Verse:Anachron/Arabo-Japanese
In Irta, Japanese borrows mainly from Perso-Arabic and replaces some existing Chinese vocabulary during the period corresponding to our timeline's Late Middle Japanese period. Japanese is spoken in Irta's Japan, Sakhalin, Mongolia and parts of Canada. It's notable for having lots of Arabic and Persian loanwords, in addition to earlier Sino-Japanese (Go-on and Kan-on) vocabulary.
Todo
Japanese-made Perso-Arabic words analogous to wasei eigo and wasei kango?
Some unexpected Sino-Japanese words where OTL Japanese would use a native or English word
R/L in Arabic and Persian borrowed the way Japanese borrows them in English instead of simply merging them?
Written in Perso-Arabic script
Middle Japanese + Arabic/Persian + subsequent sound changes
jigā = liver, seat of emotions (like "heart" in English), (poetic) other/second
- the first two senses come from PIE *yekwr, the last one from PIE *dwi-kwer-
nān - bread; (poetic) name
- ishin is a more common poetic synonym for "name"
nāme - book
kitābuhāne - library
abū - cloud (Internet)
mīe = fruit (earlier *miwe)
baji = some
hendese = geometry
umīzu = hope
bāchi = garden
nei = reed flute
sarāmōreikun = assalāmu 3alaykum
ōreikunsarān = wa 3alaykum salām
S, D, T, Z -> suw-, zuw-, tsuw-, zuw-
zuiudō = Difda3
nōsu = nafs
ishichōmāru = isti3māl
tasuwauō, tasuō - taSawwur
rutsū - luTf
tsuibbu = Tibb
bōzū = ba3D
tsuiuru = Tifl
ar ir ur ār īr ūr ayr awr > ā ē ō ā īa ūa eia oua
History
The most recent wave of Iranian and Scythian migration into Irta's northeast Asia began in the 11th century and reached its peak at the 12th. Unlike in our timeline, many of the EMidJp > ModJp sound changes such as intervocalic /φ/ loss and monophthongization had not taken place at this time and only occured after Japanese had absorbed a lot of Perso-Arabic influence.
Personal names
Persian origin
Hēdoushi, Rusutan, Sōrābu, Hereizūn, Janshīzu, Kaifusurou, Manūchē, Mērān, Shiamaku, Shiyawashi
Orthography
Irta Japanese is written in a mix of two scripts: Perso-Arabic and a cursive form of Hiragana. It's written from right to left.
Grammar
Verbs of Arabic origin use VN + suru or VN + iru (analogous to the way they work in Turkish).
dāsu suru = to study
Izae
Sometimes compounds in Irta Japanese use a construction called izae, which works like ezāfe in Persian. An example is mūjika-i-āsumān "music of the spheres". In some instances personal affixes are borrowed from Persian -- an example with te "hand":
- 1sg teyan
- 2sg teyatsu
- 3sg teyashi
- 1pl teyamān
- 2pl teyatān
- 3pl teyashān
Sometimes emphatic pronouns are formed from the root fud- (fudan, fudatsu, fudashi etc.) from PIE *swe - these are the only true personal pronouns in Irta Japanese. Like our Japanese, Irta Japanese is pro-drop.
Texts
Subete no insān wa umarenagara ni shite āzāzu de ari, katsu, heishiatsu to hakku to ni tsuite barābā de aru. Insān wa, akuru to ejidān to wo sazukerarete ori, tagai ni rūha-i-barādā wo motte keadā shinakereba naranai.
Judeo-Arabo-Japanese
written in Hebrew script and has a Hebrew lexical layer
Vowel devoicing actually drops vowels in native words
Fewer phonotactic restrictions (e.g. final consonants are allowed); separate /l/ is introduced as well as emphatics, e.g. /ts/ undergoes a phonemic split from /t/