Asharap

**This is a fictional language.**
This article covers a fictional language, and does not exist in the real world.

## Asharap Language

Āśharap Bhasa

Flag of the Socialist Party of Oriental Realm (SPOR), a party that uses Asharap as its official language.

**Asharap** (*Āśharap*) is one of the two official languages of the fictional country of Orient, the other being English. It is also the official language of the Socialist Party of Oriental Realm.

Asharap was invented in the year 2020 with the purpose of uniting the various peoples of South Asia and Southeast Asia to combat the threat of climate change. It takes vocabulary from 43 different languages spoken across south and southeast Asia (Acehnese, Assamese, Balinese, Baloch, Bangla, Bhojpuri, Bodo, Burmese, Dari, Dogri, Filipino, Gujarati, Hindi, Hmong, Indonesian, Javanese, Kannada, Kashmiri, Khmer, Konkani, Laotian, Maithili, Malay, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Odiya, Pashto, Punjabi, Santhali, Saraiki, Sindhi, Sinhalese, Shan, Sundanese, Tamang, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Tharu, Vietnamese, Urdu and Uzbek).

Asharap is currently written in the Roman script. However, for the sake of greater national identity with the language by its speakers, an effort is currently ongoing to construct a S*aṅġī* (*Saṅġ* is Asharap for unity) script for the language.

## Etymology

The first syllable of ‘Āśharap’, ‘Āś’, comes from ‘Asha’ which means ‘hope’ in several Indian languages. The ‘harap’ comes from ‘berharap’ which also means hope in Malay and Indonesian. In other words, the name of the language means hope in that very language.

## Phonology

Asharap has 18 vowels (hidupbȯrṇolu) and 36 consonants (matibȯrṇolu). The letters of Asharap have been given below with their respective equivalent International Phonetic Alphabets (IPA).

**Vowels**

**Consonants**

**Consonant clusters**

Asharap also has a rising tone and a falling tone.

Rising tones are represented by an accent over a vowel (such as the á in pár). Rising tones require starting from a lower pitch and steadily rising to a slightly higher pitch.

Falling tones, on the other hand, are represented by a grave over a vowel (such as the ù in dùx). Falling tones require starting from a high pitch and steadily falling to a slightly lower pitch.

## Grammar

### Nouns and adjectives

The suffix *-kal* is added to singular nouns ending with consonants and the suffix *-lu* is added to singular nouns ending with vowels to make them plural.

Asharap is generally considered a subject-object-verb (SOV) language similar to Sanskrit and Tamil.

 Words
 Gloss
 Parts
 Translation

However, the word order in Asharap is quite flexible. Both '*Ānand acarkal tinu na*' and '*Ānand tinu na acarkal*' mean the same.

Often, suffixes *-ī* and *-ia* are added to nouns and adjectives to forn nouns denoting a property or state of being. For instance, suffix *-ī* is added to *dost* (friend) to turn it into *dostī* (friendship) and suffix *-ia* is added to *manuḥ* (human) to turn it into *manuḥia* (humanity).

Meanwhile, the prefix *ber-* is often used to transform nouns to adjectives. Adding the prefix *ber-* to *emas* (gold), for instance, gives *beremas* (golden).

Finally, the suffix *-an* is added to some verbs to transform them into nouns. For instance, adding the suffix *-an* to *bilaṅ* (to count) makes it *bilaṅan* (number).

### Pronouns

Pronouns in Asharap are as follows:

 2nd person (formal)
 2nd person (informal)
 3rd person
 Indefinite
 Reflexive

Possessive adjectives are denoted by the adjectival suffix *-dā*. *Medā* is 'my', *meludā* is 'our' and *siyaludā* is 'their's'.

### Tenses

There are 9 tenses in the Asharap language. The tenses have all been explained below with their respective English translations.

Note that past and present continuous tenses are determined by the personal pronoun (1st person, 2nd person and third person).

### Compounds

Asharap follows a fixed set of rules for compounds of two words.

If the first word ends with a vowel and the second word starts with a consonant or if the first word ends with a consonant and the second word starts with a vowel, the two words are simply compounded together. For instance, *gȯ* (cow) and *śab* (flesh) can simply be compounded together to make *gȯśab* (beef).

On the other hand, if the first word ends with a consonant and the second word starts with a consonant, the letter *i* is used to separate the two words when they are compounded together. For instance, *air* (water) and *bhay* (fear) are compounded together to make *airibhay* (hydrophobia).

Finally, if the first word ends with a consonant and the second word starts with a vowel, the syllable *iḣ* is used to separate the two words when they are compounded together. For instance, *câṅ* (foot) and *aṅgul* (finger) are compounded together to make *câṅiḣaṅgul* (toe).

### Numeric System

Asharap has a very sophisticated numeric system that allows counting upto 1090.

Numbers 0-20 are as follows.

Numbers from 21 to 99 are written as the 'first digit' followed by 'ten' followed by the 'second digit'. 21 is written as 'dua sìp ik' and 45 is written as 'cār sìp lima'.

Higher numbers are represented as follows.

## Translations

An Asharap translation of the United Declaration of Human Rights has recently been completed by Anindo Mahmud. In Asharap, it is called 'Manuḥihakkal Ki Berbrohmāṇḍo Ġośit'.

Anindo Mahmud has also translated several poems into Asharap and recited them on his YouTube channel.

## Sample Text

The following is a sample text in Asharap of Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

**Asharap in the romanized Asharap alphabet**

**Dhārā 1:** Anni manuḥkal martabat ār hakkal lo āzā̀d ār samān janma ho na. Siyaludā koḷ ho na wajah ār zamīr, ār siya pasti ācaroṇ kar jā sa onnolu sa kakakia ki semaṅat.

**Asharap in the International Phonetic Alphabet**

dʱa:ɾa: ik | an:i manukʰkal maɾt̪abat̪ āɾ hak:al lo a:za:˩d̪ a:ɾ sama:n janma ho na | si:alud̪a: koḷ ho na wajah a:ɾ zami:ɾ | a:ɾ si:a past̪i a:caɾoṇ kaɾ ja: sa onnolu sa kakakia ki semaŋat̪

**Gloss**

**Clause 1:** All humans respect and rights in free and equal birth be. Their near be reason and conscience, and they definitely behave do will with others with brotherhood's spirit.

**Translation**

**Article 1:** All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They possess conscience and reason. Therefore, everyone should act in a spirit of brotherhood towards each other.