Pasanian

=Overview= Pasanian is a descendant of Nessëran, spoken in the eastern seaside areas of Nesëra. Originating as a dialect of the main language - because of it's relative isolation has diverged significantly enough from Nessëran to be classified as a seperate language by many authorities. In addition, because of the seafaring nature of the area in which the language has evolved, Pasanian has picked up many aspects of Spanish and Portuguese including a significant part of it's lexicon, particularly words to do with the sea (bärco "ship" - from Spanish "barco", acantilado "cliff" and playa "beach"). As well as it's orthography (for example the use of 'c' for [k]).

=Phonology=

Sound Changes from Nessëran
Pasanian has lost the Nessëran palatal fricative [ç] (represented in Nessëran by the letter 'q'), losing it's fricative qualities and becoming an approximant [j] before vowels and after vowels word-finally. Before consonants it has been lost altogether. Examples of this change are adërr from Nessëran adërq ("fine"), drayaş from Nessëran draqqaş ("council") and cuep from Nessëran kepq ("[to] take").

It has also lost the phonemic difference between [i] and [ɪ], both becoming in Pasanian allophones of /i/. These are represented in Pasanian by the letter 'i' (with 'y' - used to represent /i/ in Nessëran - being used instead to represent the approximant /j/ as in english).

Pasanian has adopted the Spanish phonemes [ʎ] and [ɲ] (represented by 'll' and 'ny' respectively), predominantly for loanwords. It has also developed phonemic difference between the alveolar trill [r] and flap [ɾ], as in Spanish. Only the alveolar flap was present in Nessëran.

Pasanian has also lost the phoneme [h], with the character 'h' only being seen as part of the letter 'ch'.

The sound [ts] has deaffricated to [s].

Phonemes
The following table shows the consonants that are found in Nessëran. When found in pairs, the one on the left is voiceless, and the one on the right is voiced.


 * 1) The velar nasal /ŋ/ is an allophone of /n/ before either /k/ or /g/, the same as in english.

=Orthography= Pasanian orthography was developed relatively seperately to that of it's Parent language, so many words that are pronounced the same or similar in both languages are spelt very differently. Pasanian has though transferred the Nessëran letters 'ş', 'ë' and 'ä' to it's own orthography with the same phonetic values.

Alphabet
'Ch', 'Ll', 'Ny' and 'Rr' are all regarded as individual letters in their own right. Although the latter three are predominantly found in words borrowed or taken from Spanish, 'Ch' is used frequently in words inherited from Nessëran, in which the same sound is represented by 'ç'.

=Lexicon= Most of the vocabulary of Pasanian is of Nessëran stock, however a significant (and growing) percentage of Pasanian words is of Spanish and other romance origin. There is also a large Greek and Latin influence, mostly from internationally-used words such as fotografi ("photography").

=Basic Grammar=

Cases
Pasanian stays faithful to the Nessëran system of noun cases.

The following table shows how the noun cases are indicated by adding enclitics onto the noun. Take the phrase va rimasta meaning "the car".

Examples
 * Änilalun achulsor va rimastasura "I traveled here by (the) car"


 * Fesebun achir dennaya "I can do this without you"

Articles
Unlike in Nessëran, Pasanian definate and indefinate articles are put before the noun, probably due to Romance influence. The articles are also found in different forms for singular and plural nouns.

Examples
 * Canapëra - couch
 * Canapërane - couches
 * Va canapëra - the couch
 * Vele canapërane - the couches
 * La canapëra - a couch
 * Lea canapërane - a/some couches1

1The sentence Lea canapërane (a couches) doesn't seem to make grammatical sense, but in Pasanian it does. Whereas there is an absense of Indefinate Plural Articles in english, there is not in Pasanian. It is also used as a word for 'some', so Lea canapërane also means "some couches".

Number
There are two numbers in Pasanian, singular and plural. The plurals are represented by adding the suffix '-ne' or '-ane'. So va seyërr meaning "the tree" is pluralised to "vele seyërrane'' "the trees".

Posession
As in Nessëran, posession is indicated by adding an enclitic to the end of a noun.

The following table shows how posession is indicated in Pasanian, using the noun "lärnel" meaning "name".

Note that the article 'va' is still kept, rather than dropped as in Nessëran.

Examples
 * Curun va lärnelada - I like your name


 * Va canapërame şärenitue - My couch is nice

Adjectives
Pasanian adjectives come in five forms, as in Nessëran. Also, like in Nessëran they are placed after the noun they are describing.

To add the equivalent to the English word "is" to the adjective, it is added as the suffix "-tue" to the adjective itself, so for example şärenitreatue means "is very nice", şäreninasstue means "is not nice".

Examples
 * Ocho entreselo velschenosetue - That balcony is pretty


 * Va yërmelename uropesyestue - My daughter is European

Tenses
The tense of a verb is determined in Pasanian by the suffix which is attatched to it. The suffixes and their effects on the vowels they modify is shown in the following table, using the word visseya "to say".

Objects and Subjects
The object of a verb is attatched to the end of it.

The subject of a noun is placed after the verb+object word. "She said to him" is written "visseyalaşe fepe" - with visseyalaşe ("she said") put before fepe ("to him").

Personal Pronouns
Personal pronouns are not very different than Nessëran ones.

Numbers
=Dictionary= ...

=Example text=