Historical Linguistics

This page aims to provide you with some information about older stages of the Arusian language. Have fun!

Middle Arusian​

Middle Arusian is the stage of the Arusian language before the year of 2019. The language underwent few changes in morphology, but lexicon and syntax changed quite considerably. We will detail some of those here.

Linguistic Purism and "European" Taboo​

Arusian used to have more words borrowed from European languages in the past However, there was a period in Arusia where there was a taboo about everything that was European or of European origin (and that included borrowings). Arusians started replacing them with native Eru roots. Here are some:

Negation with "NEI"​

Instead of vej, a preverbal nei was used to negate sentences. The syntax differed considerably here.

• Middle Arusian: Lu nei ouwr lu decr juwa (I don't want to buy a book)
• Modern Standard Arusian (Fenadel Dialect): Vej sa lu ouwr lu decr juwa
• Modern Arusian (Puerto Lobos): Veca l'ouwr lu decr juwa

Passive Voice and Verb Markers​

Verbs in Middle Arusian (the transitive ones) were consistently marked with -r when the subject was the actor and with -s when it was the undergoer (the patient). The agent in patient trigger verbs was introduced by the er particle, which over time fused into the root of the verb and yielded the modern -se ending for transitive patient trigger verbs.

• Middle Arusian: Juwa decus er lu (The book was bought by me)
• Modern Standard Arusian (Fenadel Dialect): Juwa decse lu
• Modern Arusian (Puerto Lobos): Juwa deces lu

Adjectives in Middle Aru?​

As for adjectives, they were still a productive class in Middle Aru and ended with either -s (for roots ending in vowels) and -us (for roots ending in a consonant). Over time, adjectives started to behave more like nouns and verbs and ceased to exist as a distinct class in Arusian.

• Middle Arusian: Vek timus u sa lu adecr (I buy a black car)
• Modern Arusian: Vek sa tim u sa lu decr

Peis: Plural Marker​

The particle peis was used sporadically as a plural marker, although it was never mandatory, like the English -s. It could have been a noun/adjective (because adjectives and attributive words ended with -s/-us in Middle Arusian) whose meaning was something in the lines of 'more than one'. Also, in Modern Arusian it is also prefixed to numbers when they are used together with nouns to express quantity: i.e. som sa pei-tef (three men).

• Juwa (book, books)
• Juwa peis (books)

In Modern Arusian, (pei) became more common and now works more like a marker/particle than a noun. It disappeared altogether in Porto Lobos.

The Lack of "WEI"​

The pronoun wei (whose classification is still under debate, but candidates include anaphoric pro-form, relative pronoun, and ligature, similar in function to Tagalog ng as a clause connector) didn't exist yet in Middle Arusian. Instead, you would connect elements in a more direct way. Most of the time, wei is there, in Modern Arusian, to reduce the risk of ambiguity in non-topicalised clauses and comments.

• Middle Arusian: Tei adecr vek timus lus (You are buying my black car in Fenadel).

Since Middle Arusian possessed an adjective class, VEK TIMUS LUS clearly means my black car. However, since they started to merge with nouns and verbs, VEK SA TIM LUS could be understood either as my black car or car of my blackness. To reduce this ambiguity, wei appeared in the language. Its etymology is unknown, though.

• Modern Arusian: Tei decr vek sa tim wei lus

Notice that wei is attached to a constituent that ISN'T the topic of the sentence, that is, it is part of the predicate. This is the main contrast between u (describes a topic/focused element) and wei (describes a predicate/comment, thus, a non-focused element). Otherwise, their function is the same. Let's take a look at another example:

• Middle Arusian: Nut sa vom auwayeis dauwr (Reconstructed form)
• Modern Arusian: Nut sa vom dauwr wei auwayeis (As for the food, the beautiful people eat it)

Etymology of Arusian Roots​