Airananwe language
Airananwe (Airánanue [aɪˈʀaːnɑnʷə]) is a Herta-Olaic language, the modern stage of the line running from Gaillean through Middle Airananwe. It is the most widely used trade language in the world.
Sound and spelling
The acute accent marks a long vowel — á [aː], é [eː] — continuing the length that Middle Airananwe wrote with a doubled letter, so that modern -é answers to Middle -ee. Stress is not written. The alveolo-palatals written ch and j continue the palatal series that was the signature of the medieval language.
Grammar
Nouns are not inflected for case, the four cases of Middle Airananwe having been lost; the plural is formed by rule from the shape of the singular. Adpositions, free words at both earlier stages, are bound to the noun they govern: -erge "with", -antá "upon".
The language has two articles, je indefinite and phe definite. Both are worn-down proclitics — je from the numeral "one", phe from an older adverb "here" that also survives on its own as eph.
Subject pronouns are ordinarily dropped, and mood is carried by an auxiliary standing before an infinitive, as with fé "would". Beside its plain stem, every verb has a special stem and a passive stem, each derived by rule: naquité "write" yields naquid- and naquitiv-.
See also
- Middle Airananwe language — the medieval stage
- Gaillean language — the ancient stage
- Dictionary:About Airananwe — the dictionary's practice for the language