Ethuayna

**Ethuayna** is a Muaran language, and one of the two official languages of the Republic of Muara, in addition to Ecumene Lexicon.

One of the most distinct members of the West Concourse language family, it appears to have originated on pre-Rhyan Muara as an occult language of early Muaran witches and pagan priests, now known as **Mystic Ethuayna**. It subsequently overtook and syncretized with standard Aoshanti to become the dominant language of Leasora during the Muaran Dark Ages, and soon after became the *lingua franca* of the rest of the Muaran world.

While modern Ethuayna has a native, novel alphabet evolved from that of Mystic Ethuayna, it is typically written or taught in the modern day in loosely modified forms using the Aoshanti or West Concourse alphabets, to better facilitate bilingualism between Ethuayna and either Aoshanti or Lexicon.

The Ophai language is also derived from Mystic Ethuayna, albeit without many Aoshanti loanwords and with much more significant linguistic drift.

## Elements

### Tone

Tone in Ethuayna is expressed in a number of key ways:

* The articulation of vowel digraphs, such as ua or ue. The **seelie** tone, used to indicate informality or playfulness, expresses them as a single syllable (i.e. Ta-**hue**-na-ta), whereas the **aseelie** tone, which indicates politeness and formality, distinguishes them as separate syllables (i.e. Ta-**hu-e**-na-ta). In writing, the latter is typically displayed with a diacritic over the letter which lacks an attached consonant.
* The articulation of consonant digraphs, such as th or sh. The **iseelie** tone, which conveys a "default" pleasantness and amicability, expresses them together (i.e. i-**eth**-a), while the **unseelie** tone, which may convey discomfort or anger, separates them (i.e. i-**et-ha**). In writing, the latter is displayed with an apostrophe between the separated letters.
* The intersection of tones from either scale can indicate different variations of the broader tone. For instance, speaking in seelie-unseelie, being both impersonal and negative, is commonly reserved for sadness, pain, and apology, while aseelie-unseelie is more indicative of anger, hostility, or disciplinary speech.
* Tonal "impact" can scale with word choice, as not every word in Ethuayna features the relevant digraphs. Typically, a more digraph-saturated sentence will convey a more intense tone, while a less-saturated, nearly atonal sentence will convey a more neutral or undefined tone.

Using Ethuayna's tonal articulation for words in other languages is common among bilingual or polyglot Muarans.

Sarcasm and jokes in Ethuayna are typically delivered in aseelie, but with a seelie "twinge," often near the end of a sentence or in the punchline.

## Vocabulary

### Honorifics

The honorifics Kíne/Kýr/Kýnd are used as the feminine, masculine, and neutral equivalents of "Sir" in Ethuayna. These may be abbreviated as Kn./Kr./Kd.

## Related Languages

For the purposes of **Linguistics** proficiencies, the following languages are similar to  **Ethuayna**:

* Ophai
* Aoshanti
* Makhairan
* Henosian

Fluent speakers of Ethuayna may learn  **Mystic Ethuayna** 0 without a book, but gain no other benefits to learning the obscure language.