Asári

Asári
Asári
Pronunciation	[[Help:IPA|aˌsa:'ri]]
Created by	–
Native to	Thessia and other Asari Worlds, the Citadel
Native speakers	Trillions (2185)
Language family	Asáric High Asári Asári
Language codes
ISO 639-1	as
ISO 639-2	asa
ISO 639-3	asa

Background

Asári is the most-spoken language in the Milky Way Galaxy. The Asari race, first to discover the Citadel Station, quickly became the leaders of galactic government and other affairs. Being one of the most widespread and certainly the 'oldest' spacefaring race in the modern Milky Way, the Asari enjoy the benefits of having Asári as one of the four administrative languages of the Citadel Council.

The Asari language detailed in this article is High Asari, or Asári teporu (AT).

Asári is of my own creation, even though it is meant to be spoken by a race of aliens created by Bioware. I have not copied or used any material from other Asari-langauge Conlangs. (Nor am I aware that they exist as of writing this sentence)

Phonology

Letters	Pronunciation	Further information
a	[a:]	has no short version
c	[kʰ]/[-]	used as glide after a and long u
e	[ɛ] / [e:]	-
g	[g]/[-]	used as glide after a and long u
h	[h]	-
i	[i]	-
k	[kʰ]	rarely used, usually replaced by c
l	[l]	-
m	[m]	-
n	[n]	-
o	[ɔ]/[o:]	short/long
p	[p]	-
r	[r]
s	[s]	-
t	[t]	-
u	[ʉ]	has no short version
v	[v]	-
x	[ks]	-
y	[i]	makes the same sound as i
z	[z]	rarely used

The Asári alphabet also has stress marks that can be placed over any vowel (á, é, í, ó, ú, ý) to indicate the primary stress placement on a word if it does not follow the standard stress rules.

The phones [b] and [d] have merged with [p] and [t] and are no longer in use. They are still found in some archaic words, such as ardat-yakshi.

Consonants

Here is a chart of the Consonantal Phonemes in Asári:

Phonemes	Bilabial	Labiodental	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	p			t			kʰ g
Affricate
Nasal	m			n			(ɲ)
Fricative		f v		s	ʃ		ks	h
Approximant				r
Lateral approximant		w		l

The digraph sh represents [ʃ], and ng represents [ɲ].

Vowels

Here is a table of the vowel phonemes in Asári:

Phonemes	Short		Long
	Front	Back	Front	Back
Closed	i	-		ʉ
Mid-closed		-	e:	o:
Mid-open	ɛ	ɔ	-	-
Open	a	-	-	-

Asári has a relatively small number of individual phonemes, which is what makes it so easy for other species to learn and one of the reasons it is the main administrative language of the Citadel Council.

Stress

Stress falls on the first syllable of a word, unless specified otherwise by an accented vowel. Vowels in stressed syllables are always long, if a length distinction can be made for that vowel. This can change the meaning of seemingly homophonic words:

• teporu [te:'pɔ,rʉ] (high, adj.) vs. tepóru [tɛ,po:'rʉ] (gate, n.)

Glides

Asári has two glides: the j-type glide and the w-type glide, each represented by specific letters in specific positions.

The letters c and g represent these glides respectively. They are only used as glides after the phonemes [a] and [ʉ:]. (a and long u)

For example:

Word	Pronunciation	Glide Type	Meaning
tagó	[ta,wo:']	w-glide	hand
uge	[ʉ:'wɛ]	w-glide	moon
oeaci	[o:'ɛa,ji]	j-glide	ocean (human loanword)
arúcetú	[a:,rʉ:'jɛ,tʉ:']	j-glide	to work (from German arbeiten)

Grammar

Nouns and Gender

Nouns in Asári are not inflected for gender, in keeping with Asári's simple grammatical concepts. They are, however, inflected for number.

There are three numbers in Asári, singular, dual, and plural. Number inflection for nouns is done by conjoining a word before the noun. teng is used for two of something, and acia is used for any number over three. Here is a chart showing the prefixed number markers for nouns in different numbers:

Singular	Dual	Plural	Meaning	Definite
asári	teng-asári	acia-asári	asári	asári-te
sale	teng-sale	acia-sale	land (country)	sale-te
aeó	teng-aeó	acia-aeó	eye	aeó-te

There are a significant number of Asári-absorbed human loanwords, such as aeó - eye, or te - the. These simpler loanwords have become so common that they have replaced their archaic Asári counterparts. Many of these come from English and other Germanic languages.

Proper nouns are pluralized by suffixing ae:

• Aria (name) - Ariae (if the noun ends in a, then only e is added)
• Mari (type of fish) - Mariae

Personal Pronouns

Case	1st person
	Singular		Plural
Nominative	eia		teia
Accusative	co		tecó
Dative	cu		tecú
Genitive	coia		tecóia
Case	2nd person
	Singular		Plural
Nominative	vo		tevó
Accusative	meia		teméia
Dative	maia		temáia
Genitive	aer		teáer
Case	3rd person
	Feminine (Neutral)	Plural
Nominative	sene	ten
Accusative	sena	tena
Dative	senu	tenu
Genitive	seno	teno

Nouns in Asári derive their plural form through the addition of acia. (There is no plural marker, so to speak) However, in the instance of pronouns, a t is added. Asári tends to avoid consonant clusters, and because of this, a 'glider e' is inserted before the initial consonant of the root word. For instance:

• eia - I -> teia - we.
• meia - you (acc.) -> meia - teméia - you pl. (acc.) (note the accent on é to preserve the pronunciation of meia)