Xanzite language

The Xanzite language is the language spoken in Xanz of the Southern Isles. It provided Sajem Tan with many loanwords based on triconsonantal root patterns.

Consonants
The nasal varieties of stops surface after a nasal vowel.

Vowels
Each of these vowels have phonemic distinctions in nasality.

The following diphthongs are attested: eu, iu

Romanization
Acute accent indicates a nasal vowel when nasality is not clear from context. (e.g. in "xanz" it's clearly nasal from the n, but in "páxel" it wouldn't be clear)

Stress
Primary stress falls on the initial syllable and secondary stress on alternate syllables following. Unstressed e, y, and o delete in medial syllables (so, páxel + i → páxli).

Loanwords to Sajem Tan
Xanz -> ST:
 * m̥ n̥ ɲ̊ > fm fn sn
 * l > sl (actually the borrowing is before ST /l r/ become lateral fricatives)
 * eu > el, iu > ol

Words:
 * t_t_t > tetyt (king)
 * l_t_b > slitim (striped)

Stem Vowels

 * _á__(e) - agentive noun
 * _a_a_ - intensive
 * _á_e_ - passive voice
 * _a_i_ - habitual or stative verb
 * _e_á_ - perfective
 * _e_y_ - patient noun
 * _eu_eu_ - middle voice
 * _eu_éú_ - witnessive (usually either saw someone doing something or saw while doing something, depending on the verb)
 * _ó_a_ - instrument
 * _u_í_ - active voice
 * _y_o_ - causative

Nominal Affixes
So for páxel "island"

Verbal Affixes
Verbs agree with both subject and object. Intransitive verbs historically had their own prefixes, but these have merged with the 3rd person objects in most instances. (TODO: when don't they?)

Tenses other than the present are normally formed by adding one of the following affixes between the person prefix and the stem:


 * ji - distant past (prior to yesterday)
 * ??? - recent past (earlier today or yesterday)
 * ti - intended future
 * wa - possible (all time frames)
 * zú - desired (usually future, but sometimes present or past)

However, there are some irregularities, so the full table is presented below

2/3 potential isn't entirely consistent as to whether following stress reduction treats it as underlyingly 2 syllables or 3. (TODO: what determines this then?)

Lexicon
The general lexicon can be found at https://sajemtan.github.io/Xanz/lexicon.html

Numbers
The following was copied from a 2020 lexember entry. (TODO: clean up)

Xanz Dec 22 b-d-th /b-d-θ/ 1, alone (banthe) t-g-th /t-g-θ/ 2, repeat, recur (tegyth) f-l-th /f-l-θ/ 3 (falith) b-g-l /b-g-l/ 4 (bagil) t-d-x /t-d-x/ 5 (tedyx) j-f-' /j-f-ʔ/ 6 (jáfe') k-g-w /k-g-w/ 12 (kagiw) b-th-d /b-θ-d/ 144 (bathid) -(e)k /(ɛ)k/ and (enclitic)

So yeah, base 6/12 with nothing terribly strange as yet. I think at least one more of the numbers besides 1 and 2 has a verbal meaning, but I'm not sure which one.

Numerals are nouns and enumerate objects appear in the genitive case: páxli banthe - 1 island páxli tegyth - 2 islands páxli jáfi tegyth - 7 islands páxli kagiwek falith - 15 islands

One of the derivative cases can be used to refer to a number of items out of a larger group: amháxeli banthe - 1 of the islands amháxeli tegyth - 2 of the islands

And using the other derivative case, ratios: etedyxi amháxeli tegyth - 2 islands out of the 5 etedyxi tegyth - 2 out of 5, 2/5