to receive voting ballots, drivers' license exams, court interpreters, and other official documents and proceedings in the Gaju language. | The language has been documented from the [[Old Gaju]] period in the 14th century. While it was used widely across much of eastern Rttirria at that time, its homeland has slowly shrunken over time into the countryside, small towns, and jungles as Rttirri has come to dominate the national landscape. The Gaju community, as well as some ethnically Rttirri Easterners resenting Western cultural influence, has pushed for greater recognition and representation of Gaju and other minority languages. In the 1970s, it became an official language of all of Rttirria; citizens have the right to receive voting ballots, drivers' license exams, court interpreters, and other official documents and proceedings in the Gaju language. | ||
Revision as of 00:56, 13 February 2017
| Gaju | |
|---|---|
| Gaju | |
| Pronunciation | [[Help:IPA|'gäɟu]] |
| Created by | – |
| Setting | Rttirria |
| Native to | Rtuha, Uya, eastern Tyami, eastern Manamuki |
Rttirrian
| |
Gaju (English: /'gɑːd͡ʒuː/, Gaju: ['käcu], 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.
The language has been documented from the Old Gaju period in the 14th century. While it was used widely across much of eastern Rttirria at that time, its homeland has slowly shrunken over time into the countryside, small towns, and jungles as Rttirri has come to dominate the national landscape. The Gaju community, as well as some ethnically Rttirri Easterners resenting Western cultural influence, has pushed for greater recognition and representation of Gaju and other minority languages. In the 1970s, it became an official language of all of Rttirria; citizens have the right to receive voting ballots, drivers' license exams, court interpreters, and other official documents and proceedings in the Gaju language.
Gaju is a nominative-accusative language. Typically of languages in the Southeast Asian sprachbund, it is also primarily analytic and isolating in morphology, though it contains some elements of agglutinative and fusional languages. It has a large vowel inventory consisting of 9 vowels, and a moderate-sized consonant inventory of 26 consonants. It is variously written in the Latin alphabet, the Rttirri abugida—which is a Brahmic script—the Burmese script, and even Chinese characters.
History
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.
Phonotactics
Gaju places very tight restrictions on syllables: maximally, CVN syllables are allowed, where C is any consonant and N is any of the voiced non-palatal nasals: /m/, /n/, or /ŋ/.
Loanwords containing syllables ending in a consonant other than one of these, or containing consonant clusters, usually make use of an epenthetic /ə/:
- peensììlùù [pʰɛn˥.sɪ˩.lə˩] "pencil"
- eelùùchùùbùùlùù [ɛ˥.lə˩.t͡ʃə˩.pə˩.lə˩] "algebra"
Orthography
The Rttirri script was codified in the mid-14th century. It was based on the Pallava script, which is a Brahmic abugida that is also the ancestor of the Thai, Lao, Burmese, and Khmer scripts.
As an abugida, the Rttirri script is written with consonantal letters that are mutated for the different vowels. /i/ is the inherent vowel - for example, the character for /m/ is pronounced /mi/, but when given the diacritic for /u/, it is pronounced /mu/.
Although the orthography of Rttirri has become fairly non-phonetic, Gaju has only been consistently written in the Rttirri script since the late 19th and early 20th centuries, so relatively few sound changes have occurred since then.
In the late 19th century, when Rttirria was a colony of Britain, English linguists designed a Latin transcription system for Rttirri and, with it, other indigenous languages such as Gaju. Some Gaju separatists and nationalists choose to use this Latin script, or other scripts such as Burmese or even Chinese characters, to write their language.
Vocabulary
Gaju has historically featured very few of the Sanskrit and Arabic loanwords that abound in Rttirri. However, the Gaju community's close proximity to Myanmar has given their language numerous loanwords from local languages, such as Burmese, Thai, and the Karen languages. It has also taken on some loans from Rttirri.
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 |
Syntax
Sample text
See also