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 5000 speakers on the Mediterranean island of Sasaois, and an autonomous zone of the Hellenic Republic. It is notable for its split ergative alignment, flexible word order, and dynamic semantic gender.

Almost all residents of Sasaios 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 Sasaios - 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 Sasaios and considered official history by the town government.

On a meta-level, this language was created by User:Anisette Biscotti, 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		(ŋ)
Plosives	p	b	t	d	c		k	g	ʔ
Fricatives	(ɸ)	v⁓β	s⁓t͡s	z⁓d͡z	ç ɕ	ʑ⁓d͡ʑ	x⁓h		hʷ
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.
• /ɸ/ appears only in loanwords, and may be instead pronounced as [hʷ]
• /s/, /z/, and /ʑ/ may be realized as their associated affricates when not preceded by a vowel, but this is not obligatory.
• /hʷ/ may be realized as [ʍ] and /v/ 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.
• Except sometimes when attempting to enunciate and making the spelling of a word clear, final /s/ and /ɕ/ are realized as [h]. If this occurs because of final /ɕ/, then Y ablaut (see below) is performed on the preceding vowel.

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].
• 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). Only voiceless obstruents and nasals are allowed in codas, with the exception of /hw/, which does not.

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 sequence /nn/ is allowed. One survey of speakers indicated that /mm/, /ss/, /zz/, /ɕɕ/, and /ʑʑ/ are all considered phonotactically licit, but no actual occurrences of any of these are attested, except across word boundaries. Identical plosives in sequence will have the former plosive morph to a glottal stop, e.g. */tt/ > [ʔt].

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 bō [ˈboː] ("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 if stressed, → o if unstressed
• i → yu
• u → ū
• e → yo
• o → ō

Y Ablaut

The Y Ablaut occurs less often than the W ablaut, but is important for many words containing /ɕ/. The Y ablaut produces the following transformations:

• a → ay if stressed, → e if unstressed
• i → i
• u → i
• e → i
• o →oy if stressed, → e if unstressed

Orthography

Romanization

Saxuma Romanization

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

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

There are nine 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.
• 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>.
• The -ra conjugation includes all verbs that would be a regular weak conjugation, but the consonant before -a, -i, or -u is <r>.
• 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 -H conjugation includes most, but not all, verbs ending in a long vowel.
• The -aw conjugation includes all verbs ending in -aw.
• The -ay conjugation includes all of verbs ending in -ay.

We will detail below how each verb ending inflects to the different conjugation patterns.

The Negative, -NA

-NA, the negative ending, negates the verb it attaches to.

Sigu palas.

The rabbit runs.

Signa palas.

The rabbit does not run.

How to conjugate -NA

The conjugations of -NA for the different classes are as follows:

• Strong regular verbs append -ná to the end of the word. Weak regular verbs delete the final vowel and append -ná.

  lesó → lesoná

  enjí → enjiná

  sigú → signá

• -N, -S, and -H conjugation verbs simply append -ná.

  ekán → ekanná

  rum → rumná

  gix → gixná

  sarás → sarasná

  oxâ → oxāná

• -sa conjugation verbs delete the final vowel and append ná. Note that if the consonant before the final vowel is <x>, then ná will be pronounced as [ɲa].

  myusá → myusná [mjusˈna]

  exí → exná [ɛɕˈɲa]

• -fa conjugation verbs delete the final -fV, apply W-Ablaut to the remaining stem, and append ná.

  safá → saw-ná → soná

• -ra conjugation verbs delete the final -rV, and append xná.

  kurú → kuxná

• -T conjugation verbs remove the final consonant, or change final long ē to short e. Then, they apply W-Ablaut, and finally append ná.

  enák → enaw-ná → enoná

  hē → hyo-ná → hyoná

• -aw verbs morph the final -aw to -o and append -ná.

  aw → oná

  law → loná

• -ay verbs morph the final -ay to -e and append -ná

  way → wená

See the summary in the table below:

Negative -NA conjugation by verb class

Class		Example Stem	Negative -NA
Regular	Strong	lesó	lesoná
	Weak	sigú	signá
-sa		exí	exná
-fa		safá	soná
-ra		kurú	kuxná
-N		ekán	ekanná
-S		gix	gixná
-T		enák	enoná
-H		oxâ	oxāná
-aw		law	loná
-ay		way	wená

The Causative, -BI

-BI, the causative ending, indicates that the subject of the verb causes the object to perform the verb.

In sigbi palas.

He makes the rabbit run.

How to conjugate -BI

-BI adds the suffix -bí to verbs identically to -NA across all verb classes, with one exception:

• -T verbs delete the final consonant (or reduce long ē to short e), and then append -cú

enák → enacú

hē → hecú

See the table below for a summary.

Causative -BI conjugation by verb class

Class		Example Stem	Causative -BI
Regular	Strong	lesó	lesobí
	Weak	sigú	sigbí
-sa		exí	exbí
-fa		safá	sobí
-ra		kurú	kuxbí
-N		ekán	ekanbí
-S		gix	gixbí
-T		enák	enacú
-H		oxâ	oxābí
-aw		law	lobí
-ay		way	webí

The Inchoative, -WAY

-WAY, the inchoative ending, indicates that an action is beginning to occur, or is just about to begin.

Sigway palas.

The rabbit is starting to run. or The rabbit is about to run.

How to Conjugate -WAY

For verbs ending in a voiceless consonant or a weak vowel preceded by a voiceless consonant, the inchoative ending is -fáy. The ending is also -fáy for all -T and -H class verbs. Otherwise, it is -way. Besides this, -WAY conjugates identically to -NA. See the table below.

Inchoative -WAY conjugation by verb class

Class		Example Stem	Inchoative -WAY
Regular	Strong	lesó	lesowáy
	Weak	sigú	sigwáy
-sa		exí	exfáy
-fa		safá	sofáy
-ra		kurú	kuxfáy
-N		ekán	ekanwáy
-S		gix	gixfáy
-T		enák	enofáy
-H		oxâ	oxāfáy
-aw		law	lowáy
-ay		way	wewáy

Summary

Verb conjugations by classs 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	soná	sobí	sofáy	soqún	safô	safáx	sosá
-ra		kurú	kuxná	kuxbí	kuxfáy	kuqún	kûsa	kuxáx	kūsá
-N		ekán	ekanná	ekanbí	ekanwáy	ekankún	ekánla	ekanáx	ekanlá
-S		gix	gixná	gixbí	gixfáy	giqún	gyúsa	gixáx	gyusá
-T		enák	enoná	enacú	enasfáy	enaqún	enatáw	enatáx	enolá
-H		oxâ	oxāná	oxābí	oxafáy	oxaqún	oxáwsa	oxaháx	oxosá
-aw		law	loná	lobí	lowáy	lokún	lála	laláx	lalá
-ay		way	wená	webí	wewáy	wekún	wayú	wayáx	welá

See Also

• Category:Saxuma words