Baranxeï

Baranxeï is spoken by a vast number of people in many countries, most of which are currently not represented in NationStates. It is not related to any of the other languages of NationStates, but is the member of the most prominent Sumyaian languages on its home continent Ašmeina (Baranxeï: Ašmina), second in its number of speakers only to Manyala- the Manyaian language.

History

From Sumyaian till Ilatemaian

Baranxeï belongs to the Sumyaian (Bar. Sumjaï) languages; the Sumyaians were a tribe living in the vast plains east of the Ilateme Lake. At the time they lived, a script had yet to be developed, and all we know about them stems from archeological research. The Sumyaians were named for the cave Sumi in what is today the outer edge of the country Atamia.

At around 5,000 BCE, the tribe split into three groups. One group travelled south and finally settled along the southern coast of the continent Ašmeina; they were the early Sijaians and their language became Sijai (Bar. Sižaï). A second group went to the even larger plains in the far east, where they became the nomadic tribes which spoke the ancestor of the Yayaian languages (Bar. Jajamismaï). The third one stayed in their original region. The dialect of Sumyaian they spoke first developed into Proto-Meleiyan (Bar. Mηlηjiaï). The language is named after the cultures which are the descendants of this first group, which are classified together as Meleiyan cultures, named in turn after the central goddess in their religion, Meleiya (Bar. Mηlηa).

However, in about 1,500 BCE, they started to expand their territory. One relatively large groups seems to have migrated in relatively short time up the Atami River, through the Atamia Mountains to the plains north of them called the Akian Plains. Their dialect was the ancestor of all languages in the Egisian Group (Bar. Eγηsjaï), named after the island in the Atami River where the most conservative dialect, Egisiem (Bar. Eγηsjemi), is spoken. The southern group moved westwards and settled around the fertile banks of the immensely vast Ilateme Lake. Their dialect was the ancestor of the Syko-Roekian group (Bar. Ši-Rušaï) is named after the Manyala words for 'lake' and 'river', as this area is indeed dominated by the gargantuan Ilateme Lake and hundreds of small tributary rivers.

As the geographical distance between the tribes of the Syko-Roekian group increased, they developed their own, different cultures and languages. About in 600 BCE, those calling themselves Ilatemaians (who had build a kingdom that covered all the shore of the lake) conquered the other tribes, and expanded their empire to the Ake River in the west and the Atari River in the east, building the largest empire in their day, comparable in size to the Roman Empire at its height. At this time, a script had already been in use, which is why we know today what the language of the empire sounded like - the Old Ilatemaian language (Bar. Iratemjaï) gives us the oldest surviving records of a direct ancestor of Baranxeï.

Within this empire, many languages co-existed. But the once unified Ilatemaian language had changed, of course, and had two descendants - Eastern Ilatemaian and Western Ilatemaian.

Language of the Marches

During this peak of its reign, the Ilatemaian Empire started to colonize the territories around, largely for protection against other, rival kingdoms - for example the Yayaian Nomad States in the east, Sija in the south, Atamia in the north and the Talitrian Empire in the west.

In the west, five marches were set up between the Ake River and the Habanu River (now Baranxi River). These five territories were called Baranxtu, Asuanitu, Bηrηa, Majjatu and Amarin. Most of the colonists for these Western Marches were drawn from the West Ilatemaian regions of Panhura, especially from the area around the now lost city of Baranhide, so that most inhabitants of the marches spoke the Panhuran dialect.

Unfortunately, almost no written sources of this dialect survives, safe for a few inscriptions on personal items.

Today, there is scientific agreement in the 1st century CE, a new language had developped out of the Panhuran dialects - or more precisely, two languages. A northern variant nowadays simply caleld 'Northern March', spoken in Baranxtu, Asuanitu and Bηrηa as well as 'Southern March' spoken in Majjatu and Amarin. As all these marches were still under Ilatemaian reign, the Ancient Ilatemaian language remained official, and any regional languages were oppressed, so there is as few written material of these 'March languages' as of the Panhuran dialects.

It was not until the Western Marches gained their independence in the 3rd century that the local language started to be written down in lengthier texts. However, the script of that time is suggested not to be a close representation of the actual phonology of the time, as it was a syllabary of about 150 characters which did not match the suggested inventory of some possible 600-800 syllables of the language.

By the time a new script that fitted the language was introduced, Northern March had developed into Old Baranxeï, Old Asuaneï and Old Bηrηaï, whereas Southern March had become Old Majjatu in the southernmost part and Old Amarini in the northern parts.

Old Baranxeï

In 728 CE, queen Amina Sohateratu Megkura-Oratirh introduced the first alphabet which fitted all sounds of the language. It was modeled after the alphabet which was used for the closely related Mányala kónie (Manyaian language), which in turn was largely inspired by alphabets used by the neighboring Talitrian tribes.

The language recorded from this time - whose phonology, morphology and syntax is actually known - received the name of Old Baranxeï.
Of course, the language changed - and in the 13th century, it underwent such dramatic changes that from that time on, it is called Middle Baranxeï. The language that was spoken during this first 500 years of official Baranxeï existence is further divided into Early, Classical, Post-Classical and Late Old Baranxeï.

Middle Baranxeï

At the beginning of the 13th century, Baranxeï made distinction between aspirated and unaspirated, voiced and unvoiced, palatalized and unpalatalized consonants. In only some 70 years, this distinction vanished, and only voiced and unvoiced consonants were left. The Old Baranxeï inventory of affricates even vanished entirely. The reason for this is still heavily disputed, but most linguist agree today that the Atamian occupation of first Asuanei and later Baranxtu, leading to the flight of many Asuaneians to Baranxtu, inflicted this heavy reduction of the consonantal inventory on the language, as the two languages Old Baranxeï and Old Asuaneï were mixed, perhaps even creating a creole (the last part being the most heavily disputed of this theory).

The case system was also simplified, dropping most positional cases in favor of simple prepositions and postpositions.

However, the drastic change also added to Baranxeï's phonological inventory. Previously only spotting an 'r' (X-SAMPA: r), it now also included a variant of 'l' (X-SAMPA: K).

As the country of Baranxtu's rise began, so did the rise of the repuation of the language. More and more texts were written in Middle Baranxeï, including some of the most important philosophical works of the time. However, Mányala ws the more prestigious language, as the kingdom Mányai was now covering an area almost as large as the now-gone Ilatemaian Empire, wheres Baranxtu was still relatively small.

The Traditional Baranxtuans still speak a version of this language, as they emigrated just shortly before a major sound shift occured in the original area where Baranxeï was spoken. At the end of the 17th century, the language had changed again enough to be given a new name.

Modern Baranxeï

It were already the contemporary writers who wrote about 'Modern Baranxeï' in the early 1700s.

Beginning from the core of the Baranxeï-speaking regions, a sound shift took place in almost all areas where the language was spoken. It saw the emergence of more fricatives, the loosening of the formerly strict distinction between c/x/χ [c, x, X], the roughing of h before consonants (to [x]) and its loss in prevocalic positions, the written blurring of <gg, ng, gk> and the like.

Status

Modern Baranxeï

It is Modern Baranxeï which is officially recognized on a national level in the Most Serene Republic of Baranxtu, the Kingdom Baranxtu, Manyai, North Manyai, Sijai and Akaria (of which only the first is represented in NationStates) and on a regional level in numerous provinces.

In the areas where it is officially recognized (either on national or provincial level), the number of those who use it as their primary language is estimated to be about 105 million.
In other regions, there are an estimated 15 million speakers, of which about 10 million use it on a daily basis at home, but not in public. The other 5 million speakers live in primarily Baranxeïan enclaves and speak it as a primary language both at home and in public, but not in school and cannot use it to communicate with their government.
In addition, 20-30 million people have learn the language from their parents, but do not use it unless they absolutely have to.
All in all, they are between 120 million and 150 million native speakers of Baranxeï, depending on the definition of 'native speaker'.
Baranxeï is also a popular foreign language, with an estimated 250 million non-native speakers.

Middle Baranxeï

Middle Baranxeï, on the other hand, is only officially recognized in the province of Abasina (Middle Baranxeï: Aipašina).

In this province of the republic, it has about 250,000 speakers who use it as their primary means of communication in both private and public. Another 250,000 learned it as their mother tongue (or one of their mother tongues), but only use it when talking to a monoglot.
Middle Baranxeï is also spoken in remote areas where emigrants from Baranxtu went to pursue a usually more conservative, traditional live (quite similar to that of Traditional Baranxtuans). Their number is somewhere between two or three million speakers, but their culture is not recognized anywhere.
The total number of speakers of Middle Baranxeï is therefore somwhere between 2.5 and 3.5 million.

Writing System

Baranxeï Alphabet

The writing system used by the Baranxtuan people all over the world is the Baranxeï alphabet. It is a version of the Unified Meleiyaian Alphabet which is nowadays used by almost all languages of the Meleiyaian cultures to which Baranxtu belongs.

It is one of the few versions of this alphabet that uses almost no digraphs.

Romanisation

As the Baranxeï alphabet bears no resemblence to any language of Earth, a romanisation is used to display examples of Baranxeï.

It is not a true romanisation, however, drawing heavily from letters of the Greek alphabet. For more details, see Romanisation of Baranxeï.

Grammar

to be added

Dialects

Republic of Baranxtu

The dialects of Baranxeï spoken in the republic are all still relatively homogenous. The dialect of the first settlers survives today as the Middle Baranxeï spoken in the province of Abasina by the so-called Traditional Baranxtuans.

The dialects of modern Baranxeï, however, are not the direct descendants of any of the kingdom's dialects. The reason for this is that most immigrants from the kingdom arrived in the northern province Bari Nazer and usually stayed there, only their children moving to the southern provinces. Until the early 1800s, the province of Bari Nazer (including the capital) had developed a specific dialect which was incidentally very close to what became Standard Modern Baranxeï in 1906. New immigrants from various parts of the Baranxeï speaking world did add their own elements to the language, but largely adapted to what was considered standard in the republic.

Other areas under Baranxtuan control were not heavily populated until the second half of the 19th century. Then, mostly people from the rural area of Bari Nazer started to move to the industrial centers which developed in Halaora and Leumena as well as the coastal area of Dorista. The dialects of the earlier Baranxtuan settlers were quickly eradicated by the sheer mass of people from the north.

In the republic, dialects do not greatly differ in vocabulary, but mostly in pronunciation. Generally speaking, it is a city-country disparity, with rural dialects all over Baranxtu being closer to each other than to the neighboring urban dialects.
The diversity in sociolects is not as large.

The most common difference between the rural and urban dialects is that in rural areas, people tend to merge all alveolar sounds ( /t d s z r l n/) into one alveolar retroflex.

Vocabulary

Loanwords

Like every other language, Baranxeï has adopted a fair number of words from other languages. The older borrowings are from the traditional neighboring languages of Baranxeï, for example Manyala (like 'šymimama' (uterus), from Man. 'shmimama') or the Talitrian languages (like 'rujjy' (province), from Central Talitrian 'ranhu').

Republican Baranxeï has also borrowed from languages spoken by the people it has come in contact with. Among them are also many Indo-European languages which are predominant in the International Democratic Union. Most of these words are still part of the colloquial language, but are starting to enter more formal speech. These loanwords are largely drawn from French and English, but also from German, Dutch, Spanish, Poirih and Welsh.

The names of other languages and the countries they are spoken in are usually also drawn from that language, with the two exceptions of English, which is derived from the Dutch word for the language, and German which is derived from the French name.

¹ The traditional terms majagg araqjaω' (lit. loving women) / 'haligg araqjanω (lit. loving men) can be applied to both gay women and straight men/gay men and straight women.

² Derived from Bar. irγana (to shit), first attested in 1987. Compare Quebec French 'la fin de semaine' to English 'weekend'.

³ Derived from Bar. ostυ (child) and mωndaner (garden).

⁴ Used for European dragons only. The Baranxtuan dragon is similar in appearance to Chinese dragons, but can be both good or bad, and are named either 'vicious winged snake' or 'benevolent winged snake'.

⁵ Derived from BAr. murtika (to unite), meaing 'federation' or 'union', the translation of 'Punt', the whole term means 'federation of Yuunli'.

IDU Country Names

Some Helpful Phrases