Amazon [AMZ]
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Registered by
[Deactivated User] on 14 September 2016
Language type
Artistic Language (Artlang)
Species
Human/humanoid
About Amazon
Currently being redone
Amazon is the language of the Amazon People that live in a few isolated primeval forests of Central and Eastern Europe. This has led to the development of several dialects. The dialect shown here is 'Western Amazon', which is the most commonly spoken Amazon dialect due to the continued prescence in Croatia of the old-growth forests where the Amazon people live. It is also among the most studied Amazon dialects due to the relative friendliness of the western Amazon communities and the long history of interaction between these Amazons and the countries around their home. However, linguists fear that due to the isolation of Amazon communities from one-another and the continued integration of western culture and modernisation, even this dialect faces extinction.
The Amazon language is one of the few remaining pre-Indo-European languages in Europe.* It was once believed to be related to Basque and the Vasconic languages but there is no clear evidence to support this and most linguists now accept that it has no living, if any, relatives. Amazon is also noteworthy for being the only language in Europe to still be spoken by a tribally-organised people. Other unusual features of Amazon are it's moderately large number of cases, alienability distinction in possessives, 3 noun genders (animate, inanimate, abstract), use of ESSEssive (case)
'as, similar' to express past tense and TEMPTemporal (case)
specifying time (at one, on Monday, etc.) to express future tense and its use of the voiceless alveolar trill (contrasting plain and geminated) as well as clicks, making it one of only 2 languages outside Africa to use click consonants.*
*Within Universe
Amazon is the language of the Amazon People that live in a few isolated primeval forests of Central and Eastern Europe. This has led to the development of several dialects. The dialect shown here is 'Western Amazon', which is the most commonly spoken Amazon dialect due to the continued prescence in Croatia of the old-growth forests where the Amazon people live. It is also among the most studied Amazon dialects due to the relative friendliness of the western Amazon communities and the long history of interaction between these Amazons and the countries around their home. However, linguists fear that due to the isolation of Amazon communities from one-another and the continued integration of western culture and modernisation, even this dialect faces extinction.
▼ Amazon distribution
▼ Amazon Dialects
The Amazon language is one of the few remaining pre-Indo-European languages in Europe.* It was once believed to be related to Basque and the Vasconic languages but there is no clear evidence to support this and most linguists now accept that it has no living, if any, relatives. Amazon is also noteworthy for being the only language in Europe to still be spoken by a tribally-organised people. Other unusual features of Amazon are it's moderately large number of cases, alienability distinction in possessives, 3 noun genders (animate, inanimate, abstract), use of ESSEssive (case)
'as, similar' to express past tense and TEMPTemporal (case)
specifying time (at one, on Monday, etc.) to express future tense and its use of the voiceless alveolar trill (contrasting plain and geminated) as well as clicks, making it one of only 2 languages outside Africa to use click consonants.*
*Within Universe
Sample of Amazon[view] I txǫhhena ii utirutitx ą uufuljã, miireqatitxilj ii warethogitxilj li 'õt.
Forget bears and otters, we should all be meerkats and warthogs.[view all texts]
Forget bears and otters, we should all be meerkats and warthogs.[view all texts]
Sound samples in Amazon
Some sound samples of Amazon. Maximum of 6 shown. Click the links to see the full texts.
Amnhoxh kha pwe'õ, ą vozitiõ, ufu amapaxhill xija 'õ.
I spit on everyone, I drive where I want
I spit on everyone, I drive where I want
Language family relationships
[view] About IsolatesThis is a family for isolate languages.
Phonology
| Consonants | Bilabial | Dental | Alveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Labio- velar | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | |||||||||
| Nasal | m̥ | n | ŋ | |||||||||||||||
| Plosive | p | t | d | c | ɟ | [k]1 | g | q | ʔ | |||||||||
| Fricative | ɸ | β β: | z z: | ʂ | ʐ ʐ: | [ç]2 | χ3 | h | ɦ | |||||||||
| Affricate | t͡s t͡s: | ʈ͡ʂ | ||||||||||||||||
| Lateral approximant | l l̥ | ʎ | ʟ4 | |||||||||||||||
| Lateral fricative | ɬ | ɮ | ||||||||||||||||
| Approximant | j5 | w6 | ||||||||||||||||
| Trill | r̥:7 r̥8 | |||||||||||||||||
| Click | ǀ ǀ̃ | ǃ ǃ̃ | ||||||||||||||||
| Blends | ʂp |
- Syllable finally, allophone of /q/
- Syllable finally, allophone of /j/
- Also allophone of syllable final /h/
- Archaic, being replaced by /l/
- May be weakly fricated [ʝ] in onset position
- May be realised as [ʍ] after voiceless stops
- Voiced after /d g/
- Voiced after /d g/
| Vowels | Front | Central | Back | |||
| Close | i i: ĩ | u u: ũ | ||||
| Close-mid | ɘ1 ɘ:2 | ɵ3 ɵ:4 | o õ | |||
| Open-mid | ɔ ɔ: ɔ̃ | |||||
| Open | a a: ã | ɑ:5 | ||||
| Polyphthongs | au̯ | aɔ̯ | ao̯ |
- Realised as [ə] by some speakers or in unstressed syllables
- Realised as [ə:] by some speakers or in unstressed syllables
- Also realised as [ʊ]
- Also realised as [ʊ:]
- Also realised as [ɐ:]
Orthography
Below is the orthography for Amazon. This includes all graphemes as defined in the language's phonology settings - excluding the non-distinct graphemes/polygraphs.
 AmazonOrthography [edit] | ||||||||||
| ' 'a /ʔ/ | Aa a /a/ | Ąą ą /ɑ:/1 | Cc ca /c/ | CC cc cca /ɟ/ | Dd/d/ | Ee e /ɘ/2 | Ff fa /ɸ/ | Gg ga /g/ | Hh ha /h/ | HH hh hha /ɦ/ |
| Ii i /i/ | Jj ja /ʐ/ | Kk ka /ǀ/ | KH kh kha /ǃ/ | KHN khn/ǃ̃/ | KN kn/ǀ̃/ | Ll la /l/ | LH lh lha /ʟ/3 | LJ lj alj /ɮ/ | LL ll lla /ɬ/ | Mm am /m̥/ |
| Nn/n/ | NH nh anh /ŋ/ | Oo o /o/ | Ǫǫ ǫ /ɔ/ | Pp pa /p/ | Qq qaq /q/, [k]4 | Rr ra /r̥/5 | Tt/t/ | TX tx txa /ʈ͡ʂ/ | TZ tz atz /t͡s/ | Uu u /u/ |
| Ųų ų /ɵ/6 | Vv va /β/ | Ww wa /w/7 | Xx ax /ʂ/ | XH xh axh /χ/8 | Yy yay /j/9, [ç]10 | YL yl yla /ʎ/ | Zz zat /z/ | Łł ła /l̥/ | ||
| ✖ Unknown alphabetical order [change] | ||||||||||
- Also realised as [ɐ:]
- Realised as [ə] by some speakers or in unstressed syllables
- Archaic, being replaced by /l/
- Syllable finally
- Voiced after /d g/
- Also realised as [ʊ]
- May be realised as [ʍ] after voiceless stops
- Also allophone of syllable final /h/
- May be weakly fricated [ʝ] in onset position
- Syllable finally
Latest 8 related articles listed below.
Origins and Prehistory 15-Jul-20 00:10
