Rihawathanwan

The Rihawathanwan languageis the language of the Rihawathanan peoples of North America, and the primary spoken language of the Anathanewan Confederacy. Rihawathanan is estimated to have 93,000,000 speakers throughout the world; most of its speakers are concentrated in Anathane. Rihawathanwan is an Iroquoian language, of Rihawathanwan to itself. The language is one of the few languages of Anathane to have adopted the Latin script, one of the many reasons the tribe itself succeeded in the face of European colonization among others.

The Rihawathanwan that is spoken today is estimated to be thousands of years old, though its exact origins have not been precisely found by linguistic scholars. Despite being related to other Iroquoian languages historically, it is distinctly different from languages spoken by smaller tribes throughout Anathan. Rihawathanwan has become a large language as it was spoken by its namesake tribe, which expanded until it had influence over most of Anathan. The language is now a recognized United Nations language, and its native speaking base continues to grow larger as its namesake nation grows steadily in population.

Consonants

 * /d/ as in deer
 * /g/ as in slug
 * /h/
 * /ha/ as in hay
 * /he/ as in hello
 * /k/ as in krag
 * /l/ as in lost
 * /n/ as in no
 * /p/ as in polar
 * /ph/ as in elephant
 * /r/ as in right
 * /s/ as in sight
 * /t/ as in tape
 * /th/ as in there
 * /w/ as in wait

Vowels

 * /ah/ as in hat
 * /eh/ as in end
 * /ih/ as in negative
 * /oh/ as in on

Vowel interaction
Unlike in most languages that use the Latin script, Rihawathanwan does not have changed sounds based on vowel placement in a word. For example, in English the word base would be pronounced baes. However in Rihawathanwan, the word would be pronounced bah-seh. The sounds made by the four vowels cannot change, meaning that a, e, i, and o are exclusively tied to their one sound.

When two vowels touch each other when adding necessary affixes to words, an apostrophe, which represents a brief stop in speech, can be used to correctly separate vowels.

Syllable pitches
Rihawathanwan follows a simple pattern of pitches based on vowels; for every vowel there is a single syllable. This means that English words with silent vowels would be pronounced with their vowels as demonstrated with the word base. Some words in different languages that combine letters to make a sound such as beaux for boh would be unpronounceable in Rihawathanwan, as vowels must be separated by consonants. In contrast, consonants can be combined to make a new sound such as th in there or ph in pheaecians. This is not true with the consonant s, which cannot be combined with h to make a new sound.

Nouns
In Rihawathanwan, nouns are the most important words in a sentence. Nouns exist based on themselves and a gender article. There are three articles of gender, neuter, masculine, and feminine.


 * Neuter nouns have a single /ah/
 * than meaning people or person
 * Masculine nouns have a single /eh/
 * then meaning man or men
 * Feminine nouns have a single /ih/
 * thin meaning woman or women

Nouns are changed using articles which change the meaning of a sentence. There are three case articles, two numerical articles, three tense articles, two person articles, and three mood articles. Nouns can have more than one article, though nouns which do usually are long.

There are three articles which change the case of a noun to change the case of a sentence. Case articles are prefixes.


 * da makes a noun possessive
 * dathan would mean my/that person or my/that people
 * do makes a noun subjective
 * dothan would mean my person [verb] or my people [verb]
 * di makes a noun objective
 * dithan would mean [verb] that person or [verb] those people

There are two numerical articles which change the numerical context of the noun and sentence. Numerical articles are suffixes.


 * na makes a noun singular
 * thanna means person
 * ne makes a noun plural
 * thanne means people

Both case and numerical articles are needed to make both a noun and sentence.


 * dathanna means my person
 * dothannene means that people [verb]

To differentiate between my and that, an additional ne or na depending on context creates the that. Without an additional numerical article, the context is created as my.

Universal nouns
Universal nouns are nouns that can be applied to any noun without using its actual name. There are eight in Rihawathanwan.


 * Singular
 * ahna meaning i/me
 * ananna meaning you
 * edadna/idadna/adadna meaning he/she/it
 * Plural
 * ahne meaning us
 * anande meaning you all
 * adadne meaning they

Noun tenses
In Rihawathanwan the tense of a sentence is decided upon from the noun. There are three tense suffixes that are added to sentences to create a tense in the sentence.


 * mapa meaning present
 * mapi meaning past
 * mapo meaning  future

When adding a tense to the noun, a tense of the verb is also changed when translated.


 * "The woman is dancing."
 * "Dothinnamapa powow."

Adjectives
In Rihawathanwan, adjectives are always apart of the noun. When given a name in the traditional style with an adjective, the adjective is placed at the end of the noun. When describing something as an adjective would in a sentence, it is placed at the beginning of the noun.


 * hakalade means beautiful (adjective)
 * hakaladethanne means beautiful people (descriptive)
 * Thinnahakalade means Beautiful Woman (name)

Adjective phrases can also be done in such an order, but can also make words very long when used. With the exception of adverbs, the sentence structure of an adjective phrase is exactly alike. When linking two or more adjectives to a noun, an apostrophe is used to represent brief stops in speech.


 * The beautiful, playful woman danced.
 * Hakalade'tisede'thinna powow.
 * Beautifully, playfully, the woman danced.
 * Hakaladele'tisedele'thinna powow.
 * The woman, beautiful and playful, danced.
 * Hakalade'tisede'thinna powow.

Superlative and comparative adjectives are formed by taking an adjective and adding a specific suffix to it. After forming the suffix, it is then linked to the end of a noun with an apostrophe. Unlike a name though, a second word, "adew" is added before a second apostrophe and then the adjective. Even though it seems as a sentence fragment in English, the verb used is "adew'" which means "is.''"


 * net is -er
 * netes is -est


 * "He is taller than I."
 * "Edadna'adew'tamananet di'ahna."
 * "He is the tallest."
 * "Edadna'adew'tamananetes."

Nouns can be made into adjectives by adding the suffix "-wan" onto the original noun. Therefore "Anathanwan" means "Many People-ic" when roughly translated into English.

Verbs
Unlike most other languages around the world, the context of a verb is decided upon by the noun. Therefore, only a few changes can be made to a verb to change its meaning and the meaning of the sentence. Supines and participles are the only unique assets of a verb in Rihawathanwan.