Saxuma

Saxuma /ˈsaʃɨmə/ (Saxuma: [ˈsá.ɕy.ma]), also romanized Sasiouma and historically known as Saras Wima ['sʌ.r̥as wi'ma], is a language isolate spoken by approximately 9000 speakers on the Mediterranean island of Sasajos, and an autonomous zone of Italy. It is notable for its split ergative alignment, highly irregular construct declensions, and dynamic semantic gender.

Almost all residents of Sasajos speak Greek and English, but there is a strong movement to protect the cultural heritage of the language, with poetry, novels, and music produced in Saxuma, as well as dubbings of many foreign movies and television shows into the language.

The folk history of the language states that it was a constructed language developed by the original inhabitants of Sasajos - members of a cruise ship that crashed on the island and decided to settle there. Most scholars find this history preposterous, but it is still taught in schools on Sasajos and considered official history by the town government.

On a meta-level, this language was created by Anisette Biscotti in 2024, with the original intention of exploring concepts of gender and sexuality. While it has become something of its own beast, still most translations into the language are texts dealing with gender, desire, and romance.

Phonology

Consonants

Consonant Inventory

	Labial		Alveolar		Palatal		Velar		Glottal
	Voiceless	Voiced	Voiceless	Voiced	Voiceless	Voiced	Voiceless	Voiced	Voiceless
Nasals	m		n		ɲ
Plosives	p	b	t	d	c		k	g	ʔ
Fricatives	ɸ~ɸʷ	v⁓β	s⁓t͡s	z⁓d͡z	ç ɕ	ʑ⁓d͡ʑ	x⁓h
Liquids			r̥	l		ʎ
Glides	(ʍ)	w				j

• /n/ is realized as [ɲ] when adjacent to any palatal consonant, and as [ŋ] when preceding a velar plosive.
• Voiceless plosives are typically unaspirated, but are usually aspirated word-finally.
• All plosives are realized as [ʔ] when immediately followed by another plosive or a nasal of the same place of articulation.
• /s/, /z/, and /ʑ/ may be realized as their associated affricates when not preceded by a vowel, but this is not obligatory.
• /v/ may be realized as [β] intervocalically, but this is not obligatory.
• /x/ is mostly realized as /h/ when preceding a non-front vowel.
• The sequences /tj/ and /kj/ are realized as [c], /dj/ and /gj/ as [d͡ʑ], /sj/ as [ɕ], /zj/ as [ʑ], and /xj/ as [ç].
• When adjacent to any palatal consonant, /l/ may be realized as [ʎ] or [j]
• Many speakers — especially younger ones — sonorize plosives when followed by a long vowel or diphthong carrying a high tone (see Pitch Accent below). For example, dēka > nēka, tobyá > tomyá, pyunam > byunam.
• Sometimes, in particularly casual speech, unstressed, final /s/ and /ɕ/ are debuccalized to [h].

Vowels

Vowel Inventory

	Front	Back
High	i iː (y)	u uː
Mid	ɛ~e eː	o oː
Low	aː a~ɑ

Diphthongs	Front-initial	Back-initial
	ja~i̯a, ju~i̯u, jo~i̯o	aj~ai, oj~oi, ɑw~ɑo

• Both long vowels and diphthongs may be pronounced instead as two vowels in hiatus. This is particularly common in song and when unstressed.
  • Front-initial diphthongs must be pronounced as beginning with [i̯] rather than [j] when following /hʷ/, /w/, /r/, and /l/. For example, /wyu/ is pronounced [wi̯u].
  • Back-initial diphthongs are usually pronounced as two vowels in hiatus when followed by a consonant in the coda. For example, /kayx/ is usually pronounced as [kaiɕ].
• In moderately fast speech, /ay/ and /aw/ are frequently monophthoingized to [eː] and [oː] respectively, and may also be shortened. Potential palatalization from the /ay/ is generally retained.
• Short /e/ is typically pronounced [e] when word-final and [ɛ] elsewhere.
• Short /a/ is typically pronounced as [a] when stressed or word-final, and [ɑ] elsewhere.
• /i/ and /u/ are lowered to /e/ and /o/ respectively when followed by /ʔ/
• Unstressed short /u/ is often realized as [y] when following any palatal consonants besides /j/

Phonotactics

The maximal syllable structure of Saxuma is (C)V(C). All voiceless phonemes besides /x/, /hʷ/, and /ʔ/ are allowed in codas, as are /n/ and /m/. Voiced plosives and fricatives may appear in codas, but not word-finally.

/j/ is elided following any other palatal consonant.

Adjacent vowels epenthesize a semivowel - /j/ if the former vowel is /e/ or /i/, /w/ if /u/ or /o/. If the former vowel is /a/, then the latter vowel is used to determine the epenthesized semivowel in the same way.

The following consonant sequences are allowed between syllables. Any not listed is not allowed in any consonant sequences, or is not allowed in its given category.

Permissible coda-onset sequences

		Following Onset
p	t	k	b	d	g	m	n	ɸ	v	s	z	ɕ	ʑ	r	l	w	j
Preceding Coda	p	[ʔp]	[ʔt]	[ʔk]	[ʔb]	[ʔd]	[ʔg]	[ʔm]	[pn]	[pɸ]	No	No	No	No	No	No	[pl]	[pw]	[pj]
	t	[ʔp]	[ʔt]	[ʔk]	[ʔb]	[ʔd]	[ʔg]	[tm]	[ʔn]	[tɸ]	No	No	No	No	No	No	[ʔl]	[tw]	[c]
	k	[ʔp]	[ʔt]	[ʔk]	[ʔb]	[ʔd]	[ʔg]	[km]	[kn]	[kɸ]	No	No	No	No	No	No	[kl]	[kw]	[c]
	b	[ʔp]	[ʔt]	[ʔk]	[ʔb]	[ʔd]	[ʔg]	[ʔm]	[bn]	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	[bl]	[bw]	[bj]
	d	[ʔp]	[ʔt]	[ʔk]	[ʔb]	[ʔd]	[ʔg]	[dm]	[ʔn]	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	[ʔl]	[dw]	[d͡ʑ]
	g	[ʔp]	[ʔt]	[ʔk]	[ʔb]	[ʔd]	[ʔg]	[gm]	[gn]	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	[gl]	[gw]	[d͡ʑ]
	m	[mp]	No	[mk]	[mb]	No	[mg]	[mm]	[mn]	No	[mv]	[mt͡s]	[md͡z]	[mɕ]	[md͡ʑ]	[mbr]	[ml]	[mw]	[mj]
	n	No	[nt]	[ŋk]	[mb]	[nd]	[ŋg]	[mm]	[mn]	No	[mv]	[nt͡s]	[nd͡z]	[ɲɕ]	[ɲd͡ʑ]	[nr]	[nl]	[nw]	[ɲ]
	s	[sp]	[st]	[sk]	[sb]	[sd]	[sg]	[sm]	[sn]	[sɸ]	No	No	No	No	No	[sr]	No	[sw]	[ɕ]
	z	No	No	[zk]	[zb]	No	No	No	[zn]	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	[zl]	[zw]	[ʑ]
	ɕ	[ɕp]	[ɕt]	[ɕk]	[ɕb]	[ɕd]	[ɕg]	[ɕm]	[ɕɲ]	[ɕɸ]	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	[ɕw]	[ɕ]
	ʑ	No	No	[ʑk]	[ʑb]	No	No	No	[ʑɲ]	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	[ʑʎ]	[ʑw]	[ʑ]
	x	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	[ɸ]	[ç]
	r	No	No	No	No	No	No	[rn]	[rm]	[rɸ]	[rv]	No	No	No	No	No	No	[rw]	[rj]

Pitch Accent

Stress is contrastive in Saxuma. Historically, different parts of speech were produced from the same stem by varying the stress (with verbs having ultimate stress and nouns and adjectives initial), and stress was reinforced by a system of vowel reduction. For example, kubá [kɔˈba] ("to drink") vs. kúba [ˈko.bʌ] ("beverage"). These kinds of verb-noun pairs still exist in modern Saxuma, such as kalán 'to cry' vs. kálan 'tears', but many of them have been made less direct due to sound changes. For example, 'to drink' is now kobá and beverage is now kō.

Additionally, in place of the stress and vowel reduction system, modern Saxuma uses pitch accent. There are three pitch levels, and all syllables are by default mid tone.

• Almost all monosyllabic words retain their mid tone pitch. For example, kan [ˈkan] ("cold"). This is also true of monosyllabic words with long vowels and diphthongs, such as baw [ˈbɑo] ("sheep"). Some monosyllabic content words, such as u ("of") are stressless, and bear a low tone.
• If a short vowel is accented, it bears a high tone, e.g. émin [ɛ́.min] ("lips"). If it is non-initial and preceded by a short vowel, the preceding syllable bears a low tone. For example, xeyáyem [ɕɛ̀ˈjá.jem] ("friction") and zigará [zi.gɑ̀ˈrá] ("protector").
• If stressed or directly preceding a stressed syllable, long vowels and diphthongs receive contour tones. For stressed vowels, this is a peaking contour of tone MHM, e.g. enâ [ɛ̀ˈna᷈ː] ("passion"). When directly preceding a stressed syllable, the long vowel bears a falling contour ML, e.g. bābá [bâːˈbá] ("various").
  • When long vowels are pronounced as identical vowels in hiatus, each vowel carries its own tone. If stressed, they follow the pattern of HM. If preceding a stressed syllable, then ML. Using the examples above, enâ would be pronounced as [ɛ̀ˈnáˌa] and bābá as [ba.àˈbá].

W-ablaut

The w-ablaut is a morpho-phonological process that appears throughout Saxuma inflections. It performs the following vowel transformations:

• a → aw, or → o if word-final and unstressed
• i → yu
• u → ū
• e → yo
• o → ō

Orthography

Romanization

Saxuma Romanization

Romanization	a	b	c	d	dy	e	f	g	gy	h	hy	i	j	k	ky	l	ly	m	n	ny	o	p	q	r	s	sy	t	ty	u	v	w	x	y	z	zy
IPA	a	b	c	d	d͡ʑ	ɛ	ɸ	g	d͡ʑ	x	ç	i	ʑ	k	c	l	ʎ	m	n	ɲ	o	p	ʔ	r̥	s	ɕ	t	c	u	v	w	ɕ	j	z	ʑ

• Accented short vowels are indicated with an acute accent, unaccented long vowels with a macron, and accented long vowels with a carat. Accents are often not indicated outside of dictionaries and other linguistic texts, except when disambiguation is considered necessary.
  • In texts with accents marked, if a word has no accent, it can be assumed to have ultimate stress if it is a verb, and initial stress otherwise. For example, leyo ("world") is equivalent to léyo, and mabu ("to learn") is equivalent to mabú
• Vowels placed before ⟨q⟩ represent their etymological pronunciation, not necessarily their current realization. Thus, niqí is pronounced as [nɛˈʔi].

Morphology

Pronouns

Saxuma Pronouns

	1st Person				2nd Person		3rd Person
	singular	plural			singular	plural	neuter singular	feminine singular	masculine singular	plural
		generic	inclusive	exclusive
Direct	me	ma	mazén	mawís	zu	tex	dē	le	in	ca
Absolutive	mek	maká			zuká	texka	dēka	lek	inka	daqá
Genitive	omé	wimá			unú	uséx	urê	olé	ohín	urá
Construct	myo	maw			zū	tero	desu	leyu	inu	caw
Dative-Superessive	bome	bemá			bay	batéx	bade	bose	bagín	bacá

Verb Morphology

Conjugation

There are twelve verb classes in modern Saxuma, most of which can be immediately determined by looking at the word itself, though some must be learned.

• The regular conjugation includes all verbs not outlined below, and all end in short, monophthong vowels. It is divided into strong and weak conjugations, the strong being any that end in -e, -o, or -CCV, and the weak those that end in a single consonant followed by -a, -i, or -u.
• There are four classes that are variations of the weak conjugation:
• The -SA conjugation includes all verbs that would be a regular weak conjugation, but the consonant before -a, -i, or -u is -s- or -x-.
• The -FA conjugation includes all verbs that would be a regular weak conjugation, but the consonant before -a, -i, or -u is -f- or -h-.
• The -RA conjugation includes all verbs that would be a regular weak conjugation, but the consonant before -a, -i, or -u is -r-.
• The -LA conjugation includes all verbs that would be a regular weak conjugation, but the consonant before -a, -i, or -u is -l-.
• The -N conjugation includes all verbs ending in -n or -m.
• The -S conjugation includes all verbs ending in -s or -x.
• The -T conjugation includes all verbs ending in -k, -t, or -p, and some ending in long -ē.
• The -R conjugation includes all verbs ending in -r.
• The -H conjugation includes most, but not all, verbs ending in a long vowel.
• The -W conjugation includes all verbs ending in -aw.
• The -Y conjugation includes all of verbs ending in -ay and -oy.

Besides the stem, there are seven primary verb forms expressed through suffixes: the negative, causative, inchoative, prospective, perfective, habitual, and attributive forms. For more detail on them, see Saxuma/Verb Conjugation. For a summary of how the different endings conjugate for the different verb classes, see the table below.

Verb conjugations by class and inflection

Class		Example Stem	Negative -NA	Causative -BI	Inchoative -WAY	Prospective -KUN	Perfective -W	Habitual -AX	Attributive -LA
Regular	Strong	lesó	lesoná	lesobí	lesowáy	lesokún	lesô	lesowáx	lesolá
	Weak	sigú	signá	sigbí	sigwáy	sigkún	sigû	sigwáx	siglá
-SA		exí	exná	exbí	exfáy	eqún	exyú	exyáx	yosá
-FA		safá	sawná	sawbí	sawfáy	sawqún	safáw	safáx	sawsá
-RA		kurú	kuxná	kuxbí	kuxfáy	kuqún	kûsa	kurwáx	kūsá
-LA		ralí	rawná	rawbí	rawáy	rawkún	ralyú	ralyáx	ralá
-N		ekán	ekanná	ekanbí	ekanwáy	ekankún	ekánla	ekanáx	ekanlá
-S		sarás	sarasná	sarasbí	sarasfáy	saraqún	saráwsa	sarasáx	sarawsá
-R		elér	elexná	elexbí	elexfáy	eleqún	elyósa	eleráx	elyosá
-T		enák	enawná	enacú	enasfáy	enaqún	enatáw	enatáx	enaxá
-H		oxâ	oxāná	oxābí	oxafáy	oxaqún	oxáwsa	oxaháx	oxawsá
-W		law	lawná	lawbí	lawáy	lawkún	lála	laláx	lalá
-Y		way	wayná	waybí	waywáy	waykún	wayú	wayáx	waylá

Evidentiality

In Saxuma, evidentiality can be expressed through verbal prefixes. Their morphology is much simpler than the various ending forms, and act with no regard to the verb class of the stem.

• Unmarked evidentiality indicates something that the speaker feels they can reasonably report as true, with no particular implication one way or another. It is also used for stating things considered to be general truths or common sense.
• Inferential information that seems to be the case based on some evidence, but which the speaker is not necessarily certain of, is expressed by the prefix kan- on all verbs.

  torá → kantorá

  exí → kanexí

  gir → kangír

• Hearsay, information that the speaker has learned from another person but which they do not necessarily personally vouch for, is expressed by the prefix la- before r-initial verbs, lex- before other consonant-initial verbs, and lar- before vowel-initial verbs.

  torá → lextorá

  ryu → laryú

  uzá → laruzá

• Definitive information that the speaker wants to emphasize that they know for certain to be factual is expressed with the prefix tom- on verbs beginning with consonants, tam- on verbs beginning with round vowels, and tamw- on verbs beginning with other vowels.

  torá → tomtorá

  ōná → tamōná

  exí → tamwexí

• Intuitive information is that which the speaker believes or feels confidently, but based primarily on instinctual leanings rather than any clear evidence or reasoning. It is indicated with the prefix eny- before vowel-initial verbs, nye- before initial labial consonants or /r/, and en- before initial palatal consonants. Before other consonants, the prefix en- is used, and also a palatalizing mutation occurs on the initial vowel.

  bulíx → nyebulíx

  ryu → nyeryú

  exí → enyexí

  yos → enyós

  torá → entyorá

  gir → engyír

  liré → enlyiré

  hanú → enhyanú

Sample Texts

See also: Saxuma/Texts

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

English	Saxuma	IPA	Gloss
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.	Damáx zénu hip úmano vin gíjo i alá díni i rus nay.	dɑ̀ˈmáɕ ˈd͡zɛ́.nu ˈxipʰ ˈú.mɑ.no βin ˈgí.ʑo i ɑ̀ˈlá ˈdí.ni i ˈr̥uh ˈnaj	are-born.hab all.cons person human as free and have.attr dignity and right equal.
They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.	Aw bacá románu i korásu êma, i sū sirú bacakóm to korásu yúnem.	ˈɑw bɑ̀ˈcá r̥òˈmá.nu i kòˈrá.su ˈe᷉ː.ma ǀ i ˈsuː sìˈr̥ú bɑ.càˈkóm to kòˈrá.su jú.nɛm	have 3p.dat reason.cons and heart.cons ethics, and should behave 3p.dat-ref with heart.cons fraternity.

See Also

• Category:Saxuma words