Rashimic language
| Rashimic | |
|---|---|
| Hǐnvies | |
| Pronunciation | [əɽˈɕəiːhkɜ] |
| Spoken in | Southern Outer Joriscia Serania Minor Northern Serania Major |
| Native speakers | 1,150,000,000 |
| Language family | |
| Writing system | Vladykast script |
| Official status | |
| Official language in |  Azophin Terophan New Zaavic League Ascesian Banner |
| Regulated by |  Imperial Terophatic Seat of Grammatical Learning  Imperial School of Language |
Rashimic (Hǐnvies) is a south Joriscian language spoken across southern Outer Joriscia. With over a billion native speakers, it is the most widely-spoken language in the world. Alongside de jure official status as the main language of government and de facto prominence as the majority spoken language in the two Great Powers of Azophin and Terophan and their various Marshalates and colonies, there are significant minorities of native Rashimic speakers in almost every southern Outer Joriscian state, in the Ascesian Banner (where it serves as a koine), in parts of the Agamari Seranian colonies and in the independent Seranian New Zaavic League. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Rashimic is subject to a great degree of regional variation, and many dialects present difficulties to speakers unfamiliar with them. Nonetheless, a shared base of popular media provides even uneducated speakers with less access to the literary standard with a means of communication, allowing speakers to make themselves understood in every part of the Rashimic-speaking world.
Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Dental/ Alveolar |
Post- alveolar |
Velar | Pharyngeal | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | pal. | plain | pal. | plain | pal. | plain | pal. | |||
| Plosive | voiceless | /p/ | /pʲ/ | /t/ | /tʲ/ | /k/ | /kʲ/ | |||
| voiced | /b/ | /bʲ/ | /d/ | /dʲ/ | /ɡ/ | /ɡʲ/ | ||||
| Fricative | voiceless | /f/ | /fʲ/ | /s/ | /sʲ/ | /x/ | /xʲ/ | /h~ħ/ | ||
| voiced | /v/ | /vʲ/ | /z/ | /zʲ/ | /ɣ/ | /ɣʲ/ | ||||
| Nasal | /m/ | /mʲ/ | /n/ | /nʲ/ | ||||||
| Trill | /r/ | /rʲ/ | ||||||||
| Approximant | /l/ | /lʲ/ | /j/ | |||||||
With the exception of some loanwords, the consonants /f v x ɣ/ and their patalised counterparts are exclusively the lenited versions of the stops /p b k g/; the lenition is productive but partially morphological and contrastive (i.e. not solely phonetic). The consonants /s z/ and their palatalised equivalents (where they are spelt and were originally pronounced as /θ ð/) correspond to the stops /t d/ in the same contexts, although they may also represent historic /s z/ or non-lenited interdentals in certain loanwords (e.g. Tharamann <thraeman> /sraemǝn/).
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | /i/ | /u/ | |
| Mid | /e/ | /ə/ | /o/ |
| Open | /a/ |
Orthography and transliteration
The writing system of standard Rashimic has a largely straightforward correspondence of phonemes to graphemes, although a series of mergers and other sound changes mean that the system can be somewhat counterintuitive to those accustomed to more conservative Vladykast orthographies. High Secote loanwords typically use their original spelling, and are pronounced either according to the Secote liturgical pronunciation (in careful or highly educated speech) or in a reduced form assimilated to pronunciation of native words: ⰘⰂⰡⰎⰤ xvalē-tĭ 'I recited a formula' can be pronounced /xvʲelʲitʲə/ or /kvʲəlʲitʲə/, for example. Native vocabulary, meanwhile, is written more or less as pronounced in the Rashimic Littoral of the 18th century when the spellings used in modern Terophan and Azophin were standardised, distinguishing some phonemes (notably /θ ð/ and the short vowels /ĭ ə/) that have since merged or been dropped in standard pronunciation. Palatalisation is not marked expressly except inasmuch as <ĭ> is used in place of <ě> to mark the (often deleted) short vowel: ⰃⰄⰊⰎⰕⰋ <gðĭltī> /gzʲǝl'tʲi/ 'I picked up' versus ⰃⰄⰠⰎⰕⰋ <gðěltī> /gzǝlti/ 'I rose up'.
Any transliteration of Rashimic must strike a balance between pronunciation and scientific representation of spelling. The conventional transliteration strikes this balance by ignoring palatalisation but otherwise writing vowel and consonant values in accordance with their modern pronunciation: ⰃⰄⰠⰎⰕⰋ /gzʲǝl'tʲi/ is written gzĭlti (and not gðiltī); ⰍⰂⰠⰄⰑⰖⰪ /kvǝzous/ as Kvězous (and not Kvezouθ), etc. High Secote words are typically written in small caps.
Grammar
Substantive morphology
Nouns and adjectives decline for gender (masculine-feminine) and number (singular-plural). They are divided into two straightforward declension classes, ‘stable’ and ‘reductive’). The stable class, which is the productive class into which all new loans and coinages fall, takes the following unstressed suffixes straightforwardly. The feminine plural is often distinguished as -ot by classicising writers, but this pronunciation is no longer current in Littoral Rashimic:
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| Masculine | -0 tavah 'baker' |
-ĭ tavah-ĭ 'bakers' |
| Feminine | -ě tavah-ě 'baker' |
-ĭ or -ěs tavah-ěs 'bakers' |
The reductive class consists almost entirely of native words, specifically those which were monosyllabic in earlier forms of Rashimic (although this etymological distinction is no longer entirely clear-cut in the modern language). These words take stressed suffixes and their internal vowelling is often drastically reduced as a result:
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| Masculine | -0 šaer 'bull' |
-iem šr-iem 'bulls' |
| Feminine | -ā šr-ā 'cow' |
-ous šr-ous 'cows' |
Many High Secote loans are pluralised according to their original form.
Nouns can take an article, which is conventionally described as marking case and gender. Other than the vocative, these forms are originally derived from the demonstrative, the original Rashimic prefixed article having been eroded through sound change. The forms with s are now dated:
| Nominative | Accusative | Locative | Vocative | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Masculine | h(s)ĭ | lĭ | bĭ | hoy |
| Feminine | h(s)u | lu | bu | hoy |
Verbal morphology
Rashimic has six basic classes of verb. Of these, four – the lĭ-khtouv type, the lĭ-ghdeil type, the lĭ-ghtien type and the semi-archaic ně-shmaer type, which exists only in the past – are descended from different derivational ablaut patterns and still provide something of this function today, particularly in the derivation of causatives or transitive/intransitive pairs. The other two primary patterns, the lě-zough type and the lě-rsē type, were variations on the other four patterns produced by roots with semivowels as their middle or final consonants. Although historically both of these patterns also had causative and other derivational equivalents, in contemporary Rashimic these are completely archaic. In all of these patterns, internal vowel changes are involved in the shift between different tense forms and in marking the mediopassive/middle voice. The vast majority of native verbal forms are conjugated on one of these patterns.
A variation on the lě-rsē type exists, the lě-xvalē type, which is much looser in terms of its internal patterning and involves no internal vowel shifts, instead reanalysing –ē as a suffix. This form is typically used for foreign borrowings. This form was originally used only for High Secote forms whose stem contained a final –i or –e, like the verb xvalite. Eventually, however, the –ē developed into an all-purpose suffix making it possible to conjugate foreign verbal forms. Although occasionally borrowings do enter other classes if their shape is appropriate, the lě-xvalē type is the only productive verbal class for borrowings. Occasionally prefixes are added to native Rashimic verbal forms and are subsequently used with the -ē suffix.
Derivational morphology
For native vocabulary and particularly old and well-established loans, as well as occasionally for comic effect, Rashimic retains much of the ablaut morphology for which its language family is famous:
- CěCCoun: noun of agent
- CěCaeC: noun of agent, descriptive (quality) adjective
- CěCieC: noun of agent, descriptive (quality) adjective
- CCuCo: noun of verbal process (from lĭkhtouv)
- CCaCo: noun of verbal process (from lĭghdeil)
- CěCCout: noun of verbal process (general)
- mCĭCCieC/mĭCCieC: noun of place, noun of instrument
- mCěCCaeC/měCCaeC: noun of place, noun of instrument
The vast majority of high-register coinages, however, are made using the morphological structures of High Secote. The following suffixes, whether borrowed or generalisable from ablaut patterns, are combined with both native and borrowed vocabulary:
- -ĭ: forms demonyms and some language names: Lěkriemĭ 'a Lacrean Rasheem, Lacrean Rashimic'; Nrĭšiemĭ, 'Azophine'.
- -iem: forms country names – originally probably a collective plural. Less common in contemporary Rashimic although see for example Pěshiem ‘Agamar’, Lěkriem ‘Upper Lacre’ (as contrasted with the pure endonym Lēkir, ‘Lower Lacre’ or ‘Lacre’)
- -iska: forms language names
- -nik: common suffix of habit, personality or profession (for humans)
- -ont: common suffix of habit, personality or profession (for humans)
- -ous: forms nouns from verbs, including nouns of process from -ē verbs
- -oun: forms agent nouns
- -dom: forms nouns of place
One very common way of forming lengthier nouns in Rashimic is to compound them. All native nouns all have a reduced stem form without any affixes (other than the feminine suffix) which is used for compounding. Compounding is head initial, and derives from the Old Rashimic possessive construction; in contemporary Rashimic this is very productive although not used for simple possession. Compounding is head-initial, and the head takes the compound form. Most compound forms are derived quite straightforwardly by reducing the long vowel either to a short vowel or schwa, depending on the word. Posttonic short vowels are typically lost altogether if syllable structure permits. All feminine suffixes are replaced with an infixed -t-. Often a schwa is inserted at the word boundary:
- hyeim 'sea' > hyĭm-šaem Sea of Flames
- tvah 'baking' > tvěh-ě-msouv 'breadmaking'
- droughě '(female) friend, helpmate' > Drěghtěprourka 'Friend-of-the-Prophet' (a personal name)
In most cases this does not cause lenition.
There are a few derivational prefixes which are etymologically analysed as compounding nouns:
- hěvr-ě- ‘trans-‘: Hěvrětěrnā ‘Trans-Tormetia’
- hosr-ě- ‘-less’: hosrěhbiev ‘summerless’
Status
Rashimic is the most widely-spoken language in Outer Joriscia and one of the most widely-spoken in the world, with more than 1.1 billion native speakers. As might be expected from a language this widespread, there is a good deal of regional variation in colloquial speech, although the capitals of Azophin and Terophan both fall within the Littoral dialect region and for this reason the educated sociolects of the whole Rashimic-speaking world draw upon this dialect a considerable amount. Colloquial dialects, especially those of less educated speakers, are not necessarily mutually intelligible, although exposure to different dialects through media and increased mobility has begun to ameliorate this situation somewhat. Colonial dialects and the dialects of eastern Outer Joriscia are particularly difficult for Rashimophones from the Terophatic and Azophine metropoles to understand, largely because of lack of exposure and in the case of the latter significant influences from other languages such as Lacrean; this problem is not usually experienced to the same degree in the reverse because of the prominence of Terophatic and Azophine media both in the colonies and in other Rashimic-speaking areas of Outer Joriscia. Both because of its historic position as the colloquial language of Great Neritsia and its modern role as the language of Azophin and Terophan, as well as its sheer scope, Rashimic serves as a koine in much of the Vesnite world.
There are two main regulatory bodies for Rashimic, the Imperial Terophatic Seat of Grammatical Learning and Azophin's Imperial School of Language, and hence two major written standards. The two standards do not differ significantly from one another except for some orthographic differences in the spellings of individual words and, occasionally, in reflecting differences in colloquial vocabulary between educated Azophines and Terophites; these differences may depend more on the writer than on the standard itself, since colonial writers otherwise adopting the same standard may use words which are part of their own educated dialect in place of the terms used in the metropole. Speakers of Lacrean Rashimic, whose traditional written standard was largely driven out of use by Lacrean during the 19th century, have often written their dialect in a way that corresponds more closely to Lacrean spelling.
History
Internal history
By early Rashimic (1350CE):
- ṭ becomes tz: ṭōb > tsōb
- /ʔ ħ h ʕ/ merge, becoming null finally with compensatory lengthening of the previous vowel and /ħ/ (sometimes zero) elsewhere: ʔārətzīm > ħārətzīm
- Geminates are lost with compensatory lengthening. Begadhkephath effects are not extended, producing pairs like taḇaḥ ‘baking’ and ṭābāḥ ‘baker’.
- Syllable-final non-geminate p t k b d g lenite: kǝtāb > kǝṯāḇ
- Schwa is lost but leaves begadhkephath effects behind: ħārətzīm > ħārtzīm, kǝṯāḇ > kṯāḇ
- Unstressed vowels are shortened consistently (ħārtzīm > ħartzīm)
- /a/ before a syllable containing an /i/ is (inconsistently) raised to /e/, except in the vicinity of a guttural. This appears particularly with morphological forms: kṯāḇ > kṯeḇīm, tabāḥ > tabāḥin.
- /ē ō/ merge into /ī ū/.
- /q/ > /g/. qūl ‘say’ > gūl.
By 1700:
- /w/ > /b/ via /v/ (regularisation by analogy with beghadkephath):
- Diphthongisation of long vowels /ā ī ū/ > /aǝ ie ou/ in closed but not in open syllables: -īm > -iem, -ōṯ > ouṯ.
- /tz/ > /š/: ħartziem > ħaršiem.
- Stop consonants and their lenited counterparts are phonetically palatalised in the environment of a front vowel: kṯeḇiem > kṯ’eḇ’iem ‘books.
- Final -n is increasingly not written in the stable plural: tǝbāḥ tǝbāḥ-i ‘bakers’
- Penultimate vowels reduce to schwa except in the environment of a guttural, making palatalisation phonemic: kṯ’ǝḇ’iem. These are written in the orthography using a different short vowel marker.