Anaseretic (Language)

**Anaseretic**, also sometimes referred to as **Standard Anaseretic** or **Anaseretian** is the only major language in the Anaseretic branch of the Ana-Ivacharian language family. The language was originally spoken by and originated from the inhabitants of early Helvetica sometime around the year 800-900 BCE. It is named after the continent of Anaseretica, as well as the country that it's the official language of by the same name, which is dominated by the Anaseretic people. Its vocabulary has been influenced by other Ana-Ivacharian languages, particularly Avalonese and Northern, however has often been considered where a lot of vocabulary is drawn from for other languages. It's usage spread from Helvetica into the newly settled lands in Sudaesitelevo and Danegall, and was easily adopted by the settlers as it was their native language; eventually spreading to all of Anaseretica and easily becoming the most dominant language on the continent and in the region. It is traditionally written in the Anaseretic Script, however in more common times has been written in a modified version of the more globally-common Golano Script. Anaseretic people as a people group originated in Gol, however migrated across the ocean and settled in the island of Helvetica sometime before the year 1000 BCE, which is why it has massive similarities to languages in Gol.

## Name

The term "Anaseretic" all originates from King Anaser, who ruled as King of the Helvetians from the year 399 BCE until his death in 351 BCE. King Anaser was an early promoter of a unified Anaseretic state, and at that point the region now known as the country of Anaseretica was all of the known world, so it didn't have a name within itself, however the name came to be out of King Anaser's concept. The term eventually became applied to the language, however the exact period when is unknown. The first written reference to the term "Anaseretic" being used for the language was in the document *"Tekstoj de Novaj Teroj"* which's authorship can be dated back to the year 378 BCE. Based on old documents numerous Linguists and Historians have come to the conclusion that major names for the language at the time were "Helvetalingvo*"* (when in context of other ethnic groups), or "Gramatiko" (often in domestic contexts), but Anaseretic caught on as it was no longer confined to the island of Helvetica, and was also no longer the only major language known by Anaseretians.

## Classification

Anaseretic's phonology, grammar, vocabulary, and semantics are similar on the Ana-Ivacharian languages spoken in Gol, with significant influence from native languages as well. The sound inventory is essentially based on the languages of native groups in Anaseretica such as Soburydonians, as is much of the semantics, whereas the vocabulary derives primarily from Rhenian and Ivacharian languages with minor contributions from other languages such as Traditional Soburydonian. However, Anaseretic has evolved independently of Golano intervention until fairly recently.

Anaseretic has been described as "a language lexically predominantly Golano, morphologically intensively agglutinative, and to a certain degree isolating in character". Typologically, Anaseretic has prepositions and a pragmatic word order that by default is *subject–verb–object* (SVO). Adjectives can be freely placed before or after the nouns they modify, though placing them before the noun is more common. New words are formed through extensive prefixing, suffixing, and compounding.

## Phonology

Anaseretic typically has 22 to 24 consonants (depending on the phonemic analysis and individual speaker), five vowels, and two semivowels that combine with the vowels to form six diphthongs. (The consonant /j/ and semivowel /i̯/ are both written *j*, and the uncommon consonant /dz/ is written with the digraph *dz*, which is the only consonant that doesn't have its own letter.) Tone is not used to distinguish meanings of words. Stress is always on the second-to-last vowel in proper anaseretic words, unless a final vowel *o* is elided, which occurs mostly in poetry. For example, '**familio'** "family" is [fa.mi.ˈli.o], with the stress on the second *i*, but when the word is used without the final '**o *(*famili’*),* the stress remains on the second *i*: [fa.mi.ˈli].**

### Consonants

* The sound /r/ is usually an alveolar trill [r], but can also be a uvular trill [ʀ], a uvular fricative [ʁ], and an alveolar approximant [ɹ]. Many other forms such as an alveolar tap [ɾ] are done and accepted in practice.
* The /v/ is normally pronounced like English *v,* but may be pronounced [ʋ] (between English *v* and *w*) or [w], depending on the language background of the speaker.
* A semivowel /u̯/ normally occurs only in diphthongs after the vowels /a/ and /e/, not as a consonant /w/.
* Common, if debated, assimilation includes the pronunciation of *nk* as [ŋk] and *kz* as [ɡz].

A large number of consonant clusters can occur, up to three in initial position (as in '**stranga'**, "strange") and five in medial position (as in *ekssklavo*, "former slave"). Final clusters are uncommon except in unassimilated names, poetic elision of final '**o*,* and a very few basic words such as '**cent' **"hundred" and '**post' **"after".**

### Vowels

Anaseretic has the five vowels found in such languages as Spanish, Swahili, Modern Hebrew, and Modern Greek.

 Mid
 Open

There are also two semivowels, /i̯/ and /u̯/, which combine with the monophthongs to form six falling diphthongs: '**aj*,* ej*,* oj*,* uj*,* aŭ*,* and *eŭ*.**

Since there are only five vowels, a good deal of variation in pronunciation is tolerated. For instance, *e* commonly ranges from [e] (French *é*) to [ɛ] (French *è*). These details often depend on the speaker's native language. A glottal stop may occur between adjacent vowels in some people's speech, especially when the two vowels are the same, as in '**heroo'** "hero" ([he.ˈro.o] or [he.ˈro.ʔo]) and '**praavo'** "great-grandfather" ([pra.ˈa.vo] or [pra.ˈʔa.vo]).

## Orthography

The Anaseretic language alphabet is traditionally based on the Anaseretic script, which has been in recorded use since over 500 BCE. However, recently it's been adopted to the more commonly used Golano script, both of which use a one-sound-one-letter principle, with the exception of [d͡z]. This section will be going over the Golano orthography and using that orthography, however for more information on the Anaseretic script see this page. It includes six letters with diacritics: ĉ, ĝ, ĥ, ĵ, ŝ (with a circumflex), and ŭ (with a breve). The alphabet does not include the letters *q, w, x,* or *y*, which are only used when writing unassimilated terms or proper names.

The 28-letter alphabet is:

#### Pronunciation

All unaccented letters are pronounced approximately as their respective IPA symbols, with the exception of *c*. Anaseretic *j* and *c* are used in a way familiar to speakers of Ivacharian and many Native languages, but unfamiliar to most English speakers: *j* has a *y* sound [j~i̯], as in ***y**ellow* and *bo**y**,* and *c* has a *ts* sound [t͡s], as in *hi**ts*** or the *zz* in *pi**zz**a*. In addition, Anaseretic *g* is always hard, as in ***g**ive*, and Anaseretic vowels are pronounced as in Spanish.

The accented letters are:

* *Ĉ* is pronounced like English *ch* in ***ch**atting*
* *Ĝ* is pronounced like English *g* in ***g**em*
* *Ĥ* is pronounced like the *ch* in German *Ba**ch*** or in the Scottish Gaelic, Scots and Scottish Standard English *lo**ch***. It is also found sometimes in Scouse as the 'k' in *boo**k*** and 'ck' in *chi**ck**en*.
* *Ĵ* is pronounced like the *s* in English *fu**s**ion* or the *J* in French ***J**acques*
* *Ŝ* is pronounced like English *sh*
* *Ŭ* is pronounced like English *w* and is primarily used after vowels (e.g. *antaŭ*)

## Grammar

Anaseretic words are mostly derived by stringing together roots, grammatical endings, and at times prefixes and suffixes. This process is regular so that people can create new words as they speak and be understood. Compound words are formed with a modifier-first, head-final order, as in English (compare "birdsong" and "songbird," and likewise, *birdokanto* and *kantobirdo*). Speakers may optionally insert an *o* between the words in a compound noun if placing them together directly without the *o* would make the resulting word hard to say or understand.

The different parts of speech are marked by their own suffixes: all common nouns end in *-o*, all adjectives in *-a*, all derived adverbs in *-e*, and all verbs except the jussive (or imperative) end in *-s*, specifically in one of six tense and mood suffixes, such as the present tense *-as*; the jussive mood, which is tenseless, ends in *-u*. Nouns and adjectives have two cases: nominative for grammatical subjects and in general, and accusative for direct objects and (after a preposition) to indicate direction of movement.

Singular nouns used as grammatical subjects end in *-o*, plural subject nouns in *-oj* (pronounced [oi̯] like English "oy"). Singular direct object forms end in *-on*, and plural direct objects with the combination *-ojn* ([oi̯n]; rhymes with "coin"): *-o* indicates that the word is a noun, *-j* indicates the plural, and *-n* indicates the accusative (direct object) case. Adjectives agree with their nouns; their endings are singular subject *-a* ([a]; rhymes with "ha!"), plural subject *-aj* ([ai̯], pronounced "eye"), singular object *-an*, and plural object *-ajn* ([ai̯n]; rhymes with "fine").

The suffix *-n*, besides indicating the direct object, is used to indicate movement and a few other things as well.

The six verb inflections consist of three tenses and three moods. They are present tense *-as*, future tense *-os*, past tense *-is*, infinitive mood *-i*, conditional mood *-us* and jussive mood *-u* (used for wishes and commands). Verbs are not marked for person or number. Thus, *kanti* means "to sing", *mi kantas* means "I sing", *vi kantas* means "you sing", and *ili kantas* means "they sing".

Word order is comparatively free. Adjectives may precede or follow nouns; subjects, verbs and objects may occur in any order. However, the article *la* "the", demonstratives such as *tiu* "that" and prepositions (such as *ĉe* "at") must come before their related nouns. Similarly, the negative *ne* "not" and conjunctions such as *kaj* "and" and *ke* "that" must precede the phrase or clause that they introduce. In copular (A = B) clauses, word order is just as important as in other languages: "people are animals" is distinguished from "animals are people".

## Vocabulary

### Sample Text

The following short extract gives an idea of the character of Anaseretic. (Pronunciation is covered above; the Anaseretic letter *j* is pronounced like English *y*.)

La Insuloj de Hiĉioj estas tre bela loko por pasigi semajnfinajn feriojn, se vi iam volas ien. Ĝi estas bela, kaj havas bonegajn vidojn de la oceano kaj la maro. Ĝi ne estas tiom malproksime de Helvetio kaj la vigla homamasoj de Teepost, kaj ĝi estas mirinda loko por simple foriri de ĉio. Venu kaj vizitu la Insulojn de Hiĉioj hodiaŭ!

English Translation:

The Hiĉioj Islands are a great place to spend a weekend getaway if you ever want to go anywhere. It is beautiful, and has great views of the ocean and the sea. It’s not that far from Helvetica and the lively crowds of Teepost, and it’s a wonderful place to just get away from it all. Come and visit the Hiĉioj Islands today!

Simple phrases