Sani language
The Sani language, formerly called Lakhesian by the colonial power Shireroth, is a Cosimo-Benacian language spoken by approximately 32-35 million people in Sanama and Talenore. It is closely related to Ama with which it has limited mutual intelligability. Around 25 million speakers can be found in Sanama, and 7.5 million in Talenore. It is an official language in Talenore and the main official language in Sanama. Sani is a mildly agglutinative language, it also has a wide array of particles.
Phonology
(Under construction)
Consonants
| Bilabial | Labiodental | Dental | Alveolar | Post-alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | p | t | k | q | ʔ | ||||
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | ||||||
| Trill | r̥ r | ||||||||
| Fricative | f | θ | s | ʃ | x | h | |||
| Approximant | ʍ w | j | |||||||
| Lateral approximant | l̥ l | ||||||||
| Affricate | ts | tʃ |
Vowels
Sani has six vowel phonemes. They do not contrast for length or nasality. The Sani schwa vowel is transliterated as Ë, while the E vowel varies between /e/ and /ɛ/ depending on environment.
Phonotactics
Grammar
Syntax
Sani is a subject-object-verb language, but due to case marking, the order is somewhat fluid.
Sani vocabulary
Most of the Sani vocabulary is Cosimo-Benacian in origin, but the language has also borrowed words, mostly from Praeta, Ama and more recently Istvanistani and Babkhi.
| Semantic Domain | Word | Etymology | Definition |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grammar | Word | Etym | Def |
