Ahsi

Ahsi is the language of the Ahsi People. It combines simple words to form sometimes complex thoughts and ideas through the use of aggregates (or compound words).

When speaking Ahsi, letters that are capital are emphasized with stress on that syllable, capital vs not changes not just pronunciation but in some cases meaning. Accented letters are, generally, intended to speak their name (á = a instead of ah). The letter X represents the sound "sh" (like in she or shower). The letters th are not necessarily a "th" sound (as in think) but make a tuh sound intending emphasis on the pronunciation of the letter t (as in tub, tune, or tunnel), as the H in Ahsi is not a letter per se, it's used to change the pronunciation of other letters, much like how the silent e in English works.

SILENT E WORDS Silent E words follow the C-V-C pattern, but with an E at the end, so they become C-V-C-E words. Adding the -E at the end changes the short vowel sound to a long vowel sound.
For example:
Hat /hæt/ has a short A sound, and hate /heɪt/ has a long A sound.
Bid /bɪd/ has a short I sound, and bide /baɪd/ has a long I sound.
Hop /hɑp/ has a short O sound, and hope /hoʊp/ has a long O sound (info from here.

If an h precedes a vowel at the beginning of the word, that vowel is soft. (ex: hera "to make" is said "EH-rah" like the English word era, NOT "heh-rah" like the Greek Goddess, nor "EE-rah" with the e saying it's name).) The "th" sound is instead represented by a þ.

See a dictionary with notes and literal translations at Ahsi Lexicon.

In general the only stress in the language is marked by either the use of the letter "h" in the Galactic Standard Writing System or use of a capital letter.

Writing System

The Ahsi alphabet is rigid and meticulous, the Ahsi claim, though the "letters" are delicately made of loops and swirls that seem to dance and sway like lines in the sand under the tides. They make claims that they do not use an alphabet as it is understood to be (a single symbol = a single letter). They refer to their pictorial orthography as an alphabet only when they have no alternative wording to use. "Letters" in their case are pictographs representing sounds. The alphabet used in the dictionary on this page belongs in truth to the Galactic Standard Writing System. It is not a perfect fit to the Ahsi language (according to Ahsi who care enough to argue about it).

When approached by scholars from other races over seeming miscommunication regarding Ahsi linguists refusing to call their pictorial orthography an alphabet claiming that not doing so is odd since "All alphabets are just pictographs representing sounds", Ahsi cultural anthropologists cited a misunderstanding of the word "alphabet' as the reasoning for the refusal. "Ahsi writing," they explained, "uses symbols sometimes representing singular sounds, that when stacked upon each other change into whole words."

In truth the orthography is complex, each sound within the language is represented by a picture, common syllable sounds represented by a different picture, and combining two sounds together by drawing the picture on top of the other picture creates a third sound, or a word. Whole words might be represented by an imagine of what the word means (such as xian represented by a picture of a star) instead of the combined pictures of the sounds.

Typically it takes several years of lessons before someone who didn't grow up with the Ahsi orthography to learn the complete orthography, and the accepted methods of creating words by combining the simpler pictographs into complex ones. Ahsi scholars believe a lot of the complexity within their orthography happened because of their ancestors developing the written language to be understood as carvings upon underwater rock faces. The spoken Ahsi language developed long after the written form, because of Ahsi Telepathy, when the written language was being developed it was attempting to capture thoughts and visual impressions into symbols that all Ahsi would learn to recognize. Spoken Ahsi did not develop until the Ahsi moved from the sea to the land and by that point the written Ahsi language was intrinsically linked with the definitions of the symbols in the thoughts of all Ahsi that no one bothered trying to "simplify" it into using fewer symbols.

Syntax

The sentence structure of Ahsi is mostly the same a English, with a general format of Subject - Verb - Object - Oblique. However, because Ahsi also relies on Declension, Conjugation, and aggregate words sentence structure can sometimes get thrown out the window in favor of a more pleasant looking written experience, or a more melodic or rhythmic spoken experience depending on the particular Ahsi's preference.

Vocabulary

See A Dictionary Here As Well

About the words for Hearing and Seeing

The Ahsi have two words and many phrases related to hearing and seeing things, specifically in the context of conversations and communication.

The word na means many things. It means "to see" in the literal sense, it also means "to hear" and "to understand" as well as "to read". In the ancient past, when the Ahsi still lived solely under the surface of Ladi's oceans, they did not communicate through sound. They communicated telepathically through thoughts, feelings, impressions, and images. In those times "to see" and "to hear" were the same concept, the reception of a thought, as it was generally a visual experience within their mind. It was generally thought that if you "hear" or "see" something, then you also understand it.

Show spoiler

Because of the concept of seeing and understanding being the same thing to the Ahsi, the English phrase "I see what you're saying" is not only completely understandable, modern Ahsi attempts to adopt this phrase into modern Ahsi are yielding results, though the phrase is still not all that widespread among Ahsi when Humans are not present.

The concept of naan as "to hear" and "to listen" came later. It was developed after the Ahsi began speaking aloud to each other once they had moved to land. The opposite of "seeing" a thought, was to "listen" to someone voice it.

From the word na they developed the word nail which is the negated form of the verb. In most use cases, it's used to indicate either that you do not see something, or that you do not understand it. It is also used to let someone know you didn't understand what they meant by the words they said.

They developed from na and nail combined, the phrase nailna which depending on context has a multitude of translations:

"To see without understanding"

This phrase is fairly straight forward, it literally means that you don't understand what you're looking at, usually used in exasperation or fear.

"To understand without seeing"

This means the same thing as "to have faith" or "to believe" if an Ahsi says they understand another Ahsi without seeing, it means they can't visualize the concept or image or idea, but they understand and believe that what's being told is true.

"To understand without reading"

This concept is the explanation of a kind of learning. Some people understand things when they're explained without having to read books.

"To see without reading"

Is a phrased generally used more modernly to mean "ignoring the signs", you saw the sign was there (whether literally or figuratively) but you didn't bother reading it or you ignored it.

"To see without seeing"

Generally this concept is best explained by the fact that "see" and "hear" used to be the same concept. If you see something without seeing it, you're seeing it in your head (generally while looking) but don't see it with your eyes. It also applies (specifically with Ahsi to Ahsi telepathy) to the idea of having received a thought without being able to locate the individual who sent it (in this case it has implied subjects "[I] see [the thought] without seeing [you]").

"To read without seeing"

The Ahsi use this phrase for the orthography they use to allow blind Ahsi to see. They've also more modernly applied it to the different forms of Braille and raised alphabets and other accommodations that exist among Human languages.

The phrase naanil is very straight forward and simply means you physically did not hear something. While in contrast, the phrase nailnaan is used to say you don't understand but specifically a language or words that was said. Using nailnaan instead of nail is meant to indicate to another Ahsi that you understand that words are being said, but do not know the actual meaning of them.

The phrase naanilnaan has two meanings:

"To hear without listening"

Usually this phrase is used to imply unwillingly or accidentally ignoring someone who is speaking. It implies that you heard what they said, physically, but weren't listening and thus didn't actually grasp what words were said, only that words were said. If you hear without listening, this is generally indicated to the person talking by the fact that you in some way acknowledge they spoke to you, either by asking them to repeat the statement or by going 'what' or simply by turning to look at them.

"To listen without hearing"

In contrast of the accidental nature of "to hear without listening", this meaning of the phrase implies deliberately ignoring someone that is speaking to you. There's a number of indicators that you're listening without hearing. Some of them being: pausing your sentence to allow someone else to speak, then continuing your sentence without actually acknowledging what the person said; going "okay, anyway..." and continuing your speech/conversation/sentence/rant/argument after someone offers their opinion/advice/idea/or counter-point; ignoring counterpoints, reprimands, arguments, and/or facts offered up by people during a debate. If you're in a monitored, mitigated, or otherwise official debate and you get shut down for "listening without hearing" too many times, you'll be kicked out of the debate and not allowed to speak during it again.

Dictionary

243 Words.

Common Phrases

isufa Éan

I love you

Aí, Xiá-hí

Hey, fuck off

On the Strange Manner of Stress, Emphasis, and Pronunciation

within the Galactic Standard Writing System's translation of Ahsi words

The strange ways of stress and the different pronunciations and emphasis within the spoken language to GSWS translation mostly all boil down to Ahsi going, "these are not the same word written in our orthography by any means but the GSWS has such a limited set of characters that unfortunately due to the similar sounds they are written similarly, how do we make it CLEAR they're different words?", when the attempt to translate Ahsi into the GSWS was first began.

In the written Ahsi orthography, one would never confuse Xia and Xiá and xia and xiá because as individual words, they're all represented by symbols that don't look similar. However, due to having similar pronunciations, in the GSWS they're written similarly enough that some form of distinguishment had to be made.