Bahasa Sokoku
Bahasa Sokoku, also named Bahaso for short, is the official and national language of Sokoku. It is a standardised version of languages spoken on Shuuen and Nelyasyat, belonging to the Bawanesi language family. Bahaso is using an adapted version of the Kakuri writing system called Sokokana. Bahaso is used for communication between states and citizens of the different states and as such taught as official language on all schools. It is however interintelligible with the local languages and dialect of over 80% of the population. This goes for example for all the speakers of Lazeh, which is the majority language in Nelyasyat. Most Sokokans, aside from speaking the national language, are fluent in at least one of the more than 700 indigenous local languages.
History
Bahaso was proposed as a standardised language in 76XX during the Pakatayan conflict. At that time, it became obvious that Sokoku had the ambition to take over governance of Aspasia. It needed a common language to be able to govern an area at least twice as large as Sokoku was during the Pakatayan secession. Simplifying and standardising was a relatively easy process, but the main issue was the use of a writing system. The several Bawanesi languages in the region used different writing systems without a prevailing one, and post-colonial Sokoku wanted to avoid using the Anarian alphabet as the standard. A solution was found by adapting the Kakuri writing system for this purpose.
In 7628 a first version of the language was presented, but it took until 7638 until the proposal had been developed enough to be able to get implemented in federal government and education. In 7645 Bahaso was formally declared the official language of Sokoku. The language legislation however acknowledged several minority languages and described in which circumstances Bahaso had to be used, thus creating room for the continued application of other indigenous languages, related or not. At that time, only about 5% of the population managed to use the language at an L2 level. The combination of nationalistic, political, and practical concerns ultimately led to the successful adoption of Bahaso as a national language.
Today, almost all 170 million inhabitants regularly make use of the national language, with varying degrees of proficiency. In a nation that is home to more than 700 native languages and a vast array of ethnic groups, it plays an important unifying and cross-archipelagic role for the country. Use of the national language is abundant in the media, government bodies, schools, universities, workplaces, among members of the upper-class or nobility and also in formal situations. Howeve, a 7685 census learned that only 20% of over-five-year-olds speak mainly Bahaso at home, making it a common second language in Sokoku at most. Bahaso still functions as a symbol of national identity and pride, and is a lingua franca among the diverse ethnic groups. The language serves as the national and official language, the language of education, communication, transaction and trade documentation, the development of national culture, science, technology, and mass media. It also serves as a vehicle of communication among the states and different regional cultures in the country.
Phonology
Bahaso has six vowel phonemes as shown in the table below.
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | /i/ | /u/ | |
| Close-Mid | /e/ | /ə/ | /o/ |
| Open | /a/ |
The language has four diphthong phonemes only in open syllables, of which one has entered only through loanwords. They are:
- /ai̯/: kedai ('shop'), pandai ('clever')
- /au̯/: kerbau ('buffalo'), limau ('lime')
- /oi̯/ (or /ʊi̯/): amboi ('wow'), toilet ('toilet')
- /ei̯/: survei ('survey')
Diphthongs are differentiated from two vowels in two syllables, such as:
- /a.i/: e.g. lain ('other') [la.in], air ('water') [a.ir]
- /a.u/: bau ('smell') [ba.u], laut ('sea') [la.ut]
The consonants of Bahaso are shown below. Non-native consonants that only occur in borrowed words are shown in parentheses.
| Labial | Dental/
Alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||
| Plosive/
Affricate |
voiceless | p | t̪ | t͡ʃ | k | |
| voiced | b | d | d͡ʒ | ɡ | ||
| Fricative | voiceless | (f) | s | (ʃ) | (x) | h |
| voiced | ||||||
| Approximant | w | l | j | |||
| Trill | r | |||||
The language has light stress that falls on either the final or penultimate syllable, depending on regional variations as well as the presence of the schwa (/ə/) in a word. It is generally the penultimate syllable that is stressed, unless its vowel is a schwa /ə/.
Grammar
Word order is generally subject-verb-object (SVO). However, considerable flexibility in word ordering exists. It does not mark for grammatical case, nor does it make use of grammatical gender. A majority of words that refer to people generally have a form that does not distinguish between the sexes. However distinction is made between older or younger. There are a few words that have gender: for instance, putri means "daughter" while putra means "son"
Words are composed of a root or a root plus derivational affixes. The root is the primary lexical unit of a word and is usually bisyllabic, of the shape CV(C)CV(C). Affixes are "glued" onto roots (which are either nouns or verbs) to alter or expand the primary meaning associated with a given root, effectively generating new words, for example, masak (to cook) may become memasak (cooking), memasakkan (cook for), dimasak (be cooked), pemasak (a cook), masakan (a meal, cookery), termasak (accidentally cooked). There are four types of affixes: prefixes (awalan), suffixes (akhiran), circumfixes (apitan) and infixes (sisipan). Affixes are categorised into noun, verb, and adjective affixes. Many initial consonants alternate in the presence of prefixes: sapu (to sweep) becomes menyapu (sweeps/sweeping); panggil (to call) becomes memanggil (calls/calling), tapis (to sieve) becomes menapis (sieves).
Grammar does not regularly mark plurals. To change a singular into a plural one either repeats the word or adds para before it (the latter for living things only); for example, "students" can be either murid-murid or para murid. Plurals are rarely used.
Personal pronouns are not a separate part of speech, but a subset of nouns. They are frequently omitted, and there are numerous ways to say "you". Commonly the person's name, title, title with name, or occupation is used ("does Johnny want to go?", "would Madam like to go?"); kin terms, including fictive kinship, are extremely common. The table below provides an overview of the most commonly and widely used pronouns:
| Person | Respect | Singular | Plural | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st person exclusive | Informal, Familiar | aku | I | kami | we
(s/he,they, not you) |
| Standard, Polite | saya | ||||
| 1st person inclusive | All | kita | we
(s/he,they, and you) | ||
| 2nd person | Familiar | kamu, engkau, kau | you | kalian | you all |
| Polite | Anda | Anda sekalian | |||
| 3rd person | Familiar | dia, ia | s/he, it | mereka | they |
| Polite | beliau | s/he | |||
Verbs are not inflected for person or number, and they are not marked for tense; tense is instead denoted by time adverbs (such as "yesterday") or by other tense indicators, such as sudah "already" and belum "not yet". On the other hand, there is a complex system of verb affixes to render nuances of meaning and to denote voice or intentional and accidental moods.
Adjectives are always placed after the noun that they modify. Hence, "rumah saya" means "my house", while "saya rumah" means "I am a house".
Writing system
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Vocabulary
Bahaso is using a lot of loanwords from former colonial presence. Anisoran has left quite a mark in the vocabulary, while Wortsproke and Kakuri are present as well. It is less common that Stoldic or Hallisian has made it into the vocabulary, but there are dozens of examples present. More recently, the influence of Izto languages can be seen through loanwords in Bahaso as well.
- Anisoran loanwords: akta (certificate), bangku (chair), beranda (porch), kanal (canal), keméja (shirt).
- Wortsproke loanwords: midden (dump), jankar (anchor), sekrup (screw), dus (dose), mekelar (broker)
- Izto loanwords:
- Auresian loanwords: armada (fleet), gratis (free), palsu (false), pigura (figure), nihil (zero)
- Kakuri loanwords: bakéro (stupid), boshi (military hat), cuto (intermediate), gako (school), juki (rifle)
- Stoldic loanwords: otomatis (automatic), sekop (shovel), tegel (floor tile), merek (brand)
- Hallisian loanwords: aset (asset), botol (bottle), desain (design), frontal, isu (issue)
- Livarian loanwords: