Os Afat

Os Afat is an archaic language spoken on the continent of Neronas.

=Origin= According to the book Ke Hurh azh Afath ("Concerning the Origin of the Divine ones"), the goddess Avanÿa created the Afathi, "the equals of the gods". This race of mystics and high magicians later ascended to become the present-day Avatars. In the beginning the Afathi did not need a language as they were still a part of the divine existence but, as their beloved goddess was weakened due to the creation of the Dwarves, they started to carefully develop a system of syllables followed by a shift in the aether indicating what the sounds meant. When Avanÿa was banished by the elven gods, the Afathi started using a combination of syllables to form exact words and this later became the Os Afat.

Whether this is historically correct is for the reader to speculate as Ke Hurh azh Afath is the only written record of the early Afathi history.

=Concerning Words and Phonology= As the "origin section" above explains, Os Afat is based on a limited number of afoshimo's (original syllables,105 to be exact). All words in Os Afat are compound words of these. The Afathi created a pictogram for each afoshimo, but as the knowledge of how to interpret them was decreasing, various transcription and transliteration systems were created, the most common is the Derolian versions as they are quite close in phonology.

(Concerning the spelling please see Derolian) 

Vowels
Each original syllable (afoshimo) had one of these five possible vowels:

A, O, U, I or E

These alone are actually the five first words in the Afathi-"alphabet": a (creation), o (I/ me), u (he/ she/ it), i (many) and e (destruction).

(Note: AOUIE is one of Avanÿa's names: "She who created me, all the tings that I see, all around, til the end of time") 

Consonants
Usually the vowel was either followed by, or preceded by a consonant. The original consonants are:

P, T, K, B, D, G, N, R, L and S

Hence the afoshimo's like "le (wing, roof)", "in (do, make)", and "ba (man)" were possible while combinations like "psi", "vin" or "met" were impossible as they contain more than one consonant.

Speaking
The attentive reader may have noticed that these few sounds is not enough to create the name Afathi as it lacks both f and th, not to mention the book title Ke Hurh azh Afath that seem to contain an awful lot of H's. You have just discovered the biggest problem when speaking Os Afath, the so called "Changing Whisper".

Chasona / Consonant changes
The Changing Whisper (Chasona) is a phenomenon that was first noted some time around 2000 years ago when the Isilarians began to transliterate the Elysian Scrolls in search for the key to immortality. In that aspect the scrolls were almost useless, but as an example of correct pronunciation of Os Afathi they were perfect.

The "whisper" (represented here as an X) sounds almost like an h, and when two "whispers" occur next to each other they are pronounced like an h. When it is placed next to a consonant, the consonant is changed into another, usually a softer version. Consonant changes are as follows:

X + X= h 

p + X= f, b + X= v 

t + X= th, d + X= dh 

k + X= ch, g + X= zh 

r + X= rh, l + X= lh 

n + X= m, s +X= sh 

Chasona Rules
So when does Chasona occur? The Whisper is governed by three grammatical laws and by Ostenashi (see below).


 * The First Law states that a consonant preceding a vowel of a different Afoshimo within a word must undergo Chasona.

E.g: Atol (temple) is transcribed athol, but naraat (jewel) is transcribed as marât as this word is formed with "na", "ra" and "at" and ra in this case is an afoshimo (meaning "heaven").

a. on the first consonant of the following word, e.g: eb Rai = eb Rhaj.
 * The Second Law states that the Whisper appears between all words. Chasona appears

b. on the last consonant of the preceding word (if the following word doesn't begin with a consonant), e.g: Naas ui = Nâsh uj.

c. as an h on the following word (if no consonant is available for a or b), e.g: Anageli ag = Amazheli hazh.


 * The Third Law states that all sentences must never begin with Chasona, but also that all sentences must (if possible) end with Chsona.

E.g: O olin (I built) is pronounced as O holhim, but O olin atoli is transcribed as O holim atholi since atoli ends with a vowel and it's almost impossible to pronounce an h after a vowel in the same word.

Ostenâshi
Two consonants next to each other are in Os Afat called Joste (consonant cluster), e.g: urkaek (mortality), thêklîn (kill) or fâlna (hand). However some combinations simply can not be produced, for example (using transliteration) kaekgain (descend). Other languages would render the cluster as either kk or gg using assimilation. In Os Afat using assimilation in such a way would be very confusing as all afoshimo's have different meaning, instead the Afathi created a system of consonant changes called Ostenâshi.

Here are all Ostenashi's:

pb= fp, pd= ft, pg= fk

bp= vb, bt= vd, bk= vg, bs= bz

tb= thp, td= tht, tg=thk

dp= dhb, dt=dhd, dk=dhg, ds= dz

kb= chp, kd= cht, kg= chk

gp= zhb, gt= zhd, gk= zhg, gn= ngn, gz

rt='rt' [ʈ] rd= 'rd' [ɖ] rl= 'rl' [ɭ], rn='rn' [ɳ]

np=mp, nb= mb, nk= ngk, ng= ngg

sp= shp,sd= sht, sg= shk

Some may have noted that L does not have a line since all Joste's beginning with that sound is pronounceable. Furthermore the r have a habit of creating quite strange sounds but in works with derolian transcription these are disregarded as dialectal sounds.

Now, with all we now know how do we transcribe kaekgain? Following all laws the right answer would be chaechkajn.

Oshatnâshi / Diphthongs
...

Word Building
Words are formed using the "syllables'" different meanings (thus all words that are not one "syllable" words are de facto compound words).

An example: The word for "temple" is athol created with at, meaning "god", and ol, meaning house. A temple is simply "the house of a god". We might use another example with this simple method: "Sanctify" is a bit harder, meaning "to make holy". A direct translation would be athuin: at (god)+ u (adjective-suffix) (=holy)+ in (do). However the Afathi has a different view as their word for "sanctify" is actually atholin (at ol in), "to make into the house of a god". For some reason they generally avoid using adjectives when creating verbs.

More abstract words may be created in the same way: Lhitêchimo is the common word for "battle". This time we do the reverse as we start by removing the final -o which is the noun suffix. We now have lhitêchin meaning "to fight" and once again we remove the ending -in. We now have another noun, lhithêk meaning "sword". Lhitêk consists of three afoshimo's: li (life), te (destruction) and ek (end). Often thêk (teek) replaces the word chaek meaning "death". Lhithêk is then translated as "life's death". Lhitêchimo is then translated, somewhat freely, as "thing that involves using life's death".

=Dictionary=

Pronouns
O/ ho = I

Se/ she = you (sing. Old English thou)

U/ hu = he, she, it

Oi/ hoj = we

Sei/ shej = you (pl.)

Ui/ huj = they

Ina = nothing, no one

Iui/ juj = some, a couple

Iu/ ju = someone, something, one (see Numbers)

Saiu/ shaju = that one

Saiui/ shajuj = those

Important verbs
Atapin/ athafin = worship

Gain/ zhajn = walk, travel

Kaekin/ chaechin = die

Kanain/ chanajn = be, exist

Kanarain/ chanarajn = carry, bear

Osin/ oshin = speak, talk

Tein/ thejn = destroy

Tekliin/ theklîn = kill

Prepositions
Do/ dho = with

Eb = from

In = in (archaic)

Ob = to, for the benefit of

Te/ the = without, with the exception of

Un = in

Ur = from (archaic)

Numbers
1= Iu/ ju (meaning"number of one thing)

2= Irai/ iraj ("number of heaven")

3= Iati/ jathi ("number of the gods")

4= Ikai/ikaj ("number of spirit")

5= Iesi/ jeshi ("number of harvest")

6=Itei/ itej ("number of destruction")

7= Ieli/ jelhi ("number of stars")

8= Ilii/ ilî ("number of life")

9= Ieni/jemi ("number of women")

10= Ibai/ ibaj ("number of men")

11= Iali/ jalhi ("number of water")

12= Iosi/ joshi ("number of speech")

13= Iisi/ îshi ("number of wishes")

14= Iisinaasu/ îshinâshu (thirteen and one)

15= Iisinaasirai/ îshinâshiraj (thirteen and two)

...

26= Iraisi/ irajshi (two thirteen)

27= Iraisinaasu/ irajshinâshu (two thirteen and one)...

=Example Text= Excerpt from Ke hurh azh Afath: 

"...Nâsh uj chaechkajmurh eb Rhaj, Amazheli hazh u Vi rhaelhimu hu hathafimbaj azh Athi holkatejmurh. Uj chanarajmurh amatholhi dho marât lhîmu mâsh un fâlnaj Hibgabî azh El chanajmurhuj... "

Translation:" ...And they descended from the Heavens, Angels of the same Power that the worshipers of the Gods had rejected. They bore crowns with radiant jewels and in their hands were the Staves of Starlight..."