Dictionary:About Airananwe

This page documents the dictionary's practice for Airananwe (Airánanue, code YAS-AI), the modern stage of the line running from Gaillean through Middle Airananwe. It is the most widely used trade language in the world.

Entry conventions

• Entries live at their Airananwe spellings, with estimated pronunciations from Module:Auphen/YAS-AI.
• Nouns carry a table of four forms — singular and plural, each plain and genitive.
• Each entry names its Middle Airananwe source, and the Middle entry names it in return.
• Where one spelling covers two unrelated words, the entry splits under Etymology 1 and Etymology 2: anté "to have" and anté "sister" share a page but not a history.

Orthography

Alphabet: a á b c ç d e é f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v x y

Digraphs: bh ch dh gh gn kh lh ng ph qu sh th vh · ae ai au ei eo eu oe ou

The acute marks a long vowel — á [aː], é [eː] — and continues the length written double in Middle Airananwe, so that the verb ending -é answers to Middle -ee. Stress is not written.

Phonology

The digraphs carry most of the language's distinctive sounds: th is [tv] (thai [tvaɪ], sánth [saːntv]), vh is [fʷ] (vhá [fʷaː]), gn is [ɲ] (gnáue [ˈɲaːwə]), lh is [ʎ] (lháyé [ˈʎaːjeː]), dh is [ð] (dhuse [ðus]), kh is [k͡x] (khest [k͡xɛst]), gh is [x] (ghay [xɑj]), ng is [ŋ] (nangy [nɑˈŋi]) and ph is [p͡ɸ] (phe [p͡ɸə]). bh is [pɸ] at the head of a word and [bv] within it: bhessaut [pɸɛˈsoːt] against ánébh [ˈaːneːbv].

The alveolo-palatals ch [ɕ] and j [ʑ] continue the palatal series of the medieval language: chá [ɕaː], je [ʑə], arch [ɑʀɕ]. After a vowel at the end of a word ch hardens to [x] instead — yách [jaːx]. ç is [z] between vowels (chiçey [ɕiˈzɛj]) and [ʑ] before a consonant (oçtry [ɔʑˈtʀi]).

The letter q has three values: qu is [kʰ] before i (quites [kʰits]) and [kju] before a consonant (quve [kjuʋ]), while bare q before a vowel is the glottalised [kˀ] (qaule [kˀoːl]).

A final e is not sounded: bide [bid], ette [ɛt], tiále [tjaːl], dege [deʑ]. It surfaces as [ə] only where its loss would leave too little of the word — je [ʑə], phe [p͡ɸə], gnáue [ˈɲaːwə].

Final re, ne and le invert, the vowel moving in front of the liquid or nasal: aebre [ˈɑɪbəɹ], alne [aˈlɪ̃n], thémne [ˈtveːmɪ̃n].

A vowel nasalises before a final n or r, which is then lost: omen [oˈmɛ̃], enner [ɛˈnɛ̃], pháton [p͡ɸˈaːtɔ̃].

A voiced obstruent is voiceless at the end of a word.

Development from Middle Airananwe

Two habits do most of the work. Unstressed first syllables fall away — Middle enstaree gives staré, mino gives no — and final -ee becomes -é, which is why the acute so often sits on a verb.

The four cases are gone. What survives of them is a genitive rebuilt from a postposition, and adpositions generally, free words at both earlier stages, are now bound to the noun: -erge "with", -antá "upon", -epech "above".

Airananwe also has two articles where the earlier stages had none, both worn down from proclitics: je "a" from the numeral dege "one", and phe "the" from an older adverb "here" which survives separately as eph.

Nouns

There is no case in the old sense. Every noun has four forms — singular and plural, each with a genitive:

	sg	pl
plain	—	by rule
genitive	-enn	-enn

The plural is formed from the shape of the singular by rule, not by a single ending: rayes → rayers, thémne → thémner, nájy → nájier, arch → archre. The ruleset is Module:Auphen/YAS-AI's plural.

The genitive is the suffixed postposition -enne, reduced to -nne after a vowel, and it attaches to both numbers. Its final e is silent, as everywhere else in the language, but it is what keeps the nn off the end of the word: a word-final nn would nasalise the vowel before it and disappear, leaving the genitive sounding exactly like the plural. With the e in place the n survives — ajamenne [aˈʑamɛn] against the plural ajamer [aˈʑamɛ̃] — and because the ending carries no long vowel it never draws the stress off the stem.

An e standing in the stem's own last syllable drops before the ending, so that the word does not gain a syllable it does not need: rayes gives raysenne [ʀɑjˈsɛn], omen gives omnenne, sichen gives sichnenne. The vowel is kept where losing it would leave an unsayable cluster, as in khest → khestenne.

A stem whose last two letters are re, ne or le after a consonant turns them around first. Such a word is already pronounced with the vowel in front of the liquid — archre is [ˈɑʀxəɹ], aebre is [ˈɑɪbəɹ] — and suffixing it plainly would strand the cluster and rebuild it as an onset. Turned around, the word keeps its own rhythm and takes the shorter -nne: archre → archernne [ɑʀˈɕɛʀnə], aebre → aebernne. These forms alone end in a light [ə] rather than [n], which marks the class out.

	sg	pl
plain	rayes	rayers
genitive	raysenne	rayersenne

Verbs

Beside its plain stem every verb has a special stem and a passive stem, both derived by rule from the citation form: naquité "write" gives naquid- and naquitiv-, herché gives hérj- and herchev-, anté gives end- and antiv-. The rulesets are Module:Auphen/YAS-AI's special and passive.

Stems combine with endings and with auxiliaries: -e marks the first person singular present on the plain stem, and the special stem with -engé says that the act is begun. Mood is carried by an auxiliary standing before an infinitive, as with fé "would". The conjugation is not yet written up here.

See also

• Dictionary:About Middle Airananwe — the medieval stage
• Airananwe language