Northeastern Gothic

Northeastern Gothic or Sozh Gothic is an endangered East Germanic language, being the only one in this group that it is still spoken but only by few people in some remote parts of Keltsvia. Today it does not have any official status but it is taught locally in towns where it has some speakers. The other name of this languages comes from its location in the Sozh river valley, in central Keltsvia. The Keltsvian Statistic Institute estimates that this language is spoken by no more than 700 people. This minority is known in Keltsvia as Gotanan Keltsvihi (Keltsvian for "Keltsvian Goths"), which is considered a separated ethnic group from the Keltsvian Germans.

As a Germanic language, Northeastern Gothic is a part of the Indo-European language family. the language survived until today in remote and small communities. The closest languages are the extinct Crimean Gothic, that survived in the lower Danube area and in isolated mountain regions in Crimea and, the Bible Gothic.

Classification
Northeastern Gothic is an Indo-European language and belongs to the East Germanic group of the Germanic languages. Gothic originated from a Germanic tribe whose origin is still unknown, some scholars affirm that Goths were located in Scythia, the lower Danube and the European coasts of the Black Sea and from there, they migrated to different parts of Europe, some went to southern France and the Iberian Peninsula forming the Visigothic Kingdom, others went to Italy, known as Ostrogoths but some others remained in Eastern Europe. From those who stayed in Eastern Europe, two languages were derived, the already extinct Crimean Gothic, in Crimea and the Black Sea and the Northeastern Gothic, in the Sozh river valley, where they still have some small communities of speakers.

Being surrounded by other communities of speakers of other languages (Keltsvian, Russian, Belarusian, Romavian) but not from other Germanic speakers, the language acquired some influence in vocabulary and to a lesser extent phonology from these languages. But it still remained conservative in their language and it has some unique characteristics amongst the Germanic language family.

History
Due to the lack of sizeable texts in this language it is extremely difficult to know about the history of this language and it was mainly an only-spoken language. This language was not regulated until recently and it was taught only at homes.

There are some records from private letters written in this language, using the Cyrillic alphabet, the Latin alphabet or even the old Gothic Runic alphabet. What linguists know is that the language community, even it was spread in the Sozh valley, they were in contact with each other using the language, that could be the reason this language has no distinct dialects.

There was an attempt in 2015 to regularize this language by Nagav's government but it was stopped by the Keltsvian Civil War. In September 2019, the Keltsvian Academy of Gothic language was founded and they standardized the orthography of the language and adopted the Latin alphabet.

Consonants
There are 22 consonant phonemes in Northeastern Gothic language. Almost each one of this phonemes has an exclusive grapheme associated, which makes this language very easy to read:
 * The phoneme /b/ is only pronounced when the grapheme b is written at the beginning of a word after a stop or after a nasal consonant. Elsewhere, the phoneme /β/ is pronounced.
 * The phoneme /d/ is only pronounced when the grapheme d is written at the beginning of a word after a stop or after a nasal consonant. Elsewhere, the phoneme /ð/ is pronounced.
 * The phoneme /ɸ/ is always represented by the grapheme f.
 * The phoneme /g/ is only pronounced when the grapheme g is written at the beginning of a word after a stop or after a nasal consonant. Elsewhere, the phoneme /ɣ/ is pronounced.
 * The phoneme /h/ is always represented by the grapheme h.
 * The phoneme /j/ is always represented by the grapheme j.
 * The phoneme /k/ is always represented by the grapheme k.
 * The phoneme /l/ is always represented by the grapheme l.
 * The phoneme /m/ is always represented by the grapheme m.
 * The phoneme /n/ is always represented by the grapheme n.
 * The phoneme /ŋ/ is always represented by the digraph ng.
 * The phoneme /p/ is always represented by the grapheme p.
 * The phoneme /r/ is always represented by the grapheme r.
 * The phoneme /s/ is always represented by the grapheme s.
 * The phoneme /t/ is always represented by the grapheme t.
 * The phoneme /θ/ is always represented by the digraph th.
 * The phoneme /w/ is always represented by the grapheme w.
 * The phoneme /x/ is always represented by the grapheme x.
 * The phoneme /z/ is always represented by the grapheme z.

Vowels
Northeastern Gothic language has 7 different vowel phonemes, one of them has a long counterpart and another one can be only found as long vowel.
 * The phoneme /a/ is always represented by the grapheme a and its long counterpart (/a:/) by the duplication of the same grapheme, aa.
 * The phoneme /e/ is always represented by the grapheme e.
 * The phoneme /i/ is always represented by the grapheme i.
 * The phoneme /o/ is always represented by the grapheme o.
 * The phoneme /ʊ/ is always represented by the grapheme u.
 * The phoneme /u:/ is always represented by the graphemes uu. This phoneme can be only found as a long vowel.
 * The phoneme /y/ is always represented by the grapheme y.

Phonotactics
A Northeastern Gothic syllable includes a syllable nucleus consisting of a vowel sound. Syllable onset and coda (start and end) are optional. A syllable can start with up to three consonant sounds, as in spruutej /spru:tej/ "speed", and end with up to four, as in ansts /ansts/ "grace". This gives a Northeastern Gothic syllable the following structure, (CCC)V(CCCC) where C represents a consonant and V a vowel. The consonants that may appear together in onsets or codas are restricted, as is the order in which they may appear.

Stress, rhythm and intonation
Stress does not play an important role in Northeastern Gothic. One syllable is stressed, while the rest are not. The stress is always located in the first syllable of the stem of the word, regardlessly about how long is the word.

In terms of rhythm, Northeastern Gothic is generally described as a mora-timed language, meaning that there are different time values for syllables, but in the case of this language it is very simple. To determine the value of a syllable, the stress has no say in it, it always depends in the syllabic nucleus, the vowel. Syllables with short vowels have a value of 1 and syllables with a long vowel have a value of 2. A long vowel syllable take the double of time to be pronounced than a short vowel syllable. Additionally, a double consonant adds 1 point to the value of a word. For example: So, having all these words the same number of syllables, it takes a bit longer to pronounce thaarko than milith and it takes the double of time to pronounce usstass compared to milith.
 * The word usstass "resurrection" has two syllables: uss and tass. It has two syllables with a doble vowel each, so its syllabic value is 2+2=4.
 * The word thaarko "hole" has two syllables: thaar and ko. It has one long syllable and one short syllable, so its syllabic value is 2+1=3.
 * The word milith "honey" has two syllables: mi and lith. It has two short syllables, so its syllabic value is 1+1=2.

The intonation is almost flat in this language, giving an impression of "robot speech". The word order is the only way to know when a speaker is asking a question.

Grammar
Northeastern Gothic preserves many archaic Indo-European features that are not always present in other Germanic languages, in particular the rich Indo-European declension system. Northeastern Gothic has nominative, accusative, genitive and dative cases, as well as vestiges of a vocative case that is sometimes identical to the nominative and sometimes to the accusative. The three genders of Indo-European are all present. Nouns and adjectives are inflected according to one of two grammatical numbers: the singular and the plural.

Grammatical cases
Northeastern Gothic is an inflected language, and as such its nouns, pronouns, and adjectives must be declined in order to serve a grammatical function. A set of declined forms of the same word pattern is called a declension. there are five grammatical cases in Eastern Gothic with a few traces of an old sixth instrumental case.

The grammatical cases are:
 * Nominative: used to express the subject of a statement. It is also used with copulative verbs.
 * Vocative: used to address someone or something in direct speech. This case is indicated in English by intonation or punctuation, e.g. "Mary is going to the store" ("Mary" is nominative) compared to "Mary, are you going to the store?" or "Mary!" ("Mary" is vocative).
 * Accusative: expresses the direct object of a verb. In English, except for a small number of words which display a distinct accusative case (e.g., who > whom, I > me, he > him), the accusative and nominative cases are identical.
 * Genitive: expresses possession, measurement, or source. In English, the genitive case is represented analytically by the preposition of or by the enclitic "–'s", which itself developed from the genitive case. This –'s is related to the common Northeastern Gothic "-s".
 * Dative: expresses the recipient of an action, the indirect object of a verb. In English, the prepositions to, from and for most commonly denote this case analytically.
 * Instrumental: used to express the place in or on which, or the time at which, an action is performed. The instrumental case only survives in a few preposition forms in Northeastern Gothic.

Northeastern Gothic language grammars often follow the common NOM-ACC-GEN-DAT order used for the Germanic languages. VOC is usually attached to the same line as ACC as a combined VOC-ACC, but if not, it may be placed between NOM and ACC.

Nouns
Nouns can be divided into numerous declensions according to the form of the stem: a, o, i, u, an, on, ejn, r, etc.

Short and long stems
An important distinction in many of the declension classes below is the difference between "short" and "long" stems. Frequently declension classes are divided into two subclasses, one for short-stemmed nouns and one for long-stemmed nouns.

A short stem contains: A long stem is all other types of stems:
 * Either a short vowel followed by at most a single consonant (consonants at the beginning of an ending do not count),
 * Or a long vowel or diphthong with no following consonant (other than possibly a consonant at the beginning of an ending),
 * Either a long vowel or diphthong followed by at least a single consonant (not counting consonants at the beginning of an ending),
 * Or a short vowel followed by at least two consonants (same caveat concerning consonants at the beginning of an ending),
 * Or a word whose root (minus any prefixes and suffixes) is more than one syllable in length, e.g. raginejs "counsellor", with root ragin- and -ejs being the long-stemmed -ja declension ending.

The -a declension
This declension has as counterparts the second declension (-us/-um) of Latin, and the omicron declension (-os/-on) of Greek. It contains masculine and neuter nouns. A varied set of nouns have two stems, one occurring with endings that are null or begin with a consonant (the nominative, accusative and vocative singular) and another that occurs with endings beginning with a vowel (all but the previously listed forms). Other nouns with two stems are:
 * Stem ending in f changes in b. See table with further explanation below.
 * Stem ending in short vowel + r does not receive s (-z) in the nominative case.
 * Stem ending in -z does not lose the z in her nominative case. This has to do with the other cases and their pronounceability.
 * masculine thys "servant" (accusative singular thy but genitive singular thywis, nominative plural thywos, etc.)
 * neuter kny "knee" (accusative singular kny but genitive singular knywis, nominative plural knywa, etc.);
 * neuter try "tree" (forms parallel to kny).

The -ja declension
This declension is really just the -a declension with a j immediately preceding. However, due to various sound laws, a new declension subcategory has arisen that does not exactly follow the form of the plain -a declension. Similar developments occurred in Greek and the Slavic languages, among others. It has as counterparts the second declension nouns in (-ius/-ium) of Latin. The counterparts in Greek are some second declension nouns in (-ios/-ion), as well as many that show effects of palatalization (e.g., -zdos < *-gyos or *-dyos; -llos < *-lyos; -ptos < -*pyos; -ssos or -ttos < -*tyos; -airos/-ejros/-oiros < *-aryos/-eryos/-oryos; -ainos/-ejnos/-oinos < *-anyos/enyos/onyos; etc., and similarly for neuter nouns in -ion or *-yon). It contains masculine and neuter nouns. The masculine nouns have a distinction between short- and long-stemmed nouns, as described above. harjis "army" is a prototypical short-stem noun, and haardejs is a prototypical long-stem noun. Neuters, however, have merged the two types in favor of the short-stem endings. Properly, there should be a distinction in the genitive singular between short-stem -jis and long-stem -ejs, as for the masculine nouns, but -jis has mostly taken over. For a few nouns, however, both forms can be used, as in genitive andbahtejs or andbahtjis "of service", gawaarthejs or gawaarthjis "of peace", from neuter nouns andbahti "service" and gawaarthi "peace", respectively.

Note that the neuters in this declension can be said to follow the two-stem pattern (e.g. kuni vs. kunj-) described above for a-stems. A few neuters in this declension follow the same overall pattern but have additional vowel changes between the stems:
 * gawi "region, district" (genitive guujis)
 * hawi "hay" (genitive huujis)
 * tawi "deed, work" (genitive tuujis)

The -o declension
This declension counterparts the first declension (a) of Latin, and the alpha declension (-a/-as) of Greek. It contains feminine nouns.

The -jo declension
Nouns ending in -jo that have a short stem behave identically to normal -o stems, e.g. brakja "strife", sibja "relationship", sunja "truth". However, long-stemmed nouns in -jo have a different nominative singular ending in -i: Note that in this particular case the "long-stem" declension includes nouns with a long vowel or diphthong and no following consonant. In addition, these nouns have a different stem in the nominative singular from all other cases:
 * mawi (genitive maajos) "maiden"
 * thiwi (genitive thyjos) "maidservant"

The -i declension
This declension counterparts the vowel stems of the third declension (-is) of Latin, and the third declension of Greek. It contains masculine and feminine nouns. Note that masculine nouns have become identical to -a stem nouns in the singular, while feminine nouns have preserved the original declension. Similar to the situation with -a stems, some nouns have a different stem in the nominative and accusative singular than in other cases: Some additional complications:
 * drus (acc. drus, gen. drusis) "fall", masc.
 * buur (acc. buur, gen. buuris) "child, son", masc.
 * nuus (acc. nuu, gen. nawis) "corpse", masc.
 * bruuthfaths (gen. bruuthfadis) "bridegroom", masc.; similarly suuths "sacrifice", staths "place"
 * usstass (acc. usstass, gen. usstassaas) "resurrection", fem.
 * arbaaths (gen. arbaadaas) "labor", fem.; similarly deths "deed", faheths "joy"
 * haams "village" (fem.) is declined like a feminine -i stem in the singular, but like an -o stem in the plural.
 * Feminine abstract -i stems in -ejns are declined partly like -o stems in the plural:

The -u declension
This declension counterparts the fourth declension (-us) of Latin and parts of the third declension of Greek (cf. πῆχυς). It contains nouns of all genders. faahu "property" is a neuter -u stem, and like all neuters from the u stem it lacks a plural. Other remnants are the invariant neuter adjective filu "much" (with an adverbial genitive filuus), and kwaaru or gaaru "spike, goad", occurring once in a gloss. lejthu "cider, fruit wine" is attested only in the accusative singular and without any context to infer its gender, so it may have been masculine or neuter.

Weak declensions
The -an, -on and -ejn declensions constitute a Germanic word derivation, which is also used for adjectives in the weak form marking definiteness. The declension loosely parallels the Latin nouns in -o, genitive -onis/-inis, which shares the same Indo-European declensional origin (the Greek descendant being the more regularized -on, -onos class).

The -an declension
Masculines and neuters belong to this declension. There are a few neuter irregularities:

The -on declension
This declension is the feminine counterpart of the -an declension.

The -ejn declension
This declension contains abstract feminines only.

The -r declension
A few family nouns inherited from Proto-Indo-European have a very archaic declension. Feminines and masculines have identical forms. Inflected thus are also brothar m., brother, fadar m., father, duuhtar f., daughter.

The -nd declension
These nouns are old present participles, corresponding to nouns in -nt in Latin and Greek.

The root nouns
These nouns correspond to the consonant declensions in Latin and Greek (in both cases, part of the third declension). Examples of masculine nouns are menoths "month" (gen. sg. menothis, dat. pl. menothum); rejks "ruler, boss" (gen. sg. rejkis, dat. pl. rejkam); and wejtwods "witness" (gen. sg. wejtwodis, dat. pl. wejtwodum).

Note the following irregularities: Other feminine nouns are alhs "temple", buurgs "city", brusts "breast", miluks "milk", and spuurds "racecourse".
 * mitaths "measure" (gen. sg. mitads)
 * nahts "night" (dat. pl. nahtam, formed after dat. pl. dagam "days")
 * dulths "feast" and waahts "thing", also declined as i-stems.

Adjectives
Adjectives have two variants, indefinite and definite, with definite adjectives normally used in combination with the definite determiners (such as the definite article sa/thata/so) while indefinite adjectives are used in other circumstances. Indefinite adjectives generally use a combination of a-stem and o-stem endings, and definite adjectives use a combination of an-stem and on-stem endings. The concept of "strong" and "weak" declensions that is prevalent in the grammar of many other Germanic languages is less significant in Northeastern Gothic because of its conservative nature: the so-called "weak" declensions (those ending in n) are, in fact, no weaker in Northeastern Gothic (in terms of having fewer endings) than the "strong" declensions (those ending in a vowel), and the "strong" declensions do not form a coherent class that can be clearly distinguished from the "weak" declensions.

Although descriptive adjectives in Northeastern Gothic (as well as superlatives ending in -ist and -ost) and the past participle may take both definite and indefinite forms, some adjectival words are restricted to one variant. Some pronouns take only definite forms: for example, sama (English "same"), adjectives like unhwejla ("constantly", from the root hwejla, "time"; compare to the English "while"), comparative adjective and present participles. Others, such as aans ("some"), take only the indefinite forms.

Adjectives in Eastern Gothic, as in the other Germanic languages, can be declined according to two different paradigms, commonly called "strong" and "weak". this represents a significant innovation in Germanic, although a similar development has taken place in the Baltic and Slavic languages.

Adjectives in Proto-Indo-European - as is still the case in Latin, Greek, and most other daughters —are declined in exactly the same way as nouns. Germanic "strong" adjectives, however, take many of their endings from the declension of pronouns. these pronominal endings are likely to have entered the adjective inflection in the Germanic proto-language, via the inflection of possessive adjectives and other "pronominal" word classes, as evidenced by the variation between the bare stem and -ata in the neuter nominative and accusative singular of Eastern Gothic adjectives and possessive pronouns. "Weak" adjectives take the endings of -n stem nouns, regardless of the underlying stem class of the adjective.

In general, weak adjectival endings are used when the adjective is accompanied by a definite article, and strong endings are used in other situations. However, weak endings are occasionally used in the absence of a definite article, and cause the associated noun to have the same semantics as if a definite article were present. Weak adjectives are also used when the associated noun is in the vocative case. In addition, some adjectives are always declined weak or strong, regardless of any accompanying articles.

The strong -ja declension
Similar to the situation with nouns, the ja-stem adjectives are divided into two subtypes, depending on whether the stem is short or long.

Short-stemmed -ja declension
This declension has only the following extant adjectives: aljis "other", frejs "free", fullatojis "perfect", gawiljis "willing", midjis "middle", nyjis "new", sunjis "true", ubiltojis "evil-doing", and unsibjis "lawless".

Notes about the above adjectives:
 * fullatojis "perfect" and ubiltojis "evil-doing" should end in –tawi in the short-form nominative and accusative neuter singular.
 * Similarly, nyjis "new" should have niwi as its short-form nominative and accusative neuter singular.

Long-stemmed -ja declension
This declension is built out of long-stemmed -ja masculine and neuter nouns and long-stemmed -jo feminine nouns.

This declension has only five adjectives: aarzejs "astray", althejs "old", faarnejs "old", wilthejs "wild", and wothejs "sweet".

The strong -i declension
Adjectives of this class have replaced most forms with forms taken from the -ja declension. Only the nominative singular, the neuter accusative singular and the masculine and neuter genitive singular have genuine -i stem forms. Some of the adjectives of this type are: analuugns "hidden", anasyns "visible", andanems "pleasant", uuths "desert", bruuks "useful", gafuurs "well-behaved", gamaans "common", hraans "clean", sels "kind", skuuns "beautiful", skejrs "clear", suts "sweet".

The strong -u declension
Similarly to -i stem adjectives, -u stem adjectives have replaced most forms with those taken from the -ja declension. Other adjectives of this type are: anguus "narrow", aglus "difficult", hardus "hard", hnaskuus "soft", kuurus "heavy", manuus "ready", kwarus "gentle", sejthus "late", tulgus "steadfast", twalibwintrus "twelve years old", thuursus "withered", thlakuus "soft".

The weak delension
Weak adjectival endings are taken from the corresponding endings of masculine, feminine and neuter n-stems, e.g. masculine guma "man", feminine tungo "tongue", neuter haarto "heart". All adjectives have the same endings, regardless of the underlying stem class of the adjective. the only difference is that ja-stems, i-stems and u-stems have a -j- at the end of the stem, e.g. masculine singular nominative weak nyja "new", wilthja "wild", hraanja "clean", hardja "hard", corresponding to the strong forms nyjis (short ja-stem), wilthejs (long ja-stem), hraans (i-stem), hardus (u-stem).

Comparative and superlative adjectives
In general, comparative adjectives are easy to identify thanks to their suffix -iza or -oza and the superlatives are formed from the comparatives taking out the whole comparative suffix and adding the superlative suffix -ists. Northeastern Gothic has a dual system of comparatives that works similarly to Romance languages (probably influenced by Romavian), where the suffix -iza means "more X than" and -oza means "less X than" (place an adjective in the X), but the -oza form is not commonly used in daily speech. There are also irregular comparative adjectives, as they appear below: *Irregular form. **Irregular comparative without -iza/-oza duality.

Pronouns
Northeastern Gothic inherited the full set of Indo-European pronouns: personal pronouns (including reflexive pronouns for each of the three grammatical persons), possessive pronouns, both simple and compound demonstratives, relative pronouns, interrogatives and indefinite pronouns. Each follows a particular pattern of inflexion (partially mirroring the noun declension), much like other Indo-European languages. One particularly noteworthy characteristic is the preservation of the dual number, referring to two people or things; the plural was used only for quantities greater than two. thus, "the two of us" and "we" for numbers greater than two were expressed as wit and wejs respectively. While Proto-Indo-European used the dual for all grammatical categories that took a number (as did Classical Greek and Sanskrit), most Old Germanic languages are unusual in that they preserved it only for pronouns. Northeastern Gothic preserves an older system with dual marking on both pronouns and verbs (but not nouns or adjectives).

The simple demonstrative pronoun sa (neuter: thata, feminine: so, from the Indo-European root *so, *seh2, *tod; cognate to the Greek article ὁ, ἡ, τό and the Latin istud) is also used as the definite article, having both functions at the same time.

The interrogative pronouns begin with hw-, which derives from the proto-Indo-European consonant *kʷ that was present at the beginning of all interrogratives in proto-Indo-European. that is cognate with the wh- at the beginning of many English interrogative. the same etymology is present in the interrogatives of many other Indo-European languages": w- in German, hv- in Danish, the Latin qu- (which persists in modern Romance languages), the Greek τ- or π-, the Slavic and Indic k- as well as many others.

Possessive pronouns
Northeastern Gothic possessive pronouns are formed by adding the above shown suffixes to the genitive ("possessor") form of the given personal pronoun. Reflexive pronouns are inflected similarly. the form used outside of possession is derived from the nominative feminine singular. the possessor suffixes are the same in the possessee plural. Mejna "my, mine" and unsara "our, ours" are shown here for example, but others can apply.

Demonstrative pronouns
Note: The following pronouns appearing in the table below are also used as definite articles as in English the: Compound forms with the suffix -(u)h meaning "this, these; that/ those" and with -ej creating relative pronouns also exist. the suffix -ej can also be added to first and second person pronouns to create first and second person relatives. All compound forms drop the "u" in -uh after a vowel and change word-final -s to a -z if the next letter is a vowel.

Interrogative pronouns
The pronoun hwer "where" is undeclined. The following additional pronouns exist, all declined strong as a-stems:
 * hwilejks "what sort of"
 * hweluuths (stem hweluud-) "how great"
 * swalejks "such"
 * swaluuths (stem swaluud-) "so great"

Indenite pronouns
Three indefinite pronouns are formed by appending -uh "and" to the interrogative pronouns hwas "who, what", hwarjis "which (of many)", and hwathar "which of two"; compare the analogously formed Latin pronoun quisque "each", formed from quis "who" and -que "and". Both hwazuh and hwarjizuh mean "each, every"; hwatharuh means "each of two".

Before -uh, -s appears in the original form of -z-, and after long vowels and stressed short vowels, the u of -uh is elided. Ustressed short vowels are dropped before -uh in the declension of hwazuh; however, in the other two pronouns, long vowels appear in place of unstressed short vowels, preserving an older state of affairs, and the u of -uh is elided. Declension tables of hwazuh and hwarjizuh are presented below. Of hwatharuh, only a single form is extant, the dative singular hwatharammeh, occurring in the compound form aanhwatharammeh "to each one of two".

The plural form hwanzuh (masculine accusative) occurs once, in the expression insandida ins twans hwanzuh "he sent them forth two and two". Additional pronominal forms are:
 * aanhwarjizuh "every one"
 * hwazuh saej, sahwazuh saej, sahwazuh izej, all meaning "whoever" and involving the relative pronoun saej/izej. the corresponding neuter form is thatahwah thej "whatever", extant only in the accusative singular.
 * thishwazuh saej "whoever/whatever", formed from indeclinable this "of this" and hwazuh saej, extant in the following forms:
 * sums "some, a certain", declined as an -a stem with an associated genitive plural object.
 * sums ... sums "the one ... the other", in plural "some ... and others". -uh is generally attached to the second form and sometimes the first, as in nominative plural sumaa ... sumaah.
 * Negative pronouns ni hwashun, ni mannahun, ni aanshun, all meaning "no one, no, none, nothing"; compare the analogously formed Sanskrit pronoun ná káś caná "no one, none", lit. "not who and not". ni hwashun occurs only in the nominative masculine singular. ni mannahun (always masculine) and ni aanshun are declined as follows:
 * Plain hwas can be used indefinitely to mean "anyone, anything".
 * Plain aans can be used indefinitely to mean "one, a certain one".