Ancient Fãngra language

Ancient Fãngra (Ancient Fãngra: Fãngra ) is a Fãngra language and the main language spoken in the First Fãngra Empire, spoken around the 66th century. It was later spread by means of colonisation of Kraj tu Ungu.

Ancient Fãngra consists of several dialects spoken along the empire. The central dialect spoken in the capital Kolola is considered the standard variety.

Phonology
The phonology differs in different regions of the empire. The following is the phonemic inventory for the standard variety.

Consonants

 * {| class="wikitable" style=text-align:center

! colspan=2 | ! Bilabial ! Coronal ! Palatal ! Velar ! colspan=2 | Nasal ! colspan=2 | Plosive ! colspan=2 | Affricate ! rowspan=2 | Fricative ! voiceless ! voiced ! colspan=2 | Approximant ! colspan=2 | Trill
 * + Consonant phonemes of Standard Ancient Fãngra
 * m ⟨m⟩
 * n ⟨n⟩
 * ŋ ⟨ng⟩
 * ŋ ⟨ng⟩
 * p ⟨p⟩
 * t ⟨t⟩
 * k ⟨k⟩
 * k ⟨k⟩
 * t͡ʃ ⟨c⟩
 * t͡ʃ ⟨c⟩
 * ɸ ⟨f⟩
 * s ⟨s⟩
 * x ⟨h⟩
 * x ⟨h⟩
 * β ⟨b⟩
 * ð ⟨d⟩
 * ɣ ⟨g⟩
 * ɣ ⟨g⟩
 * l ⟨l⟩
 * j ⟨y⟩
 * w ⟨w⟩
 * w ⟨w⟩
 * r ⟨r⟩
 * }
 * }
 * }
 * }


 * /l/ is realised as velarised [ɫ].

Vowels

 * }
 * }

/a/ becomes [ə] when unstressed and in final position, for example ohan [ˈoxən] ('one').

Nouns
Ancient Fãngra nouns are declined for seven cases and two numbers. Only the subjective and objective cases are inflected in terms of number. They are prefixed to the noun but are often dropped in daily speech, except when the word order is different from expected. The other cases function more like particles preceding the noun.


 * An-folão hai pilu li hulu in-dirgim. — The father winked at the man. (literally, "the father gave the man a blink")
 * Borca belt berit. — The witch wants an agreement.

Nominalisers
Ancient Fãngra has three nominalisation particles that precede the noun: fu (object, abstract), ci (place) and lo (agent). In the subjective and objective case, they may be marked as fun, cin and lon instead of the following noun. For example, bi belt fun igum ('I want a song'). However, this is considered extremely formal or poetic, and one will more commonly say bi belt fu in-igum or bi belt fu igum.

Pronouns
Pronouns in Ancient Fãngra are all invariable. If one wants to specify the gender of third-person pronoun, they must use the word for "woman" or "man".

Adpositions
Ancient Fãngra uses both prepositions and postpositions. Prepositions are usually placed after the nominalisers. For example, ci tulu ('head'), ci an tulu ('on the head'). Postpositions are usually more specific.

Possession is expressed with the preposition tu between the possessor and the possessee. Ancient Fãngra does not have a separate verb for "to have", expressing it as tu ... gapa ('to be of ...'). For example:


 * fu ubli tu fu igum
 * death of song
 * song of death


 * Tu bi gapa nenari.
 * of 1 be memory
 * I have the memory; I remember.

Verbs
Verbs express tense, aspect and mood through a number of particles. The particles are precede the verb, except for yona which is placed at the end of the sentence, because it was derived from a verb meaning "to stay" and Fãngra's word order was SOV. Yona may also be ommited in the non-past, and similarly hai can be skipped in imperfective past. The following table has the particles used, in order of where they are placed before or after a verb.

Syntax
The basic word order is subject–verb–object (SVO), although verb–subject–object (VSO) syntax is sometimes used. For intransitive sentences, a verb–subject (VS) order is often used. Adjectives mostly follow nouns, but they may also precede them, e.g. hulu mopt and mopt hulu both mean "young man, boy". Relative clauses exclusively follow nouns. Adverbs follow verbs. Possessors precede possessees.

Subordinate clauses
Subordinate clauses are expressed with the pronoun sin ('this, that') and separated from the main clause by commas. As the pronoun is invariable, the word order in subordinate clauses is stricter.


 * yaku, bi hai mak sin
 * fruit 1 eat
 * the fruit that I ate


 * Tu bi hai gapa nenari sin, on gapa mopt bi daha yona.
 * of 1 be memory  2 be young 1 than
 * I remembered this, you were younger than me.

Prepositional phrases are placed either at the beginning or at the end of the sentence (but before yona if it is present). For example:


 * Kraj, an sin bi hai mak, gapa bal.
 * country   1 eat be good
 * The place where I ate is good.


 * Kraj, bi hai mak an sin, gapa bal.
 * country 1 eat   be good
 * The place where I ate is good.