Afansevan



Afansevan (Imperial Afansevan:  (IPA:/ˈduˌβaʁ ˈa.ʁɔˌzaʁ ˈjus.ʁaʁ.da.ŋiˌβaz/), literally "the citizens' tongue") is a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken by about 10 million people inside our world's California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and Western Mexico, and has a diaspora population across the Americas, that takes place in the same universe as American Turkic and has no official status within the, although it is an official language alongside American Turkic in the provinces that formerly constituted the (which can be shown in the map below).

This article will be of, which was spoken during the times of the Californian Empire by the higher classes and the bureaucracy as second language speakers and the native language of the Californian royal family, known only from a few religious Buddhist texts (Almost all Afansevan texts found so far are religious, but a few secular ones exist as well) (Due to Buddhist influence, Imperial Afansevan has a lot of loanwords from Sanskrit) and poetry in this ATL and is the primary basis of , while the spoken by the lower classes were the ancestors of all  (Kinda how like Latin diverged into the Romance languages), which are now extinct today.

Linguists in this ATL have attempted to reconstruct what Imperial Afansevan looked like via evidence through the religious texts and poetry, its daughter languages, and Neo-Imperial Afansevan, which was the liturgical language of Afansevan Buddhism after California was absorbed into the Kyrgyz Khaganate. This article will focus on what the language was actually like according to the Paninian-styled , literally "Grammar of the Chosen Tongue" (which in this ATL has not been found yet, so linguists would have to make do with the reconstruction, even though it was not the actual language spoken by the bureaucracy and nobility), written in 1253 by one of Pulobudza I's advisors and aided by modern linguistics in this article, and not of the reconstruction. In addition, some texts claim that Imperial Afansevan was created to be the "purest language possible" and that the vulgar dialects were merely corruptions of the language. This is not true, as linguistic studies have shown that the vulgar dialects are more conservative than Imperial Afansevan overall.

This language is primarily based on Russian, English, Latin, and various Turkic languages, but draws influences from German, Italian, Sahaptin, Chinese, Inupiaq, Chumash (Not to be confused with Chuvash, an Oghur Turkic language spoken in the Russian federal subject of Chuvashia!), and some conlangs made by other people as well.

History ()
Some Proto-Indo-Europeans migrated to the Mongolian steppe about 5,000 years ago, after the branchoff of Anatolian from he rest of the speakers. On their way, they encountered the Samoyedic people. The Indo-Europeans speakers that were more influenced by the Samoyeds branched off into the Tocharians, while the people who were less influenced by the Samoyeds other than an occasional loanword, like "to digest", "amazing, wonderful", migrated to OTL's Eastern Mongolia. But when the Indo-Iranian speakers arrived, they influenced the Afansevan language heavily, including making Imperial Afansevan and its descendants satem languages. This influence came even from Iranians, Scythians, until the Xiongnu decided to come in and conquer the entire steppe in the 3rd century BCE.



As it turns out, the Afansevans resisted the Xiongnu heavily. This split the language family in two, into Paleosevan (a portmanteau of Greek παλαιός "old" and Afansevan) and Neosevan (a portmanteau of Greek νέος "new" and Afansevan). The Paleosevans migrated to Lake Baikal, where they stayed until they were assimilated into the Tungusic speakers, while the Neosevans requested the Chinese to help drive the Xiongnu out of their homeland. The Chinese allowed them to migrate into their empire and ensure their protection as long as they pay spcial taxes every month. They were staying until they were driven to Manchuria by the last Han emperors, who considered them "barbarians."

The then passed between various different kingdoms as they began slowly migrating westward for the next four centuries. They were enslaved by the Eastern Turks, until they were defeated by the Kyrgyz and were subsequently brought to the New World during the Great Migration. The Afansevans never had an independent state again until they migrated southwards and settled in the LA basin, forming the Californian Empire. The Californian Empire then quickly conquered and subjugated all of California, later expanding into OTL's Nevada, Arizona, and the Baja California peninsula, along with the Western coast of Mexico. The Californian Empire later allied with the Kyrgyz Khaganate.

In 1205, Pulobudza I, an illegitimate ruler, organized a coup to remove his third cousin, Djefspater IV, from power, thus beginning a new dynasty. He strongly opposed the old pagan religion that his ancestors followed and began to drift towards Buddhism. In 1209, the Californian Empire converted to Buddhism and the Emperor crushed the nobles that opposed, beginning a rebellion that was swiftly crushed by the end of the year. While he was known abroad by conquering the Great Plains, razing Cahokia to the ground, and forcing Mesoamerica into submission, he was known by the Afansevans for promoting literacy and poetry and triggering a golden age for centuries. After his death in 1256 due to accidentally being ran over by a chariot while meditating at the age of 73, several hundreds of thousands of Afansevans were left in conquered territories. Some returned to their homeland with the last of the military, but others stayed, influencing the languages of conquered territories. Imperial Afansevan texts dating from around 1210 to 1320 were found as far as Vinland and Constantinople to the Swahili coast and Mecca, suggesting that Pulobudza I helped foster a global trade network that exchanged goods, ideas, and technology that connected the Americas to Europe, Asia, and Africa, causing his empire to become the wealthiest in the world, which declined with future emperors. Estimates suggest that the economy was about 15 times that of Europe at the time.

In 1508, the Californian Emperor married a Kyrgyz princess, having a son together. He held the Kyrgyz throne first in 1526 after the reigning Khagan died without any children, followed by the Californian throne in 1531 following the death of his father, ruling the two monarchies under a personal union. He wanted to unify the two countries as one state rather than keep the personal union to counter Vinland's reign of terror across the myriad lakes of the Canadian Shield, as well to compete with the Portuguese over the spice trade.

By 1539, the Empire was cast to the history books, and its former territory was used as a strategic point for Kyrgyzia to colonize Polynesia, which increased trade with the Old World. It, along with in the turn of the 16th century, which attracted Turkic-speaking settlers to move to Ahozia at the expense of the Afansevans, paves the way for Kyrgyzia becoming an economic powerhouse. Despite revolts and terrorist organizations seeking to reestablish the lost Empire, Kyrgyzia still holds on to the majority of Ahozia (The Southwestern US is called Ahozia, pronounced as "uh-HOE-zhuh", from Afansevan plus the Latin suffix -ia) to this day.



In 1650, due to the abundant Turkic gold miners in Ahozia. the autonomy that the Afansevans enjoyed until then was revoked. Several rebel groups had formed in Ahozian territory before, during, and after the autonomy was revoked. The rebel groups launched a full-on rebellion in 1659, and soon Ahozia would be split into hundreds of different states, turning into an all-out civil war. Fortunately, the rebellions were squashed in 1723, but it left a linguistic scar in Ahozia until the late 19th century, when the languages suffered a decline due to them being outlawed in schools.

Decipherment
In 1890, Kyrgyz linguists had discovered recorded texts in Imperial Afansevan by accident, in an abandoned Imperial palace in what is OTL's Los Angeles. These texts was a "letter" sent by the Californian Emperor Pulobudza I to the heavens telling that he will conquer the entire continent in the name of the Buddha in 1210, soon after the Californian Empire had converted to Buddhism. The Kyrgyz linguists found a writing system similar to the Mayan script, but they were unable to decipher it, so the Kyrgyz government sent the text to the central Mayan government. The Mayan linguists then found the sounds of some letters, but were unable to find the sounds of other letters. The letters were found to be similar to some Chinese characters, so the Mayans hired some Chinese people in order to find the sounds of the letters.

In 1902, Rhomanian archeologists discovered a bilingual text in Sanskrit, written in the Nagari script, and Imperial Afansevan near a Rhomanian military base in the ruins of Cahokia. Written in 1240, the text told of the life of the Buddha and how his final reincarnation (Which happened to be Pulobudza I) came to Earth to civilize and conquer the continent under one religion. This text faciliated the decipherment of the new language after the "alien" script was found to be the same as in the letter.

It took 30 years to decipher (Work on the decipherment was delayed by the outbreak of World War I), but in 1920, the Imperial Afansevan language was finally deciphered. In 1912, knowledge of Imperial Afansevan became large enough to establish that the Afansevan languages were Indo-European.

Pre-Proto-Afansevan (3000 BCE)

 * Laryngeals disappear:
 * /h1/ assimilates the following or preceding vowel towards the schwa, then disappears in certain ways:
 * If /h1/ occurs in the syllable coda, then it becomes /k/. This makes Imperial Afansevan a significant source for reconstructing coda /h1/ in Proto-Indo-European, because most instances of this laryngeal in coda position appear as a high tone, normal or glottalized, on the preceding vowel, which could not be explained by anything that was known in the other daughter languages, making the laryngeal theory becoming universally accepted earlier than in our timeline.
 * Otherwise, it disappears.
 * /h2/ assimilates the following or preceding vowel towards /a/, then disappears. If there is a preceding vowel, lenghtens the vowel.
 * /h3/ merges with /w/. This provides Imperial Afansevan with a range of words with /β/ or a front rounded vowel which could not be explained by the corresponding cognate in another language (e.g. Imperial Afansevan  "to see" is a cognate with Latin oculus "eye" without an initial /w/). This contributes to laryngeal theory becoming accepted earlier than in our timeline.
 * /H/ (the unconstructable laryngeal) merged with /k/.
 * /w/ rounds the preceding vowel, then disappears, if it occurs in the syllable coda. /ew/ > /ø/, /iw/ > /y/, /əw/ > /ə/.
 * Syllabic consonants have an /a/ inserted before them.
 * Aspirated stops become voiceless.

Proto Afansevan (1500 BCE)

 * Aspirated plosives (but not aspirated palatals) become fricatives.
 * /pʰ/ > /ɸ/
 * /tʰ/ > /θ/
 * /kʰ/ > /x/
 * A sound shift similar to Verner's Law takes place in fricatives.
 * Satemization happens.
 * /c/ > /ɕ/
 * /ɟ/ > /ʑ/
 * /cʰ/ > /kj/
 * /kʷʰ/ > /x/
 * /kʷ/ > /k/
 * /gʷ/ > /g/
 * Exceptions to satemization occur when non-aspirated palatal consonants occur after nasal consonants, where centumization happens instead.
 * Stress shifts to the first syllable, making the law mentioned above phonemic.

Early Afansevan (1000 BCE)

 * The dental fricatives become alveolar sibilants.
 * /w/ > /β/.
 * Vowel shifts:
 * /ə/ > /a/.
 * /e/ and /o/ tend toward low-mid.
 * /tj/, /dj/, /sj/, /zj/ > /tɕ/, /dʑ/, /ts/, and /dz/
 * Alveolo-palatal fricatives and affricates become retroflex.
 * Due to various phonotactical changes, some consonant shifts occur:
 * Two sibilants are not allowed to go next to each other. In that case, the second one is lost and the first one stays.
 * Voiceless obstruents always assimilate in voicing to the last obstruent in the cluster (Sonorants can block this) and vice versa.
 * Two consonants followed by /j/ at the beginning of a word have an /i/ inserted between the two consonants and the /j/ to break up the cluster.
 * A /j/ at the beginning of words followed by a consonant becomes /i/.
 * /w/ + nasal (a relatively common sequence in Proto-Afansevan) becomes /vuN/.
 * Consonant clusters at the beginning of words that violate the sonority hierarchy (like #stop+stop) have /a/ inserted between the consonants to break up the illegal cluster. /ts/ and /dz/ are kept at the beginning of words, later becoming affricates.
 * Stress shifts back to the first syllable in order to keep the order predictable, as the extra adding of vowels caused irregular stress patterns to emerge.

Proto-Neosevan (1 CE)

 * /Nk/, /Ng/, /gN/, /kN/ > /ŋ/
 * The long vowels disappear.

Imperial Afansevan (1000 CE)
Text in bold is not a sound change. Text in italic is not represented in the language I made for this article (The language in this article is set to around the mid 1250s, shortly before Pulobudza's death, the Californian Empire's peak).
 * A six-tone system develops (see below)
 * The rhotic becomes uvular.
 * /ɣ/ (which was created from aspirated /k/ due to mock-Verner's law) merges with the rhotic.
 * Vowels are lowered when followed by 
 * The Afansevan Abugida is invented*
 * <ö> merges with , then moves towards the back of the mouth. As a result,  and <ö>'s lowered counterparts when followed by  become phonemic about fifty years after Pulobudza I's death in 1256. The spelling from Pulobudza's time is kept, causing historical spelling to emerge.
 * The new /ø/ merges with /ɛ/, while /ɶ/ lowers until it eventually merges with /a/. This makes /æ/ phonemic.
 * /æ/ moves back in the mouth until it merges with , making its rhotic allophone phonemic as well, later merging with /a/.
 *  disappears from coda position entirely, making /e/ and /o/ phonemic.
 * /e/ and /o/ merge with their low-mid counterparts.



Phonology ()
Main page: Afansevan/Phonology

Native writing system
Afansevan uses an abugida derived from the Mayan rebus characters. However, it has characters borrowed from the Chinese rime tables to represent sounds that don't exist in the Mayan script that do exist in Afansevan. It uses a basic system of punctuation, with one slash () representing a boundary between two words and two slashes () representing the end of a sentence, both derived from poetic notation. Glyphs are exclusively read left-to-right, top-to-bottom, and then right-to-left once a new page has been reached. There is also a marker to mark the end of a paragraph. This was signified with a paragraph end marker, which is a dash with a slash to its right (), a new line, and then a paragraph begin marker, which is another dash but with a slash to its left (), which is used from paragraph 2 and onwards, before the contents of the paragraph can be read. The introduction of movable type printing from China allowed Imperial Afansevan to become entrenched in the language of literacy, a role that it enjoyed until the Californian Empire ceased to exist. While the Mayan script had glyphs which were painted from ceramics, walls, and bark-paper on wood or stone and molded in stucco, the Afansevan script had glyphs that were written by a brush on parchment, allowing for increased curvilinearity, and soon after, the glyphs began to simplify.

An ungrammatical IA sentence used to demonstrate the writing system.

If you wanted to, you could also write Imperial Afansevan using any Brāhmi script (especially since the script is not coded in our timeline's Unicode, but it is in this timeline's equivelant to Unicode). For instance, several Imperial Afansevan poem fragments that were dated to the 14th century and found in Tibet were initially though to be Sanskrit text written in the Tibetan script, but on closer inspection, the texts were actually written in Imperial Afansevan.

The script had a non-standard variant whose glyphs are entirely based on Mayan characters, and is a true alphabet rather than an abugida. We have no records of this script that were found yet, but we do know that this script was eventually adopted into American Turkic as the American Turkic traditional script, which was replaced by Latin characters in the 20th century.

Romanization systems
Numerous romanization systems exist for Imperial Afansevan, and there is no standard romanization for it. However, the romanization system used in this article and subpages of this article was created in 1990 and has since achieved widespread popularity.

Grammar ()
Main page: Afansevan/Grammar

Influence from Sanskrit ()
Due to the Californian Empire being a highly Buddhist nation before it ceased to exist (as the majority of ethnic Afansevans are Buddhist to this day), Imperial Afansevan has loaned lots of words from Sanskrit, which was taught as a second language in the upper classes, along with Imperial Afansevan. In fact, so many Afansevan words originated in Sanskrit that over 40% of Imperial Afansevan vocabulary orginates in Sanskrit (Kinda like how English is not a Romance language despite 52% of their vocabulary having origins in French and Latin), and most Imperial Afansevan words used in the second-order headings in this article have a Sanskrit origin as well. Many of these words were borrowed into American Turkic (and some of the meanings have nothing to do with the original meaning in Sanskrit due to semantic drift), including, but not limited to: Many words for modern concepts, scientific concepts, and linguistic concepts also originate from Sanskrit, often being a literal translation of Greek and Latin roots in English: e.g. the word for "vertebrate" is, and the word for "gun" is. The word for any modern vehicle is a major exception, with it being, literally meaning "a chariot without horses."



Pulobudza I's Letter
The following text is a "letter" sent by the Californian Emperor Pulobudza I to the heavens, in 1210, telling that he would conquer most of North America in the name of the Buddha. This text was essential in the decipherment of Imperial Afansevan.

Schleicher's Fable
The Sheep and the Horses A sheep that had no wool saw horses: one of them pulling a heavy wagon, one carrying a big load, and one carrying a man quickly. The sheep said to the horses: "My heart pains me, seeing a man drive horses." The horses said: "Listen, sheep, our hearts pain us when we see this: a man, the master, makes the wool of the sheep into a warm garment for himself. And the sheep has no wool." Having heard this, the sheep fled into the plain.

<Koj Aŋoz sake duvar Ezhvosar> <Vá trej ezhvosar koj anavis aŋoz, far koj ankà vokinos kojnos, far kojö ankapö dravjö kojnos, sake shira far víro kojnos. Sak duvar ezhvosar duv aŋoz: "Gelk ma mane maneshertos, dravjavó vrech ezhvosar víro." Sak duv aŋoz duvar ezhvosar: "Gelk unsyr ansojshertos, fuŋe vó hermis kambala anvírovrezhö, sake asti vrech anavis duv aŋoz." Sheravalg duv platlant duv aŋoz sanskond vafs juseryr.>

The North Wind and the Sun
The North Wind and the Sun The North Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger, when a traveler came along wrapped in a warm cloak. They agreed that the one who first succeeded in making the traveler take his cloak off should be considered stronger than the other. Then the North Wind blew as hard as he could, but the more he blew the more closely did the traveler fold his cloak around him; and at last the North Wind gave up the attempt. Then the Sun shined out warmly, and immediately the traveler took of his cloak. And so the North Wind was obliged to confess that the Sun was the stronger of the two.

Duv Dàsfal Vants sake duv Saval (translation not finished) Asti gych varsnö̃ nís jo kora vreshti vrevrezhli̋ duv Dàsfal Vants sake duv Saval,