Gwance

From NSwiki, the NationStates encyclopedia.
Jump to: navigation, search

This misterious language cannot find its place in the taxonomy of human languages. It seems to share characteristics with the languages from different families, as well as novel constructs. Influences in the lexicon from Arabic, Greek, Spanish, and Portuguese are evident.

The task of standardizing the language was not an easy one. Each island maintains its distinct dialect of Guanche(as it is known to the Western world). The accepted "standard" is fabricated out of the Tenerife and Kanariakbire dialects. These two are the most widely spoken, and most intelligeable amongst the speakers of the surrounding islands.

Unfortunately, the inhabitants of Madeira and Pursante do not speak Guanche natively. Their language, Madezce, is essentially a creole of Portuguese. However, they can acquire the standard fairly easily.


History

Guanche is the official language of Jaziraat with roots still linguistically undeterminate. The base language, "proto-Guanche", is believed to have been spoken by the original inhabitants of the Altas mountains, prior to the arrival of Berber speaking peoples. Eventually, as they were pushed to the fringe, towards the coasts of western Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania, and inevitably across the open sea to the islands of Jaziraat. Over time, the Guanche languages became particular to each island and community, showing vast variation and usage.

On the island of Tenerife, the Guanche language of today became the popular language. In 1342, Mencey Pabliozkif united the segmented kingdoms of the island, and promoted literacy and education. With this came the emergence of a strong linguistic instrument, which spread to the other islands over the next 150 years. During this so-called "Classical Period," the language manifested in the works of many poets, lyricists and playwrights. At that time, the language exhibited distinctive traits from neighboring languages, including word agglutination, prepositional suffixing and unique noun declension.

When the Spanish arrived and conquered the islands, undoubtedly, their language infused with Guanche, as was the case with Portuguese on Madeira. Still, the grammatical roots of Guanche are almost unchanged since the fourteenth century, when royal grammaticians printed the first language codex for Guanche.

Orthography

Originally written in an ancient North African script, Modern Guanche employs a Latinate alphabet. When Spaniards introduced their alphabet, the language took on the spelling of Spanish pronunciation (and Portuguese in Madeira). However, linguists at the National Center for Guanche Language Studies(KWaDTaG) are mulling over the idea of introducing a new alphabet, one that reflects the needs of the Guanche language. This proposed alphabet would prove a radical change for the nation, and is included here:

Alpabeta Jedkin Gwance (New Guanche Alphabet)


Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Rr Ss Şş Tt Uu Ww Yy Zz

[a] [b] [ʧ] [d] [ɛ] [ɸ] [g] [h] [i] [ʒ] [k] [l] [m] [n] [o] [p] [r] [s] [ʃ] [t] [u] [w] [j] [z]

  • Note: ɸ represents the sound of a heavily aspirated [f] sound, produced with tight, rounded lips. Similar to Japanese "fu".

Grammar

Nouns are systematically segregated according to their nature in the world and their relationship to mankind: Guanche-nouns.jpg

Examples:

Type 1 (People nouns): guanka (islander) > guanche (islanders), guantipli (priest)> guantipche (priests), trigumki (sailor) > trigumche (sailors)

Type 2 (Animal nouns): anzen (animal) > anzenche, zurpan (monkey)> zurpanche, kilpan (dog) > kilpanche

Type 3 (Man-made nouns): trimaki (ship) > trimakya, sorota (pot) > sorotya

Type 4 (God-made nouns): bukra (rock) > bukrem, eltua (island) > eltuarem, stana (wave) > stanem, zile (wood) > zilerem

Type 5 (Manipulated nouns): eltuatiz (artificial island) > eltuatek, ziletiz (lumber) > ziletek

Type 6 (Abstract nouns): beltanzi (knowledge) > beltanzir, korta (power) > kortar, samehfui (ability) > samehfuir, nazin (time) > nazinar, puenche (love) > puencher

more to come...

Jaziraati Phrasebook

Jaziraati Phrasebook.jpg


Additional Vocabulary

Colors=Raskoce

pink = nac, black = blence, yellow = safue, green = sorjit, orange = sentzo, blue = ftikwe, white = leos, purple = garance, red = jarete, brown = geios, grey = sinzce

Numbers=Sialaat

zero = zero, one = sit, two = bur, three = anc, four = saj, five = mom, six = klet, seven = fuiz, eight = bac, nine = kron, ten = elt, eleven = sitelt, twelve = burelt, thirteen = ancelt, twenty = aft, thirty = orn, forty = iic, fifty = ubt, sixty = ect, seventy = auf, eighty = arg, ninety = iorz, one hundred = sitaan