Arkihanakh language

Arkihanakh
arMikikxan, Ŧarmosahit arKikxanax
Flag of Arkihan
Pronunciation	[ɐː.mʲɪ.kʲɪ.kxɐn]
Ethnicity	Arkihanakh
Native speakers	~30 million  (2019)
Language family	Ekuo-Lahiri Adzo-Neviric Adzamic Arkihanakh
Early forms:	Old Adzamian Arkihanakh
Writing system	Adzo-Neviric
Official status
Official language in	Arkihan, Povania
CWS code	KIKX

Arkihanakh (almikiḳann, arMikikxan [ɐː.mʲɪ.kʲɪ.kxɐn]) is an Adzo-Neviric language of the Adzamic branch spoken predominantly in the Povan constituent country of Arkihan by approximately 30 million people, of which approximately 25 million are native speakers. It is co-official in the Povan Union, within which it is the third most spoken language behind Ledzib and Ailmudenic.

Classification

Arkihanakh is a member of the Adzamic branch of the Adzo-Neviric language family, itself a branch of the Ekuo-Lahiri language family.

History

Arkihanakh arose after speakers of Old Adzamian settled the region, and the Neviran conquest separated Arkihan from Tabiqa.

Phonology

Phonemes

	Bilabial	Dental	Coronal	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m		n
Plosive	p b		t d t͡s*		k g k͡x*
Fricative	f v	θ ð	s z ʃ ʒ	ɕ ʑ	x	h ɦ
Liquid			r	j

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i: ĩ: ɪ ɪ: ɪ̃	ɨ	u: ũ: ʊ ʊ: ʊ̃
Mid	e: ẽ: ɛ ɛ: ɛ̃		o: õ: ʌ ʌ: ʌ̃
Open		ɐ ɐ: ɐ̃	ɑ: ɑ̃:

• /t͡s/ and /k͡x/ are technically allophonic with [ts] and [kx], but they behave as their own phonemes phonotactically.

Phonotactics

• /r/ isn't allowed after vowels.
• Long vowels can only occur in stressed syllables.
• Stress is not phonemic and only occurs in the initial syllable.
• The language is (C)(C)V(C)(C), and /n/ can occur instead of a vowel.

Allophony

• All consonants, other than /h/, /ɦ/, and /j/, are palatalised by following front vowels. Likewise, they are also labialised by following back vowels.
• /x/ surfaces as [ç] before voiceless obstruents (with the exception of velar sounds) and word-finally.
• /x/ surfaces as [ɣ] when adjacent to voiced obstruents.

Dialects

The six main dialects of Arkihanakh:
1. Western dialect
2. Arkot dialect
3. Irmežayržix dialect
4. Central dialect
5. Southern dialect
6. Tayelekro dialect

Western dialect

The Western dialect of Arkihanakh, also called the Kar or Kidev dialect, is the dialect spoken primarily in South Arkide, but also in the city of Vuxkofukx. This dialect merges the dental fricatives /θ/ and /ð/ with the alveolar sibilants /s/ and /z/ respectively. The voiced /ɦ/ is dropped entirely, leading to instances of vowel hiatus. It is also the only major dialect not to feature allophonic palatalisation and labialisation of consonants before certain vowels.

Arkot dialect

The Arkot dialect is the second most spoken dialect of Arkihanakh, spoken in its historical capital of Arkot. Some people, especially older folk, refer to it as the Maźet ("True") dialect, a name which has been largely discredited. It is the only dialect in which voiced /ɦ/ still has its original quality. A newer feature of the Arkot dialect is that the long /ɑː/ has rounded to something more like [ɒː] or [ɔː], and the /ɐ/ vowels have been backed to [ɑ] to fill its place.

Irmežayržix dialect

The least widely spoken major dialect, the Irmežayržix dialect (confusingly known amongst some as the 'Southern dialect') is spoken in a region that encompasses about half of Irmežayržix. It is most well known for being the only major dialect to not merge the nasal vowels with the oral ones. Like with the Western dialect, /ɦ/ is dropped everywhere and the dental fricatives merge with the alveolar ones. Optional prodropping, now common in the Central and Southern dialects, originated in the Irmežayržix dialect; prodropping in this instance refers to the phenomenon where first, second and third person nominative pronouns are dropped before proximal, medial and distal present tense verbs respectively.

Central dialect

The Central dialect is spoken in parts of Aržexzo and the city of Irvužibvik. Like with the Irmežayržix dialect, it features optional prodropping. Its most distinguishing feature is that the allophones /tʲ/, /dʲ/, /sʲ/ and /zʲ/ are realised as [tʃ], [dʒ], [ʃ] and [ʒ] respectively, a feature it shares with the Tayelekro dialect.

Southern dialect

The Southern dialect, also known as the Kihaneto dialect, is the most commonly spoken dialect and is the one taught in most schools across Povania. It is associated with the urban south, and is spoken in the capital of Povania, Saromos. It features optional prodropping, albeit this is often seen as a feature of lower-class speech in regions of Saromos and Uvath. Otherwise, it is immensely similar to the Western dialect. Allophonic palatalisation and labialisation of certain consonants are frowned upon in Uvath, but common elsewhere.

Tayelekro dialect

The Taleyekro dialect, known also as the Zazibvo dialect or Taleyeko ("Eastern") dialect, is the dialect spoken in most of Irzazibv and significant areas of Ailmudenje. It has undergone a significant vowel shift, where vowels that in older forms of the language would be nasalised /ɑ̃ː/, /ẽː/, /ĩː/, /õː/, /ũː/, /ɐ̃/, /ɛ̃/, /ɪ̃/, /ʌ̃/, and /ʊ̃/ had all shifted to qualities that more resemble [ɑ̃ː], [ĩː], [ãj̃], [ũː], [ãw̃], [ɑ̃], [æ̃], [ɛ̃], [ɑ̃], and [ɔ̃] respectively, and have since lost their nasal quality. This means that the word dẽšõk ("brain"), pronounced [dɛʃʌk] in most other dialects, is, in the Tayelekro dialect, pronounced [dæʃɑk]. The Tayelekro dialect is also the only dialect in which the /ɦ/ phoneme is shifted to the glottal stop [ʔ].

Morphology and syntax

Arkihanakh is highly fusional, with many of the agglutinative affixes of Old Adzamian having fused into a large number of affixes that convey very specific meanings.

Pronouns

There is 159 pronouns in Arkihanakh that mark case, class, number, and for first person plural pronouns, clusivity. On top of that, there are 17 interrogative pronouns, one of which surfaces as a prefix. There are also 15 obviative pronouns which suffix onto their respective verbs.

Nouns

Nouns are marked for case and number. The singular class suffix in Old Adzamian merged with the root noun, so in modern Arkihanakh it is impossible to tell a noun's class from its root alone.

Verbs

Verbs are inflected for location, tense, aspect and mood. Some verbal morphology includes circumfixes.

Syntax

Sentences are either SOV or OSV depending on noun class. More animate nouns come first, and they get more inanimate the further through the sentence you go. The verb always comes last.

Writing and literature

Arkihanakh is written in the Adzo-Neviric script. Spelling is phonemic.