Ánagin

General information
Ánagin (also Anagin, without the stress-marking acute accent; and called Ha Ánagwan in the language itself) is the language spoken on the island of  Tánagwer, on the planet of Condora. Aside from the island of Tánagwer, standard Ánagin, as well as variant dialects of Ánagin, is spoken on nearby islands such as Orása, Ésan and Batárn, and many more.

Consonant digraphs
There are a few digraphs that consist of consonants in Ánagin. One, [ps] or [p͡s], actually is not a digraph - since it is a separate letter in the Tneddaf alphabet (called Tēdáva in Ánagin) used by Ánagin and several other languages. It is only sometimes considered a 'digraph' because it is transliterated as two letters: the digraph ps is generally used, though some linguists prefer to alternatively use ṕ or even ψ (from the Greek letter psi). However, these uses can be considered rather uncommon.

The same can be said about [ɡʷ],  [kʷ],  [d͡z] and [t͡s], in a way, because they are represented by digraphs in Ánagin's orthography too. However, they are one letter in the Tneddaf alphabet, and they are clear affricates.

The real consonant digraphs in Ánagin are ny, gh and rs. They are pronounced respectively as [ɲ], [ɣ] and [ʒ] (some linguists have argued that rs is pronounced more like [ʑ], but this view is not generally accepted). It should be kept in mind, however, that the presence of these three digraphs is relatively rare. Furthermore, there is the digraph cs that can only be found in a very small amount of words used only on the islands of Hátsobnekh, Dzátsanē and Bwáwen. It is similar to a long c [t͡ʃ], thus: [t͡ʃː].

Vowels
Above are the vowels present in Ánagin. Noted should be that /y/ and /æ/ are relatively rare vowels.

When it comes to dialects, there are some deviations from the standard pronounciation of the vowels. On the islands west of Vónadar, Úskata and Trēábo, /e/ is pronounced [eɪ], / æ/ is pronounced [e], and / ɑ/ becomes [ ɛ ]. On Batárn, /y/ is often realised as [u] and a few other regional dialects have [ɨ ː ] or [ ʏ ] (the latter being significantly less common and only found on the Kvatanáka plateau of the northeast of Tánagwer) for /y/.

Aspiration and palatalisation
In Ánagin, certain vowels can be either aspirated or palatalised. The vowels u and o (see the orthography section below) can be aspirated. This usually occurs at the beginning of a word; medial aspiration is seldom. Aspiration is indicated as Ŭ and ŭ, and Ŏ and ŏ. Traditionally, a breve is used, but alternatively, the use of a caron (also known as háček, inverted circumflex or wedge) is permitted too. As for aspiration, one can easily notice the similarity with Ancient Greek. The breve is similar to the rough breathing mark (dasía in Ancient Greek, or spiritus asper in Latin) used in the ancient language of our world. An important note is that an Ánagin word can start with hu- or ho- too. This is almost similar to ŏ and ŭ; this is a clear example of redundancy in the Ánagin language. A few linguists have argued that hu and ho are pronounced [ɦu], and [ɦo] or [ɦ ɔ ], whereas ŭ and ŏ would be [hu], and [ho] or [h ɔ ], respectively. However, speakers of Ánagin do not notice, nor acknowledge this difference. For them, there is no difference between [ɦ] and [h], hence they are allophones. Besides, an aspirated vowel can be the vowel to be stressed in a word. In this case, no acute accent is put on any vowel in the word; one should gather from the absence of the acute accent marking the stress, that the aspirated vowel with a breve on top is stressed.

Two other Ánagin vowels can be palatalised. As shown in the orthography section, palatalisation is written as Ä and ä, and Ë and ë. The pronounciation of these palatalised vowels is [ʲa] or [ʲ ɑ ], and [ʲ ɛ ]. In fact, the vowels are not always palatalised. For instance, in the case of a word starting nä-, the n is actually palatalised, so it is pronounced [nʲa]-. When a word starts with what is called a palatalised vowel, this implies that a word starting with ë, for example, is pronounced [ʲ ɛ ] or simply [j ɛ].

Orthography or romanisation
The orthography used to transliterate Ánagin to any Western language is given in the table below. Please be aware that the standard pronounciation is shown in this table. A few dialects sometimes deviate from this.

Notes on the orthography
1 Traditionally, c was always pronounced  [t͡ʃ]. When citing classical texts, Ánagin speakers still always use  [t͡ʃ]. However, over time,  [t͡ʃ] has shifted to [ ʃ] in all cases except word initially.

2 The letter d may be dental in a couple of cases. [d] usually becomes [d̪] before a short a [ɑ] and a short e [ɛ]. However, most Ánagin speakers do not notice the difference themselves. Therefore, it is not considered a mistake at all when a non-native speaker does not use a dental d.

3 The vowels e and ē are separate letters in Ánagin, unlike many European languages on Earth. When stressed, e and ē both become é, and é is always pronounced [e]. When unstressed, e represents [ɛ] or [ɛː] and ē represents [eː].

4 At the end of a word, r can be pronounced either [ɾ] or [ʀ]. In all other cases, [ɾ] is usual.

5 Word initially, ý is realised as [i].

Aspiration and palatalisation
The features of aspiration and palatalisation in Ánagin have already been discussed. An aspirated vowel, either u or o, recieves a breve for aspiration: ŭ and ŏ. A diaeresis is used for palatalisation: ä and ë. See this section for more information.

Allophony
As described in previous sections, Ánagin contains some allophonic differences with some phonemes. Below is a list of phonemes that have different allophones.
 * c   >    [t͡ʃ] or  [ ʃ]
 * ​ c is pronounced  [t͡ʃ] at the beginning of a word and  [ ʃ] in all other cases. However, there are a few exeptions to this rule. The pronounciation of these words is to be learned by heart.


 * d   >    [d] or [d̪]
 * ​d is realised as [ d̪] at the beginning of a word if it is followed by a short a [ɑ] or a short e [ɛ], and pronounced [d] otherwise.


 * r   >    [ɾ] or [ʀ]
 * Word finally, r can be pronounced either [ɾ] or [ʀ]. In all other cases, [ɾ] is the usual pronounciation.


 * ý   >   [y] or [i]
 * At the beginning of a word, ý is not pronounced [y], but [i].

Stress
Stress on a syllable in an Ánagin word is highly irregular, though sometimes predictable. Because of the former, stress is marked with a diacritic in both Ánagin itself and its orthography. An acute accent is used in the standardised orthography: the first syllable of the word Ánagwan, meaning the Ánagin language, for instance, is stressed. When a vowel already has a diacritic other than the stress-marking accute accent, the stress will not be indicated. This rule does not apply to ē, since this sound does have a diacritic in the orthography of Ánagin, but not in its actual alphabet. Thus, when stressed, ē will become é and it will continue to be pronounced [e]. The letter e becomes é too, when it occurs in a stressed syllable; in this case, the pronounciation changed from [ɛ] to [e].

Alphabet
Ánagin uses the ancient Tneddaf alphabet and a cursive variation of it. The classical alphabet is used for very formal occasions, such as in the constitution, and for inscriptions. The cursive form is used in normal situations, from school to a shopping list and from a newspaper to a scientific magazine.

Below, both alphabets are shown, the classical alphabet in the second and the cursive alphabet in the third column. In the first column, the orthography of the letter is given.





Consonant clusters
Consonant clusters are combinations of consonants that can occur in words in a certain language. In Ánagin, quite a few clusters are permissible. However, one should bear in mind that they are not used very often. Many words only consist of single consonants and vowels.

In the next table, one can see which consonant clusters (consisting of two consonants) are possible in Ánagin. When there is no consonant cluster in a cell, a combination is not possible. When the cell is marked light red, the cluster is permissible at the end of a word only. Light green indicates that it is possible only at the end of an uninflected word and steel blue indicates that the cluster is possible in medial positions. Violet stands for the possibility of both medial and initial, whereas aquamarine is for medial and final. Lastly, yellow shows that the cluster is possible in all cases; whether initial, final or medial.

A small key for the table is given too:

(Note that the letter left of a row is the first of the cluster and the letter above a column is the second. Also, consonant digraphs, that in fact are consant clusters with another pronounciation than expected, are not shown. Instead, DH is shown, abbreviating 'digraph'.)

Syllable structure
The usual syllable structure for Ánagin (C)(C)V(C)(C). A C indicates a consonant, a V a vowel. When a C is put between brackets, (C), this means a possible consonant. The maximum of consecutive consonants in a word is two consonants. Therefore, a word with the strcuture CCVCCCCVCC, for instance, can never exist. Note that consonants such as 'ts' and 'kh' are represented by two consonants in the orthography of Ánagin, but they are considered to be one consonant. Hence, a word with 'tsr-' can actually exist, while one will normally never see three consonants in a row in an Ánagin word.

A few examples of Ánagin words illustrating the syllable structure are given below.


 * Ésan: e-san      =      VCVC: V-CVC


 * Tánagwer: ta-na-gwer      =      CVCVCVC: CV-CV-CVC


 * Dnátrasen: dna-tra-sen      =      CCVCCVCVC: CCV-CCV-CVC


 * Ŏtamáka: ho-ta-ma-ka      =      CVCVCVCV: CV-CV-CV-CV