Iraniya

Iraniya (Persian: اِیرَنِیَ (romanized: iraneya)), also known as Iraniyan, is a zonal auxlang designed to be the lingua franca of all people who speak Iranian languages e.g. Persian, Tajik, Pashto etc.

Like many Iranian languages, Iraniya has SOV word order and a complex verbal morphology, but there are only 2 noun numbers (singular, plural).

Consonants
These are the consonants that are used for transcribing the sounds of Iraniya (using IPA notation).

Vowels
Vowels may vary between dialect. This vowel chart below shows those of the northern 'standard' variety.

Phonotactics
Syllables are mainly structured as (C)(S)V(S)(C(C)).

A typical Iraniya syllable is composed of an optional onset, consisting of only one consonant, a mandatory vowel nucleus preceded and succeeded by an optional semivowel, and an optional coda, containing 1 or 2 consonants. The following constraints apply:
 * Onset
 * Consonant (C): Can be any consonant (Onset is only composed of 1 consonant, clusters are only found in loanwords; typically from English or Sanskrit; sometimes an epenthetic /ɨ/ is inserted between 2 consonants.).
 * Nucleus
 * Semivowel (S)
 * Vowel (V)
 * Semivowel (S)
 * Coda
 * Consonant (C): Can be any consonant.
 * Consonant (C): Can be any consonant (mostly /d, k, s, z, t, ʃ/).

Stress
Stress usually falls from the first to the second syllables

Orthography
Iraniya has no standardized writing system, though the Arabic alphabet is the most used, but still not verified by the government. Linguists usually use the Aytuği romanization.

Aytuği romanization
The Aytuği romanization is a version of the Latin alphabet based on the 1990s versions of the Latin Udi alphabet and the Uniform Turkic Alphabet.

Arabic alphabet
The Arabic alphabet is mostly used by Arabs, the Libyans and the Algerians.

Cyrillic alphabet
The Cyrillic alphabet is mostly used in Russia, southern Mongolia and northern Bulgaria.

Alphabets used in this section
This section uses the Aytuği romanization for simplicity. Arabic and Cyrillic alphabets are also supported, but only 1 out of 4 keyboards have this layout.

Gender
Iraniya has 4 genders; masculine, feminine and neuter. Neuter is unmarked. If a noun is preceded by the suffix -o, it is masculine. If a noun is preceded by the suffix -i, it is feminine.

Cases
There are 2 cases in Iraniya: nominative and accusative. The nominative is unmarked, but when it's followed by the particle jak or suffix -a, it is accusative. The oblique cases are marked by postpositions. An additional case, genitive is formed with ezāfe.
 * Nominative: şuh mūda xoud 'the dog ate the man'
 * Accusative: mūda şuha zud ' the man pats the dog'
 * Possessive using ezāfe: kiteb-e Sam 'Sam's book'

Number
All nouns can be made plural with the suffix -he. Such examples of this are:
 * kiteb (book)
 * kitebhe (books)

Pronouns
Pronouns share 3 persons (1st, 2nd, 3rd), 2 numbers (plural, singular), and 3 genders (male, female, inanimate). This table below shows the list of pronouns, with their correspondences.

Determiners & demonstratives
Iraniya has only 2 determiners and demonstratives: 'jak' (determiner) and 'kou' (demonstrative) and their plural forms. These tables below show the use of determiners and demonstratives by the word 'sib' (apple).

Verbs
Verbs in Iraniya are very complex by their morphology. The stem order of a verb is:

Infinitives
Iraniya infinitives end in -dan or -tan. Some examples:
 * xoudan (to eat)
 * nocūdan (to drink)
 * rabtan (to go)
 * bazadan (to play)

Gerund
The gerund is formed with the absent infinitive and the suffix -ti.
 * xouti (eating (noun))
 * Xouti aşaƣma (I love eating.)

Participles
Participles in Iraniya usually distinguish between two types: present and perfect.
 * The perfect participle is marked with the suffix -te. It is passive in transitive verbs but active in intransitive verbs.
 * xoute (eaten)
 * nocūte (drank)
 * The present participle is marked with the suffix -dar.
 * xoudar (is eating)
 * nocūdar (is drinking).

Personal endings
Personal forms of verbs are usually formed with simple prefixes. The personal suffixes for the present and future tense and the subjunctive tense are: The 2nd and 3rd persons plural may refer to singular persons for added respect. One major exception is God, for whom plural forms are never used.
 * -ma first person singular 'I'
 * -i second person singular 'you'
 * -et third person singular 'he/she/it'
 * -em first person plural 'we'
 * -uza second person plural 'ye'
 * -atu third person plural 'they'

The past, imperfective, future, pluperfect and conditional past tenses have very similar endings, except that the 3rd person singular is unmarked:
 * -ma first person singular 'I'
 * -i second person singular 'you'
 * - third person singular 'he/she/it'
 * -em first person plural 'we'
 * -uza second person plural 'ye'
 * -ato third person plural 'they'

Tense-Aspect-Mood
Iraniya verbs can be conjugated into 2 simple tenses (present, past), 3 grammatical moods (indicative, subjunctive, imperative) and 2 aspects (perfective, imperfective).

Indicative mood

Present
The present tense talks about the present time. It is formed by removing the infinitive suffix and adding the prefix ba-.
 * baxou (eat)
 * baxouma (I eat)

Past
The past tense talks about the past time. It is formed by removing the infinitive suffix and adding the suffix -c.
 * xouc (ate)

Preterite
The preterite, or past imperfective, talks about the events that were completed in the past time, or for present ongoing events. It is formed by removing the infinitive suffix and adding the suffix -de.
 * xoude (was eating/is eating)

Present perfect
The present perfect is used to express a past event that has present consequences. It is formed by removing the infinitive suffix and adding the suffix -zu.
 * xouzu (had eaten)

Pluperfect
The pluperfect, or past perfect, is used to refer to an action at a time earlier than a time in the past already referred to. It is formed by removing the infinitive suffix and adding the suffix -na.
 * xouna (had ate)

Present
The present subjunctive is present tense combined with the subjunctive mood, a grammatical mood used to express wish and urge. It is formed by adding the verb xostan (to want), and removing the infinitive suffix of the target verb.
 * Osorma kan xostan xouhet. (I insist that he eat.) (lit. I insist that he wants to eat).

Present
The imperative mood is a mood that urges someone to do something. It's present tense form is formed by removing the infinitive prefix, and adding -sat.
 * xousat! (Eat!)

Syntax
Iraniya usually has a SOV word order. Modifiers usually follow the noun they modify.