Classical Sillenic

Classical Sillenic (Thati na Sillenika) is a classical language that was spoken from the fourth century until the fifteenth century. It belonged to the Sillenic branch of the Qero-Sillenic languages and therefore was closely related to Old Makuku and Old Olmac. Sillenic was the main language of the Sillenic Empire and was imposed upon the peoples it conquered. Asides from serving as the regional lingua franca, Sillenic also held importance as the liturgical and ecclesiastical language of Orthodox Anystesseanism - being the language in which the Triad was written in.

Under the reign of Sunzia (3XX), Old Sillenic had been standardized into Classical Sillenic. Vulgar Sillenic was a colloquial form spoken by the lower classes starting the tenth century and is attested in plays and prose fiction. Vulgar Sillenic eventually developed into the modern Sillenic languages, such as Standard Sillenic, Olmac, Makuku, Kaloman, Teninukalese, and Aputian, in the sixth to tenth centuries. Classical Sillenic continued to be the language of communication, scholarship, and science within Sillas until it was supplanted by vernaculars during the TBD dynasty in the twenty-fifth century.

Classical Sillenic is an agglutinative language with moderate inflection: there are three noun cases (direct, indirect, and oblique), three tenses/aspects, four moods, and two voices. It is also a verb-final language with strong topicalization. It was written with two scripts: TBD - which is logographic, and TBD - which is a featural alphabet.

History

Late

By the fourteenth century, Vulgar Sillenic (VS) had replaced Classical Sillenic (CS) as the spoken vernacular of the Eastern Empire. However, VS was not a unified language – a fact amplified by the lack of linguistic standardization – but rather a general term for the various sociolects that had developed in ther region.

• North Makuku – heavy Makuku substrate
• Olmaco–Kaloman – heavy Qeran substrate
• South Makuku / Sillenic – most conservative; characterized by lenition
• exo-Sillenic – a potentially creolized form spoken by Sillenic diaspora

Initially, the differences between them were mainly phonological. For example, Sillenes in Kaloma would pronounce /pʰ ~ ɸ/ where Sillenes in Sillas Minor would pronounce as /p/. However, starting the sixteenth century, the different varieties would begin to diverge in grammar (mainly in word morphology and syntax).

Phonology

Consonants

Early Classical Sillenic

		Bilabial	Dental	Alveolar	Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m		n		ɲ	ŋ
Plosive/ affricate	aspirated	pʰ		tʰ			kʰ
	voiceless	p		t	tʃ		k
	voiced	b		d	dʒ		g
Fricative	voiceless	(f)	(θ)	s	ʃ			h
	voiced	(v)	(ð)	z
Tap				ɾ
Approximant				l, ɹ		ʎ	w

Later Classical Sillenic

Grammar

Pronouns

Personal

		Direct	Indirect	Oblique	Clitic	Notes
1st	sing.	ako	ko	aien	-(a)go	–
	pl.	tēo	adin	adin	-(a)nto	inclusive
		kami	namin	amin	-(a)mbro	exclusive
2nd	sing.	ekō	mo	io	-(o)n	–
	pl.	cēo	egno		-(e)gno	–
3rd	sing.	sia	egna	kagna	-(e)gna	–
	pl.	sila	nila	kanila		–

Verbs

Focus	Type	Complete	Progressive	Contemplative
Actor	I	oN~	oN~*	~*
	II	nai~	nai~*	mai~*
	III	na~	na~*	ma~*
	IV	naN~	naN~*	maN~*
Patient	I	eN~	eN~*	~*-en
	II	ien~	ien~*	i~*
	III	en~(h)an	en~*(h)an	~*(h)an

• N = nasals
• ~ = root
• * = umlaut (vowels are raised)
  • a – e
  • e – i
  • o – u
  • i – ai
  • u – au

Type I actor-focus triggers are used solely for internally-directed actions; conversely, type II actor-focus triggers are for externally-directed actions. Type III actor-focus triggers are used only for semantically intransitive verbs (for example, toloi "to sleep")

Type I patient-focus triggers are used for items: moved towards the actor, permanently changed, or that are thought of. Type II patient-focus triggers are used for items which undergo a change of state such as being moved away from an actor. The last set of patient-focus triggers are used items undergoing a surface change.

Noun cases

	Personal		Impersonal
	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Direct	si...	sina...	aN...	amaN...
Indirect	ni...	nina...	naN...	namaN...
Oblique	kē...	cina...	sa...	samaN...
Ablative	de...	de...s	de...	de...s
Instrumental / comitative	koN...	koN...s	koN...	koN...s

• In addition, there are the following (optional) articles – all of which are unbound morphemes
  • Definite – la
  • Indefinite – sagno
  • Negation
    • ouala (nouns)
    • hendzí / dzi (verbs)