Han language

Han (: スヲ字韩, Sousaritahan) is the  of , with nearly all of its population having the ability to speak it fluently. It is widely considered to have three highly distinct dialects, though some sources describe the dialects as distinct languages. The official global regulatory body of the Han language is the, which governs the proper usage of the Han language.

Characteristics of Han include morphology with  (typically with  suffixes, such as –soomnida) to change or create new vocabulary, a flexible  utilising both  and, a relatively small phonemic inventory, and a noticeable lack of consonant clusters (e.g., [str] in English). Unlike the, which is alleged to be its parent language family, Han has a different syntax and a large amount of vowels (a total of twelve), while in contrast Malayo–Polynesian languages typically have an average of only five vowels. As with other countries part of the, a sizeable amount of its vocabulary is adopted from.

The Han language is written in the Han script, an that uses borrowed  and  characters to convey Han letters, and the Chinese script, used to represent nouns.

Phonology
The Han language has 30 ; 16 and 14. In comparison to other languages, it contains more vowels (14 vowels in Han but only 4-5 vowels in most Malayo–Polynesian languages) but contains less consonants (22 consonants in Han but only 16–22 consonants in most Malayo–Polynesian languages).

Grammar
There are eight basic parts of speech: verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions and particles. It is a partly language; pronouns are inflected for number while verbs are inflected for focus, aspect and voice. Sentences typically follow a order, though the order is quite flexible as  and  orders are also used, albeit only in informal situations.

Verbs
Han verbs are morphologically complex; being conjugated by taking on a variety of affixes that reflect focus, aspect, voice, and other qualities.

Below is a chart of the main verbal, which consist of a variety of , , , and. Punctuation marks indicate the type of affix a particular bound is; e.g., hyphens mark prefixes and suffixes, while brackets mark an infix placed between the first consonant and the first vowel of the root word.

Aspect
The of a verb shows its progressiveness; specifying whether the action had happened, is happening, or is due to happen. In Han, verbs are conjugated for time using aspect rather than tense.

There are four aspects. The complete aspect shows that the action had been completed. The progressive aspect shows that the action has been initiated but not been completed or the action is habitual or a universal fact. The contemplative aspect shows the action has not happened, but is anticipated. The least common aspect is known as the complete aspect, showing that the action has been only just completed prior to the time of speaking or a specified time.

Trigger
An important feature of verbs in Han and other Philippine languages (which is alleged to be its parent language family, as it is the sole other languages who have the system) is the trigger system, often referred to as the voice or the focus. In the system, the thematic role (agent, patient, or oblique) of the noun (marked by the direct-case particle) is encoded in the verb. In its default (no modifications to the verb) form, it triggers a reading of the direct noun as the patient of the clause. In its second most common form, it triggers the noun as the agent of the clause instead. Other triggers are, , , , , and lastly, the.

There are three main patient-trigger affixes. The –in is used for three things; objects that are moved towards the actor (e.g., gain-in, to eat something), objects whose changes are irreversible (e.g., wang-in, to kill something), and lastly, things that are thought of (e.g., iship-in, to think of something). The –ō is used for objects which is undergoing a change of state. While the an– is used for items undergoing a surface change. Nouns and adjectives could use these affixes in the same as verbs could. Also, verbs with affixes may also be used as nouns. Historically, they were differentiated by stress position, but today, there is no such way to differentiate between them.

The main agent-trigger affixes are -um-, -ma, -nam, and -man.

The -ma is used with only a few roots which are semantically intransitive. -ma is not to be confused with -man, the potentiative prefix for patient-triggered verb forms. The difference between ma- and -um- is a source of confusion among learners of the language, though there are two main distinct differences among many; the former refers to externally directed actions (e.g., to buy) while the latter refers to internally directed actions (e.g., to sell). There are exceptions however, but in general most verbs are conjugated this way.

Nouns
Han are not, but are however, preceded by case-making particles. These follow the – the presence of this has made many linguists place it within the  as it is only found within it. There are three basic cases; (or, often inaccurately labeled );  (which may function as an , , or ); and.

The direct case is used for clauses. In clauses utilising the default grammatical voice of the Han language, the direct marks the   and the indirect marks the, corresponding to the role of the  in the English language. However, when utilising a more marked voice, the situation becomes the opposite as the direct marks the agent and the indirect marks the patient.

Han has been analysed as an language. However, in ergative languages where one of the voices forms an intransitive clause, in Han both voices are transitive, and so align well with neither nominative–accusative languages such as English nor with other ergative languages. The main ergative marker is the sō– (pronounced as [sə] not [so]). Meanwhile, the word mana (pronounced [ma-na]) is placed before a noun to indicate.

Pronouns
Like, personal are categorised by. Indirect forms of pronouns may also function as the. As nouns are gender-neutral, pronouns can be used to refer to both a male or a female.

The second person singular has two forms; hyo is the form while ga is the  which never starts a sentence. While gayo is plural, it may be used in place of the singular form to show respect.

Polite or formal usage
As in many other languages, Han marks the. When addressing a single person in polite, formal, or respectful settings, pronouns from the second or third person plural group are used in place of the singular form. They are often used with the po and ho iterations, but not doing so will not lose any degree of politeness, formality or respect.

Enclitic particles
The Han language utilises enclitic particles having important information that convey different nuances in meaning. Below is a list of Han enclitic particles;
 * 1) na and pa
 * 2) na: now, already
 * 3) pa: still, else, in addition, yet
 * 4) kaji: even, even if, even though
 * 5) joha: although
 * 6) ni and nani: marks personal names that are not the focus of the sentence; indicates possession.
 * 7) shi and shina: marks and introduces personal names
 * 8) kan: indeed; used in affirmations or emphasis. Also softens imperatives
 * 9) rin: too, also
 * 10) sōra: limiting particle; only or just
 * 11) dawō: a reporting particle that expresses that the information in the sentence is second-hand; they say, he said, reportedly, supposedly, etc.
 * 12) ho and po; shows politeness
 * 13) bwa: used in yes-and-no questions and optionally in other types of questions,
 * 14) mina: for now, for a minute and yet (in negative sentences).
 * 15) niman: used in making contrasts; softens requests; emphasis
 * 16) gase: expresses cause; because
 * 17) gaya: expresses wonder; I wonder; perhaps (we should do something) (also optionally used in yes-and-no questions and other forms of questions)
 * 18) lana: expresses that the speaker has realised or suddenly remembered something; realization particle
 * 19) yata: expresses uncertainty; probably, perhaps, seems
 * 20) dōriyō: used in cause and effect; as a result
 * 21) san-a: expresses hope, unrealised condition (with verb in completed aspect), used in conditional sentences.
 * 22) baka: expresses the potential of an action to occur
 * 23) dwé: used to indicate duty, correctness, or obligation

Word order
Han has a basic  with the direct noun triggering the verb appearing last (verb-indirect-direct). A change in word order and trigger generally corresponds to a change in definiteness.

The word order may be inverted to a order with the use of the inversion marker nal, though a slight, but optional, pause in speech or a comma in writing may replace the inversion marker. This is often viewed as formal or literary, and is seldom used in actual speech.

Negation
There are three (main) negation words in Han; ōpsō, wara, and hwa.

The first mentioned word is a Korean loanword (though its usage in Han is slightly different), and is used for negating verbs and equations. It can be shortened into ōsu, but this seldom occurs and is considered informal. The second word is the direct opposite of the suffix –mayō, and indicates the lack of an something (usually objects). The last word is used in expressing negative commands, and may be used for the infinitive and future aspect.

There are two more special negative forms for common verbs, the positive shippō (which is also a Korean loanword) and the negative ayawa.

Dialects
The Han language is split into three distinct different ; the spoken in, , and Han territories, the  spoken in , and the  spoken in  and the northern parts of Doshobei (coexisting with the Hanyang dialect). The Hanyang dialect is the standardised version of Han with official government documents, and political or economic exchanges being written or conducted in said dialect.

As a result of geographic isolation and political division between North and South Hani which persisted until the nineties, strong lexical, phonological, and grammatical differences have developed between the three dialects. An example of some dialectal differences are;
 * There are varying levels of Chinese loanwords, with the Solwōn dialect having the most and the Shinan dialect having the least.
 * There is a notable lack of formality and in the Shinan dialect.
 * ng and the letter m is not present in the Shinan dialect, being both replaced by n. For example, yang (meaning "of") would be pronounced yan and sūmnida (an affix stating a past action) would be pronounced sun-nida.
 * The Shinan dialect has five vowels and has only . Both the pure vowels and the compound vowels between the Solwōn and Hanyang dialects are the same.
 * The Shinan dialect preserves the usage of repetition to form new words (again, similar to other ), while the other dialects use the suffix –do in the place of the syllable.

Malayo–Polynesian languages
Below is a chart of Han and twenty Malayo–Polynesian languages (the parent language family of Han) thirteen words.

Classification of the Han language
Whilst Han is firmly believed by most mainstream linguists to be placed in the language family under the  languages, there is still debate on which subdivision should it be placed in and if whether it should be grouped by itself (under hypothetical the Han languages, which Han and its attested older forms comprises its single extant member).

Even despite the firm belief that it is an Austronesian language, some still propose links with other languages, including Korean and Japanese and others still believe it is a.

Koreanic hypothesis
Many Western linguists in the nineteeth century originally linked Korean to Han due to the presence of nearly identical phonemes, an morphology, a  order (though in Han it is flexible, with  being also used), an important system of, and a few lexical similarities (e.g., shippō, oppa, sarang, and ōpsō are found in both languages).

However, by the turn of the twentieeth century and the end of its, the relaxed immigration policies allowed further studies that had concluded that most similarities in morphology and word order were just both preexisting Malayo–Polynesian traits while the lexical similarities are the influence of Korean settlers and the mutual mass-borrowing of Chinese words (as they are both  societies).

Although today the hypothesis is considered archaic, most amateurs still hypothesise it to be a or a, sharing a common ancestor that had originated somewhere in Manchuria, where it traveled south to Korea then to Hani via Japan and Solwōn.