Léna Language
| Léna | |
|---|---|
| Language family | Hakhpha |
| Writing system | Latin Alphabet Cyrillic Alphabet (sporadic) |
| Official status | |
| Spoken in | Hárǝsi (national) Coldba (recognised) |
| Regulated by | Hárǝsi Xánǝc uwArássezú (Hárǝsi Ministry of Culture) |
| Speaker | |
| Demonym | Léna, Énnga uLéna |
| Number of speakers | unknown |
| Technical information | |
| Language code | LEN |
Léna /lé.na/ is a Western Hakhpha language spoken primarily in Hárǝsi, where it is the majority national language. It is also a recognised minority language in the Empire of Coldba.
Classification
The Hakhpha language family comprises two main branches, Eastern and Western, the latter containing both Léna and the Kkeṛhaqom language spoken in central and eastern Coldba. Léna itself is a polydialectal language with four main dialect groups spoken throughout the urheimat (i.e. Hárǝsi and the small amount of overspill across the border into Coldba), with the standard variety being based on the dialect of the largest city Ƨxeylá.
Phonology
Consonants
Standard Léna has 30 phonemic consonants.
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | plain | m | n | ŋ | ||
| labialised | ŋʷ | |||||
| Plosive | plain | p b | t d | k g | ||
| labialised | kʷ gʷ | |||||
| Affricate | t͡s d͡z | c͡ɕ ɟ͡ʑ | ||||
| Fricative | f | s z | ɕ ʑ | x ɣ | h | |
| Liquid | plain | w | r | j | (w) | |
| labialised | rʷ | |||||
| Lateral | l | ʎ | ||||
All consonants except /ʎ/ and /h/ can be geminated and are pronounced longer than their ungeminated counterparts. Geminated /w/ is very rare however.
Velar fricatives /x, ɣ/ are realised advanced [x̟, ɣ̟] around front vowels /e, i/.
Labialised consonants (including /w/) cannot usually interact with high vowels /i, u/, except in some very rare cases where they would cluster with /j/ and the vowel /i/ is inserted, such as in the name of the town Gwiyƨxxǝp.
Vowels
Standard Léna has 7 phonemic vowel qualities and distinguishes two phonemic tones.
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i | ɨ | u |
| Mid | e | ǝ | o |
| Low | a | ||
Central vowels /ɨ, ǝ/ are often pronounced as [ɪ, ʌ] by younger speakers or in informal speech.
Léna also has some diphthongs, namely vowels followed by /u̯/ or /i̯/. Sequences of two vowels are also permitted, but are usually analysed as two syllables.
The tone levels are high /a˦/ and mid /a˧/, though the mid tone is often described as a low tone in literature. In Léna they are called xéggwo eili "narrow voice" and mox eili "wide voice" respectively.
Syllable Structure and Phonotactics
Léna has a fairly simple syllable structure of (C)V(C), where C is any consonant or affricate and V is any vowel or diphthong. However, fricatives and plosives/affricates (together "stops") may not cluster with themselves, so the only clusters permitted are Fricative-Stop and Stop-Fricative. Additionally, laterals do not cluster with other consonants, labialised consonants cannot occur in initial position of a cluster, and nasals cannot occur in final position.
Geminates can also only occur inbetween vowels.
There is a broad phonotactic rule that labials and palatals cannot interact, and whenever a labial consonant and a palatal consonant would occur in sequence, an epenthetic vowel (usually /e/) is inserted between them.
Typically, sequences of two vowels cannot occur in closed-syllable environments, i.e. CVVC. There are some limited exceptions to this, such as the word gauk "to search". In the same vein, like vowels are not usually permitted in sequence.
Orthography
As it was primarily an oral language prior to prolonged contact with other Ŋations, there is no native writing system for Léna, though some modern attempts have gained traction in recent years. Instead, a modified Latin alphabet is used, as below. Additionally, since a Cyrillic variant has been used in some limited unofficial capacity, it is displayed as well.
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High tone is represented by an acute accent over the vowel; ⟨á, é, ǝ́, í, ƨ́, ó, ú⟩, or ⟨а́, е́, и́, о́, у́, ъ́, ы́⟩.
Gemination is represented by doubling the consonant.
In polygraphs, only the first element is capitalised, and only the first element is doubled to represent gemination, e.g. ⟨Ch, nngw⟩.
The Cyrillic glyphs ⟨й⟩ and ⟨ў⟩ are used in phonemic diphthongs such as /ai̯/, /au̯/ to contrast them from /a.i/, /a.u/.
Syntax and Sentence Structure
The syntactic system of Léna is primarily oriented around the prominence of clausal heads. It also relies heavily on the verb form called the Null Form, similar to a converb, for clause chaining.
Phrase Structure
Noun Phrase
The Noun Phrase in Léna comprises a minimum of a Noun and a maximum of a Demonstrative/Possessor + a Quantifier + an Adjective + a Noun, in that order. A possessed noun must agree with its possessor in gender and number by means of a prefix, such as in (2). Additionally, a noun modified by a numeral must take a prefix that agrees with itself in gender and number, as in (3), (4) and (5).
(1) hí
egg
/hí/
'an egg / the egg'
(2) o-hí
1SG.POSS-egg
/o.hí/
'my egg'
(3) oh-ifi chi-hí-mi
1SG.POSS–three INAN.PL.POSS–egg–PL
/o.hi.fi ɕi.hí.mi/
'my three eggs'
(4) oh-ifi wǝc chi-hí-mi
1SG.POSS–three large INAN.PL.POSS–egg–PL
/o.hi.fi wǝc͡ɕ ɕi.hí.mi/
'my three large eggs'
(5) gwezí ak-ifi wǝc chi-hí-mi
albatross ANI.SG.POSS–three large INAN.PL.POSS–egg–PL
/gʷe.zí a.ki.fi wǝc͡ɕ ɕi.hí.mi/
'the albatross' three large eggs'
It is helpful to think of the sentences such as (3) as meaning more literally something like "my trio of eggs", as numerals are treated largely as nouns in their own right.
Verb Phrase
A verb is the only part of a sentence fundamentally required to make it so. This is because subjects can most often be inferred through context and objects are marked on the verb; Léna is as a result a fairly heavily pro-drop language. With just a lone Verb as the minimum, a maximal Verb Phrase can consist of the Subject + the Predicate + any adjuncts/adverbials + the Verb at the end. A very common type of adverbial is another verb in the Null Form (explained in more detail below) which is used to combine two or more syntactically-related verbs into one clause.
(6) chíakƨ́x anngi ikongáeche
forest INAN.SG-through walk-INAN3.SG-PST.PROG
/ɕí.a.kɨ́x aŋ.ŋi i.ko.ŋá.e.ɕe/
'we walked through the forest.'
(7) chíakƨ́x anngi uwénike ikongáeche.
forest INAN.SG-through sing-PROG-NULL walk-INAN3.SG-PST.PROG
/ɕí.a.kɨ́x aŋ.ŋi u.wé.ni.ke i.ko.ŋá.e.ɕe/
'we walked singing through the forest.'
In these examples, the Predicate is a Prepositional Phrase, but the same applies if the Predicate is a noun. Léna does not apply any kind of case marking.
Word Order
Léna is transparently an SOV language, with all indicative sentences taking this basic shape. The imperative mood is marked by inverting this word order to VOS, though the subject is not strictly necessary in most imperative statements.
(8) ne gwowoijh-í kwǝ-ssi-rwe.
2SG mushroom–PL eat–INAN2.PL–PRES.INCH
/ne gʷo.woi̯.ʑí kʷəs.si.rʷe/
'you eat (the) mushrooms.'
(9) kwǝ-ssi-rwe gwowoijh-í (ne)!
eat–INAN2.PL–PRES.INCH mushroom–PL 2SG
/kʷəs.si.rʷe gʷo.woi̯.ʑí (ne)/
'eat (the) mushrooms(, you)!'