Dictionary:About Middle Airananwe

This page documents the dictionary's practice for Middle Airananwe (code YAR-AI), the medieval stage of Airananwe, descended from Gaillean. No native name is recorded for it.

Middle Airananwe is not a mechanical halfway point between the two attested stages. It has its own phonology, and in several places departs from both — its palatal series, its three prenasalised stops and its written vowel length are its own.

Entry conventions

• Entries live at their Middle Airananwe spellings, with estimated IPA.
• Nouns carry a declension table ({{YAR-AI-decl}}). There is one declension; there is no gender.
• Each entry names its Gaillean source, and the Gaillean entry names it in return.
• Forms are derived word by word rather than by rule. Several correspondences are genuinely free — a Gaillean noun in -a may give -a or -e, bh may hold or harden to b, and a final -e may be kept or lost.

Orthography

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

Digraphs: mb nd ng · bh gh ph th dh · ch sh · gu · ty dy ny ly sy zy ky gy · aa ee ii oo uu

⟨y⟩ after a consonant palatalises it; elsewhere it is /j/. Long vowels are written by doubling — a convention neither neighbour uses. ⟨gu⟩ is /gʷ/ before a vowel and /gʷu/ elsewhere.

Phonology

Consonants. Plain p b t d k g; the labiovelars q /kʷ/ and gu /gʷ/; the prenasalised mb /ᵐb/, nd /ⁿd/ and ng /ᵑg/; the affricates c /ʦ/, ch /ʧ/, ph /p͡ɸ/ and x /kʃ/; the fricatives f v bh /β/, th /θ/, dh /ð/, s z sh /ʃ/, j /ʒ/, gh /ɣ/ and h; the nasals m n; the liquids l r; and the glide y /j/.

The palatal series — ty dy ny ly sy zy ky gy /tʲ dʲ ɲ ʎ ɕ ʑ c ɟ/ — is the language's signature, and the source of the palatals of the modern language.

Vowels. Short a e i o u; long aa ee ii oo uu.

Allophony.

• The coronals palatalise of themselves before i: t d s z n l are [tʲ dʲ ɕ ʑ ɲ ʎ]. Before any other vowel the palatal must be written, which is what makes the series phonemic.
• n is [ŋ] before a velar.
• r is [ɾ] between vowels, a trill elsewhere; h is [ɦ] between vowels.
• A voiced obstruent is voiceless word-finally — ghaleb [ˈɣalep] — and voiced again before a vowel-initial ending, ghaleben [ɣaˈleben]. The spelling keeps the voiced stem throughout, so the citation form always shows the stem.
• Stress falls on the penultimate syllable and is never written.

Development from Gaillean

Typical outcomes, judged word by word:

Gaillean	usually	example
zh	j	zherrita > jertya
ll	l	illa > ila
mb-, mp-	b-, p-	mbila > bila
k before a o u	c	kubhe > cubh
c before e i	ch	herce > -erche
h-	lost	herce > -erche
w-	u-	woegherbhei > uogherbhe
consonant + w	consonant + gu	sienwei > siengue
aw	o	awbhientuz > obienta
ae, ei	e	thaembuz > Themus
verb -ei	-e	zumei > zume
-uz	-us	artuz > artus
noun -e	bare consonant	kubhe > cubh
zt	zd	annawztrolle > annozdrol
i between consonants	y, often with metathesis	-rita > -rtya

The ending system is the reason the stage matters. Gaillean's nouns in -a give -a or -e here and a silent -e in the modern language; Gaillean's nouns in -e give a bare consonant in both; and Gaillean's verbs in -ei give a pronounced -e /e/ here, which the modern language writes -é precisely to keep it apart from that silent -e. The modern acute cannot be explained without this stage.

Nouns

One declension, no gender, four cases in two numbers. The ending attaches to the bare lexeme, taking a linking -e- after a consonant; the dative singular needs none, being vocalic itself.

	after a vowel		after a consonant
	sg	pl	sg	pl
NOM	—	-r	—	-er
GEN	-n	-rn	-en	-ern
DAT	-i	-ri	-i	-eri
ACC	-s	-rs	-es	-ers

Gaillean's five cases lose the vocative here; its three genders and nine stem-classes are gone altogether.

Adpositions are clitics, written with a leading hyphen and a prothetic vowel: Gaillean petc gives -epetch, and the modern language -epech.

See also

• Dictionary:About Gaillean — the ancient stage
• Middle Airananwe language