Sel Appan language
Sel Appan is an ancient language used more than two millenia ago in what is now Sel Appa. It was spoken by the early settlers near modern Nemnenait.
Sel Appan gained wide currency as the formal language of the Sel Appan Empire. An inflectional language, Sel Appan relies little on word order, conveying syntax through a system of subwords attached to word stems. The Sel Appan alphabet, was created during the reign of Herbert the Great. It slowly evolved from pictographs to a more recognizable alphabet. Today, the alphabet is based on that used in English, but this is not historical.
Although Sel Appan is now widely considered to be a dead language, with very few fluent speakers and no native ones, it has exerted a major influence on many other languages that are still thriving. Descendants of the language now are believed to exist, notably the Natives, who are believed to speak one of the descendant languages.
Sel Appan is studied mainly in universities today as part of the history of Sel Appa. There are several movements to revive the language fully, but a proposal brought up in Parliament in early 2006 was defeated 339-12.
History
Phonology
Sel Appan has fewer characters than most languages. It is made up of 18 letters: 6 vowels and 12 consonants. The Sel Appan alphabet has the following letters: A, E, F, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, S, T, U, W, Y, θ(or Þ), ʃ(or X). Pronounciations are in IPA.
Vowels
- a = /a/
- e = /e/
- i = /i/
- o = /o/
- u = /u/
- y = /ɪ/
Consonants
- f = /f/
- j = /j/
- k = /k/
- l = /l/
- m = /m/
- n = /n/
- p = /p/
- s = /s/
- t = /t/
- w = /w/
- θ(or Þ) = /θ/
- x(or ʃ) = /ʃ/
