Šinax Netagin
Șinach Netagin (en Nătahi Śinaxi) is the most widely spoken descendant of Classical Netagin in Bjeheond. It's also spoken in Cualuav. It exists in a sprachbund with Nurian, Modern Windermere, Gwnax and other Bjeheondian languages.
I borrowed Șinach from Irish sionnach 'fox' because Bjeheond has a fox motif. In Crackfic Irta, this connection is etymologically sound -- the name comes from Irish via immigration to Bjeheond.
Grammatical changes from Classical Netagin include:
- SAuxVO word order
- Loss of grammatical gender and construct state
- Relative clauses are resumptive
- As a result of Jespersen's cycle, negation uses a negative absolutive marker dean derived from the Classical connegative determiner de.
- SEA style serial verbs
- Emphatic -mik (< miek)
- Tricons is derivational not inflectional
Modern Netagin people usually have Classical Netagin names
Should drop some final consonants like Jewish Babylonian Aramaic (which has qam > qa 'stand' and emar > ema 'say')
Inspiration: "What if Hebrew evolved further in Mainland Southeast Asia"
Phonology
"Classical Netagin become Modern Saigon Vietnamese"
Consonants
- CNtg r /r/ becomes a uvular approximant [ʁ]
- ť ď /t d/ become /ʈ~ʈʂ ɖ~ɖʐ/
- ś ź /ɕ ʑ/ become non-retracted /s z/, while s z become /ʂ ʐ/
- ć /t͡ɕ/ merges with c /ts(ret)/ into /t͡ɕ/
Vowels
i u ů ė e ă o a /i ɨ u e ɛ ə ɔ a/
- unconditional: u > /ï/, ů > /u/
- ie = ė = /e/ but ie sometimes > /i/
- y > /i/, sometimes /ə/
Parts of speech
Pronouns
VNtg has only one set of pronouns.
| 1sg | 2sg | 3sg | 1pl | 2pl | 3pl | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| m. | f. | n. | exclusive | inclusive | ||||
| li | dů | naj | nas | nis | ťů | ťiem | nybi | nus |
Syntax
Present tense: subject + ma + verb + object (the verb is usually etymologically a VN)
- Li jėn ma qišnaz, xambe kve ma qalůť.
- 1SG NEG PRES obey, when that PRES bad
- I do not obey others when it's wrong.
CNtg my becomes an oblique case marker, prepositions form from relational nouns
Derivation
Poetry
Folk Netagin "piyyutim" use the same rhyming criteria as Classical Netagin "piyyutim", but they use weight-agnostic meters and are composed in Vernacular Netagin.