Arnic

Arnic
Arakite
igyro Arnah
Pronunciation	[igʲʏro aɾnɐh]
Created by	Jukethatbox
Date	2022-2024
Setting	Radael
Native to	Arnah, Northern Gebidum
Language family	Yeldhic Gadaïc West Gadaïc Arnic
Early forms	Proto-Yeldhic Proto-Gadaïc Proto-West Gadaïc Classical Arakite
Dialects	Central Inarduizan Ya-Ranah Kodi Chir
Writing system	Arnic abugida Arnic alphabet
Official status
Official language in	Arnah
Recognised minority language in	Moshurian Empire
Regulated by	Arnah Bureau of Linguistics(ABL)

Arnic(igyro Arnah, Arnic: [igʲʏro aɾnɐh]), also called Arakite, is a Gadaïc language and the official language of the Moshurian vassal Arnah. It is one of six majority languages in Gadah, and is the second most spoken there after Ösrish.

Arnic is a Proto-Gadaïc derivative. It is descended from Classical Arakite, originally a widely spoken language where the modern Arnic script also originated in order to translate Psér scriptures, which eventually developed itself into a classical language as modern Arnic developed. Modern Arnic vocabulary is also heavily influenced by Moshurian due to the regional status of Arnah in the Moshurian Empire.

Arnic is primarily only spoken in Arnah, though it is also widely spoken in the Northern Gebidum region by the Gebidite people(Arnic: shova Gebid). However, due to the effects of the many River Shrub Wars(In particular the Western River Shrub War) in their native Gebidum, most Gebidites have migrated to Arnah to flee persecution.

Phonology

Orthography

The Arnic alphabet/abugida.

Arnic uses its own left-right top-down alphabet/abugida, which is derived from the Psér alphabet. One clear difference is that the Arnic alphabet can be written as an abugida, with each vowel having its own diacritic form.

Rules

Though most text is written phonetically as described in the diagram to the left, there are some non-phonetic rules regarding Arnic orthography.

1. Suffixes(mostly case suffixes) can not begin with the diacritic form of a vowel
2. No word can start with a diacritic vowel; this is the most common use of the non-diacritic vowels.

Consonants

	Bilabial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Post-alveolar	Velar	Palatal	Uvular	Glottal
Plosive	p b		t d		k g
Nasal	m	(ɱ)	n		ŋ	ɲ
Tap or flap/Trill			ɾ/r
Fricative		f v	s z	ʃ	x	(ç)	ʁ	h
(Lateral) Approximant	w		l

/ç/ is an allophone of /x/ before monophthong /i/ or /e/(/xi/ > /çi/, but /xei/ doesn't become */çei/). In Eastern dialects, /x/ merges with /ʁ/ in intervocalic positions, and thus may sometimes be pronounced [χ].

Palatalisation & labialisation

When a plosive is followed by a front close or near-front near-close vowel, the plosive palatalises, as so:

/g/ + /i/ → [gʲi]

When a plosive is followed by a back vowel like /u/, the plosive labialises instead, as so:

/g/ + /u/ → [gʷu]

Vowels

	Front	Near-front	Back
Close	i		u
Near-close		ʏ
Close-mid	e		o
Near-open		ɐ
Open	a

/ɐ/ and /a/ are separate phonemes except in the Central Inarduizan dialect, where /a/ only appears in initial position and [ɐ] replaces any other phonemic position of /a/. In the Yav-Yanach dialects, /ɐ/ can either merge with /a/(Arnah /arnɐh/ > /arnah/) or both /a/ and /ɐ/ can merge into a central /ä/(/arnɐh/ > /ärnäh/).

Prosody

Stress

Arnic, unlike other Gadaïc languages, does not have a strict stress order across all words, though some groups of words have certain stress pattern. For example, many words from Psér preserve their original stress pattern, that being prototonic stress, such as keri, from Psér kri, "self".

Phonotactics

Arnic uses a (C)(V)V(V)(C) syllable structure.

Morphology

Pronouns

Personal

Arnic personal pronouns are denoted by animacy, person and number. Only the first person pronoun(s) are not denoted by animacy.

	First person		Second person		Third person
			inanimate	animate	inanimate	animate
Singular	kir		hish	ahim	ish	shova
Dual	kire		hesh	ahme	ishe	shoev
Plural	kiir		hishi	ahimi	ishi	shovi

Demonstrative

	Near		Far
	inanimate	animate	inanimate	animate
Singular	reh	yach	vah	kech
Plural	rehi	yachi	vahi	kesh

Nouns

Arnic nouns are inflected by number, animacy and case.

Number

Nouns are inflected by whether they are singular, dual or plural. Singular nouns aren't inflected, while dual nouns are inflected by a -e, and plural nouns are inflected by an -i. The dual noun suffix is also used as an equivalent of the English particle "both".

Cases

Cases in Arnic are already inflected, but are further inflected to denote animacy.

	Nominative	Accusative	Dative	Instrumentative
Inanimate	-	-arin	-akach	-egom
Animate		-elin	-ilai	-ayam

Animacy

All nouns are categorised by animacy: either animate or inanimate. Case markings for nouns and pronouns change based on the animacy of a noun. As an example, take the noun meshal("man"). Meshal is animate, so the surrounding case markings change as so:

Yach meshal damochelin madai.

DEM.APUD.SG.ANIM man-NOM food-ANIM.ACC eat-PRES.

This man eats food.

If sadach("plant"), an inanimate noun(though one could argue plants are alive) were used, the noun case would be as so:

Reh sadach damocharin madai.

DEM.APUD.SG.INAN man-NOM food-INAN.ACC eat-PRES.

This plant eats food.

Syntax

Constituent order

Arnic uses the Gadaïc standard of SOV(subject-object-verb) in all sentences with no exceptions.

Noun-adjective order

Arnic dropped the Proto- and Paleogadaic genitive case in favour of a noun-adjective order to denote possession of an object. Some linguists believe this feature was borrowed from Psér, but others point out that Psér implements both a functional noun-adjective order and a genitive case in different contexts, so the argument may be redundant. Nevertheless, the jury is still out.