Kandi

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Asaari
Lha asáari, Asáari
Asaari.png
Pronunciation[/ɬa at͡sá͜aʀɪ/]
Created by
Native toUnited States of America
Native speakers21,020 (2012)
Lhisan
  • Asaari
Early form
Dialects
  • Asaari proper
  • Virginia Asaari
  • Carolinian Asaari
Official status
Regulated byTsárapi áyasáari
Language codes
ISO 639-1as
ISO 639-2aas
ISO 639-3aas
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Lhá asáari, ꖆ ꕉꕦꔹꗏ , or simply Asáari, ꕉꕦꔹꗏ, or Asaari /at͡sá͜ɑɣɪ/ is a language spoken in the eastern United States of America. It is not known to be related to any extant language and is thus a language isolate. The name, Lha asáari /ɬá at͡sá͜ɑɣɪ/ simply means "the ocean blue language", or "the language that is ocean blue".

Asaari is a heavily agglutinating or polysynthetic language, with a complex verbal morphology. The language has repeatedly been analysed as lacking nouns and adjectives altogether, in favour of verbs. Asaari is a tonal language with a limited vowel inventory, and an extensive array of consonants.

The language is being constructed by Waahlis to represent is fierce love for tones, voiceless consonants, and the voiceless lateral fricative.

I also wish to make it clear that this language has no connexion what so ever to the invented language and species of Asari, in the video game Mass Effect! The name is purely coincidental as Asaari is derived from the word for "blue" in the language (Yes, I'm aware the species of Mass Effect also happen to be blue...), which was propably inspired from the European word "azure". The final "-i" is a relativising suffix. No connexions, okay!?

Phonology

Consonants

Asaari has 23 consonants, called tsínáa /t͡sɪ́ná͜aʔ/, traditionally categorised into the following groups:

Asaari consonants
Bilabial Dental Alveolar Palatal Uvular Glottal
central central lateral
Nasals voiceless mh /m̥/ nh /n̥/
voiced m /m/ n /n/
Stops ejective pu /pʼ/ tu /tʼ/ qu /cʼ ~ qʼ/
voiceless p /p/ t /t/ q /c ~ q/ ' /ʔ/
Affricates ejective tsu /t͡sʼ/ tlu /tɬ'/ tshu /t͡ɕʼ/
voiceless ts /t͡s/ tl /t͡ɬ/ tsh /t͡ɕ/
Fricatives voiceless ph /ɸ ~ pɸ/ th /θ ~ tθ/ s /s ~ ts/ lh /ɬ/ sh /ç ~ ɕ/ h /χ ~ h/
Approximant l /l/ y /j/ r /ʁ ~ ʀ/

Vowels

Asaari has three main vowels, /a/, /ɪ/ and /ɛ/. The vowels can all bear tone. The tones may change the vowels' qualities and articulation; these allophones are enclosed in square brackets. Vowels may be long or short. Long vowels are written twice in the native orthography.

Asaari vowels
Front Near-front Central Near-back Back
Close [ɨ̃]
Near-close ı /ɪ/
Close-mid
Mid
Open-mid e /ɛ/, [ɛ̃]
Near-open
Open a /a/ [ɑ̃]

Diphthongs

There are three so called "diphthongs¨" in the language. This is however merely a traditional name, as the diphthongs have long since collapsed into long vowels. Originally, these were homogeneous diphthongs, composed of doubled vowels.

Asaari vowels and diphthongs
Monophthongs
i /ɪ/ e /ɛ/ a /a/
Diphthongs
ii /ɪː/ ee /ɛː/ aa /aː/

Tone

There are three phonemic tones in Lha asáari, the high, medium, or default, and the low tone. The tones have immense effects on the qualities of the vowels.

  • Short and long vowels with the high tone are pronounced with a glottal closure, that is, a coda glottal stop, /ʔ/. The long vowels are diphthongised - this is the sole trace of the homogeneous diphthongs.
  • Low tone vowels are nasalised. This nasalisation is phonetically marked with a superscript minuscule "n", so that the nasalisation marking does not coincide with the tone diacritics.
Asaari vowels and diphthongs
Monophthongs Diphthongs
Quality Medium tone i /ɪ/ e /ɛ/ a /a/ ii /ɪː/ ee /ɛː/ aa /aː/
High tone í /ɪ́ʔ/ é /ɛ́ʔ/ á /áʔ/ íi /ɪ́͜ɨʔ/ ée /ɛ́͜əʔ/ áa /á͜ɑʔ/
Low tone ì /ɨ̀ⁿ/ è /ɛ̀ⁿ/ à /ɑ̀ⁿ/ ìi /ìⁿː/ èe /ɛ̀ⁿː/ àa /ɑ̀ⁿː/


Phonological processes

Apart from the low tone vowels being nasalised, and the diphthongs collapsing into long vowels, Asaari has a few other compulsory phonological changes.

Emphatic consonants

The term emphatic is a controversial one but refers to a certain form of assimilation in the Asaari language. Following high tone vowels, fricative consonants and /ʁ/ change their pronunciation.

Asaari emphatics and finals
Phonological changes
ph th s lh sh h r
Plain /ɸ/ /θ/ /s/ /ɬ/ /ç/ /h/ /ʁ ~ ʀ/
Emphatic [p͡ɸ] [t͡θ] [t͡s] [t͡ɬ] [ɕ] [χ] [ɣ]
Final - - - - - [h] [r]

Unreleased consonants

When in coda position of a word, consonants are pronounced with no audible release. This applies to all oral occlusives, or plosives. Ejective plosives are never found in final position and thus never unreleased.

Asaari finals
Phonological changes
p t q
Plain /p/ /t/ /c ~ q/
Unreleased [p̚] [t̚] [c̚ ~ q̚]

Orthography

The Asaari natively use the Vai syllabary to write amongst themselves. This modified syllabary is called the Asaari abugida.

The abugida symbols are composed of one onset consonant and one vowel. Vowels carrying different tones are perceived as proper vowels and do thus have their own symbols. There are a few gaps in the syllabary, since some combinations are not possible in the language, or have been lost.

The native name for the syllabary is qiráas atsàari, ꘒ ꕉꔍꔹꗏ, which means "imperfect script". It is near-homophonous to qiráas asáari ꘒ ꕉꕦꔹꗏ, which would mean "Asaari" or "blue script".

There are a few problems with the script; ejective consonants and long vowels are not denoted by symbols of their own. Instead, they are marked with the following symbols:

  • ꔷ - which marks ejectivity on a consonant, and also that that the vowel should be elided if final.
  • ꔹ - marks long vowels.
The full index of Asaari logograms. All of them are fairly common.

Punctuation

Qiráas atsàari does not use Latin punctuation. It is somewhat more limited, but uses the following symbols:

  • ꘎ - Marks a full stop.
  • ꘏ - Question or interrogation mark.
  • ꘍ - Denotes a comma, separates clauses.
  • ꖫ - Has the function of an English colon or semicolon.

Logograms

The Atsàari script does also have a number of logograms: Single characters that mark a full word.

These are rather few, and they can all be spelt out with the syllabary. It should be noted however, that whilst the logograms are very comfortable and quick to write, they are never marked for affixes, inflexion or the like. That means they must be pronounced out of context.

Grammar

Asaari has a fairly complex grammar; it lacks the common definition of a noun. Instead, all nouns are so called "nominals" verbs conjugated in a certain pattern.

Syntax

Morphology

Verbs

Nominals

Nominals are a conjugation of verbs that function primarily as nouns. A nominal is most often defined as a predicative verb, nominal or adjective, but may also include other predicates.

Predicative

The predicative construction of a nominal has a usage most often analogous to an English copula, used in a predicative expression.

  • It is dog. - mées
  • Sara is a girl. - Sáralhinàa
  • The house was crushed.- tlátasiquarasíy
Relative

The relative construction of an Asaari nominal is equivalent to a modifying relative clause. In the language, this is used to create objects, but also to modify other arguments.

  • That which is a dog
  • Did you see her who is Jonna? or Did you see Jonna?
  • The man who was angry kicked the tree.
Applicative
Benefactive
Malefactive
Conjugation
Noun
- /-/ ...
Person Singular Plural
1st 2nd 3rd 1st 2nd 3rd
masculine feminine masculine feminine masculine feminine neuter
Indicative
Object enclitics -yi -yiis -shi -shiis -ar -saár -íir -ʾin -ʾíih -ʾsíir
Predicative See non-past perfective conjugation
Relative sí- sí-yih shá- shá-yih yée- yée-yih -i sí-ʾi- shá--i i-ʾ-i
Applicative àsí àsí-yih àshá- àshá-yih àyée- àyée-yih à-i àsí--i àshá--i àʾi--i
Benefactive sí-yáa sí-yáayih shá-yáa shá-yáayih yée-yáa yée-yáayih -yáa sí-ʾiyáa shá-ʾiyáa -ʾiyáa
Malefactive tsá-

yáa

tsá-yáayih tshá-yáa tshá-yáayih shé-yáa shé-yáayih ʾi-yáa tsá-

ʾiyáa

tshá-ʾiyáa ʾi-ʾiyáa

Verbs proper

Verb
- /-/ ...
Participles
Non-Past -áyyah
Past -áayan
Person Singular Plural
1st 2nd 3rd 1st 2nd 3rd
masculine feminine masculine feminine masculine feminine neuter
Indicative
Object enclitics -yi -yiis -shi -shiis -ar -saár -íir -'in -'íih -'íir
Past
Perfective
Imperfective
Retrospective
Non-Past
Perfective á- á-yih là- là-yih àra- àra-yih - na- ha- ya-
Imperfective tí- tí-yih tlá- tlá-

yih

rì- rì-

yih

é- tí-ʾi- tlá-ʾi- -ʾi-
Retrospective ràa- ràa-yih qà- qà-yih yása- yása-yih àari- ràa-- qà-- àari--
Irrealis páa- páa-yih qáa- qáa-yih yée- yée-yih tháa-yih páa-- qáa-- tháa--
Imperative tsí- tsí-yih tshá- tshá-yih shà- shà-yih 'í- t'í- tl'í- -'í