Farmoshi language

Farmoshi
Rot Pharmuś rot pharmysh
Region	Milevia (Parshita)
Ethnicity	Kesrash, X
Language family	Milevic Southern Milevic Socelic Farmoshi
Early forms:	Proto-Milevic Proto-Southern-Milevic Imperial Milevian Farmoshi
Official status
Official language in	Farmosh
CWS code	FMS

Farmoshi (Farmoshi: rot pharmysh, tr. rot pharmuś), also known as Kesrashi, is the national and official language of Farmosh and the first language of a slight majority of its citizens. It is a member of the Southern group of the Milevic language family, itself thought to be part of a larger Shaelic macrofamily. It is an agglutinating language and makes liberal use of compounding to form new words.

The language serves as an important lingua franca within the country.

The Farmoshi language is classified as a descendant of Imperial Milevian, the administrative and religious language of the Milevian Empire. Whilst preserving many grammatical elements, its phonology has undergone major changes, one of its most prominent characteristics being the shifting of glottal fricatives into velar nasals.

Name

The language is known as Rot Pharmuś "language of the many" in official contexts and state media. The language was given this name to contrast with Terminian, which was dubbed Rot Yẹwuś "language of the few" by Balkists prior to the Referendums on Milevian Sovereignty 1876. In informal contexts the language is commonly referred to as Pharmuśrot or Miledrot, and even by its former name Kesraśrot "Kesrashi language."

Varieties and related languages

Dialects

• Central, centred around the city of Phamphar and the basis of the standard language

Related languages

• Sucaili, spoken in X.
• some other languages i still need names for

Phonology

Consonants

Farmoshi distinguishes three voice-onset times among plosive and affricate consonants:

• voiced
• tenuis (unvoiced, unaspirated)
• aspirated

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m ⟨m⟩	n ⟨n⟩	ɲ ⟨ñ⟩	ŋ ⟨ṅ⟩
Plosive	voiced	b ⟨b⟩	d ⟨d⟩		g* ⟨g⟩
	tenuis	p ⟨p⟩	t ⟨t⟩	tɕ ⟨c⟩	k ⟨k⟩
	aspirated	pʰ ⟨ph⟩	tʰ ⟨th⟩	tɕʰ ⟨ch⟩	kʰ ⟨kh⟩
Fricative			s ⟨s⟩	ɕ ⟨ś⟩		h ⟨h⟩
Approximant		w ⟨w⟩	l ⟨l⟩	j ⟨y⟩
Trill			r ⟨r⟩

^* /g/ is only found in certain positions and loan words.

Vowels

The vowel nuclei of the Farmoshi language are given in the following table.

	Front		Central		Back
	short	long	short	long	short	long
Close	i ⟨i⟩	i: ⟨ī⟩	ʉ ⟨u⟩	ʉ: ⟨ū⟩	u ⟨ụ⟩	u: ⟨ụ̄⟩
Close-mid	e ⟨e⟩	e: ⟨ē⟩			o ⟨o⟩	o: ⟨ō⟩
Mid			ə ⟨a⟩
Open-mid	ɛ ⟨ẹ⟩	ɛ: ⟨ẹ̄⟩
Open				aː ⟨ā⟩

The vowels each exist in long-short pairs: these are distinct phonemes forming unrelated words in Farmoshi.

Grammar

Verbs

Copulae

Farmoshi makes of four affixal copulae, which are suffixed to the predicate if it is an adjective or a noun phrase. The copula used depends on whether the sentence is positive ("to be") or negative ("not to be"), and whether the subject is an animate or inanimate noun (semi-animate nouns use the animate copulae). These copulae are not used when the complement is a prepositional phrase, and cannot exist as independent words; other verbs (such as dẹcen "to lie (positional)) are used instead.

	Animate	Inanimate
Positive	-rer	-rī
Negative	-ñar	-ñī

Bụ̄ won wonīrī. "The ship is very big."

Ṅotlaṅ walś ṅatpharrer. "They are my friends."

Pharm yadñar. "Many [people] are not happy."

Ṅek nalīñī. "The hill[s] is/are not tall."

*Pharmuśar Cisiluś ṅar rer. -> Pharmuśar Cisiluś ṅar dẹcen. "Farmosh lies next to Czisilia."

Additional verbal affixes can be added after adding the copula suffix, such as tense suffixes.

Bụ̄ won wonīrīmi. "The ship was very big." (past)

Ṅotlaṅ walś ṅatpharreron. "May they be my friends." (subjunctive/optative)

Pharm yadñarmi. "Many [people] were not happy." (past)

Ṅek nalīñīmi. "The hill[s] was/were not tall." (past)

Syntax

The basic word order, both in conversation and the written language, is subject-object-verb in both transitive clauses and intransitive clauses.

Farmoshi has four noun classes based on animacy, which are divided along the following semantic lines:

• Animate - people, animals, deities, heart/soul/mind
• Semi-animate - dead organisms (excluding 'corpse'), most body parts/organs, plants, groups/collectives of animate nouns, ethnicities, countries, certain processes + verbal nouns, emotions
• Inanimate - miscellaneous (includes things not classifiable in the first two)

Alignment

The language shows a form of split-ergative system shared by most other languages in the Milevic family; the system is occasionally dubbed Milevic alignment. Animate nouns follow a nominative-accusative pattern, while inanimate nouns follow an ergative-absolutive pattern. Semi-animate nouns behave similarly to animate nouns, except that they are not marked for the accusative case, while the nominative case is marked with the ergative suffix -ar.

Orthography

Farmoshi is written using one of two scripts depending on the context, those being the Terminian alphabet and the traditional Decwabmẹ ("correct writing") script.

Terminian alphabet

The Terminian script has been used by Milevic groups in Farmosh since the Xth Century, and had become a widespread vernacular script by the Xth Century, displacing Decwabmẹ.

In X, shortly after the Balkist regime took power in Farmosh, attempts were made to phase out the Terminian alphabet as it was seen as a symbol of imperialism and foreign influence. To that end official state media exclusively used Decwabmẹ, which was also required to be taught in education. The general population continued to use the Terminian script, however. During the latter half of the 20th Century the Terminian alphabet began to see renewed usage by state media, while Decwabmẹ, which had previously been widely used in state publications and media, was relegated to official and ceremonial purposes. Farmoshi language courses in other countries are commonly taught using the Terminian script.

Written Farmoshi texts in the Terminian alphabet are easily recognisable as such by distinguishing features such the use of the digraphs ae ae and aé aé, and nh nh and nj nj, among others. In addition, y y is commonly used, while u u is much rarer.

Decwabmẹ

The Decwabmẹ script was the historical script of the Milevian Empire, adopted in X. Although displaced by Terminian in the Xth Century, a revival of the script was proposed by Balkist scholars(?) in X and was made official by the Balkist regime in X. The teaching of the script was made mandatory, although in practise only major educational institutions abided by this law, and the Terminian alphabet was still used as the vernacular script by the common folk. The limited usage it had further decreased as the Terminian alphabet became more favoured by state media in the second half of the 20th Century. In the modern age it is primarily used in ceremonial or official contexts, and as a common script for writing clan names and signatures.

When written in Decwabmẹ, Farmoshi exhibits a wealth of historical spelling stemming from Imperial Milevian orthography.

The Farmoshi government hires workers proficient in Decwabmẹ to transliterate new laws and other related documents.