Vurásandi

Vurásandi (IPA: [vu.'rɑː.sən.dɪ]) is the primary liturgical language of the Bordish and Binduli religions; a philosophical language of many different religious cults living on the Western Coast of Turtle Island (mainly in Kalifiya); and a literary language and lingua franca of the western world. As a result of transmission of Bordish and Bindul culture from Kalifiya to the Riverlands in the east and parts of Central Tepia, it is also a language of high culture in some of these regions.

Vurásandi is a standardized dialect of the Wasmáthi languages, having originated before the beginning of the Light Age of War (roughly 5,000 years ago) as Old Vura and tracing its linguistic ancestry back to Proto-Vura. As one of the oldest languages in Yarad, for which substantial written documentation exists, Vurásandi holds a prominent position in the modern world. The body of Vurásandi literature encompasses a rich tradition of poetry and drama as well as scientific, technical, philosophical and religious texts. The compositions of Vurásandi were orally transmitted for much of its early history by methods of memorization of exceptional complexity, rigor, and fidelity. Thereafter, variants and derivatives of the Barhami script came to be used.

Vurásandi is today one of the 4 main languages of Yarad. It continues to be widely used as a ceremonial language in Bordish religious rituals and Binduli practice in the form of hymns and chants.

Name

The name Vurásandi comes from two roots (VRÁ: holy, divine; SND: language, speech, tongue). This language became used as the primary language for religious rituals and learned discourse throughout Kalifiya, in contrast to the language spoken daily by the common folk, which was known as (Quyksandi, common speech).

Variants

The pre-Dark Age of the King form of Vurásandi is known as Old Vura, with the language used in the Hanam Vara being the most ancient and archaic stage surviving into this day, dating back to 4,500 years ago.

Modern Vurásandi is the standardized register as laid out in Vurásandi Esasmátha by Z'e Ji Vuqádzi (one of Is'a's 12 holy men) in the 24th year of the Dark Age. It's position in the cultures of Greater Kalifiya is akin to that of Sanskrit in India and Latin and Ancient Greek in Europe, and it has significantly influenced most modern languages of the Kalifiyan Subcontinent, particularly in Kalifiya, the Riverlands, West Tepia, Karbadi, Siryorunda, and Pangala.

Old Vura

The language as described by Z'e Ji Vuqádzi evolved out of the earlier form known as Old Vura. The present form of Old Vura can be traced back to as early as 5,000 years ago with the oldest holy text known as the Hanam Vara, author unknown. Scholars often distinguish Old Vura and Modern Vurásandi as separate dialects, as there is some evidence of them existing simultaneously. Although they are quite similar, they differ in a number of essential points of phonology, vocabulary, grammar and syntax. Old Vura is the language of the Hanmajis, a large collection of hymns, incantations and theological and religion-philosophical discussions (of which the Hanam Vara is the oldest). Modern linguists consider the metrical hymns of the Hanam Vara to be the earliest, composed by many authors over several centuries of oral tradition. The end of the Old Vura period is marked by the composition of the Vurakyádva by Z'e Ji Vus'árni, which form the concluding part of the traditional Old Vura corpus; however, there exist many other texts not traditionally included in the old liturgical literature, written after the introduction of Classical Vurásandi, which are direct representations of the Old Vura era, both in language and content.

Modern Vurásandi

For nearly 2000 years, Vurásandi was the language of a cultural order that exerted influence from Kalifiya into the Riverlands and onto a significant area of the Middlelands, and to some extent into the Tepian and Jaboni Empires. A significant form of post-Old Vura is found in the Vurásandi of the epic poetry of the religious class—the Ragasamah and Marbahag. The differences in the epics from Z'e Ji Vuqádzi's form of Vurásandi as described in Vurásandi Esasmátha is credited with being caused by innovation by the authors, and not because they are pre-Z'e Ji Vuqádzi. The Vurásandi of the Far West is traditionally considered to be the purest form of Vurásandi, and therefore has become the standard used in teaching schools.

There are four principal dialects of Vurásandi: Vunvurásandi (Northwestern, also called Northern or Western), Madyiradas (lit., from the middle country), Vurásandi Ardehun (Eastern) and Vurásandi Adsetun (Southern, arose in the Classical period). The predecessors of the first three dialects are attested in the ancient writings, of which Hanam Vara is the oldest.

Phonology

see also Vurásandi Phonology for more detail

Western Vurásandi distinguishes 40 different phonemes. 15 vowels, 25 consonants. We have used a variation on the traditional alignment of sounds and also a standardized transcription system for writing Vurásandi sounds in the Latin alphabet. More about the writing system and transcription system is listed in the section below called Writing.

a e i o u

á é í ó ú

ă ĕ ǐ ǒ ǔ

wp b m f v

t d n t' d'

l r s z

y q j s' z'

kg c x h

Vowels

There are 15 different vowel phonemes, which are considered to be between 6 and 21 distinct sounds depending on tradition and dialect. The Western Standard dialect recognizes the normal 15, as to represent each vowel distinctly. There are 5 short vowels, 5 long vowels, and 5 nasal vowels. Below we have listed our standard transcription next to the IPA sound in brackets.

Short vowels: a [ə] e [e] i [ɪ] o [ɔ] u [ʌ]
Long vowels: á [ɑː] é [ɛː] í [iː] ó [oː] ú [uː]
Nasal vowels: ǎ [ɑ̃] ě [ɛ̃] ǐ [ĩ] ǒ [õ] ǔ [ũ]

Long vowels are pronounced for approximately twice as long as short vowels. Nasal vowels are considered to be held for one and a half times as long as short vowel. The nasal vowels are the exact same sound qualities as long vowels, the only difference being they are nasalized. Only one long vowel may come in a word, and it will determine that word's primary stress. A syllable with a long vowel may not take a consonant other than n, m, w, or y at the coda.

Diphthongs

The consonants w and y are considered consonantal variations or the vowel u and i respectively, and function to shape diphthongs. In some dialects the letter l functions in the same way as the letter w.
aw [ɑ͡u] / ay [ɑ͡i]
ow [o͡u] / oy [o͡i]
ew [e͡u] / ey [e͡i]

Please note how w and y are never used to form diphthongs with their vocalic counterparts u and i.

Consonants

The Western Standard dialect recognizes 25 distinct consonant sounds. These 25 different consonant phonemes are made up of 6 plosives (stops), 2 nasals, 11 fricatives, 2 affricates, 2 semivowels, 1 lateral, and 1 tap. We have organized a table to better represent the traditional alignment of consonant sounds in Vurásandi. We have used the traditional transcription method next to the sounds in IPA in brackets as before.

p [p]	b [b]		m [m]			f [f]	v [v]
t [t]	d [d]		n [n]			t' [θ]	d' [ð]
k [k]	g [g]					s [s]	z [z]
			q [t͡ʃ]	j [d͡ʒ]		s' [ʃ]	z' [ʒ]
y [j]	w [w]
r [r]	l [l]				c [ç]	x [x]	h [h]

• the letter v might be pronounced as [β] before a vowel, especially the letter u, and is often confused for the letter w in colloquial speech.
  
• the letters t and d are more specifically dental consonants [t̪] and [d̪].
  
• the letter l is not realized in many dialects of Vurásandi.
  

Accent

Somewhat of a pitch accent system is in place in Vurásandi, where the change of a stressed syllable can affect the semantic meaning of a word or phrase. This will always be marked by the system of short vowels and long vowels.
The stress normally falls on the second to last syllable for most words. However it is possible that stress may fall on other syllables, in cases when stress is elsewhere it will always be marked with an accent mark. In words with 4 syllables or more whose stress is not on the second to last syllable, there is still a secondary stress on the second to last syllable.

Grammar

Modern Standard Vurásandi is described in detail by Z'e Ji Vuqádzi in Vurásandi Esasmátha at the beginning of the present Dark Age. The language described in Z'e Ji Vuqádzi's work which became the standardized version is the same version we describe here.
Z'e Ji Vuqádzi describes all words as falling into three different grammatical categories. These categories are simply nouns (syamháwmah), verbs (syamháynar), and particles (syamhákik). All words will naturally fall into one of these three categories.
Vurásandi works off a triconsonantal root system that builds different shades of semantic meaning through inflections. Typologically it is something in between a fusional and agglutinative language.

Nouns

Nouns are known in Vurásandi as syamháwmah (words of being). Nouns are inflected for 5 different numbers and 10 different cases. The inflections depend on the 4 different genders of the noun.

Gender

There are 4 different genders.

• Masculine Strong (ms.)- used for things which have natural gender like people and animals.
• Masculine Weak (mw.)- used for things which have no natural gender, but are ideologically masculine.
• Feminine Strong (fs.)- used for things which have natural gender like people and animals.
• Feminine Weak (fw.)- used for things which have no natural gender, but are ideologically feminine.