Andeijan language
Andeijan, also known as Malaszec Feyspeech, is a language in the Southern Malaszec branch of the Malaszec language family. It is spoken mainly as a second language among faeries in southern Malaszec. It is unusual in that it makes use of whistled consonants, which is said to have evolved in Andeijan to provide better contrast for sounds made by faeries.
Phonology
Consonants
Andeijan’s phonology is notable for its whistled fricatives, which also have a voiced/unvoiced distinction while the non-whistled consonants don’t. In order to accommodate the whistling articulation, the fricatives which are labiodental in other Malaszec languages are bilabial in Andeijan. Andeijan is believed to have evolved its whistled consonants in order to better distinguish between phonemes that sound similar in Proto-Malaszec when produced by a faerie. Consonants that are not whistled have no distinction between voicing and voicelessness for the same reason. The voiceless Proto-Malaszec */q/ is thought to have become voiced and trilled /ʀ/, also distinguishing it from /g/.
| Labial | Alveolar | Post alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | n | |||||
| Stop | b | d | g | |||
| Fricative | ɸ͎ β͎ | s͎ z͎ | ʒ | |||
| Trill | r | ʀ | ||||
| Approximant | w | l | j |
Andeijan consonant phonemes
Vowels
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u |
| Close-mid | e | |
| Open | a | ɒ |
Andeijan vowel phonemes
Orthography
Andeijan Alphabet (Latin script)
-
is read as /ɒ/ - <c, k> are read as /g/
- <t, d> are read as /d/
Nouns
Evidentiality
In contrast to languages in the Northern Malaszec language family, Southern Malaszec languages (including Andeijan) have grammatical evidentiality for nouns. Oneirologist Nal Kaskij suggests that evidentiality in these languages evolved to better describe the uncertainty and complexity of dreams, which occur more vividly in southeast Malaszec due to elevated atmospheric mana. In Andeijan, noun evidentiality marks certainty and/or reasoning about the identity or existence of the noun in context.
- Neutral evidentiality conveys no particular degree of uncertainty.
- Apparent evidentiality indicates the identity or existence of the noun is known, but the reason why is unclear. Often used when describing a speaker’s intuition.
(ex. “I met someone who was apparently an uncle.” Here, the head word is “uncle.” In Andeijan, The entire underlined phrase would be rendered into one noun with an evidentiality marker.)
- Inferential evidentiality indicates that the identity or existence of the noun is known for a reason.
(ex. “A UFO, which it must have been, landed.” Here, the head word is “UFO.” No reason is given, but it is implied the speaker has one.)
- Reportative evidentiality indicates the identity or existence of the noun is hearsay or implied by someone else. It is also used to report knowledge from a hazy memory belonging to the speaker, which can be considered a speaker’s “past self”.
(ex. “Alice talked to someone, who I heard was Bob.” Here, the head word is “Bob.”)
- Incognitive evidentiality indicates the identity or existence of the noun is unclear and in doubt. In this case, the head noun might only be a guess or suggestion as to what it might actually be.
(ex. “He leaned the carton against a rock or something.” Here, the head word is “rock.” The thing that the carton leaned on might have been a rock, but the speaker doesn’t know for sure.)