Packilvanian language
| Packilvanian | |
|---|---|
| luTamuk aluBakilfaniya | |
 | |
| Created by | None |
| Date | Unknown |
| Ethnicity | Packilvanians, Alleghenians, Drakkengardians |
| Users | 1.1 billion to 1.5 billion |
| Purpose | Concordo-Yastero-Auroran
|
Early forms | Middle Packilvanian
|
Standard forms | Imperial Standard Packilvanian
|
| Dialects |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
The Packilvanian language (Packilvanian: luTamuk luBakhilfaniya) is language spoken predominantly in Central Yasteria. It is the sole official language of Packilvania, a co-official language in Hadena and Phoenixia, and a regionally recognised language of Drakkengard. Due to the Packilvanian diaspora, Packilvanian is spoken in many other countries around the world. The Packilvanian Language Board (PLB) is responsible for the teaching, recording, and oversight of the Packilvanian language in Packilvania and its territories. Packilvanian is not a unified language but consists of hundreds of dialects and local varieties. As such, under the rule of the Bedonite dynasty the PLB working with academics from universities, developed Imperial Standard Packilvanian (ISP), which is a version based on the Bingol dialect and is used for official purposes, news and formal education. It supplanted Modern Standard Packilvanian which was the variety used by the Packilvanian Communist Party government. The estimated total population of speakers is 1.5 billion first language speakers.
Standard Modern Packilvanian is regarded as an agglutinative synthetic language as many affixes are appended to roots to impart and alter their meaning. Verbs are marked for 5 aspects (technically the unmarked form is the perfect none-past relative time) and 6 moods (of which the associative and applicative moods are rarely used). Nouns are marked for class (2), number (2), negation (1) and case (5, except for the "pure case" unless the object is at the head of the clause). There are no true adjectives and adverbs as descripts and modifiers do not require a copula. They typically follow the word that they are describing.
Packilvanian is written in the Packilvanian script whose print or block version is an alphabet but whose cursive form is an abjad. Packilvanian uses a base 12 counting system and has 3 number types. The usual structure of sentences is the SVO model however some constructions use VSO. The language also uses a distinct solar-lunar calendar that uses 20-hour days, 72-minute hours, and 12-day weeks.
This language is generally regarded as difficult for speakers of Staynish-Codexian to learn due to the heavy use of agglutination, however, many roots have cognates and there is speculation that Staynish-Codexian diverged from an ancestor of Ancient Packilvanian at least 8,000 years ago as humans migrated to Aurora and South East Yasteria due to Feline encroachment.
Name
The language known as Packilvanian in Staynish is normally referred to as the Imperial Language or luTamuk luShahitishme (since the Bedonite dynasty) or as the Standard Language or luTamuk luYasas in some modern dictionaries or as luTamuk ameShabil or the People's Language (during the Communist era). The only time that the term luTamuk aBakhilfaniya (Packilvanian language) is used is when someone is giving a list or comparison or having a discussion about more than one language including Packilvanian. In Packilvania, there is no distinct widely agreed word for dialect so the term luTamuk (which more precisely means speech) is used for various dialects which are named after where the language originates e.g., Fidakarian is called luTamuk aFidakar. Outside of Mekedesh and Bingol, Packilvanian is actually referred to as luTamuk aluShtar amuShultan or more simply luTamuk amuShultan which mean the Capital City's Language or the Sultan's Language respectively. Ironically, the dialect spoke in Makobar, Kharyat which is where the Bedonite dynasty comes from is not known as the Sultan's Language or the Imperial Language.
History
There is evidence that there were hundreds of languages spoken throughout Central Yasteria that belong to the same historical language family going back over 20,000 years. This so-called Proto-Packilvanian language family was spoken by hunter-gatherer nomadic Bone and Stone Age civilisations.
The first recorded evidence of Packilvanian is an early manuscript of the Ichtmar, the first religious text of Paxism and one of the oldest continuously used written religious texts in the world. The Ichtmar is said to have been written either directly by Prophet Besmali or his disciples. It contains a transcription of oral folk beliefs that were prevalent in the Ashura region of Packilvania at the time. The document is estimated to have originated approximately 4,000 years ago. It is written in Ancient Akas Akilian (an ancestor of modern Packilvanian) which is believed to gave been the true ancestor language of Packilvanian.
The writing of the Ichtmar and the spread of Contemporary Paxism, during an era in which the first kingdoms and agrarian societies were being established, gave to the formation of more centralised versions of the language. The writing of the Vagumar over 3000 years ago by Suleiman of Yehudah led to the popularity of Classical Yehudian as the language of formal writing and high society in ancient Packilvania. Additions made to the Vagumar over 2000 years ago, following the meteor strike in Ashura which nearly destroyed the Memorial of the Jovian Gate, gave rise to the proliferation of Classical Ashurian as the language of scholarship and religion.
Starting with Iktan the Devout, the Kingdom of Bakil began an aggressive expansion throughout Central Yasteria. They spread the Middle Bakilian dialect of Packilvanian throughout their empire which was a daughter language of Classical Ashurian. Middle Bakilian became the language of state and military affairs, giving its name to the Packilvanian language. The invention of more durable forms of paper during the reign of the Iktanite dynasty gave rise to a literary form of Packilvanian known as Iktanite Packilvanian. This was further strengthened and consolidated when the Magisterium of Paxism was established under Melkezedek the Great to oversee Paxism. When the Iktanite dynasty fell around 1000 CE, Iktanite Packilvanian was the main version of the language. A version of this known as Liturgical Packilvanian remains the standard form used for religious reasons.
When Ishak the Great established the second Packilvanian empire, he moved his court from Tashkar to Bingol. The Tashkarian dialect became the main dialect of Packilvanian and supplanted Iktanite Packilvanian by giving rise to Zubraynite Packilvanian. The invention of the printing press and the proliferation of formal education further strengthened the standardisation of Packilvanian. Under Saidun the Conqueror, the Demirite dynasty overthrew the Zubraynite dynasty and introduced Halalerian Packilvanian as the court and government language. It was during their reign that serious attempts at standardisation were undertaken giving rise to the Modern Standard Packilvanian. It was the first time the name "Packilvanian" was used to describe the languages of Packilvania and the first real attempt to suppress other varieties.
When the Communist Party took over in 1917, Gideon Muktan believed in language as a tool for political liberation through literacy. As such, the Communist Party introduced a simpler version of Packilvanian for everyone to learn. This was known as Common Standard Packilvanian. When the Bedonite dynasty under Amhoud I took over in 1985, they introduced Makobarian Packilvanian as the language of the court. This gave rise to the current version of mainstream Packilvanian known as Imperial Standard Packilvanian. People do not typically learn ISP as a spoken language except when working in formal contexts. With the rise of the Internet and modern education, Imperial Standard Packilvanian is being increasingly spoken as a first language by the young. Furthermore, immigrants into Packilvania learn ISP.
Phonology
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Mid | ɛ (e) | ɔ (o) | |
| Open | a |
Vowels can have long forms as follows:
- Close back long form: oo (Moon)
- Open central long form: aa (Barn)
- Close front long form: ee (Been)
Vowels have a short form as well:
- After approximates and nasal phonemes or at the ends of words |a| and |e| are reduced to a schwa.
Consonants
| Labial | Labiodental | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Palato-alveolar | Postalveolar | Velar | Glottal | Uvular | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ng | ||||||||
| Plosive | Voiced | b | d | g | |||||||
| Voiceless | p | t | k | q | |||||||
| Affricate | Voiced | dh (ejective) | j (voiced) | ||||||||
| Voiceless | th (ejective) | ts | ch (ejective) | ||||||||
| Fricative | Voiced | v | dh | z (sibilant) | jh | ||||||
| Voiceless | f | s (sibilant) | sh | h | |||||||
| Approximant | l | y | w | ||||||||
| Trill | r | ||||||||||
Although this is the Standard repository of consonants, certain consonants can morph based on the accent as follows:
- Q, the voiceless uvular plosive, can be pronounced as the voiceless ejective affricate
- H, the Voiceless glottal fricative, can be pronounced as a voiced glottal stop or voiceless uvular fricative
- The SH sound can be any Voiceless postalveolar fricative except for the Voiceless retroflex fricative.
- The JH sound can be either a Voiced palato-alveolar fricative or a voiced retroflex fricative.
- The D sound is more accurately a Voiced denti-alveolar plosive but can be pronounced as a Voiced alveolar plosive in some accents.
- The TH sound can be a Voiceless non-sibilant dental plosive. It can be pronounced as a Voiceless dental fricative in some accents. It is distinct from the T sound.
Phonotactics
In Packilvanian, the default stress is on the penultimate syllable of the world unless shifted by a long vowel. Consonant clusters of more than three distinct consonantal sounds are nonexistent. A word cannot end in a long vowel. The letter "h" is pronounced as a sibilant at the start of a word and if in the middle of a word it is surrounded by vowels. It is pronounced as an aspirant at the end of words or after voiceless consonants if in the middle of the word. Although Packilvanian permits consonant clusters of 2 consonants, not all possible permutations of 2-consonant clusters are allowed. Nasal consonants cannot precede any other consonant. Long vowels cannot form part of a diphthong. Not all these phonotactics are applicable in all accents.
Orthography
Packilvanian is written in the Packilvanian Script which comes in two official forms: the Cursive and Regular versions. The Regular version is an alphabet as every glyph represents either a consonant or a vowel. In contrast, the Cursive version is a hybrid abjad that uses diacritics to mark vowels in the middle of words. Vowels are only written when they appear as the first letter of a word. Vowels can be omitted altogether in Cursive as is regularly the case in most settings as the vowels can be inferred by the reader. The letter "I" is technically not represented at all and must be inferred in some texts. Languages that use Packilvanian Script can adapt it to suit their needs. For instance, languages that have diphthongs can use multiple diacritics on top of each other to represent those sounds. Languages that devoice or prenasalize sounds can use appropriate diacritics. Thus, Packilvanian can act as a universal phonetic-based writing style for any language in the world. Cursive Packilvanian can be written without lifting the hand except to add diacritics making it highly efficient for languages that are typically written on paper or parchment.
Grammar
Nouns consists of a stem or root word to which affixes are added to indicate case (there are five cases o-, a-, ye-, we-, and kha- for the accusative, genitive, instrumental, locative and infitive respectively) class or gender (there are two classes m- and l- for sentient and non-sentient nouns respectively), number (there are two numbers u- and e- for single and plural respectively although the archaic o- exists for uncountables), and relationship (through demonstratives -qa for distal or that and arid for proximal or this). Verbs are also built around stems and they take on the class and number of the noun they are related to through taking on the same prefixes. They are suffixed with markers for mood (-fi, -ki, -shalv, -bur, -qar and -fiya or -miya for the interrogative, imperative, reciprocal, applicative, subjunctive and causative moods) and aspect (-l, -d, -s and -m for the non-past continuous and past habitual, continuous and perfect respectively).
Pronouns can either be prefixes are standalone words. Usually, pronouns are standalone words only when marked for the locative, genitive, and instrumental cases else they are prefixes. There are pronouns for first (mi- single, wa- plural inclusive and sil- plural exclusive), second (du- single and zu- plural) and third person (dhu- single and ish- plural). Although the language makes use of postpositions, because of the locative case, they are usually not necessary. Numbers are in three forms: counting, ordinals (-t or -tet suffix) and frequentials (-shan suffix). Numbers are base 12 with words for base 12^2, base 12^3, base 12^4, base 12^5 and base 12^6. Although using the Common Era calendar and 12 months, the language uses 12 day weeks, 24 day or 2 week months, 72 minute hours and 20 hour days.
Vocabulary
The vocabulary of Packilvanian has been influenced by a variety of factors. Over 80% of the words are of Central Yasterian origin. Of these, 50% originate from Bingol-Mekedesh and 30% from the ancient Languages of Ashura. Some words originate from Ethalrian such as words for cinema (kino), train station (baan which is cognate to Bahnhof) and train (tsurkh which is derived from Züg). Some words originate from Unonian such as foreign language (lavees from Ilvesu).
Packilvanian shares words with Staynish that originated from a common source such as hamiy (blood, which relates to the term haemo- such as in haemorrhage) and praman (road, relating to promenade). Some terms, it is believed that Packilvanian influenced Staynish especially in the legal area such as khanon (canon such as law or accepted body of knowledge), and khavnan (covenant, meaning agreement and commitment). Some words it is unclear which language influence which such as slamiya (religion, which is distantly related to psalm) and yistubil (stable, such as a barn). There are words which have entered Packilvanian from Staynish such as ikonomiya (economy), yumabaas (embassy) and khomishayin (commission).
The canon of Packilvanian vocabulary is determined every year by the Packilvanian Language Board through the publication of updates to the luKitab luMalayka aleKalima aluTamuk luShahitishme aBakhilfaniya (Official Book of Words of the Imperial Language of Packilvania). In reality, there are words which enter the language through colloquial or academic use especially in the sciences that are not always recorded by the PLB.
Different professional bodies will also have their own jargon. For instance, the Information Technology Professionals Association of Packilvania has words such as letabaqa which normally means layers but refers to the computer development stack. There has been a nativist movement in Packilvania whereby multiple words are grouped together to form new terms such as shugulmahar (professional, formed from the words for "worker" and "skilled"), yadadhakiy (technology, formed from yada meaning "tool" and dhakiy meaning "clever") and sahihkhaznam (information, from sahih meaning "truth" and khaznam meaning treasured).
Packilvanian has a tendency to construct words out of three consonant clusters. For example the words for slamiya (religion), silam (solitude) and ashamiliya (assimilate) all originate from sh/s-l-m. To form verbs from nouns with 3 consonants and 2 syllables, there is a tendency to remove the vowel of the second syllable and add an "a" to the end e.g., yamal means "action" and yamla means "to act" (also spelt eamil and eamla).
Some times "fiya" is added to show a verb that transforms its object e.g., ikhtifiya means to "make one" or "unite". A variation of this is "miya" which has a similar function such as ikhtimiya which means "unique" or "to set alone". "ishme" is added to show a state of being such as mamlukumishme which means "royal" or "that which is made to be like a king" or Paxashme which means Paxism (or "which is like Pax"). "han" is often added to indicate a place name such Askarahan or "esh" such as Mekedesh or "iya" such as Bakhilfaniya or "ar" such as Shakar, Fidakar, or Ukanar or "yat" such as Rigaryat or Kharyat.
Some words retain old spellings such as Ichtmar or Mochtan which should be spelt "Ikhtmar" or "Mokhtan" or Tashqar which should be spelt "Tashkar" to reflect modern spelling conventions for their pronunciation. Some words are rarely spelt like the official books say. E.g., eamil (action) is normally spelt yamil and asasi (standard) is normally spelt yasasi.
Some words are incorrectly Staynicised. For example bidha means to create. It looks like "dh" is one sound as in "dhakiy" but it should be bid-ha which is how it is spelt in the Packilvanian script. In the Staynicised transliteration, some letters which would be one letter in Packilvanian are multiple letters such as jh, dh, th, ts, ch, kh, etc.
Packilvanian also has dialects, some of which are very difficult for native speakers of Packilvanian to understand. In Fidakar, they have a dialect where a word such as khaman (official announcement) would be qyumngwen (which has phonotactic not seen in ordinary standard Packilvanian) or mamlukumiyat (kingdom) which would be nyangwuk in Fidakarian.
Visit this link for an up to date dictionary: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OlBRHpZkPQGWM6oeTPDqFAJ5Q6T5mePNhINnhVyuLjE/edit?usp=sharing
You can also have a look at the List of Packilvanian legal terms.
For a list of the Packilvanian translations of all the world's country names have a look at list of countries in Packilvanian
Common phrases
- Greetings: Both greetings when leaving and staying are simply Ashamiliya
- Showing appreciation: Shukraan (which directly translates to "grateful" and is a shortened form of the phrase "Mishukraan" which means I am grateful, or "Washukraan" which means we are grateful)
- Asking for directions: lu[INSERT LOCATION] lulakhtamfi? (meaning "The [INSERT LOCATION] is located where?" or "Where is [INSERT LOCATION]"). For example:
- I am lost: Nelakhtamshalv
- Where is the cinema: luKino lulakthamfi? (informal) or luYeraan aluyudiyzujaj lulakhtamfi? (formal)
- Where is the train station: luBaan lulakhtamfi? (informal) or luYistubil aleShareedmasar lulakthamfi? (formal)
- Where is the embassy: luYumabaas lulakhtamfi? (informal) or luBawaab aleLahdazayeen lulakhtamfi? (formal)
- Where is the hotel: luYot'hal lulakhtamfi? (informal) or luYistubil ameZiyara lulakhtamfi ? (formal)
- Where is the stadium: luKhladitaryum lulakhtamfi? (informal) or luYeraan aleLayeeb lulakhtamfi?
- Where is the restaurant: luYaklama lulakhtamfi (informal) or luKhama aluyaklas lulakhtamfi?
- Where is the grocery store: luBazaaryakul lulakhtamfi?
- At the store:
- I would like [to order] [INSERT ITEM]: Mirakhbas lu[INSERT ITEM] e.g. luFalaful (falafel), luZafrayeen (saffron), luLad'hu (ladoo)
- I am looking for [INSERT THING]: Minazralakhat lu/le/mu/me[INSERT ITEM] e.g., luHalibsayeeb (cheese), luHalibsamik (cream), luHalibtakhmar (yoghurt)
- This will cost [INSERT AMOUNT]:
leGaradarud leqeertalimat ledinar lesaank (These items demand 5 dinar)
- Here is your change: leDinar letabaqiya (Your residual money).
- Apologizing:
- Fadleeki [min] (Excuse me, when you're trying to be very polite)
- Gafiraki [min] (Forgive me, used for something not serious like if you're late)
- Rahmaniyaki [min] (Be merciful to me or have mercy on me, is used for something serious).
- Miqadmashalv (I judge myself, admitting guilt for a deliberate wrong)
- Midhanabam (I was mistaken, admitting committing an unintentional action)
- Mineyasmam yeluihtiram (I did not handle with with care, admitting guilt for negligence I.e., unintentional lack duty of care)
- Miqadmashalv yeneluyasmam yeluihtiram (Admitting guilt for a deliberate reneging on a responsibility to show duty or care)
- Honorifics
- Mister (generic male honorific): muSheikh
- Married woman: muSheikha
- Unmarried woman: muYadhaar
- Getting around
- I am taking the [INSERT TRANSPORT]: Miyadhaabeqa yelu[INSERT TRANSPORT] e.g., luShareed (car), luShareedmasar (train), luDaw (ferry), luYasamsayah (airplane)
- I am going to the [INSERT PLACE OF INTEREST]: Miyadhaabeqa welu[INSERT PLACE OF INTEREST] e.g., luBazaargur (market or mall), luBayeetgur aluLayeeb (resort), luYistubil aluHayah (hospital)
- [INSERT PLACE] is on [INSERT DIRECTION] lu[INSERT PLACE] welu[INSERT DIRECTION]: luYistubil aleJuriyhayah weluyasar (The pharmacy is on the right), luBinahdhakra weluhaqun (The monument is on the right), Bingol weluXiden (Bingol is to the west), Medayin weluKeraat (Medayin is to the north), Akhastar weluVoral (Akhastar is to the south),Seerahel weluRayunt (Seerahel is to the east)