Манакухасом

Mанаюхасом (IPA: mänäjuχɑsom, litterally: "our tongue from the snow") or just Хасом (IPA: χɑson, "our tongue"), is the earliest recorded form of Мнакха and is the parent language of Modern Мнакха. It was spoken in the 17th century in central Siberia, in a small, isolated village called Арая (äräjä, "village") and was recorded by Иван Григорович Садунов (Ivan Grigorovich Sadunoff), a nobleman from Russia who settled there, married a local girl and wrote down many of the local legends, creating a cyrillic standard written form for the language.

It was at the time spoken by a community of some 1000 members or fewer, but Арая became a small, local center thanks to the investment Садунов made into the village, resulting in substantial immigration and Early Мнакха through language mixing.

It is thought that the community was greater before the Russian conquest of Siberia, but many villagers were systematically killed and relocated, so at the time of Садунов's arrival, fewer than two hundred people had grown up with the language, the others arriving in the village upon being rounded up by the Russians. Садунов's wife's mothertongue was Хасом, which is part of the reason it is so well recorded, with over a hundred local legends written down, as well as several songs and many prayers.

Phonology
Хасом's phonological inventory contains 5 vowels and 14 consonants, only 10 of which are differentiated in most positions. The phonemes with an asterix are written in the text but unlikely to have actually been differentiated, as they are used interchangeably with their homorganic counterparts in some words. Uvulars may have been pronounced as velars, but, as they are pronounced as uvulars in Modern Мнакха, they are reconstructed as uvulars in Хасом.

Stops and Flat Fricatives are differentiated word-initally prevocally only. Otherwise, they are always fricatives postvocally and word-initially before a consonant and stops prevocally after a consonant and in geminates. It is unclear whether the geminates were actually longer or if writing them double is just a writing convention to represent stops in an intervocalic position. All voiceless stops are preaspirated as wall as postaspirated. m and n merge before any stop or flat fricative, being pronounced in the same place of articulation. s is pronounced as ɕ word finally and adjacent to front vowels. v can be pronounced as w before rounded vowels. l may be pronounced as ɬ when near a voiceless consonant and may generally be pronounced closer to ɮ. While vowels mostly did not have many allophones, front vowels and a are very slightly more open and backed adjacent to uvular or velar consonants. Садунов states as much explicitly in one comment on the language next to the Шемамутак (ʃɛmämuθaχ, "a shem's tale").

Ortography
The alphabet for writing Хасом has 21 cyrillic letters and is based on the Russian cyrillic script. The letters are:

а     я       е         и      о   у   ю  й   х   к   г   т   д   б  в   с   ш  м  н  л  р

/a/ /ja/ /ɛ/or/jɛ/ /i/ or /ji/ /ɔ/ /u/ /ju/ /j/ /χ/ /k/ /g/ /t/ /d/ /b/ /v/ /s/ /ʃ/ /m/ /n/ /l/ /r/

As Flat Fricatives and Stops are for the most part mutually exclusive, they are written using the same symbols. Word-intially prevocally, the difference between  χ and k is indicated using different letters, but all other  Stop-Fricative pairs are differentiated in that position by fricatives being written STOP+ с  whereas a stop is written as only a stop. This is acceptable, as word inital consonant clusters are not allowed in  Хасом.

Verbs
Mood, Aspect, Tense, Voice, Person and Number of the Subject as well as Person and Subject of the Object (Distant and Direct) are marked on the  Хасом  verb. The first three categories (Mood, Aspect, Tense) blend together to produce five primary verb Mood-Aspect-Tense forms: Realis, Potential, Atemporal, Imperative and Inferential.

Person and Number
Person and number for the subject, direct and distant object of a verb are expressed through the same affixes, regardless of the Mood-Aspect-Tense or the Voice of the verb. There are three grammatical persons and two grammatical numbers in  Хасом  which are marked on the verb. Verbs in plural agree with nouns in dual. Some verbs use a second set of endings in certain tenses. Which verbs in which tenses is not predictable and is therefore noted next to the words in the dictionary. While a subject's number and person are always expressed on the verb, this is done for the object only when it is not expressed with a noun or another word. that is the verb is marked for the person and number of its direct and distant objects by prefixal pronouns more than proper flective prefixes.

The prefixes denoting the distant and the direct object are the same, but the one denoting the person of the direct object is placed closer to the verb stem and the one denoting  the distant object cannot stand on its own.

Realis
Realis is a verb form expressing an event that has happened or is happening without regard for flow of time, or any other event viewed as a whole and that is verified and certainly true. Depending on context, it can be translated with the any present or past English tense.

It is created regularly by adding the prefix ак- to verbs, which becomes  а - before roots beginning with a voiced or velar consonant and  к- otherwise, adding the suffix -т and then the suffixes denoting person and number of the subject.

Potential
Potential is the verb form expressing something that either may happen in the future or is a necessary consequence of something else. It is also used for polite requests. It is usually translated with the English future tense, conditional or a polite request of the form "would you please".

It is created regularly by adding the prefix л- to verbs, which becomes о- before voiced consonants and adding the suffix -р followed by the suffixes for person and number of the subject.

Atemporal
Atemporal is a verb form used to express a general fact or state of affairs that is independent of time or the current situation. It is translated with general statements in the present tense in English. In sentences without a verb the particle май is placed at the end to indicate that the sentence is Atemporal. It can be used in a sentence with a verb in Atemporal as an intensifier.

It is created by adding the suffix -им to the verb stem followed by the suffixes for person and number of the subject.

Imperative
Imperative expresses an order or a wish when used in the third person without an explicit subject. In the former case it is translated with the English imperative, whereas in the latter it is translated with the phrase "may it be" or some such phrase.

It is created by adding the suffixes for person and number of the subject directly onto the stem.

Inferential
Inferential is a verb form used to express that the speaker is uncertain of the truth of what he is saying, but believes it to be the actual state of things. It is translated with phrases such as "I thank that", "I believe that" or "I concluded that".

It is created by adding the prefix б- to the verb stem and then adding the affixes to create the Realis form of the resulting stem by the rules of the verb, that is, if the verb is an exception when it comes to Realis creation, it makes its Inferential in the same way.

Voice
Verbs are made passive by adding a -й- interfix before the final vowel of the stem and the suffix -иш and then further adding the affixes for some Mood-Aspect-Tense configuration.

Syntax
Хасом is strongly Head Initial: the neutral word order is VSO and all additions to a noun or a verb within a noun or verb phrase follow the noun or verb.

A simple sentence in looks Хасом like this:

Абти ая бам.

/avti aja vam/

want.RE.IIIsg baby.Nsg milk.Asg

A baby wants milk.

Dictionary
Dictionary