Aeranir

Aeranir
coeñar indëris
coeñar aerānir
Pronunciation	[[Help:IPA|[[ˈcøː.ɲar ˈɪ̃n.dæ.rɪs̠], [ˈcøː.ɲar ɛːˈraː.nɪr]]]]
Created by	Limius
Setting	Avrid
Native to	Telrhamir, Iscaria, the Aeranid Empire
Ethnicity	Aeran
Language family	Maro-Ephenian Iscaric Aeranir
Early forms	Proto-Maro-Ephenian Proto-Iscaric Old Aeranir

Aeranir, also known as coeñar aerānir (language of the Aerans), or coeñar indëris (language of the capital), is an Iscaric language in the Maro-Ephenian language group. It was originally spoken by the Aerans, developed in the deserts of Northern Iscaria in the city of Telrhamir, and spread with the expanse of the Aeranid Empire throughout Ephenia, as well as parts of Eubora and Syra. It later developed into the Aeranid languages, such as Dalot, Ilesse, Iscariano, Îredese, S'entigneis, and Tevrés. It is still used throughout Ephenia as a language of theology, science, medicine, literature, and law.

Aeranir had been standardised into Classical Aeranir by the time of the Early Empire, around the second millennia BTC by the writer and educator Limius. The period before that is generally referred to as Old Aeranir. The language spoken between the 15th and 12th centuries BTC is generally referred to Late Aeranir. This shift is marked by several grammatical and phonetic shifts. After that period, Aeranir began to splinter off into the various Aeranid languages. A form of Classical Aeranir called New Aeranir or Medieval Aeranir remained in use in official writings even after this period.

Aeranir is a highly infective and fusional language, with three distinct genders, nine cases, two aspects, four moods, three persons, two or three voices, and two numbers.

History

Old Aeranir

The oldest attested form of Aeranir is Old Aeranir, which was spoken in the kingdom of Telrhamir circa 2300 BTC. It is attested mostly in inscriptions found in and around the Great Desert, and in some early remaining Aeranid literary works. Old Aeranir lacked many of the verb-forms found in Classical Aeranir, such as the potential and causative moods, and the passive voice (which was marginal even in Classical Aeranir). Old Aeranir had an additional declension class, the i-stem declension, which merged with the consonant-stems in Classical Aeranir. Proto-Iscaric diphthongs /ei/ and /ou/, as well as initial /gn/ and non-affricate /ts/ were retained in Old Aeranir, and it is believed that Classical /ɛː ɔː øː yː/ remained diphthongs /ai au oi ui/ (and were thus written ai au oi ui, as opposed to Classical ae au oe ȳ). In general, Old Aeranir lacked much of the vowel diminishing that characterised Classical Aeranir.

Classical Aeranir

A standardised form of the language arouse in the time of the Early Empire, created conciously by the prominent grammarians, writers, and orators of the time. This formed the basis of what was taught in the Telrhamiran axēs system. One of the most prominent of these figures was Limius (who was known in their day as Lēctïca Prīstus Limius Vestil Oscānus Fellëntīmā Motā Soniae) who is credited with first marking diminished vowels in writing.

Phonology

Consonants

Consonant phonemes

		Labial	Coronal			Palatal	Velar		Uvular		Glottal
			dental	lateral	post- alveolar		plain	labial	plain	labial
Nasal		m /m/	n /n/			ñ /ɲ/
Stop	voiceless	p /p/	t /t̪/				c /k/	cu /kʷ/	q /q/	qu /qʷ/
	voiced	b /b/	d /d̪/				g /g/	gu /gʷ/
Affricate				tl /tɬ/	ç /ts̠/
Fricative		f /f/			s /s̠/		gh /ɣ/				h /h/
Trill	voiceless				rh /r̥/
	voiced				r /r/
Approximate		v /ʋ/		l /l/		i /j/

Verbs

Conjugation

The verb in Aeranir is primarily made of three parts: stem, theme, and ending, with an optional forth category, the suffix, for forming the perfective. The stem carries the semantic content of the word, and can also be conjugated to carry modal imformation. The theme describes how the stem interacts with the ending, and can also be changed, along with the stem and endings, to express a variety of different grammatical meanings. Endings indicate the voice, aspect, person, number, and gender of the most oblique argument in the DGA scheme.

Basic verb endings

			Active		Middle		Passive
			Imperfective	Perfective	Imperfective	Perfective	Imperfective	Perfective
Singular	1st Person		-iç/-it	-ī	-or/-ō	-ō	-ēlō	-ēlō
	2nd Person		-in	-in	-istī	-iste	-ēlāstī	-ēlāste
	3rd Person	temporary	-is	-is	-ërur	-ëre	-ēlārur	-ēlāre
		cyclical	-a	-a	-erra		-ēlārra
		eternal	-ī	-e	-ërur		-ēlārur
Plural	1st Person		-ïmus	-ïme	-ïmur	-ïmur	-ēlāmur	-ēlāme
	2nd Person		-ïtis	-ïte	-ïtur	-ïtur	-ēlātur	-ēlāte
	3rd Person		-end	-end

The way in which a verb will conjugate can be determined from how it forms the following four constructions: the active idicative imperfective first person singular, the active perfective participle, the active optative imperfective first person singular, and the active indicative perfective first person singular. These four forms are refered to as a verb's reference forms. They are often shortend to first person singular (1p.sg), perfective participle (pfv.ptcp), optative first person singular (opt.1p.sg), and perfective first person singular (pfv.1p.sg) respectively.

The first of these reference forms determines a verb's base thematic class, or what theme vowel is used in its indicative imperfective forms. There are four main thematic classes; one weak or null class, wherein the ending is applied directly to the stem, and three strong classes, wherein a thematic vowel is inserted between the stem and the ending.

Consonant stem changes

	t-stem	s-stem
-m-	→ -mpt-	→ -s-*
-n-	→ -nt-
-ñ-
-p-	→ -pt-	→ -ps-
-t-	→ -ss- → -s-**	→ -ss- → -s-**
-tl-
-ç-
-c-	→ -ct-	→ -x-
-cu-
-q-	→ -qt-	→ -qs-
-qu-
-b-	→ -pt-*	→ -ps-*
-d-	→ -s-*	→ -s-*
-g-	→ -ct-*	→ -x-* → -s-†
-s-	→ -st-	→ -ss- → -s-**
-r-	→ -st- → -s-** → -rt-††	→ -ss- → -s-** → -rr-††
-l-	→ -s-** → -lt-††	→ -s-** → -ll-††
-v-	→ -ut-‡ → -ct-*††	→ -ur-‡ → -x-*††
-i-	→ -ct-*	→ -x-*
-gh-
-V-	→ -Vt-	→ -Vr-

Theme-ending combination

Ending	Theme
	-ā-	-ī-	-e-
-iç	→ -aç	→ -eç	→ -iç
-is	→ -ās	→ -ēs	→ -īs
-a	→ -a	→ -ea	→ -ia
-ī	→ -ae	→ -ī	→ -ī
-ïmus	→ -āmus	→ -ēmus	→ -īmus
-or	→ -or	→ -eor	→ -ior
-ēlō	→ -ālō	→ -ēlō	→ -iēlō

The second two determine a verbs's t-stem and s-stem. These stem alterations are used for further conjugation, the t-stem forming the active and middle perfective participles, the causative voice, and the potential mood, and the s-stem forming the optative. The t- and s-forms often are identical, however meaning is useally further differentiated by thematic vowels, so completely identical forms are rare.

The final form determines how a verb with form the perfective aspect. Generally, there are three main strategies for this: the application of suffix -u- directly after the stem (e.g. oeliç → oeluī), the appication of the suffix -v- after a theme vowel (e.g. aedaç → aedāvī), or no suffix, with lengthening of the root vowel (e.g. legiç → lēgī). It should be noted that the perfective is always followed by weak endings.

Voice

Subjunctive

Subjuntive theme changes

Type		Change	Example
Weak Verbs		-ø- → -ē-	mendiç → mendet
		-ē- → -ā-	mendēlō → mendālō
Strong Verbs	a-stem	-ā- → -ē-	aedaç → aedet aedālō → aedēlō
	i-stem	-ī- → -iā-	saepiç → saepiat
		-iē- → -iā-	saepiēlō → saepiālō
	e-stem	-ē- → -eā-	cōreç → cōreat cōrēlō → cōreālō

Lexicon

Aeranir Lexicon.