Nankôre: Difference between revisions

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For a little over a century the origins of the language and its people remain clouded in mystery. Physically, the Nanhoshka people look distinct from the Northwest Pacific Native Americans just 862 kilometers from the eastern shore, but their physical features bear a strikingly close resemblance to the [[Minhast]] people of the Republic of Minhay, who live much further away on the other side of the Pacific Ocean close to Japan and Moshir Ainu. Because of these physical resemblances, both anthropologists and linguists started exploring a possible relationship between the two peoples. Recent genetic research uncovered that both the Nanhoshka and Minhast belong to the haplogroup C-M212, indicating a common ancestry. Linguists had a more difficult task in establishing a relationship. Finally Benson et. al. compiled an extensive Swadesh list and internally consistent sound correspondences between the two languages. Most importantly, a set of affixes that were quite conservative were revealed, notably the Causative affix, and a set of fossilized affixes which are prefixed to body parts to derive verbs. In addition, a third language, [[Nahónda]], also previously classified as a language isolate, was discovered to contain common vocabulary and affixes which it shared with both Nankôre and Minhast. Therefore, both Nankôre and Minhast, along with Nahónda, are now recognized as belonging to the same language family, which has been named the Nahenic language family.

Like Minhast and Nahónda, Nankôre is an SOV language. However, unlike its relatives, Nankôre is not a polysynthetic language but is relatively sparse in terms of affixes for determining syntactic relations. Nouns do not receive case or number marking, nor are they marked for gender. Word order within the verb complex is rather strict, but core, patient, and obliques may occur in various orders. The verb complex consists minimally of a main verb, which possesses suffixes for marking evidentiality, and the copula, which contain a rich set of affixes to mark the core arguments for various syntactic features: number, tense, voice, agency, etc.

==Grammatical Overview==

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 For a little over a century the origins of the language and its people remain clouded in mystery.  Physically, the Nanhoshka people look distinct from the Northwest Pacific Native Americans just 862 kilometers from the eastern shore, but their physical features bear a strikingly close resemblance to the [[Minhast]] people of the Republic of Minhay, who live much further away on the other side of the Pacific Ocean close to Japan and Moshir Ainu.  Because of these physical resemblances, both anthropologists and linguists started exploring a possible relationship between the two peoples.  Recent genetic research uncovered that both the Nanhoshka and Minhast belong to the haplogroup C-M212, indicating a common ancestry.  Linguists had a more difficult task in establishing a relationship.  Finally Benson et. al. compiled an extensive Swadesh list and internally consistent sound correspondences between the two languages.  Most importantly, a set of affixes that were quite conservative were revealed, notably the Causative affix, and a set of fossilized affixes which are prefixed to body parts to derive verbs.  In addition, a third language, [[Nahónda]], also previously classified as a language isolate, was discovered to contain common vocabulary and affixes which it shared with both Nankôre and Minhast.  Therefore, both Nankôre and Minhast, along with Nahónda, are now recognized as belonging to the same language family, which has been named the Nahenic language family.
-Like Minhast and Nahónda, Nankôre is an SOV language.  However, unlike its relatives, Nankôre is not a polysynthetic language but is relatively sparse in terms of affixes for determining syntactic relations.  Nouns do not receive case or number marking, nor are they marked for gender.  Word order within the verb complex is rather strict, but core, patient, and obliques may occur in various orders.  The verb complex consists minimally of a main verb, which possesses suffixes for marking evidentiality, and the copula, which contain a rich set of affixes to mark the core arguments for various syntactic features: number, tense, voice, agency, etc.
 ==Grammatical Overview==