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 and may have been prescribed in speech in some dialects or sociolects. These were present in Old Nambāno but generally were lost around 900 AGS, around the time of its diversification into the Nambāno Proper dialect continuum and the first introduction of writing to Qnōp'.

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:

Consonant clusters most typically arise at morpheme boundaries, since most underlying stems end in a consonant which resolves into one of the five rhymes when placed before an obstruent. For example, the verb japa "I am bound" has the stem form jap-, in which the final /p/ can assimilate to a following velar plosive, as in jakkuarasa "soldier". A full table of cluster assimilations can be seen below. Those shown in italics additionally lengthen the previous vowel.
 * 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.

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

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

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

"The Mibassa and Tmohassa are rivers in Tannato."