Nazra'yo 2017-06-19

Nazra'yo (or in writing Nazra'yot) is the language of the Nazra.

Originally the Nazra'yo was developed for cummunication with semi-intelligent machines, which is still expressed in its strict grammar. The written form is called Nazra'yot, which means roughly Nazra-characters. Traditionally, these symbols aren't drawn by hand, instead they're are applied with a dictionary.

• Detailed article: Nazra'yot
• Detailed article: Dictionary

Origin

For long time, the Nazra didn't know font; all informations were transmitted through a mixture of spoken language and telepathy or subtly via thought network. However, none of these methods was suitable for communication with semi-intelligent machines. The solution to this was a synthetic language, the Nazra'yo, which is also available in written form as Nazra'yot.

A few years after its introduction, the Nazra'yo was also discovered for ordinary communication. Initially only among scientists, then in the commercial sector, and finally among friends and acquaintances, the writing of letters became very popular. Finally, after people brought their books to Ancyria, soon Nazran books called Yot'aan were created and libraries of knowledge built in different cities.

During this development, the vocabulary of the Nazra'yo was drastically expanded and especially the font often reworked. New symbols were introduced, existing symbols changed according to frequency and overtaken characters were deleted or replaced. Only through public the language stabilized to its present form, in which almost only extensions instead of changes take place.

Linguistic structure

The Nazra'yo has an isolated linguistic structure, so the word positions within a sentence are fixed (Subject > Verb > Object). It's an agglutinating language in which the prefixes and suffixes are contained in the symbol of the word. Passive sentences and the imperative aren't part of the Nazra'yo.

Questions

Questions are built by replacing the missing information with a question mark, like this:

• Question: "You are (?) years old."
• Answer: "24."

Whole sentences are questioned by placing the question mark at the end. This is similar to "Isn't it? or "Right?".

Comparative

The Nazra'yo doesn't know any comparison like fast, faster, fastest. At the most, such constructs can be translated with auxiliary adjectives (fast, more fast, maximal fast), but this is unusual.

Comparisons are formed with "more", "less" or "equal", links with the so-called autopositive. The phrase "The more friends you have, the richer you are" would be literally "The more friends, the more wealth". Autopositive means that both values increase, so more friends are equal to more wealth. Rather unusual is the contrary use, as an example the construction a house; the less material is needed, the cheaper it can be built. Here the relationship is "The less material, the cheaper". Nazra express the sentence as autopositive: "The more material, the more expensive".

Number system

The nazran system of numbers is called Yota'mik. Its peculiarities are reflected in the notation of the digits, which have 6 different digits (senary) and no floating point numbers. In contrast to the human languages, the Nazra'yo also doesn't name any numbers (like "twelve"). Nazra always speak their numbers digit by digit; thus 12'500 would be pronounced "one two five zero zero".

• Detailed article: Yota'mik

Dictionary

The dictionary is an aid for writing the symbols of the language, comparable to a stamp. This technical device is used to create Yot and to drag them to any surface. Color, size and angle of the characters (as well as a number of additional characteristics) can be chosen freely. In this way, the filigree, partly very complex characters doesn't need to be written by hand.

Thanks to a special form of Quantum entanglement all the written characters remain connected to the large central dictionary. If a character is redefined or redesigned at a time, it affects all existing texts instantly. This function was originally necessary to keep the character sets of all machines in sync. Since the Nazra'yo is also used as colloquial language and in books, the updates occasionally lead to misunderstandings and misinterpretations. Normally such inconsistencies disappear in the course of a day, since all language informations are continually updated using the thought network.

Libraries

The need for a library was long controversial since the Nazra didn't record their knowledge in writing. Only with the spread (and extension) of the written language books were created. Only with the spread (and extension) of the written language books were created, which, unlike the omnipresent thought network, weren't available everywhere and anytime. In order to ensure availability, the first library was built in the city of Antra'deta.

Other libraries followed in other large cities, with a different knowledge policy in each region. For example in Antra'tos, only nonfictional books were available, while in Antra'deta all writings could be archived; also fictional stories and books written by humans. Because of this openness the Ana'to'aan soon became the largest library of the Nazra. It's noteworthy that some of the books brought to Antra'deta were later banned and burned in the outer world. Thus, some of the most important human works actually exist only in the library of Antra'deta.

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