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, hr and rs. They are pronounced respectively as [ɲ], [ɣ], [ɾ] or [ʁ] or [hɾ], 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]. The standard Ánagin equivalents of these words are written with c, ts or s.

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

When it comes to dialects, there are some deviations from the standard pronunciation 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, /i/ 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 /i/.

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 pronunciation 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 pronunciation 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.

Aspiration and palatalisation
The features of aspiration and palatalisation in Ánagin have already been discussed. An aspirated vowel, either u or o, receives 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 exceptions to this rule. The pronunciation 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 pronunciation.


 * 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 acute 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 pronunciation 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.

[image coming soon]

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 pronunciation 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

Number
Nouns can occur in three grammatical numbers, all three explained in the following paragraphs. The singular and plural forms are used most. However, the plural is not always used when speakers of European languages would expect it to be there. The dual and the paucal are both not used very often. For instance, the paucal is used to express the meaning of 'a few' or 'several'. So, for 'a few books', the paucal is to be used. However, words that literally mean 'a couple or' or 'a few' can be used too. In that case, the normal singular is used.

Singular
The singular form of a noun in the intransitive case is the standard form given in a dictionary. Typically, it is the uninflected form without any suffix, prefix or whatsoever.

Plural
The plural form is used for plural words, more than two. However, when an attributive numeral, such as four or eighty-nine, is placed after a noun, the noun is not put in the plural form, but in the singular form.

Dual
Dual nouns, so a pair, are indicated by the dual number. When the numeral for two is written right after a certain noun, the dual form is used nonetheless.

Paucal
The puacal form is the number used for an indefinite, plural noun. Usually, this is translated to English as 'several', 'a couple of' or 'a few'. Generally, when the paucal form is used, one can assume that it is used to indicate an amount of eight or less.

Genders
Ánagin nouns are known to have one of four genders. Nouns can be either masculine, feminine, neuter or animate. Learners of Ánagin have to learn the gender of a certain noun by heart, unfortunately, but there are a few rules concerning gender. When these are kept in mind, it is significantly easier to remember what gender a certain noun has.
 * Plants and animals are always animate.
 * People are always masculine by default, except for cases such as 'woman', 'wife' etc.
 * Words that end in a vowel are almost always feminine.
 * Words that end in consonant clusters are almost always masculine.
 * Words that end in -kh, -khr or -n are usually neuter and exceptionally masculine.
 * Words starting with dz- or ps- are mostly feminine.

Definiteness
Like English, there is a marked difference between 'a horse' and 'the horse' in Ánagin. If a noun is indefinite, the article "ga" is put after the noun - except when the noun is plural, dual or paucal; in that case, "gar" is used. When it comes to definite nouns, Ánagin is a little more complex. When the definite noun is accompanied by an adjective, the adjective is modified to indicate that the noun is definite: the suffix -(w)u is placed after the adjective, -wu when it ends with a vowel, -u when it ends with a consonant. If there is no adjective that goes with the noun, one of the articles shown in the table below are used, before the noun.

Groups
There are twelve groups of nouns that are distinguished. These groups are declined according to the tables in this section.

The first five groups are the most important and most frequently occuring ones. Then, there are seven more groups that are in fact rather seldom.
 * 1) nouns ending in -a or -á (usually feminine)
 * 2) nouns ending in -n (usually neuter, sometimes masculine)
 * 3) nouns ending in a consonant, other than -n, -c and -kh(r)
 * 4) neuter nouns that do not end in -n
 * 5) nouns ending in a vowel other than -a
 * 6) animate nouns ending in a consonant
 * 7) animate nouns ending in a vowel
 * 8) nouns ending in -c
 * 9) nouns starting with ts-, c-, s-, sk-, sg-, cy-, tsr- or tkh- and ending in -s, -c or -dz
 * 10) nouns ending in -kh or -khr (usually neuter, sometimes masculine)
 * 11) nouns ending in -ar or -ár
 * 12) nouns ending in a consonant and starting with a consonant cluster that starts with k-, g- or b-

The example words for these groups - used when Ánagin is taught to small children as well as students and non-native adults, and also used on this page from now on - are listed below (with their meaning and gender).
 * 1) káta (path, road - f.)
 * 2) úksan (house - n.)
 * 3) tanók (star - m.)
 * 4) ótokos (table - n.)
 * 5) éragu (country, land, state, nation - m.)
 * 6) ŭtas (dog - a.)
 * 7) yókha (pine tree, conifer - a.)
 * 8) ékanac (goal, aim, purpose, target - f.)
 * 9) skadobástas (navy, - m.)
 * 10) anárakh (amount, quantity, number - f.)
 * 11) tasárnar (building - n.)
 * 12) gvabonak (helmet - n.)

Intransitive

 * He had been sleeping for six hours.
 * The teacher is talking about mathematics.

Ergative

 * She gave her father two presents.

Accusative

 * The boy saw a huge forest.

Accusative instrumental-comitative

 * With a pen, I wrote that letter. (Or: 'Using a pen, ...')


 * He drove home by car. (Or: '... by means of a car.')


 * I went hiking in the mountains with my friend. Or: '... accompanied by my friend.')

Genitive

 * That is my brother's house.

Dative

 * The emperor sent him a message.

Dative comparative

 * That building was as huge as an elephant.


 * Less than a week ago, his cousin visited us.


 * He is taller than a tree.


 * Those are the most beautiful paintings I have ever seen.

Ablative

 * From school I walked home.


 * He took it off the table.

Locative

 * I live in a small town.


 * At dawn, we left for the beach.

Verbs
In the Ánagin language, verbs are often the most important part of speech of a sentence. One inflected verb may be equal to an entire sentence in English, for instance "I saw him". However, often when emphasis is needed or in the spoken language used for everyday situations, speakers of Ánagin may also use three words for the same sentence.

Verbs can be classified and put into nine groups that have the same characteristics and inflection. Verbs are inflected according to number, tense, voice, mood, and aspect. A debated issue when it comes to verbs in Ánagin, is grammatical person distinction. A verb is not inflected according to the person who does it, like in many European languages (for example I walk vs. he walks in English). In Ánagin, both verb forms would be the same; singular. However, there are two ways of saying 'he walks' in Ánagin. One can say walk- SG  he-  INTR , or one can use a prefix that means "he", thus he-walk-  SG.

Middle voice (deponent verbs)
have/posses, die, break,

Mood
Indicative Subjunctive Conditional

Imperative

Necessitative mood

Aspect
Habitual

Interrogative