Modern Sajan

General information
Sajan is one of the currently spoken languages of the world of Rauxor, and comes from the Dizziran branch of the Dalwaric Language group. Spoken by the people of the southern desert, the language that they speak today now more closly resembles the languages of Diniric and those of the Borgothi than it does it's own ancestor tounge.

The history of the Sajan language spans a period of roughly 2000 years, beginning back before the fall of the firstborn. Originally, the peoples of the Anu'sajir were nomadic tribesmen, traveling in large clans, each of which had their own dialect, and their own cultural and religeous practices. Around the year 200 by the Thravic count (year 4,500 by Dalwaric count) a select few of these nomadic tribes began to interact, rather than just fight over land, water, and feeding grounds. This trade language evolved slowly, a blend of the tribes' individual dialects, and soon became the language that this confederation of tribes spoke. They later named this language "Sand Speak", or Dizzir'izh.

This group began to build cities and fortifications, and began to perfect the art of irrigation and dry farming. they also began to conquer the other tribes, and became known among the people of the Sajan desert as  "Dizzir". This empire grew quickly, with each tribe that joined it in the beginning owning their own city states and working together. The Dizzir became the strongest millitary force in the Sajan desert by the year 300. (4,600) Right around this time, the Dizzir began encountering the remnants of the Dalwaric people as they fled their homeland, and emerged as the strongest empire once internal conflict destroyed the race of the Firstborn.

In the meantime, the Dizzir were continuing their conquests, raiding up north into the territory of the southern elves, and forayying often into the lands of the nearer groups of southern Diniri. Each time they conquered a patch of land they took slaves, who were often penned together, unable to communicate with each other, as the parent tongues they all spoke had slowly drifted apart. Southern humans were penned up with elves and diniri, and they needed a means to communicate.

These slaves, in time, came up with their own language in secret, out of the veiw of their masters, the Dizzir, and only speaking the Dizziran tongue when in the presence of their masters. This slave language was only briefly investigated by the Dizzir, who deemed it as unimportant and not worth correcting, as the "lesser people" could never truly master the language of the "betters." The slaves of the Dizziran city-states grew restless, and in the year 612, the slaves of the capital of the Dizzir revolted, having planned the entire insurgence in their hybridized tongue, a blend of the languages of all of the slave races, but most strongly descending from Diniric, borgothi, and the tongues spoken by those men the Dizzir enslaved. (all languages related to Dizziran) They took the capital by storm, and beheaded the king of the Dizzir.

The other city-states, fearing revolt among their own slaves, soon engaged in mass massacres of the Slave races within their walls, further enraging surviving slaves. By the year 617, only a few cities remained where the Dizzir had managed to maintain power, a fading state that was quickly loosing strength and numbers.

The slave-states, and the Dizzir called them, banded together, forming a new nation and standardising "the slave-tongue" to communicate more efficiently, as the language had differences from city-state to city-state. They also chose the diniric term "Sajan" as a name for their people and their language, it meaning "Of the sands".

Over the next decade or so Sajan changed further as the slaves began interacting more and more as the new masters of the city. Their elvish and borgothi heritage made them large and fair, and they began to refer to themselves as the "strong race", and avoided contact with the truly human Dizzir, their tipped ears setting them apart. This said, Sajan adopted many similarities from the "Master's Tongue" at this point, though it could never be called Dizziran.

Over the next three hundred years, the language spread throughout the Sajan empire, the language beign taught to any slaves captured from the tribes still roaming the sands to this day. The Sajan only rarely enslave Elves or Diniri, however, as that would cause confusion concerning the rank and species of the slaves. A half-breed may as well have been a sajan, something that the Sajan rulers wished to avoid.

The language still posesses many elements of the slave language, and has many terms from slave life among the Dizzir that related to tasks that were often required of the slaves, and were descriptive of their days. It also borrows some of it's crass nature from it's borgothic roots. It is spoken all throughout the southern desert, and the southern elves and the various tribes of the Borgothi speak the language as a common tongue for trade. The occasional thravic merchants will also pick up some sajan, and drop some of their own tongue.

Consonants
The consonants of the Sajan can be loosely grouped according to the letters of the Thravic script. (which has many paralels to the Latin script of earth, but also many discrepancies) These groups are as follows: the soft consonants, the Hard consonants, and the blends. These could also be defined as "voiced", "Unvoiced" and blended. This is less accurate, as the Sajan set G and K together, and F and V. Y is also not considered a Vowel at any time. They use either the I equivilant or the E and the "modifyer" character. Soft consonants include :

ZH  Z  M  B   D  Th (soft, as in  "then". )  L F V H (when voiced. almost a "Huh" sound) Y (yellow) R (as in "are") J W

Hard consonants include:

Sh  S  T  Th (as in "thin")  K  G  H (as in Help)  P CH (cheese)

Blends

N    NG  Kh (gutteral K, pronounced in the back of the throat. Anytime an H follows a hard consonant or a vowel, it is in it's gutteral form)   H gutteral  Wh  TD  (cross, not quite either)  PB  PR ( as in "Rolled")  tZ (a hard Z. used in the word "Khad-Tzir".) tS (rushed S). RR (rolled R) is also considered a blended sound.

They do not have characters for all sounds.

Vowels
The Sajan have many of our standard vowel sounds. They organize these as well, along the patterns of wether a vowel is more voiced or not. They group those they think of as less voiced as "thin". They also group similar sounds.

Thin sounds

A (at) I (it)  Uh (cut. however, this vowel is said very quickly) Eh (set)
"Thick" sounds

Ah (saw, aha) Oh (snow)  Ey (also considered a blend of A (at) and Eh.) U (true)  O (shua, sometimes represented with "ah")

Alphabet
The Sajan make use of a modified Thravic script. It is extremely similar to the characters used in the north, and the Sajan also operate on a Base 10 system like their northern equivilants.