Old Anhic language

Old Anhic (anhāqa lānha [ɐn.hɐ̠ː.qɐ̠ lɐːn.hɐ]) was a Mallo-Brausian language spoken around modern-day southern Sunteria, Cysteia and Threonia. Old Anhic is in its own branch of Mallo-Brausian, but it seems to be closest to Elukka (this can be removed at any time if wanted).

Name of the language

The name of the language, Anhāqa, is an adjective meaning 'anhic (relating to the Anhic people or language)'. Etymologically, it is from the Proto-Mallo-Brausian word *h₂enh₁-ǵʰ-os, meaning 'person' or literally 'breather'. (this can be removed at any time if wanted).

The language may also be referred to as Glangva 'The Language'.

Phonology

The phonemic inventory of Old Anhic is notable for its presence of uvular consonants, a rarity amongst most Mallo-Brausian languages.

Consonants

Consonants of Old Anhic

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal		m	n
Plosive	-V	p	t		k	q
	+V	b	d		g	ɢ gq
Fricative	-V		s			χ ħ	h
	+V	v	z
Approximant			l	j y
Rhotic			r

This table shows the base consonantal phonemes. There are additional consonants: All plosives and the fricative /s/ have geminated variants that appear in certain contexts.

Whenever an approximant is after a uvular consonant, that approximant becomes uvularized and causes vowel retraction.

• A sequence like /qsɐ/ is pronounced as [qsɐ].
• However, a sequence like /qjɐ/ is pronounced as [qjʶɐ̠].

Vowels

Vowels of Old Anhic

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
Mid	e
Low		ɐ a

This table shows the base vowel phonemes. There are additional vowels: All vowels except /e/ have long variants. These are romanized with a macron diacritic on top of the base vowel.

Uvular realizations

Uvular consonants (/q/, /ɢ/, and /χ/) cause vowels before and after them to be retracted.

Vowel realizations

Plain	Retracted	Long	Long + Retracted
/i/	[ɨ]	/iː/	[ɨː]
/u/	[u̠]	/uː/	[u̠ː]
/e/	[ɘ]	/ɐː/	[ɐ̠ː] ~ [ɑː]
/ɐ/	[ɐ̠]

Syllables

In Old Anhic, syllables are generally (C)V(C), but clusters of two consonants are also common. If three consonants were to cluster, an epenthetic /ɐ/ is inserted between the 2nd and 3rd consonant.

Grammar and morphology

Old Anhic can be classified as a highly fusional language, as singular affixes are used to indicate multiple different features. The language does not employ many auxiliary verbs and also does not distinguish between certain aspects. For example, there is no grammatical distinction between 'I do' and 'I am doing' in Old Anhic. Many cases that were present in Proto-Mallo-Brausian have been lost and certain adpositions are used instead.

Nominals

Old Anhic has no grammatical gender, although vestiges of a gender system remain in some personal pronouns. To distinguish between male and female in certain words, an affixed form of the word vina 'woman', -ina is used. For example, kaqyārta 'student' becomes kaqyārtina 'female student'. These words with the -ina suffix decline like the word vina itself. All nouns and adjectives are declined for five cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, ablative, and dative), and two numbers (singular and plural), and there are multiple different declensions.

Pronouns also decline for the same five cases, but the genitive is called the possessive. The third-person pronouns have a three-way gender distinction of masculine, feminine, and neuter. The masculine and feminine genders are generally only used for animate referents, and the neuter for inanimates.

Adjectives agree in case, number, and 'definiteness' (see kappic and sigmatic forms) with the noun they modify.

Example of a noun being declined

anha 'person'

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	anha	anhā
Accusative	anham	anhaz
Genitive	anhasya	anhām
Ablative	anhād	anhāva
Dative	anhā

Kappic and sigmatic forms

A system of kappic and sigmatic forms is commonly used with nouns and adjectives. Kappic and sigmatic both refer to the addition of a consonant at the start of a nominal, k- and s-, respectively. These forms are used as a way to indicate both spatial deixis and/or definiteness. The more common of the two is the kappic. Adjectives can also be nominalized using these forms to have the meaning of 'the [adjective] one'. They are derived from the demonstratives ka 'this' and sa 'that'.

There are some phonological conditions that must be met in order for a word to have kappic and sigmatic forms. Some rules only apply to the kappic, and some to the sigmatic.

The rules are:

• The word must not start with more than one consonant.
• The word must not start with a plosive. (only applies to kappic)
• The word must not start with /s/ or /z/. (only applies to sigmatic)

Another rule is that if a word starts with h- or ħ-, then it will be deleted and the k- or s- will replace it. For example, the word hirta 'way', has kappic and sigmatic forms kirta 'this, the way' and sirta 'that, the way'. But the word varman 'ash' has the forms gvarman and zvarman. Note that if a word begins in a voiced consonant, the k- and s- are voiced to g- and z-. Due to the rules, some words may only have one special form. Like gāza 'hand', which only has a valid sigmatic form zgāza.

The rule of replacing h- or ħ- with k- or s- still has the other rules apply to it. For a word like htera 'star', the three rules listed previously should be applied as if the h was not there, so ktera is not a valid special form, but stera is.

Declension types

There are many different declensions that a nominal can be part of. This section will cover them.

The first declension

Words in this declension generally come from words that ended in *-os in Proto-Mallo-Brausian. This is considered the default and first declension.

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	-a	-ā
Accusative	-am	-az
Genitive	-asya	-ām
Ablative	-ād	-āva
Dative	-ā	-āva

The second declension

Nominals in this declensions have the same nominative singular and accusative singular form in -am. Words in this declension generally come from words that ended in *-om in Proto-Mallo-Brausian.

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	-am	-ā
Accusative	-am	-ā
Genitive	-asya	-ām
Ablative	-ād	-āva
Dative	-ā	-āva

The third declension

Nominals in this declensions are very similar to the first declension, with the only difference being in the ablative singular and plural, and the dative plural. Words in this declension generally come from words that ended in *-eh₂ in Proto-Mallo-Brausian.

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	-a	-ā
Accusative	-am	-az
Genitive	-asya	-ām
Ablative	-a	-aha
Dative	-ā	-aha

The fourth declension

Nominals in this declensions are notable for their presence of an /i/ in all affixes. Words in this declension generally come from words that ended in *-is in Proto-Mallo-Brausian.

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	-ia	-iā
Accusative	-im	-iz
Genitive	-ia	-iām
Ablative	-id	-īva
Dative	-ī	-īva

The fifth declension

Nominals in this declension are notable for their presence of nasals in most affixes. Words in this declension generally come from words that ended in *-mn̥ in Proto-Mallo-Brausian. Words of this declension are almost always iotic deverbal nouns in -man.

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	-man	-ma
Accusative	-man	-ma
Genitive	-maz	-mana
Ablative	-maz	-mana
Dative	-māni	-mani

The sixth declension

Nominals in this declension are notable for their presence of nasals in most affixes. Words in this declension generally come from words that ended in *-mn̥ in Proto-Mallo-Brausian. Words of this declension are almost always aniotic deverbal nouns in -an.

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	-an	-a
Accusative	-an	-a
Genitive	-az	-ana
Ablative	-az	-ana
Dative	-āni	-ani

The seventh declension

Nominals in this declensions are notable for their presence of an /u/ in all affixes. Words in this declension generally come from words that ended in *-us in Proto-Mallo-Brausian.

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	-ua	-uā
Accusative	-um	-uvaz
Genitive	-uz	-uām
Ablative	-uz	-ūva
Dative	-ū	-ūva

The eighth declension

Words in this declension generally come from words that ended in *-ōl in Proto-Mallo-Brausian.

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	-a	-ā
Accusative	-am	-āz
Genitive	-a	-ām
Ablative	-ad	-ava
Dative	-ā	-ava

The ninth declension

Words in this declension generally come from words that ended in *-r̥ in Proto-Mallo-Brausian.

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	-a	-ā
Accusative	-am	-āz
Genitive	-az	-ana
Ablative	-az	-ana
Dative	-ani	-ani

Other unusual nouns

There are nouns that do not fit properly into a declension. Many of these are body parts, such as ħaqsa 'eye', and some of them have retained an unusual nominative plural in -ī. These are preserved duals that have become the standard plural for these words and it is likely due to these nouns coming in pairs.

Verbs

Verbs in Old Anhic are used to describe states, actions or occurrences. There are two types of verbs, plain and causative. All verbs are conjugated for three moods (indicative, subjunctive, and imperative), three tenses in the first two moods (present, past, future), number (sg. and pl.), and person (1, 2, 3), and voice (active, passive). Verbs of the 'plain' type only have two conjugations: iotic and aniotic, which both refer to the presence and absence of a /j/ in the conjugation affix, respectively. There is only one irregular verb in Old Anhic, hasyāta 'to be'.

Active indicative conjugations of an iotic and aniotic verb

		Singular			Plural
		1st	2nd	3rd	1st	2nd	3rd
anhāta 'to breathe' aniotic	Present	anhāmi	anhāsi	anhāti	anhāma	anhāta	anhātti
	Past	anham	anha	anhat	anhama	anhata	anhatt
	Future	anhiham	anhi	anhit	anhima	anhita	anhihatt
dakkyāta 'to see' iotic	Present	dakkyāmi	dakkyāsi	dakkyāti	dakkyāma	dakkyāta	dakkyātti
	Past	dakkyam	dakkya	dakkyat	dakkyama	dakkyata	dakkyatt
	Future	dakkyiham	dakkyi	dakkyit	dakkyima	dakkyita	dakkyihatt

All aniotic verbs always have /h/ at the end of their stem and their infinitives have no /j/ in them. Note how anhāta only has -h-, dakkyāta has -y-, but vihyāta has -hy-, meaning it is iotic. The tense of a verb in the active indicative can be known due to the presence of a certain vowel. The active indicative present always has -ā-, the past always has -a-, and the future always has -i-.

Verbs are generally pro-drop, where subject pronouns aren't required, but they can be used for emphasis.

Plain vs. causative distinction

Plain verbs in Old Anhic generally have a non-causative meaning. Sometimes, the forms of a plain and causative verb are indistinguishable, i.e. sapyāta is both the plain and causative infinitive, so the word could mean 'to know' or 'to cause to know'. However, the distinction can be indicated by an -i-, for example, tihāta 'to burn' and tihiāta 'to cause to burn, to set on fire'.

This intervening -i- persists throughout all conjugations, but the active participles are not unique between plain and causative verbs, but the passive participles are (-imā, -ima, and -imi). Causative passive participles can be used deponently.

The copula

The copula (hasyāta) in Old Anhic generally corresponds to a meaning of 'to be'. This is the only verb that does not follow the pattern of aniotic or iotic completely in its conjugation, as it is extremely irregular. The copula has no passive forms, not even passive participles, and it is suppletive.

Indicative plain conjugation of hasyāta 'to be'

	Singular			Plural
	1st	2nd	3rd	1st	2nd	3rd
Present	hazi	hasi	hatti	hama	hata	hatti
Past	hasyāmi	hasyāti	hasyāsi	hasyāma	hasyāta	hasyātti
Future	vuhā	vuhāsi	vuhāti	vuhāma	vuhāta	vuhatti

The present is derived directly from *h₁es-, and does not have the intervening yā in it. The past is derived from *h₂wes-, and does have the intervening yā, making it behave like a regular iotic verb. The future is from *bʰuH-, and retains an unusual 1st person singular conjugation of vuhā, where *vuhāmi would have been expected.

The present indicative is not used for statements like He is good, instead it is required to be dropped. The proper sentence in Old Anhic is Has hāsa. However, the present indicative of the verb is used for an existential, like 'there is...'

The causative copula

The causative copula in Old Anhic is technically irregular, due to the fact that it has no intervening -yā-, but it is regular in its endings. All of the forms are analogized from the indicative plain present. The future tense is also irregular.

Indicative causative conjugation of hasyāta 'to cause to be'

	Singular			Plural
	1st	2nd	3rd	1st	2nd	3rd
Present	hāsāmi	hāsāsi	hāsāti	hāsāma	hāsāta	hāsātti
Past	hāsyam	hāsya	hāsyat	hāsyama	hāsyata	hāsyatt
Future	hāsī	hāsā	hāsīt	hāsīma	hāsīta	hāsītt

Non-finite forms

Old Anhic does not possess many non-finite forms, only having deverbal nouns, active / passive participles, and agentives. Many of these forms are used in combination with the affixes hu- 'good' and du- 'bad' to form multiple new words.

Deverbal forms

Every verb in Old Anhic has two deverbal nouns associated with it, one in -a, the other in -man. The -a form is used for the 'process of X', and the -man form is uses for the 'result of X'. For example, gavasa means 'tasting', and gavasman means 'taste' (the result of tasting is a taste). The -man affix has two forms, for aniotic verbs, the form is -an; for iotic verbs, the form is -man.

Participles

Old Anhic has both active and passive participles, and each type has three tense divisions, present, past, and future. Participles can be used as adjectives or nouns. The active participles are formed with -yāss, -yass, and -yiss, with respect to the order of tenses listed before. The passive participles are formed differently, with -mā, -ma, and -mi, respectively. The active participles are also part of the iotic / aniotic distinction, so aniotic verbs will have active participles formed with -āss, -ass, and -iss.

Agentives

Agentives are used to indicate the meaning of 'that which X-s' or the 'X-er'. Generally, these are formed with the affix -yārta, but there are some inherited irregular forms that involve an irregularly placed -r-, such as dārha 'giver, God' and mārha 'mother', but these have become disassociated from their corresponding roots and the irregular and regular forms simultaneously exist, like dārha and dāhārta, both meaning 'giver', but only the former has the additional meaning of 'God'. Note that the affix -yārta is part of the iotic / aniotic distinction, and the aniotic form is -ārta.

Phrasal verbs

Phrasal verbs are very commonly used to modify the meanings of already existing verbs. They are formed with an adposition prefixed onto a verb. For example h(a)- 'in' + dakkyāta 'to see' forms hadakkayāta 'to observe, oversee'. H(a)- is generally used as an intensive. Other adpositions can be used to form phrasal verbs, such as ħad- 'at, to' and qam- 'with'.

While not being formed with adpositions, the affixes hu- 'good' and du- 'bad' can also be attached onto verbs to narrow their meaning. For example, hu- + gavasyāta 'to taste' yields hugavasyāta 'to taste (something good)'. These affixes are also not restricted to verbs and can also be applied to nominals.

Adverbs

Adverbs in Old Anhic are formed via the adverbial accusative, where the accusative singular form of a noun or adjective is used as an adverb. For example, vata 'year' → vatam 'yearly'. These can be placed either before or after a verb.

Adpositions

Adpositions in Old Anhic are indeclinable and can be placed either before or after a noun. Some adpositions are actually prefixes, analogous to how they are used for phrasal verbs. For example, h(a)- 'in' can be used to form a sort of inessive case. Some new adpositions can be made with the addition of the du- 'bad' prefix. For example, du- + qam 'with' yields duqam 'not with, against, opposite to'. These new adpositions have the opposite meaning of their base adposition.

Negation

In general, negation is marked with the negative particle ma. For verbs, the ma particle can be prefixed or suffixed, such as mahamyāmi or hamyāmima, both meaning 'I don't know'. For adjectives, the ma particle can be placed either before or after them.

Syntax

In Old Anhic, the order of words in a sentence is generally free, but there is a tendency to have a base word order of subject-object-verb (SOV). It is somewhat common for related segments in a sentence to not be placed consecutively. If a sentence only has one verb and one adverb in it, then both the adverb and verb can be placed anywhere within it.

Base example: Ag ati has gmāgam gvinam dakkyatt. 'Me and him saw the big woman.' The adjective (gmāgam, 'big') is placed before the noun (gvinam, 'woman'), but this isn't required, an equally valid sentence is Gmāgam dakkyatt ag ati has gvinam. Now, the adjective is disconnected from its noun, the verb is now before the subject, and the noun is at the end.

Vocabulary

Most of Old Anhic's vocabulary is descended directly from Proto-Mallo-Brausian, with other obscure sources being unknown and/or unattested. Many words in Old Anhic are cognate with words in other Mallo-Brausian languages such as Loremese, Caerimoscnë, and Oikan.

This table shows the most recognizable cognates between Old Anhic and the languages listed previously.

Meaning	Old Anhic	Loremese	Caerimoscnë	Oikan	Proto-Mallo-Brausian
mother	marha	mater		metser	*méh₂tēr
worm	varmia	vrimi	ürmi	uerma	*wr̥mis
five	pappa	pence	meghn	ponkuo	*pénkʷe
eye	ħaqsa	oc	ou	hokuo	*h₃ekʷ-
tongue	langva	dazva	taenchë	denžua	*dn̥ǵʰwéh₂s

Writing system

The Old Anhic script (Old Anhic: anhāqa qrihan) is an impure abjad with 19 total glyphs. Eighteen of the glyphs are used to represent consonants, the remaining one is used to indicate a prothetic or long vowel, generally /ɐ/. Words are written left-to-right, top-to-bottom with no spaces or interpunct between them. Diacritics did not originally exist, but a system of dots to indicate the other three vowels in Old Anhic was added later, natively called dāhass (lit. 'added'). Punctuation also did not originally exist, but a long vertical line was invented to indicate the ends of sentences, natively called a sttāhāss ('the standing').

A line from the Zgqavha, a prayer written in Old Anhic (recreated on computer)

Old Anhic's base numbers

Vowels are not written, except for /ɐː/ wherever it occurs, and if a word begins in a vowel, it is indicated with the vowel symbol. Geminates are also not indicated, but the act of writing a consonant twice was used later to indicate gemination.

Examples of numbers and their values in Old Anhic

Numbers were written using a modified tally mark system. A vertical line had the value of '1'. A forward-diagonal, akin to '/' had the value of '2'. A backward-diagonal like '\' had the value of '5'. An X-like character had the value of '10'. Addition was written from left-to-right and multiplication was written from top-to-bottom in blocks.