Xanian
Vâka Xâkömarī
Vâkâ Xâkömârī.png
Vâkâ Xâkömârī in written Xanian in Vanka
Pronunciation[/vɐka ʒɐkɵmaɹɪ/]
Created byVivaporius
Native toXania
Native speakers5,270,832 in the United States
334,656 overseas (2014)
Xanic
  • Xanian
Standard form
Official status
Official language in
Xania
Regulated byImperial Xanian Linguistics Institute
Language codes
ISO 639-1xa
ISO 639-2xan
ISO 639-3xan
Xanian speakers in North America.png
Location of nations where Xanian is a spoken language
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Xanian (Vâka Xâkömarī, /vɐka ʒɐkɵmaɹɪ/) is a North American language spoken by 5.6 million people, and the official language of Xania. It is a member of the Xanic language family, and largely regarded as a language isolate, the second largest of its type in the world after Korean. For centuries, the Xanian language has remained distinct and separate from the rest of the languages around it, with little influence on the language until Xania's emergence into the world community in the late 1800s. Virtually nothing is known of the language's prehistory, and all information on when it first appeared in North America exists, leaving many to speculate that the language arrived with Xanians sometime around 1200 AD.

Phonology and orthography

Main articles: Xanian phonology and IPA for Xanian

Consonants

Grapheme IPA Description Notes
D d [d] Voiced alveolar stop -
H h [h] Voiceless glottal fricative -
J j [dʒ] Voiced palato-alveolar affricate -
K k [k] Voiceless velar stop -
M m [m] Bilabial nasal -
N n [n] Alveolar nasal -
R r [ɹ] Alveolar approximant -
S s [s] Voiceless alveolar sibilant -
Š š [ʃ] Voiceless palato-alveolar fricative -
T t [t] Voiceless alveolar plosive -
V v [v] Voiced labiodental fricative -
X x [ʒ] Voiced palato-alveolar sibilant -
Y y [j] Palatal approximant -
Z z [z] Voiced alveolar fricative -

Vowels

Grapheme IPA Description Notes
A a [a] Open front unrounded vowel -
 â [ɐ] Near-open central vowel -
E e [e] Close-mid front unrounded vowel -
I i [i] Close front unrounded vowel -
Ī ī [ɪ] Near-close near-front unrounded vowel -
O o [o] Close-mid back rounded vowel -
Ö ö [ɵ] Close-mid central rounded vowel -
U u [u] Close back rounded vowel -

Digraphs and trigraphs

Alphabet

The Xanian language has its own alphabet, which has traditionally been the only one in use by the speakers of the language. However, the usage of Latin in place of the Xanian alphabet only recently came to supplant the later as more and more Xanians in the United States adopted the Latin scipt for practical reasons. However, the Xanian script remains the primary written script in regions where Xanians are the primary inhabitants. On official documents of the Xanian people, the Xanian alphabet is always used, with one in the Romanized alphabet put out shortly thereafter. All icons and emblems used by the Xanians which possess writing on them, are always in the Xanian alphabet.

Xanian alphabet
A a  â D d E e H h I i Ī ī J j K k M m N n O o Ö ö R r S s Š š T t U u V v X x Y y Z z
[a] [ɐ] [d] [e] [h] [i] [ɪ] [dʒ] [k] [m] [n] [o] [ɵ] [ɹ] [s] [ʃ] [t] [u] [v] [ʒ] [j] [z]

Nota bene

  1. /z/ never comes before another stop consonant
  2. /j/ can never be placed next to another consonant
  3. /r/, /n/, /s/ and /k/ are the only consonants allowed next to one another
  4. /s/ may only come after /r/ and before /h/ at all times if placed next to one another
  5. In words with two or more /a/ vowels, stress is always placed on the second /a/
  6. /r/ is never permitted to sit next to another consonant due to the illegality liquids
  7. Stress is placed on the first /a/ if another vowel precedes it, or if /ʒ/ or /v/ directly precedes /a/
  8. /n/, /k/, and /r/ are the only consonants permitted to end a word

Violation of these rules are only rarely permitted, but avoided if at all possible.

Grammar

Cases

There are five cases in the Xanian language:

  1. Nominative
  2. Accusative
  3. Genitive
  4. Ablative
  5. Dative

Nouns

Xanian has no gender, with all nouns using a strictly neuter form with the sole exception of titles.

Cases
Phoneme ↓ Nominative Accusative Genitive Ablative Dative
-n -n (s) / -nī (p) -n (s) / -nī (p) -no (s) / -nokī (p) -nu (s) / -nurī (p) -na (s) / -nânī (p)
-r -r (s) / -rī (p) -r (s) / -rī (p) -ro (s) / -rokī (p) -ru (s) / -runī (p) -ra (s) / -rânī (p)
-k -k (s) / -kī (p) -k (s) / -kī (p) -ko (s) / -konī (p) -ku (s) / -kurī (p) -ka (s) / -kânī (p)
-s -s (s) / -sī (p) -s (s) / -sī (p) -so (s) / -sonī (p) -su (s) / -surī (p) -sa (s) / -sânī (p)

Diminutives and augmentatives

Articles

Definite

Indefinite

Adjectives

Comparatives

More

Less

As... as

Superlatives

Most

Least

Personal pronouns

The Xanian language lacks gender outside of titles, and does not differentiate between male, female, neuter, animate or inanimate objects. All genders are represented as the same pronoun. The lack of gender in the Xanian language can best be attributed to the Xanians overwhelmingly female population, but the vital role males play in their species, leading to the Xanians simply discarding the need for gender in their language. Instead, all objects are referred to equally, and without any regard to the gender of the individual unless their position or family name is brought up in the sentence. In these instances, only the title and the surname are given genders, with "o" for men and "a" for women, though the former only applies to surnames for men.

Personal pronouns in Xanian
Person Subject/Object Possessive Reflexive
Singular
First
(I/me)
kīn
(my/mine)
kīnu
(myself)
Second to
(you)
ton
(your/yours)
tonu
(yourself)
Third te
(he/she/it)
ten
(his/hers/its)
tenu
(him/her/itself)
Plural
First ku
(we/us)
kunī
(our/ours)
kunu
(ourselves)
Second to
(you)
tenī
(your/yours)
tenu
(yourselves)
Third du
(they/them)
dunī
(their/theirs)
dunu
(themselves)

Possessives

Interrogative pronouns

Relative pronouns

Demonstrative pronouns

Verbs

Tenses and moods

Indicative mood
Conditional mood
Imperative mood

Voices

Continuous

Gnomic

Reflexives

Polarity

Irregular verbs

Adverbs

Word order

Numerals

Cardinal

The Xanians use a decimal, e.g. base-10 counting system within their language, basing it off of the countable appendages on their hands. Cardinal numbers, as with the other numbers, are unaffected by the Xanian case system.

Examples:

  • dī-mârok (a nation)
  • nok mârokī (zero nations)
  • âyn mârok (one nation)
  • kor mârokī (nine nations)
  • xi mârokī (ten nations)
  • xidīn mârokī (a/one hundred nations)
Cardinal numbers
Number Xanian
0 nok
1 âyn
2 tīr
3 vyâ
4 jâr
5 yân
6 sīn
7 šan
8 zon
9 kor
10 xi
11 xi-âyn
12 xi-tīr
13 xi-vyâ
14 xi-jâr
15 xi-yân
16 xi-sin
17 xi-šan
18 xi-zon
19 xi-kor
20 tīr'xi
30 vyâ'xi
40 jâr'xi
50 yân'xi
60 sīn'xi
70 šan'xi
80 zon'xi
90 kor'xi
100 xidīn
101 xidīn-âyn
110 xidīn'xi
111 xidīn'xi-âyn
200 tīr'xidīn
1000 xidīnko
1001 xidīnko-âyn
1010 xidīnko'xi
1011 xidīnko'xi-âyn
1100 xidīnko'xidīn
1101 xidīnko'xidīn-âyn
1110 xidīnko'xidīn'xi
1111 xidīnko'xidīn'xi-âyn
2000 tīr'xidīnko
10,000 xi'xidīnko
100,000 xidīnoju
1,000,000 xidīnkovâr
1,000,000,000 xidīnyâkī
1,000,000,000,000 xidīndâvo
zhâukono

Ordinal

Adverbial

Multiplier

Distributive

Collective

Fractional

Ages

Months of the year

Days of the week

Dates

"What date is it?"

"When?"

Times

"What time is it?"

"When?"

Seasons

Traditional

Xanian

Names

Vocabulary

Colours

Conjunctions

Contionary

Kinship

Points of the compass

Swadesh list

Weather phrases