Aeraken

Aeraken is the language of the Aelse people of eastern Autaka.

Classification and Dialects
Aeraken, also known as Aerysen, is of the Alfar language family, specifically the Yeldaic sub-family, which also encompasses the closely related Hanysen (Hanaken) language of the Han (Steppe). This article focuses on the phonology and grammar of the Aeraken spoken in Liraena, although Aeraken is also spoken to the north and south of Liraena, as well as to the east of Yelda mountains.

Aeraken is descended from an older form of Hanysen, but is also formed from a substratum of Rylisan, another Yeldaic language now largely extinct. Aeraken has also borrowed many roots from the Seraphim language of Central Autaka.

Consonants
Aeraken does not distinguish voicing in its consonants: obstruents are always voiceless and sonorants are always voiced.
 * Intervocalic /l/ is pronounced [ɾ], but geminate /l:  ɾ :/ and clusters /lɾ ɾl/ are realised [l].
 * Initial /ɾ/ is pronounced [d].
 * Intervocalic /p t/ are typically voiced intervocalically to [b d], which is represented in the orthography. After /n l/ finals, /p t k ts tɕ/ are realised as [b d g dz dʑ].
 * Final /ʔ/ is realised with rising tone on the vowel (with the actual glottal stop not being pronounced), and final /r/ is either realised as a postalveolar rhotic colouring, or more commonly it centers the previous vowel for /i e u ɯ/ and lengthens other vowels.

Phonotactics
Maximally: (C(j))V(ʔ)(C)

/ŋ ʔ/ may not appear as onset. Only /l r ʔ n m ŋ/ may appear in coda position in native vocabulary, and /s h/ also appears in coda position in lone-words.

Of the Cj clusters, only /nj lj kj hj sj tsj tj/ are allowed (no labial + j */pj fj mj/ or approximant + j */ ɾj ʋj wj/).

Sequences of vowels in hiatus aren't completely free, i + e/a/o/u/ae/eo/eu are all allowed: u + e/a/o are allowed and e/o + a are allowed.

Writing System
Accute accents on vowels represent glottal stop coda, e.g. é - /e ʔ /. In digraphs and diphthongs, the accute accent is on the second vowel: aé aí - /ɛ ʔ ajʔ/. *voiced instances of stops and affricates are represented in orthography, as is the realisation of initial /r/ as [d].

Nouns
Nouns roots are typically the most basic, and all native roots are monosyllabic. Oblique nouns can function as adjectives and adverbs, and most stative and many active verbs are derived from noun roots.

All nouns are part of a noun class. There are twenty noun classes, roughly divided into semantic fields, each with their own distinctive suffixes. Many of the noun classes are split into inanimate and animate nouns, while others are always inanimate or always animate: Nouns are also declined for case, which can be represented with either clitics or adpositions. The primary cases: the absolutive, the ergative, genitive and the accusative are typically marked with their clitics, if their prepositions are used instead then it doubles in function as a topic marker. For the oblique cases: the essive, locative, allative, ablative, benefactive, commitative and the vocative, the postposition and the clitic are used in free variation (but they are never both used), with no difference in meaning although they are sometimes used differently syntactically. To make a noun in the oblique case the topic, add the essive preposition á, this serves as a topic marker for oblique nouns, while retaining either the clitic or the postposition. If the topic is referred to in a subordinating cause or closely connected sentence, the preposition can be used without the attached noun (providing it is still the topic) in the subordinate clause or second sentence, functioning as a pronoun. Definiteness is rarely marked, but demonstratives are used for emphatic or contrastive usage, the declined demonstrative pronouns lá "that" and ná "this" may be used as prepositions and pronouns instead of the topic marker. If two nouns appear in a statement and then in a subordinate or connected clause, then the declined an "one" and ta "two" may be used as prepositions and pronouns instead of topic marker. Personal pronouns:
 * Class 1n - Simple Objects (Inanimate) e.g. stone, feather, stick
 * Class 1a - Simple Objects (Animate) e.g. flame, flower
 * Class 2n - Natural Features (Inanimate) e.g. mountain, valley, cave
 * Class 2a - Natural Features (Animate) e.g. river, forest, meadow
 * Class 3n - Artefacts, Tools e.g. book, sword, clothes
 * Class 4n - Substances e.g. earth, metal, wood
 * Class 5n - Plants, Food e.g. tree, rice, grass
 * Class 6n - Animals (Inanimate) e.g. sheep, fish, bird
 * Class 6a - Animals (Animate) e.g. horse, bear, hawk
 * Class 7n - Qualities (Inanimate) e.g. redness, darkness, coldness
 * Class 7a - Qualities (Animate) e.g. harmony, beauty, friendliness
 * Class 8a - Positive Forces e.g. fire, energy, life
 * Class 9a - Negative Forces e.g. water, wind, death
 * Class 10n - Places e.g. village, country, home
 * Class 11n - Structures, Large Objects e.g. pillar, house, door
 * Class 12n - Events, Actions e.g. meeting, harvest, war
 * Class 13n - Times e.g. day, year, month
 * Class 14n - Concepts, Abstract e.g. group, sight, friendship
 * Class 15n - Male things [lonewords] e.g. composite bow, saddle, rope
 * Class 15a - Male persons e.g. father, soldier (m), brother
 * Class 16n - Female things [lonewords] e.g. tent, temple, swallow [bird]
 * Class 15a - Female person e.g. mother, soldier (f), sister
 * Class 17b - Neutral persons e.g. parent, soldier (n), sibling
 * Class 18b - People, Ethnicity e.g. Hanase, Aelse, westerners
 * Class 19b - Living Body e.g. hand, body, head
 * Class 20a - Dead Body e.g. meat, bone, corpse

Verbs
There are four speech levels in Aeraken: casual, intimate, familiar and formal, which are mainly marked by the selection of pronouns and the conjugation of the verb.

Casual is the most common speech level in spoken Aeraken, it is used between friends and members of the same clan in non-formal situation, and may also be used in poetry and songs.

Intimate is like the casual, but addresses people with a vocative+diminutive constructions for names, uses kinship terms for pronouns, may add intimate suffixes to the verb (-yo/yu/we(n)), and use suppletive interjections. It is used my close friends and family. Avoids the imperative.

Familiar is the most common literary form, and is also used between acquaintances and for telling stories. It uses different aspect and mood markings to the casual, but does not mark number.

Formal is mainly used between complete strangers, with authority figures (like military officers or shamans), in formal occasions and rituals or in formal letters. It is similar to the familiar but avoids 2nd and 3rd person pronouns, the imperative and future, and has honorific verb conjugation and name suffixes.

In the casual and intimate speech levels, verb conjugation is relatively simple: you add a tense stem (-a for the present, -i for the past), personal endings (-n for 1st person, -l for 2nd person), aspect markings (unmarked for the simple, -ta for the cessative/resultive, -si/se for the incohative, -i for the present progressive, -na for the past progressive), modal auxilliaries (WIP) and sentence final auxilliaries (ira for passive, esa for negative, eshira for negative passive, ana for causative, esana for negative causative), which are also conjugated for person but not tense or aspect. Intimate endings are the same, but you may add the intimate suffixes: yo (to a male addressee), yu (to a female addressee) or we~wen (to a plural [or neutral] addressee). I haven't included aspects in the table below, but the same can be applied with aspect endings present too. In the familiar it is more complicated, as you require an indicative ending, and there are more tense/aspect combinations and the indicative mood is marked (and there is a subjunctive mood too [WIP]). Aspects apart from the simple are marked with auxilliaries: ara (progressive/stative), tara (resultive/cessative), sera (perfective, anterior) and sirea (incohative), and aspect auxilliaries occur before the verb, which appears in the 2nd infinitive (more on non-finite verbs later) with the endings -al (present), -iel (past) or -ahel (future). If no aspect auxilliary is used, the declarative endings -aru (present), -iru (past) or -aheru (future) are used. Sentence final auxilliaries still apply. e.g. aer yordenida sera imal eshira (I have not been eaten by a bear).

Summary of endings:
 * Tense: -a (present), -i (past), -ahe [familiar] (future)
 * [Casual/Intimate] Personal: -n (1st), -l (2nd)
 * [Casual/Intimate] Aspect: -da (cessative), -si (incohative), -i / +a (stative)
 * [Intimate/Formal] Relationship: -seo (respectful), -yu/yo/we(n) (female/male/plural intimate)
 * [Familiar/Formal] Mood 1: -ru [familiar] / ri [formal] (declarative)
 * [Formal] Mood 2: -da (indicative), -ka (subjunctive)
 * Infinitives: 2nd (-l), 3rd (-en).

Lexicon
Here are just a few roots I've been working with, the lexicon is mainly a WIP:
 * ha - life, flower
 * há - blood
 * hi - light
 * ka - fire
 * ká - soldier
 * kal - fish
 * ma - you
 * ma - mother
 * mi - water
 * mi - door
 * mí - sibling
 * na - it
 * ná - this
 * nal - ending
 * nar - dance
 * ní - fruit, berry
 * pa - father
 * pal - horse
 * sa - time
 * san - mountain, peak
 * se - people, ethnicity
 * shi - death
 * ya - dark, shadow, night
 * yi - blade
 * yo - magic
 * yu - bow
 * yú - moon
 * yú - group

Example text
yana wásekan shiruseun iran ye lusonal sillanan nair

''I was the shadow of the waxwing slain  By the false azure of the window pane''