Oan language
The Oan language (natively called Oalanu) is widely spoken in Konoa, The Oan Isles, East Polynesia, and to a lesser degree, Asian Pacific Islands. It forms the part of the West Polynesian branch of Polynesian languages. It is the only surviving member of the Oanoana family. It spoken by 90 million people across the South Pacific Ocean, and forms one of the official languages of the Polynesian Union. Various accents and dialects of the language exist, the "core" dialect being Rokalanunyanataoalanu of the Oan capital La Rochelle. In Codexian, it is frequently referred to as Oan (which is also the Codexian demonym for the Oan Isles).
Contents
Phonology
Vowels:
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
Close | i | u | |
Mid | e | o | |
Open | a |
Consonants
Labial | Dental | Post Alveolar | Velar | Glottal | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | m | n | |||
Stop | p | t | k | ||
Fricate | s | h | |||
Approximant | l | y | w | ||
Trill | r |
Words and Morphemes
The two most basic language units of the Oan language are words and morphemes after letters and syllables. The Oan language has a high amount of morphemes. It is regarded as a synthetic language. Morphemes are letter clusters that carry meaning, but cannot stand alone. Words are always free standing. For example the letter "a" when placed alone before a word or morpheme group represents a negation whereas an "a" affixed to the end of a word or phrase represents a relation.
There are a small group of words that form the basis of the entire Oan language. Most of them are morphemes. They are often fused together to create many other words. For example the word "komotua" means boundary or space between islands. It is formed from the word komo meaning space (which is infact derived from the morphemes for location and here), and tu(a) meaning a single object.
Phrases
Words and morphemes, while they form the most basic units in a language, cannot be used alone in a sentence. Words and phrases must appear together in groups called phrases, in order to make sense. For example "u Manu ua pala ro u solo". The word "manu" which means "man" cannot appear alone. It must appear with a morpheme, in this "u" which indicates a singular idea.
In all Oan noun, verb and other phrases, the presence of the morpheme "a" before the actual noun or verb phrase, represents a negation. The phrase rather than the word is the simplest grammatical unit. The Oan language is, morphologically a synthetic language.
Nouns
There are 16 noun classes. A word is preceded by a morpheme that indicates the noun class to which it belongs and forms a part of the noun phrase that forms the basis of grammar.
Number | Class Prefix | Example |
---|---|---|
1 | Example | Example |
2 | Example | Example |
3 | Example | Example |
4 | Example | Example |
5 | Example | Example |
6 | Example | Example |
7 | Example | Example |
8 | Example | Example |
9 | Example | Example |
10 | Example | Example |
11 | Example | Example |
12 | Example | Example |
13 | Example | Example |
14 | Example | Example |
15 | Example | Example |
16 | Example | Example |
Verb
Particles
Present | Past |
---|---|
-na | -nile |
Preceding morpheme
! Nonhuman | Human | |
---|---|---|
Past | Ia lounu | Ua lounu |
Present | Ia | Ua |
Future | Ia kouna | Ua kouna |
Gerunds - Preceding morpheme: U Gerundives - Preceding morpheme: U to
All verbs
Idioms
The Oan language is extremely idiomatic. For example the phrase "u manu ua pala ro u solo" literally means the man meets with the sun. In actual fact it means the man has awoken. This expression is used instead of "u manu ua (ki)tika". Which would mean, the man rises.
Sentence Construction
Numerical system
After the invention of the number "0" nearly a thousand years ago, the Oan numerical system began to resemble the Arab system. The only differences are the notational differences. For example the number 1,000 would be represented by the 1 and a symbol that represent 1,000. After the number 1,000, all notational symbols are fusions of the symbols for 1,000; 100 and 10. Separate symbols were invented for a million, billion, trillion and quadrillion several decades ago.
Basic phrases
Codexian | Oan |
---|---|
Hello | kia ora |
Goodbye | u wayana ro u noa |
Thank you | i u roa ro u noa |
Please | i u tamana ro u noa |
Sorry | i u tamana i toala ta u |
What is your name? | i ni i namu ta u? |
My name is John | I namu ta mi i Iohana. |
Do you speak Codexian? | u lanuna i Kotekasu na? |
I do not understand Oan. | I a lanuna i Oalanu. |
My pleasure | ku i noa ta mi. |
How are you? | U kani u u, na? |
I'm fine | i noaile ro mi. |