Varaha'ai

Varaha'ai (/βaʀahaʔaɪ/) is the most common language of the Nacoi.

Writing System

Varaha'ai is written in a right-to-left abugida. Consonants have an assumed a vowel unless marked otherwise by a diacritic. Vowels without a consonant each have their own characters. Unvoiced consonant characters are derived from the voiced equivalent with an unvoicing diacritic. The glottal stop is treated specially, and written not as a consonant with diacritics but by marking the relevant vowel character with the unvoicing diacritic.

Phonology

Consonants

	Bilabial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Stop	p /p/ b /b/		t /t/ d /d/		c /k/ g /g/		' /ʔ/
Nasal	m /m/		n /n/
Trill						r /ʀ/
Fricative	f /ɸ/ v /β/	th /θ/	s /s/ z /z/	sh /ɕ/ zh /ʑ/			h /h/
Lateral Approx.			l /l/		j /ʟ/

Vowels

	Front	Back
Close	i /ɪ/
Close-Mid		o /o/
Open	a /a/

Phonotactics

Varaha'ai has a (C) V syllable structure. Glottal stops and fricatives (' /ʔ/, h /h/) are not allowed word-initially. Two successive instances of the same vowel must be separated by a glottal stop if they occur due to affixation.

Morphology

Varaha'ai features a highly agglutinative morphology. A variety of prefix and suffix classes allow expressing precise concepts in single, complex word constructions. Affixes are grouped in classes, which define the order in which affixes are applied, with the exception of meta-suffixes which modify the meaning of other suffixes rather than of the root.

Verb Affixes

Verb constructions are formed as:

(VCj)	VA	root	VT1	(VTR)	(VT2)	(VM)

Verb Actor (V_A)

The V_A prefix marks the actor of the verb. Varaha'ai only distinguishes between self and others in actor prefixes, without a distinction of second or third person. Number can be specified quite finely, with prefixes for singular, dual, paucal, and plural forms. There is also an undefined actor prefix, which is roughly comparable to a passive voice construction.

VA	Self	Other
Singular	a-	ma-
Dual	isa-	dima-
Paucal	ino-	dino-
Plural	vi-	ala-
Undefined		rari-

Verb Tense (V_T)

The V_T suffixes determine the tense of the verb. V_T1 is required and determines the reference time frame, while V_T2 is optional and describes aspect.
V_T1 takes the form of modifying the vowel of the final syllable of the verb rather than being a true suffix; the dictionary form of verbs is given with this in the present form.

VT1	Time Frame
-i	Present
-a	Past
-o	Future

The following aspects can be expressed by the V_T2 suffix:

• Progressive - describing an action that is in progress; this is the default if the suffix is not present. In adjectival verbs, progressive and gnomic are often used interchangably.
• Stative - describing a state
• Habitual - describing a habit or repeatedly performed action
• Gnomic - describing a general or commonly known truth
• Perfective - describing an action in full; there are two variants of the perfective, Telic describing a completed action which met its goal and Atelic describing an action which concluded but did not reach its goal.
• Prospective - describing an action starting or imminent
• Restorative - describing an action restoring something to a previous state

VT2	Aspect
	Progressive
-no	Stative
-boja	Habitual
-tia	Gnomic
-hano	Perfective Atelic
-haino	Perfective Telic
-soro	Prospective
-moda	Restorative

Verb Transitivity & Reflectivity (V_TR)

This suffix class marks a verb as transitive or reflexive. The suffixes used depend on the object of the verb.

VTR	Meaning
-zhora	Transitive towards speaker
-zora	Transitive towards multiple people including speaker
-ora	Transitive, all other cases
-nomo	Reflexive towards speaker
-namo	Reflexive, all other cases
-namora	Reciprocal

Verb Mood (V_M)

VM	Meaning
	Indicative
-cina	Interrogative
-shi	Imperative
-daci	Potential
-jano	Subjunctive
-janio	Conditional

Noun Affixes

Noun constructions are formed as:

(NCj)	NC	(NH)	root	(NN)	(ND)	(NR)

Honorifics (N_H)

In polite speech, Varaha'ai uses honorifics prefixed before names. If a honorific is used, number and definiteness are implied, so in general these suffixes are not used if a honorific is present. A wide variety of honorifics exist depending on the relationship between the speaker and the person the honorific is applied to, but a selection of the most common are listed below.

NH	Singular	Non-Singular
Formal	thadi-	thadami-
Polite	mai-	ma'ai-
Neutral	tani-	tanami-
Casual	ta-	tao-

Noun Case (N_C)

NC	Meaning
la-	Nominative
o-	Accusative
fo-	Dative
gi-	Genitive
imo-	Locative
visa-	Instrumentative

Noun Number (N_N)

This suffix specifies the number of the noun; if it is not specified, singular is assumed in most cases.

NN	Number
-ra	Singular (often isolative when explicit)
-fi	Dual
-sori	Paucal
-tashi	Plural
-somi	Uncountable, small amount
-tami	Uncountable, large amount

Noun Definiteness (V_D)

Nouns can optionally be marked as definite or indefinite; if the suffix is omitted and nothing else is implied by context, definite form is assumed to be the default. There are is also a demonstrative form, which roughly translates to "this"/"that" in english.

ND	Relation
-da	Definite
-ana	Indefinite
-zhida	Demonstrative

Noun Relation (V_R)

NR	Relation
-no	Possessor
-sai	Possessee
-nai	Part

General Affixes

This section describes affixes which may occur in both verbs and nouns.

Conjunctions (V_Cj, N_Cj)

These prefixes are used to connect multiple words together.

• The cumulative prefix i- indicates a combination; for verbs, this implies both actions taking place without any further specified temporal or causal relation.
• The contrastive prefix bai- indicates a contrast or something in spite of a previous clause.
• The sequential prefix thana- indicates the marked word as being after the previous clause. In the case of verbs, this refers to the sequence of actions, while for nouns it implies some sort of ranking.
• The simultaneity prefix shimo- indicates the actions taking part at the same time. This prefix cannot be used with nouns.
• The foma- prefix indicates the marked word being contained within the previous clause. in the case of verbs, it is used to describe an action taking place entirely during another action, starting after and ending before the other action.
• The effect prefix poi- indicates the marked word being caused by the previous clause.
• The descriptive prefix da- indicates the marked word as describing the previous clause. It is very often used with adjectival verbs and nouns.

Qualitative Suffixes (S_Q)

The qualitative suffixes can be applied to verbs, nouns, and other affixes.

SQ	Meaning
-dica	Diminutive
-zhisa	Augmentative
-nai	Dubitative
-ari	Evidential
-dono	Laudative

Negation and Emphasis Suffixes (S_NE)

SNE	Meaning
-si	Negation
-na	Emphasis

Adjectives

Adjectives in the usual sense do not exist in Varaha'ai, rather there are verbs and nouns which roughly translate to "to be adjective" or "the state of being adjective" respetively. These are referred to as adjectival verbs and adjectival nouns respectively.

Syntax

Varaha'ai generally uses a verb-subject-object word order, however even in formal speech only the verb is required if the rest can be inferred from context. In casual speech, there are generally no requirements on word order.

Examples

alaibarazorahanodaci oishisai, baialaibarozorahainodacisina osacajasai
OTH.PL-take-PAST-TRNS-PERF.ATEL-POT ACC-home-POSE, CONT-OTH.PL-take-FUT-TRNS-PERF.TEL-POT-NEG-EMPH ACC-spirit-POSE
They were able to take our home, but they will never be able to take our spirit. (common phrase in Nacoi vigils)

Dictionary

27 Words.

The name of the language in its native script