Airananwe language: Difference between revisions
Create the modern-stage article: classification, the acute, case loss and bound adpositions, the two articles, pro-drop and the stem system |
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Revision as of 13:17, 26 August 2026
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 vowel that was long at the medieval stage rather than one that is long today: modern -é answers to Middle Airananwe -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