Suwáá

Suwáá is highly diglossic; unless stated otherwise, this page describes the modern standard Amísreg register. For the other varieties, see the subpages devoted to individual varieties.

Suwáá
Sowaár dasrég
Pronunciation	[/sʊ̀wɑ̌ːɻ tɑ̀ʂɛ́k/]
Created by	IlL
Setting	Tricin
Language family	language isolate
Official status
Official language in	Sowaár daSóol (de facto)
Regulated by	none
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Forms of Suwáá (English: soo-WAHZH; Amísreg: Sowaár da·srég /sʊ̀wɑ̌ːɻ tɑ̀ʂɛ́k/, gloss: Sowaár 3pl-language) are the dominant languages in Sowaár daSóol in Verse:Tricin/Txapoalli. Sowaár is a non-configurational polysynthetic language with a complex verbal morphology.

Suwáá forms a single dialect continuum and is otherwise an isolate, though some speculate that Suwáá is related to the Quame languages.

External history

Sowaár is made for a Japan- and Britain-inspired country in Tricin but is intended to be very different from Japanese or English. It is aesthetically inspired mainly by Navajo, and secondarily by Hmong and Vietnamese. Sowaár has a wide variety of accents and dialects in a small area and a posh accent/register associated with the upper class, and it also ablauts verbs; that's where the similarities with English end.

Diglossia

Sowaár is strongly diglossic, with the diglossia influenced by social class. The prestige variety Amísreg (Sowaár: /ɑmíʂɛk/ 'noble language') is a cousin of Classical Sowaár with some borrowing from Classical Sowaár, and it is the standard language used in literature, formal writing, newsreading, and public announcements. Amísreg plays a similar role to the RP accent in British English: most native speakers of Amísreg are people from highly educated and wealthy families. On the other end of the spectrum, the lower class speak local lects which are sometimes mutually unintelligible. Amísreg is not a static entity; it is defined as whatever the Sowaár upper class speaks at the time.

The diglossia is also influenced by gender: urban women are more likely than other groups to use more neutral forms and accents (i.e. closer to an abstract pseudo-Amísreg "gynelect"). Since the 1340s (fT), a greater permissiveness towards regional and "nonstandard" varieties of Sowaár has taken hold in education. However, due to greater travel and the mass media, marked features in Sowaár varieties have also begun to disappear. Today, a quasi-"gynelect", New Urban Sowaár, is slowly emerging as the canonical non-posh colloquial dialect.

The hierarchy of lects is roughly as follows:

Upper class: Amísreg
Professional class: accented Amísreg
Middle class: local vernacular + Amísreg
Working/lower class: broad local vernacular

Amísreg is the variety taught in Sowaár schools and also the variety that is often first taught to non-natives. Though most natives are able to speak the proper language from learning it in school, they only choose to use it in certain situations, like greeting a customer, or talking to a stranger over the phone.

The language encountered in Sowaár pop culture is usually Standard Sowaár, with accent depending on the region and social class of the characters. The most frequently used Sowaár varieties in pop culture are the urban middle-class lects (most creators live in or near one of the major urban centers, e.g. 'Onápaam, Jikhoó'ii, Camánreh). Using more unusual lects mark certain types of characters (e.g. rural lects for country hicks, broad urban lects for hypermasculine bros, a caricatured "gynelect" for ditzy teenage girls, Amísreg for posh villains, ...)

Generally, less polysynthetic Sowaár dialects tend to be more fusional and preserve more of the ablaut system of verbs. Conversely, more polysynthetic dialects have simplified their ablaut system drastically, or have no ablaut at all. (Is High Sowaár in the middle? Or is it an exception to this trend in that it is both highly fusional and highly polysynthetic?)

Todo

Badly irregular ablaut like Navajo
Some really short roots
Should be different from Navajo and Roshterian but still polysynthetic
Some Quame-ish words

i fall in love with you (active counterpart) = shelisjhaágy
do you want reduplication?
sounds ok
how is -in for an attributive clause
or relative clause
verb+in
so it's a nominalizer
clofab intensifies
yeah
shiilyohookh+in = that piles up
😍1
and that could ablaut to -iin or -iín?
in some forms like intransitive attributive
most C(C)oC verbs should inflect like sjhogy
maybe
Sowaazh should be non-config
noun phrases are head-final and they use relational nouns
shiilyohookh would inflect like

khashiilyohookh
akheshiiñlyohookh
khóoshigyoñhookh?
inceptive should use t
yeah
or d
because of quame future
quihumists would relate that to thensarian -tē-
yeah
that "let us soar party" 😀
and for the fun of it...
the t should be an infix!
sjhodagy-
😍1
should mean to fall in love

Phonology

Take inspiration from Vietnamese accents for Sowaár dialects

Consonants

High Suwáá has a large consonant inventory of 35 consonants:

**Consonant phonemes in High Suwáá**
		Labial	Dental		Retroflex		Palatal	Velar	Glottal
		Labial	central	lateral	central	lateral	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m /m/	n /n/		nr /ɳ/		ny
Stop	tenuis	b /p/	d /t/	dl /tl/	dr /ʈ/	dlr /ʈɭ/	j /tɕ/	g /k/	' /ʔ/
	aspirated	p /pʰ/	t /tʰ/	tl /tɬʰ/	tr /ʈʰ/	tlr /ʈɬʵʰ/	c /tɕʰ/	k /kʰ/
	ejective		t' /tʼ/	tl' /tɬʼ/	tr' /ʈʼ/	tlr' /ʈɬʵʼ/	c' /tɕʼ/	k' /kʼ/
Fricative			s /s/	ł /ɬ/	sr /ʂ/	łr /ɬʵ/	x /ɕ/	kh /x/	h /h/
Approximant		w /w/		l /l/	r /ɻ~ɭ/		y /j/

Notes

All consonants in Amísreg are long, compared to English and other Sowaár dialects: with plain stops the hold is longer, with aspirated stops the aspiration is longer, and with affricates the frication is longer. The voice onset time of the aspirated and ejective stops is twice as long as that found in most other languages.

Amísreg retroflexes are subapical, unlike retroflexes in other accents. (Native speakers describe subapical retroflexes as deep and dignified.)

Vowels

High Suwáá has only 4 vowel qualities, although there is phonemic vowel length.

**High Suwáá oral vowels**
	Front		Back
	short	long	short	long
Close	i /ɪ/	ii /iː/	o /ʊ/	oo /uː/
Open	e /ɛ/	ee /ɛː/	a /ɑ/	aa /ɑː/

Tone

Modern High Suwáá has a two-level tone system - every word will have at least one high pitched mora but may have more than one, especially in longer words. A mora with high pitch is marked with an acute accent.

Other Sowaár lects have different tonal systems or none. For example, the Cyamányeh lect has no tone.

Phonotactics

Sowaár allows the following initial clusters: sb sd sj sjh sjy sgy sg /sp st sts ʂtʂ ɕtɕ sc sk/.

Accents

Two levels of variation:

There are two varieties of the spoken language, with different vocabulary and grammar: Standard Sowaár and regiolects.

Even when speaking Standard Sowaár (not a regional dialect), one usually keeps a regional accent. Having no regional accent at all is associated with poshness.

Conservative Amísreg

In Conservative Amísreg, the vowels o oo are consistently [o o:], and a aa are less back [ä ä:].

Conservative Amísreg retains the Classical Sowaár 3-tone system in a simplified form, which moderners perceive as affected.

Classical Sowaár: á, a, à, áa, aà, aá, aa
Conservative Amísreg: á, a, à, áa, aá, aa
Modern Amísreg: á, a, áa, aá, aa

Orthography

All varieties of Sowaár are written in the Sowaár alphabet, which was originally developed as a phonetic notation system like the IPA. Amísreg spelling is based on Conservative Amísreg.

no dot: mid tone
one dot below: high tone
two dots below: low tone (unpronounced)

Writing vernaculars

Sandhi

All Sowaár lects have extensive sandhi systems. The following describes Amísreg sandhi.

Consonants and vowels

Initial Consonant	Final Consonant
Initial Consonant	f	p	b	m	th	t	d	n	ch	c	g	ng	s	ts	ł	tł	ș	h	'	l	r	w	y
f	f	p	sp	fn	ft	ft	ft	fn	pc	pc	pc	fng	ps	fts	pł	ftł	pș	f	f'	fl	fr	fw	fy
p
b
m
th
t
d
n
ch
g
c
ng
s
ts
ł
tł
ș
h
'
l
r
w
y

Tone

Morphology

Main article: Sowaár/Morphology

Sowaár is strongly head-marking, like many indigenous languages of North and Central America. More information is conveyed by verbs than in most other languages. Example:

Sowaár tasr la'dat'oóweyin

/sʊ̀wɑ̌:ɻ tʰɑ̀ʂ lɑ̀ʔtɑ̀tʼǔ:wɛ̀jɪ̀n/

Sowaár da-hasr la'-da-t'oó-e-in

Sowaár 3PL.AN-for "all directions"-3PL.AN-radiate/REG-REG=NOMZ (REG = TAM for "regularly does something, as in a job")

Sowaár Broadcasting Corporation

Literal translation: "those who regularly send things out in all directions for the Sowaár people"

Syntax

Word order

Amísreg is non-configurational. Noun phrases are head-final.

Clitics

Most conjunctions obey Wackernagel's law; they come after the first syntactic phrase or the first stressed word in a clause.

Relative clauses

Nominalized relative clauses are formed by attaching the nominalizing clitic =in after the clause.

Examples:

lisdrój /lɪ̀ʂtʂʊ́c/ = 'I love you' > lisdrójin /lɪ̀ʂtʂʊ́cɪ̀n/ = 'the fact that I love you'
sriilohóokh = 'they pile up forming a line' > sriilohóokhin = (a type of scale used in Sowaár music)

Vocabulary

Sowaár vocabulary is nearly exclusively native. A sparse number of words are from Naquic and Tsimulh languages, and recently, Skellan. Borrowed words are almost all nouns.

For example:

Khópab daSóol = Clofabolocin (via Skellan Clofab)

glah → gakháh /kaxah/

Hnawcas Amlad → Náwokas Ámkhad

Iña's Moh > Íikhasmoh

To abbreviate words, Sowaár uses clipping.

Transliterating Skellan

Consonants:

/m n ŋ/ = m n n
/p t k/ = b d g
/pʰ tʰ kʰ/ = p t k
/ts tʃ/ = c c
/f θ ç χ h/ = p d x kh h
/v ð j/ = w d y
/s ʃ/ = s x
/z ʒ/ = s x
/w r r̥ ʟ/ = w r sh kh

Vowels:

/i y ə u e~ɛi ø~œy o~ɔu ɛ œ a ɔ/ = ii ii a oo i/eyi i/eyi o/awo e e a a
- /e ø o/ = i i o for Skellan Eevo, eyi/ewi/awo for Fyxoomian Eevo
/ai ui au ɛu iu iə yə uə/ = ayi owi awo ewo iyo iya iya uwa'
Fyxoomian: /õˁ ẽˁ~ø̃ˁ ɛ̃ˁ~œ̃ˁ ɔ̃ˁ ãˁ/ = oN iN eN aN aN
Skellan: /iɤ yɤ uɤ eɤ øɤ oɤ ɛɤ aɤ ɔɤ/ = iwa iwa owa iwa ewa owa ewa awa awa

Study by non-native speakers

Due to the popularity of Sowaár pop culture across the globe, Sowaár is commonly learned by Sowaárophile otakus. Sowaár is considered one of the most daunting languages for speakers of most Northern languages, due to its morphological complexity and high degree of diglossia.

Poetry

Sowaár poetry uses quantitative meters, like Sanskrit.

(LLLLSLLSSSSSSLLSLLSLL)

(LLLSSLSLSSSLLLSLLSL)

Lyoóshaant’ ólo·sjecyida'eéch’ óna' da·sk’onyáad shéb (LLSSSSSLSSSSLS)
Gáadeéncyok’ oon·táshojyekaad wehacóozh bijháalyin (LLSLSSSLSSLSLS)

Phrasebook

'Áa'weh khéh, mehonol'é? = Hello, how do you do? (gloss: good place, 2SG-CONT-peaceful-INTERR)
Khahonolíi. = reply to Mehonol'é? (gloss: 1SG-CONT-peaceful-TVF)
Lihosdróy = I love you.
Nótr'ahgará be'saambój. Khooh 'ésjol be'saambojáyee'. = "All animals are equal. But some animals are more equal than others."

Sample Texts

UDHR

Nórkhantóo...

all=human 3PL-GNOM-be-born 3SG.INAN-from GNOM-STAT-free, 3PL-STAT-PASS-honor=NOM=also and 3PL-GNOM-STAT/deserve=NOM 3INAN-GNOM-STAT/equal

Literally: All people from being born are free; their dignity and rights are equal. They-can-TELIC-think=NOMZ and they-can-know-good=NOM, they can use it, they must thus move themselves in the face of each other as if they were brothers.

Serenity

Literally: May I be at peace with what I cannot change, boldly change what I can change, and by thinking wisely, tell the two situations apart.