Xanian

Xanian
Vâka Xâkömarī
Vâkâ Xâkömârī in written Xanian in Vanka
Pronunciation	[vɐka ʒɐkɵmaɹɪ]
Created by	Vivaporius
Native to	Xania
Native speakers	5,270,832 in the United States 334,656 overseas (2014)
Language family	Xanic Xanian
Standard form	Imperial Xanian Standard
Writing system	Vanka (primary) Latin (Xanian alphabet) Xanian Braille
Official status
Official language in	Xania
Regulated by	Imperial Xanian Linguistics Institute
Location of nations where Xanian is a spoken language

Xanian (Vâka Xâkömarī, /vɐka ʒɐkɵmaɹɪ/) is a North American language spoken by 5.6 million people, and the official language of Xania. It is a member of the Xanic language family, and largely regarded as a language isolate, the second largest of its type in the world after Korean. For centuries, the Xanian language has remained distinct and separate from the rest of the languages around it, with little influence on the language until Xania's emergence into the world community in the late 1800s. Virtually nothing is known of the language's prehistory, and all information on when it first appeared in North America exists, leaving many to speculate that the language arrived with Xanians sometime around 1200 AD.

Phonology and orthography

Main articles: Xanian phonology and IPA for Xanian

Consonants

Grapheme		IPA	Description	Notes
D	d	[d]	Voiced alveolar stop	-
H	h	[h]	Voiceless glottal fricative	-
J	j	[dʒ]	Voiced palato-alveolar affricate	-
K	k	[k]	Voiceless velar stop	-
M	m	[m]	Bilabial nasal	-
N	n	[n]	Alveolar nasal	-
R	r	[ɹ]	Alveolar approximant	-
S	s	[s]	Voiceless alveolar sibilant	-
Š	š	[ʃ]	Voiceless palato-alveolar fricative	-
T	t	[t]	Voiceless alveolar plosive	-
V	v	[v]	Voiced labiodental fricative	-
X	x	[ʒ]	Voiced palato-alveolar sibilant	-
Y	y	[j]	Palatal approximant	-
Z	z	[z]	Voiced alveolar fricative	-

Vowels

Grapheme		IPA	Description	Notes
A	a	[a]	Open front unrounded vowel	[a] becomes [ɐ] when in the first syllable
Â	â	[ɐ]	Near-open central vowel	-
E	e	[e]	Close-mid front unrounded vowel	[e] becomes [ɪ] at the end of a word
I	i	[i]	Close front unrounded vowel	-
Ī	ī	[ɪ]	Near-close near-front unrounded vowel	-
O	o	[o]	Close-mid back rounded vowel	-
Ö	ö	[ɵ]	Close-mid central rounded vowel	-
U	u	[u]	Close back rounded vowel	[u] becomes [ɵ] when the final phoneme in a word, except when the only vowel in the word

Alphabet

The Xanian language has its own alphabet, which has traditionally been the only one in use by the speakers of the language. However, the usage of Latin in place of the Xanian alphabet only recently came to supplant the later as more and more Xanians in the United States adopted the Latin scipt for practical reasons. However, the Xanian script remains the primary written script in regions where Xanians are the primary inhabitants. On official documents of the Xanian people, the Xanian alphabet is always used, with one in the Romanized alphabet put out shortly thereafter. All icons and emblems used by the Xanians which possess writing on them, are always in the Xanian alphabet.

Xanian alphabet

A a	 â	D d	E e	H h	I i	Ī ī	J j	K k	M m	N n	O o	Ö ö	R r	S s	Š š	T t	U u	V v	X x	Y y	Z z
[a]	[ɐ]	[d]	[e]	[h]	[i]	[ɪ]	[dʒ]	[k]	[m]	[n]	[o]	[ɵ]	[ɹ]	[s]	[ʃ]	[t]	[u]	[v]	[ʒ]	[j]	[z]

Syllables

The Xanian language has a simple phonological constraint system, in which either vowels or consonants may be placed at the start of a word. However, while any unstressed vowel may close the word, only four of the language's fifteen consonants may end a word if they are used.

Phonological Constraints
(C)	V	C	(V)	(C)

Stress

Xanian is a highly stressed language, with emphasize on the first or second syllables of a short word, or first and middle syllables of a longer word, typically regarded as the norm. The stress on words with Xanian is often considered similar to the stressing of words in the English and Latin, though Xanian words will have diacritic marks to indicate when stress on a particular syllable is required, much as with the accents in Latin and Romance languages. With regards to rhythm, Xanian is a stress-timed language, with stressed and unstressed syllables carrying equal weight in a word though the stressed portion may be shorter than the unstressed portion in letter length, but longer when voiced.

Nota bene

1. /z/ never comes before another stop consonant
2. /j/ can never be placed next to another consonant
3. /r/, /n/, /s/ and /k/ are the only consonants allowed next to one another
4. /s/ may only come after /r/ and before /h/ at all times if placed next to one another
5. In words with two or more /a/ vowels, stress is always placed on the second /a/
6. /r/ is never permitted to sit next to another consonant due to the illegality liquids
7. Stress is placed on the first /a/ if another vowel precedes it, or if /ʒ/ or /v/ directly precedes /a/
8. /n/, /k/, and /r/ are the only consonants permitted to end a word

Violation of these rules are only rarely permitted, but avoided if at all possible.

Grammar

Cases

There are five cases in the Xanian language:

1. Nominative
2. Accusative
3. Genitive
4. Ablative
5. Dative

Nouns

Xanian has no gender, with all nouns using a strictly neuter form with the sole exception of titles.

	Cases
Phoneme ↓	Nominative		Accusative		Genitive		Ablative		Dative
-n	-n (s) / -nī (p)		-n (s) / -nī (p)		-no (s) / -nokī (p)		-nu (s) / -nurī (p)		-na (s) / -nânī (p)
-r	-r (s) / -rī (p)		-r (s) / -rī (p)		-ro (s) / -rokī (p)		-ru (s) / -runī (p)		-ra (s) / -rânī (p)
-k	-k (s) / -kī (p)		-k (s) / -kī (p)		-ko (s) / -konī (p)		-ku (s) / -kurī (p)		-ka (s) / -kânī (p)
-s	-s (s) / -sī (p)		-s (s) / -sī (p)		-so (s) / -sonī (p)		-su (s) / -surī (p)		-sa (s) / -sânī (p)

Articles

Articles denoting definiteness and indefiniteness are both attached to their respective words as prefixes, separated from the word by a dash.

Definite

Articles
a		an		and		the		if		of		by
dī-		dīr-		do-		jâ-		ne-		no-		kâ-

Adjectives

In Xanian, adjectives are placed before nouns at all times. Certain adjectives which are descriptions for verbs or nouns will be modified to agree with the word it is attached too. For instance, Vâka Xâkömarī literally means "signed" or "spoken Xanian", simply translated as "Xanian language". As "vâka" represents a verb or action, it does not decline based on the word it is attracted too. However, Tâzeno Xâkömâro, meaning "Imperial Xania", does decline, as "tâzeno" is a noun describing another noun, and therefore agrees with it.

Personal pronouns

The Xanian language lacks gender outside of titles, and does not differentiate between male, female, neuter, animate or inanimate objects. All genders are represented as the same pronoun. The lack of gender in the Xanian language can best be attributed to the Xanians overwhelmingly female population, but the vital role males play in their species, leading to the Xanians simply discarding the need for gender in their language. Instead, all objects are referred to equally, and without any regard to the gender of the individual unless their position or family name is brought up in the sentence. In these instances, only the title and the surname are given genders, with "o" for men and "a" for women, though the former only applies to surnames for men.

Personal pronouns in Xanian
Person		Subject/Object	Possessive	Reflexive
Singular
First		kī (I/me)	kīn (my/mine)	kīnu (myself)
Second		to (you)	ton (your/yours)	tonu (yourself)
Third		te (he/she/it)	ten (his/hers/its)	tenu (him/her/itself)
Plural
First		ku (we/us)	kunī (our/ours)	kunu (ourselves)
Second		to (you)	tenī (your/yours)	tenu (yourselves)
Third		du (they/them)	dunī (their/theirs)	dunu (themselves)

Numerals

Cardinal

The Xanians use a decimal, e.g. base-10 counting system within their language, basing it off of the countable appendages on their hands. Cardinal numbers, as with the other numbers, are unaffected by the Xanian case system.

Examples:

• dī-mârok (a nation)
• nok mârokī (zero nations)
• âyn mârok (one nation)
• kor mârokī (nine nations)
• xi mârokī (ten nations)
• xidīn mârokī (a/one hundred nations)

Cardinal numbers
Number	Xanian
0	nok
1	âyn
2	tīr
3	vyâ
4	jâr
5	yân
6	sīn
7	šan
8	zon
9	kor
10	xi
11	xi-âyn
12	xi-tīr
13	xi-vyâ
14	xi-jâr
15	xi-yân
16	xi-sin
17	xi-šan
18	xi-zon
19	xi-kor
20	tīr'xi
30	vyâ'xi
40	jâr'xi
50	yân'xi
60	sīn'xi
70	šan'xi
80	zon'xi
90	kor'xi
100	xidīn
101	xidīn-âyn
110	xidīn'xi
111	xidīn'xi-âyn
200	tīr'xidīn
1000	xidīnko
1001	xidīnko-âyn
1010	xidīnko'xi
1011	xidīnko'xi-âyn
1100	xidīnko'xidīn
1101	xidīnko'xidīn-âyn
1110	xidīnko'xidīn'xi
1111	xidīnko'xidīn'xi-âyn
2000	tīr'xidīnko
10,000	xi'xidīnko
100,000	xidīnoju
1,000,000	xidīnkovâr
1,000,000,000	xidīnyâkī
1,000,000,000,000	xidīndâvo
∞	zhâukono