Nambāno

Nambāno or Nambanno is a Namb dialect cluster spoken throughout the Qnōp' lowlands in the first and second millennia AGS.

h and hu
In addition to this core inventory of consonants, h and hu /hʷ/ typically appear in the popular literary language Standard Nambāno. These consonants were present in Old Nambāno but became less commonly pronounced throughout the first millennium AGS, though remain distinct in the native orthography.

In initial position, h and hu may pronounced [h] and [ʍ] respectively, especially at the beginning of an utterance or as a deliberate choice in formal settings. Between vowels, h is elided completely and hu is pronounced [w], and these pronunciations are typical of many speakers in all positions.

Vowels
When two vowels meet at a morpheme boundary within a word, they coalesce into a single vowel according to the table shown below: The exception is the vowel sequence io, which may be considered the only diphthong in Nambāno, typically pronounced [iu̯].

Nasal vowels
Some fringe dialects of Nambāno feature nasalised long vowels, derived from coda nasal consonants in Old Nambāno. These consonants are sometimes written in Standard Nambāno, particularly in older texts, though no variety of Nambāno Proper retains the nasalisation. Nambāno itself is sometimes spelt ⟨NA-AM-BA-AN-NO⟩ (c.f. Old Nambāno *namb-annu).

Phonotactics
The grammarian tradition and native orthography of Nambāno demonstrate a separation of the syllable into an onset cluster and a rhyme consisting of a vowel and optional coda consonant. Any combination of onset and rhyme can form a valid syllable.

Onset
Onset clusters of certain consonants with medial /m n r l/ can occur in the syllable onset, as shown in the table below:

Rhyme
The syllable rhyme can either be a monomoraic short vowel, or one of six kinds of bimoraic segment, shown below:


 * Long vowel — Each of the four vowels /a e i o/ has a long form /aː eː iː oː/.
 * Assimilating nasal — /n/ can occur in coda position only if followed by another consonant, in which position it assimilates to the place of articulation of that consonant.
 * Bilabial nasal — Unlike /n/, /m/ can occur in word-final position and does not assimilate to alveolar consonants, though still becomes /n/ [ŋ] before dorsal plosives /g(ʷ) k(ʷ)/, even across word boundaries.
 * Geminate — All consonants except /h hʷ/ can be geminated, with some geminates having unique phonetic qualities:
 * /-s-/ [s] vs. /-s.s-/ [-t.t͡s-]
 * /-j-/ [j] vs. /-j.j-/ [-ɟ.ɟ͡ʝ-]
 * Bilabial plosive — A bilabial plosive /b p/ can occur preceding an alveolar obstruent. The voicedness of the coda matches the following onset, giving the possible clusters /-bd- -pt- -ps-/. Like the bilabial nasal /m/, the bilabial plosive assimilates to a following dorsal plosive /g(ʷ) k(ʷ)/.
 * Lateral — The lateral approximant /l/ can also appear as coda, being pronounced as a voiceless fricative [ɬ] before a voiceless consonant and, very rarely, in word-final position, the only consonant other than /m/ to appear in that position.

External sandhi
Many sandhi process apply to consonants and vowels at the word boundaries.

Initial h and hu
Initial h and hu have a geminating effect on preceding consonants.


 * am hē, jesi rāsīna nam [am‿meː je.s‿raː.siː.na nam] "Five things, of which I know three"
 * huam huāmōtī [wam‿maː.moː.tiː] "The traveller then arrived"

Final consonants
Word-final consonants -m, -l and -r lend themselves to the onset of a following vowel-initial syllable.


 * hal ōmōdam ōnīna [(h)a.l‿oː.moː.da.m‿oː.niː.na] "The people meet with their lord"

A small handful of common words have special forms with a final -n that can optionally arise when preceding a vowel, h or hu, for example the popular first person singular pronoun sī has the alternate form son.


 * smipnē sī io [smi.pneː siː i.o] or smipnē son io [smi.pneː so.n‿i.o] "I'm scared"
 * sī hatō rē [siː a.toː reː] or son hatō rē [son‿na.toː reː] "I see the sun"

-m also exhibits regular assimilation to velar consonants.


 * am kuarasa [aŋ kʷa.ra.sa] "Five soldiers"

Final vowels
Some, but not all instances of final -a may be elided before a following vowel or liquid in fast speech. Common examples include the countable absolutive suffix and the formal first person plural or gender-neutral first person singular pronoun epa.


 * sipa ōjī [si.p‿oː.jiː] "The chicken is sleeping"
 * hō epa reso [(h)oː e.p‿re.so] "We're here (we have arrived)"

-i can be similarly elided, but only before liquids.


 * seti ranī Siguontō? [se.t‿ra.niː si.gʷon.toː] "Where is Uhustaw?"

Grammar
Nambāno is a fairly agglutinative language in which most words consist of several morphemes, though monomorphemic function words are among the most common words. Most content words are formed with derivational suffixes which determine their inflectional properties.

Nambāno nouns are categorised into four classes based on their numerosity, a property which determines which grammatical number they may take:


 * Countable — Can take all three grammatical numbers, singular, plural and numberless.
 * Uncountable — Only has a numberless form.
 * Individual — Always singular.
 * Numerous — Either singular or plural.

Number is not overtly marked on nouns, rather some verbs are intrinsically pluractional, meaning they imply plurality of their subject. For example, the two primary copulaic verbs have second/third person singular forms huī and mī, and special plural forms rī and grī respectively.Hēsint-ō hu-ī otm-a m-ī Jarr-ā

Oksandanderi-ABS be2.SG.IND.2/3 river-ABS be1.SG.IND.2/3 Yarla-ABS

"The Yarla is a river in Oksandanderi."Tannat-ō r-ī otm-a gr-ī Mibass-am Tmohass-ā

Tannato-ABS be2.PL.IND.2/3 river-ABS be1.PL.IND.2/3 Mibassa-COM Tmohassa-ABS

"The Mibassa and Tmohassa are rivers in Tannato."