Xanian

Xanian
Xâkömari
Pronunciation	[/ʒɐkɵmɑri/]
Created by	–
Native to	Xania
Native speakers	5,270,832 in the United States 334,656 overseas (2014)
Language family	Xanic Xanian
Standard form	Imperial Xanian Standard
Official status
Official language in	Xania
Regulated by	Imperial Xanian Linguistics Institute
Language codes
ISO 639-1	xa
ISO 639-2	xan
ISO 639-3	xan
Location of nations where Xanian is a spoken language

Xanian (Xâkömari, /ʒɐkɵmɑri/) 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

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	-
L	l	[l]	Alveolar lateral approximant	-
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	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	-

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	L l	M m
[a]	[ɐ]	[d]	[e]	[h]	[i]	[ɪ]	[dʒ]	[k]	[l]	[m]
N n	O o	Ö ö	R r	S s	Š š	T t	V v	X x	Y y	Z z
[n]	[o]	[ɵ]	[ɹ]	[s]	[ʃ]	[t]	[v]	[ʒ]	[j]	[z]

Stress, rhythm and intonation

Xanian is a highly stressed language, with emphasize on the first or second syllables of a short word, or first to middle syllables of a longer word, typically regarded as the norm. The stress on words with Xanian is often considered similar to the stressing of words in the English and Latin, though Xanian words will have circumflex marks to indicate when stress on a particular syllable is required, much as with the accents in Latin and Romance languages. With regards to rhythm, Xanian is a stress-timed language, with stressed and unstressed syllables carrying equal weight in a word though the stressed portion may be shorter than the unstressed portion in letter length, but longer when voiced.