Old Gaju
| Old Gaju | |
|---|---|
| Gaju | |
| Pronunciation | [[Help:IPA|'gaɟu]] |
| Created by | – |
| Setting | Rttirria |
| Native to | East Rttirria |
Rttirrian
| |
Old Gaju (English: /'gɑːd͡ʒuː/, Old Gaju: ['gaɟu], Rttirri: [ˈkɑcu]) was an old form of the Gaju language, spoken by the Gaju people in eastern Rttirria around the 14th century CE. It was spoken over a much larger area than modern Gaju is: over most of eastern Rttirria. It is a member of the Rttirrian language family, descended from the Proto-South-Rttirrian langauge that is also the ancestor of modern Rttirri, the nation's official language.
The old language is known in a very complete state, through comparison of modern Gaju dialects and several vintage inscriptions by Rttirri academics that described the Gaju people's speech and transcribed some of their utterances. It was an unwritten language at the time, but is variously written in the Latin alphabet and (like the modern Gaju language) the Rttirri abugida, which is a Brahmic script.
Old Gaju is classified as a nominative-accusative, agglutinative language. It had a moderate-sized inventory of six vowels and 22 consonants, and also distinguished two tones. As part of the Southeast Asian sprachbund, it would continue to become more analytic and develop a more elaborate tonal system as it evolved into modern Gaju.
Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m /m/ | n /n/ | ny /ɲ/ | ||
| Plosive | p /p/ b /b/ |
t /t/ d /d/ |
ty /c/ j /ɟ/ |
k /k/ g /g/ |
|
| Fricative | f /f/ v /v/ |
s /s/ sh /ʃ/ |
sy /ç/ | kh /x/ | h /h/ |
| Affricate | ts /t͡s/ ch /t͡ʃ/ |
||||
| Approximant | w /w/ | l /l/ |
In addition, the following consonants were allowed in loanwords: ng /ŋ/, z /z/, hh /ʔ/, y /j/.
Vowels
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| High | i /i/ | u /u/ |
| Mid | e /e/ | o /o/ |
| Low | a /a/ | aa /ɑ/ |
- Front vowels were allophonically lowered after palatal consonants: /i/ to [ɪ], /e/ to [ɛ].
Tones
Old Gaju distinguished two tones: high and low. In addition, two contour tones were allowed in loanwords: rising and falling. The high tone was by far the most common, so low tones are distinguished in the Latin script with a grave accent: à àà è ì ò ù. Rising and falling tones are distinguished as follows: â ââ ê î ô û ǎ ǎǎ ě ǐ ǒ ǔ.
Vocabulary
Old Gaju featured very few of the Sanskrit and Arabic loanwords that abound in Rttirri. However, the Gaju community's close proximity to Myanmar gave their language numerous loanwords from local languages, such as Old Burmese, Old Thai, and the Karen languages.
Grammar
Verbs
The Old Gaju verb was somewhat agglutinative, but did not have the inflectional complexity that had developed in Classical Rttirri by this point. However, an aspect and politeness system, which have not existed in any form of Rttirri, developed from the Proto-South-Rttirrian evidentiality system. There were four classes of verbs, each of which took different prefixes for the past and future tenses; this system exists in only a very vestigial form in modern Rttirri.
The following slots were allowed for affixes on the verb.
| Verb Slot | Allowable Inputs |
|---|---|
| Aspect/Politeness | na- (perfective) nyev- (polite perfective) shu- (habitual) tya- (polite habitual) |
| Mood | -fta- (adhortative) -nag- (subjunctive) -kanag- (conditional) -khtaa- (imperative) -kamu- (generic) |
| Tense | -bu-/-du-/-do-/-ju- (past) -mi-/-ni-/-ne-/-nyi- (future) |
| Verb Root | any verb |
| Auxiliary Verb | -kàki ("to be able to") -kà ("to need to") -dèka ("to want to") -gùki ("to force to") and others |
Nouns
Nouns could take the following cases:
| Case | Suffix |
|---|---|
| nominative | (none) |
| accusative | (none) |
| dative | -khtya |
| ablative | -da |
| locative | -li |
| comitative | -daa |
| instrumental | -wàtyev |
| vocative | -chastaa |
They were also pluralized with ma, a particle that came after any case suffixes.
Pronouns
The following pronouns were used. They were not affixed to the verb, but stood in the place of other nouns.
| Singular | Plural | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | Accusative | Nominative | Accusative | |
| 1st person | na | ni | ma | mi |
| 2nd person | kov | ki | tsa | tsi |
| 3rd person | la | ge | daa | di |
Genitive pronouns took the low tone to distinguish themselves from the nominative pronouns. Like other noun-modifying particles, they followed the noun.
| English | Old Gaju |
|---|---|
| my | nà |
| your | kòv |
| his/her/its | là |
| our | mà |
| all of your | tsà |
| their | dàà |
- Nuspa mìchu kòv ìtsevki skalag nà tèv.
- hut filthy 2SG.GEN castle glorious 1SG.GEN be
- Your filthy hut is my glorious castle.
Questions
The following question words were used:
| English | Old Gaju |
|---|---|
| who/whom | ta |
| what | ti |
| when | dìti |
| where | dìtag |
| why | dìtà |
| how | dìtug |
Derivation
Words could be derived into other parts of speech with the following suffixes:
| From... | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Noun | Verb | Adjective or Determiner |
Adverb | ||
| To... | Noun | - | -buv | -dov | -dovu |
| Verb | -sytaa (to be X, temporarily) -syto (to do an X-like thing) |
- | -dosyaa -dosyo (to become X) |
-dosyto | |
| Adjective or Determiner |
-we | -bi | - | -biwe | |
| Adverb | -khev | -bev | -dev | - | |
Syntax
Word order was subject-object-verb (SOV), although nouns in one of the cases other than nominative or accusative could be positioned anywhere before the verb. All adjectives came after their pertinent nouns. The question particle was tyi, and the general negative particle was aa.
Sample text
Old Gaju:
- Na shnevnu-daa nà Dòpa Chalà-li tyùtsu.
- 1SG family-COM 1SG.GEN Rtuha kingdom-LOC live
- I live in the kingdom of Rtuha with my family.
Modern Rttirri:
- Ni-syutu-nu Rtuha Tesapu na-snenu-rta.
- 1SG.ABS-live-DRPAC Rtuha kingdom-LOC 1SG.GEN-family-COM