Marjizen language
| Marjizen | |
|---|---|
| Med Marziyen | |
| Native to | Gabrielland |
| Region | Gornyan Region |
| Ethnicity | Marziyens |
Native speakers | 300,0000 (2020) |
Gabrielt
| |
| Latin script | |
| Official status | |
Official language in | West Marjizen province |
Recognised minority language in | Gornyan Region |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | mj |
| ISO 639-2 | mjn |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
 Distribution of Marjizen speakers in the Gornyan region Majority language (>50%) Minority language (>20%) | |
The Marjizen language (Standard Gabrielt: មដមរជិឋេន "Mada Marjizen", IPA: /mada mard͡ʒiˈzɛn/, Marjizen: Med Marziyen, IPA: /mɛd marziˈjɛn/) is a Gornyan Ligintian language spoken primarily in the West Marjizen province within the Gornyan region, although speakers also exist in the neighboring Marjizen province, North Marjizen province, and the Lirgyinta province in the Artadash region. Around 300,000 people speak the language according to the latest 2020 Gabrielt national census, and is one of the least spoken Gabrielt languages. Together with the other Gornyan Ligintian languages, it forms a dialect continuum spanning from the Gornyan region deep into the Artadash region. Although closely intelligible, these languages are usually classified as separate. The Marjizen language is the easternmost Angyarak language in terms of the geographical setting of its original speakers.
The development of the Marjizen language is similar to that of other languges in the region, being a descendant of literary Gabrielt which branched into the various modern Angyarak langauges scattered throughout Gabrielland. The Marjizen language has retained several archaic features of the language such as the collective number and the perfective clitic in verbs, however has eroded a lot of the traditional case and declension system found in its predecessors. A "Marjizen" identity was first documented in the early 20th century during a time of rising Gabrielt nationalism, and the rallying of the easternmost Gabrielts under a single "Marjizen" banner. It was officially recognized as a sepaarate language by the Gabrielt Language Council in 1935 after several proposals were submitted from Marjizen people themselves.
The Marjizen language an official language in the province of West Marjizen. Although the Marjizen language has severaal notable dialects, the dialect of the capital is seen as the standard form of the language regulated by the Marjizen Language Board, and is the form used when communicating accross dialects to avoid misunderstanding. It is the official language used in administration, schools, business, and almost all aspects of daily life. The Gornyan language is taught as a secondary language for most people, and is also related as the Gornyan language is also a Gabrielt language, although forming its own branch. The Gornyan language, however, is rarely heard in areas where Marjizen is natively spoken, and many Marjizen are not fluent in the Gornyan language, rather switching to Standard Gabrielt when a need of understanding arises.
In the neighboring provinces where the Marjizen language is a minority, services offered in the language are available in the localities where a sizeable populatiaon of Marjizen live, and access towards the language's education and teaching are available at select points. It is also recognized as one of the 6 recognized minority languages of the Gornyan region, and is recognized as provincial-wide language by the confederate government.
Phonology
The phonemic inventory in the Marjizen language is similar to that of other Gornyan languages. It possesses a simlpe 5-vowel system akin to the other Gornyan languages, and therefore does not differentiate between phonemic length. It has also retained the dental fricatives θ and ð from proto-Lirgintian, although some dialects may pronounce this as aspirated stops, especially in the south. It lacks the abundance of palatals found in the Standard Gabrielt language. Below is the consonant and vowel inventory of the Marjizen language.
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | |||
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | k | ||
| voiced | b | d | ɡ | |||
| Affricate | voiceless | θ | t͡ʃ | |||
| voiced | ð | d͡ʒ | ||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | ʃ | h | |
| voiced | v | z | ʒ | |||
| Approximant | l | j | ||||
| Trill | r | |||||
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Mid | e | o | |
| Open | a |
Orthography
The orthography of the Marjizen language has been standardized and uniformed based on the capital dialect. The 1947 Marjizen language congress approved an orthography proposed by several local linguists and historians based on other languages in the area and the growing trends visible within Marjizen language communities. A latin-based orthography was chosen as was the norm for the region in the era, as well as to boost literacy rates. The 1947 orthography remains used to this day and is the official orthography taught in schools and used in every faucet of the Marjizen language. While other non-standard orthographies exist such as using the Prei script or the Govoric alphabet, such use of said scripts are almost always limited in their use, or used for satirical purposes.
Marjizen orthography recognizes xx distinct letters, with 3 of them being digraphs, namely dh and th (representing the dental fricatives) as well as ng (representing the velar nasal). Below is the traditional ordering of the Marjizen alphabet as prescribed by the 1947 language congress.
| A a /a/ |
B b /b/ |
C c /t͡ʃ/ |
D d /d/ |
Dh dh /ð ~ dʰ/ |
F f /f/ |
G g /g/ |
H h /h/ |
I i /i/ |
J j /d͡ʒ/ |
| K k /k/ |
L l /l/ |
M m /m/ |
N n /m/ |
Ng ng /ŋ/ |
O o /o/ |
P p /p/ |
R r /r/ |
S s /s/ |
Š š /ʃ/ |
| T t /t/ |
Th th /θ ~ tʰ/ |
U u /u/ |
V v /v/ |
Y y /y/ |
Z z /z/ |
Ž ž /ʒ/ |
Syntax
Along with the vast majority of the Gabrielt languages, the Marjizen language is a verb-initial and verb-centric language with a base structure of VSO. Marjizen is also a non pro-drop language. The verb includes all its related afixes and supporting words. As aspect are denoted through the conjugated auxiliary verb meaning to "complete" added with the fixed infinitive, they are considered part of the verb phrase and are grouped at the beginning of the clause as demonstrated in the example below:
- Gamon vet nuke gamon dhlam nuke zuvetaz, kei aklam me asra! (correct, They have said they have cut down the trees, but I don't see any!)
- Gamon nuke vet gamon nuke dhlam zuvetaz, kei aklam me asra! (incorrect as the verb phrase is split)
A similar phenomenon could be seen in adjectives within noun phrases in which an attributive adjective is treated as part of the nominal phrase and therefore are not permitted to be split. The Gornyan languages are generally head final, although for adjectival phrases the adjective comes after the noun, as seen in the example:
- Oca zama ("big brother")
- Oca zama da ("that big brother")
Demonstratives are included as part of the adjectival phrase in the Gornyan languages, and are therefore placed last within a phrase. As the Lirgintian languages do not possess grammatical gender, adjectives are not declined according to gender. As case also do not exist, adjectives also do not decline for case in Marjizen. However, adjectives and by extension demonstratives still decline for number, giving a grand total of three forms of an adjective depending on whether the noun in queston is in the singular, plural, or collective number.
Yes/no questions are formed in two ways in the Marjizen language. A question particle could be inserted at the beginning or at the end of a sentence, or the word order could be flipped to SVO to indicate a question. A particle "ga" is added.
- Ga veto sme da? ("Did you say that?")
- Veto sme da ga? ("Did you say that?")
- Sme veto da? ("Did you say that?")
This type of construction is common in the eastern branches of the Angyraak languages.
Morphology
The morphology of the Marjizen langauge, in common with the other Gornyan languages and to a lesser degree the Ligintian languages, shows characteristics of an inflecting language with analytic tendencies, as the role of cases once present in the ancestor langauges of the Marjizen language has been delegated to word order or stressing of certain words, and as such, has a more rigid word order than more inflecting languages of the same language family. Several characteristics of the language such as the complete loss of cases and the gender system plays part to the more rigid word order and word inflection in Marjizen.
Marjizen nouns now only decline for number, that being the singular, plural, and the collective numbers, and thus almost all nouns are declined using only a single declension paradigm. More commonly used nouns posses other inflection in the form of cases, although these are usually found in older texts and fixed expressions, and therefore are not part of the standard everyday language. Verbs in the language are arguably more complex, by having retained the original Gabrielt simple-perfect conjugation system, although due to syncretism, many forms have resembled other categories, thus forcing the subject to be clear and precise, making the language a non pro-drop language.
Nouns
Nouns in Marjizen are inflected only for number, and thus most nouns fall into one singular declension. A few irregular nouns possess their own separate declensions due to vestiges from its development from Literary Gabrielt which have retained its original forms due to vigorous use within speakers across generations. Special cases on whether the noun ends with a consonant or a vowel are present, although they are not major enough to warrant their own declension system.
A special case is made for the collective number, which possess two ways of expressing such category within the language, in which one is through the regular inflection, and the other one which function similarly to other major languages of Anterra using the derived word for "all" after the noun, as it is treated as an adjective. This form is more common in casual and daily speech rather than inflecting the word for the collective number.
Below are the general endings for the nominaal cases in Marjizen.
| Number | Cons. | Vow. | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | Sin | Zuvet | Oča | Dhlave |
| Plural | Sinaz | Zuvetaz | Ocas | Dhlaves |
| Collective | Sinomo | Zuvetomo | Ocamo | Dhlavemo |
Evident from the paradigm above is the addition of -az to denote the plural in consonant stems and the appendix of -s in vowel stems. In the collective, -(o)mo is added depending on if the noun in question is a consonant or vowel stem. Another way of forming the collective is using what most other major languages in Anteria use, which is to use an adjective which comes after the noun. This use of using an adjectival form instead of the traditional declension is much more common among spoken varieties, and was thought to have been an innovation of the Gornyan languages, along with some other languages in other branches of the Angyarak branch. Take:
- Sinomo (all houses)
- Sin žari (houses all)
as examples of the difference in style in expressing the collective.
Verbs
Marjizen verbs inflect for three tenses (past, present, and future), four persons (1st, 2nd, 3rd animate, 4th animate), three numbers (singular, plural, collective), and two aspects (simple and perfective). Other aspects or combinations of aspects are traditionally not counted under the conjugation system as they are not affected by the conjugation system in any way, simply being auxilliary words aiding in conveying different or combined aspects.
There have been many mergings of endings of different categories which have rendered the conjugation to be insufficient in providing details as to which person and number performed such actions, although there have been no mergings of inflection across the tenses. As a result, Marjizen is a non pro-drop language, and pronouns must be inserted in every sentence unless context is clear. In line with other Gabrielt languages, in the perfective aspect the perfective marker is conjugated while the root verb remains the same in Marjizen. Marjizen, along with other Ligintian languages, have fully merged the conjugations into one and thus only have one main conjugation for most verbs, with some most-commonly used verbs possessing more archaic forms. Below is the main paradigm for conjugation in the Marjizen language shown by a direct example of the root verb dhlam "to cut":
| Simple | Perfect | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Past | Present | Future | Past | Present | Future | |||
| 1 | Singular | Dhlamo | Dhlam | Dhlamaš | Gamo dhlam | Gan dhlam | Gamaš dhlam | |
| Plural | Dhlama | Gana dhlam | ||||||
| Collective | ||||||||
| 2 | Singular | Dhlamin | Gamin dhlam | |||||
| Plural | Dhlamaya | Gamaya dhlam | ||||||
| Collective | ||||||||
| 3 | Animate | Singular | Dhlamon | Dhlami | Dhlansi | Gamon dhlam | Gami dhlam | Gansi dhlam |
| Plural | Dhlame | Game dhlam | ||||||
| Collective | ||||||||
| Innimate | Singular | Dhlaman | Gaman dhlam | |||||
| Plural | Dhlame | Game dhlam | ||||||
| Collective | ||||||||
The third-person future substitutes m with n as a vestige in the merging of the paradigms during the late Ligintian era. In all other circumstances, the -si affix is unaltered.