Asarāvijāyan Language

Known infamously as one of Rathnir's most difficult to learn and outright confusing languages, the **Heiganákèdài** (literally meaning: "written word") is a complex mixture of vowels, diacritics, and consonants, each with their own individual characters. These characters are then merged to create combined sounds which also have their own visual representation respectfully. The Heiganákèdài possesses a total of 157 written characters, and is a result of the cultural diffusion between many different ethnic groups during the migration following the great floods of the forested lowlands.

## **Cultural Origins**

In the ancient times, the ancestral predecessors of Asarāvijā's modern day population had lived far and wide, spread across the historically isolated continent of Plagos. The earliest instance of the invention of writing can be traced back the ancestors of the **Hagaeté** ethnic group, whom had inhabited the mountainous plateau that later became the seat of political power of the modern Asarāvijāyan government. These highlanders used a system of pictographic runes which would be carved onto natural surfaces like rock or bark, and were originally used to mark territorial claims before they would later become the backbone of Asarāvijāyan written phonetics.

Southwest of the Hagaema steppes and alpines, a flourishing group of lowland civilizations known as the **Shangté** people had inhabited the birch forests that span a large portion of the Plagosian landmass. The broad majority of Shangté groups had their own language system, but unlike that of the highlanders, their language was passed down through memory, and spoken only. Thus, there could be no consistency in these tribes' languages, making the phonetic differences between even the tribes much more individualized.

When the yearly monsoons of the forested lowlands brought a large flood which submerged the many coastal civilizations of the Sangté ethnic majority, countless lives had been lost. Those who survived had begun to migrate northeast, towards the Hagaema plateau, bringing their cultures and languages with them. The agricultural innovations of these Shangté tribes played a major role in the later prospering of highland civilizations and the formation of advanced city states, most individuals had also adapted to the spoken and written languages of the Hagaetéan ethnic groups.

## **Character Usage**

Although there exists the combined sound characters, the symbols for the 22 consonants and five vowels can also be used individually to spell out words if needed be. The design of the combined sounds and diacritic characters is based around the appearances of the consonants and vowel characters, as they appear to be amalgamations of the simpler characters. The diacritics are also represented by unique particles, which if inserted at the end of a combined sound or singular vowel, will not only change the tonality of the character, but the complete meaning of a word if used in a sentence.

There is no concept of punctuality. Instead, the written language of Asarāvijā will use words to end sentences, sounds which are distorted or shortened versions of their original word. Instead of a period, a particle written as "nàk" is present at the end of a sentence. This is a shortened version of the word "nàkhme" which in Asarāvijāyan language means "end." Rather than a question mark, a Asarāvijāyan sentence will have the particle "gǒi," an altered variation of the word "gōime" which translates to: "what." A colon is written as "kuina", an alteration of the word "khuǐnámi," which is a verb meaning: "to present."

## **Regional Dialects**

As a fairly large country, the Asarāvijāyan language is not quite that consistent, and is spoken or written differently depending on the region in question. When the city states of the Hagaema province became an imperial power formerly known as the Tsaliyakhan Empire, the spread of highland mixed cultures became mainstream to the conquered Shangté groups, along with it the cultural aspects like religion and architecture. The Shangté majority still had spoken in their memory-based phonetics, and had difficulties in adjusting to the system of reading and writing. Their language system was more underdeveloped, having less consonants and no tonality, when spoken, the Shangté dialects' tones are flat and consistent, but also far more guttural. This dialect became known as the Tsangitéshindà, literally meaning: "forest dwellers' tongue."

The Tsaliyakhan Empire had spread out in all directions, covering nearly all of the Plagosian continent, which outside of the central regions of the empire, had been occupied only by a nomadic majority later known as the **Tani** People, their race name given by Asarāvijāyan scouts, originally as a derogatory slang translating to "outsider." The Tani people, rather than being enslaved or subjugated harshly, were given high-ranking occupations as cartographers, due to their advanced knowledge of Plagosian geography and the many seas around the landmass. It was because of Tani nomads that the Tsaliyakhurugori Empire were able to get a better understanding of the vast outside world. For the first time, Asarāvijā's people were able to confirm the existence of other continents beyond Plagos. But even after the fall of this imperial power, the Tani people held on to parts of the Asarāvijāyan language, but also kept the knowledge of the making of Tsaliyakhan maritime technologies with them, causing a split in the Tani majority between those who migrated on lands and those who traveled overseas. The seafaring nomads became multi-linguists, but consequentially the knowledge of their native Asarāvijāyan language begun to fade away, which is why the Tani people speak in broken or minimalized Asarāvijāyan phrases, dropping consonants and tonal phonetics all together.