Ragham

Ragham
Classical Ragham, Namun
Raghaṃ
Pronunciation	[raˈgʱã]
Region	Almost all of modern-day Namunia
Era	1000 BNB – 120 ANB
Language family	Namuno-Ethian Namunic Ragham
Early form	Early Ragham
Writing system	Nanai-Namun characters, Namun script, several others

Ragham (Raghaṃ [raˈgʱã] "standard, koine") is the ecclesiastical and literary language of Autanavism and Heranism. It is a Namuno-Ethian language of the Namunic branch. The earliest evidence of a distinct language recognisable as Ragham can be traced back to 1000 BNB, when the first inscriptions appear, usually on steles of religious significance. The stage of the language found in these inscriptions is Early Ragham. In the modern day, Ragham is no longer spoken as a day-to-day language, but it is still prolifically used in religious and spiritual texts, songs and poetry.

History

Early Ragham

Early Ragham split from the ancient Proto-Namunic language somewhere around or before 1000 BNB. We find an example of this young stage of the language in the Vanas tripod, a vessel which, apart from demonstrating the large contact between the Nanai and Namun people, contains an inscription written in the Washkas script.

ṢUNUWAA:LA:NATAⁿSAARA:WANAⁿSA

Ṣnwā la natãsār Wanãs (Early Ragham); Vaną la ṣnvā natąsār (Ecclesiastical Ragham)

"Vanas made me for a festival"

Phonology

Consonants

Consonants

		Labial		Alveolar		Retroflex		Palatal		Velar		Glottal
Nasal		m		n		ɳ		ɲ		ŋ
Plosive	Plain	p	b	t	d	ʈ	ɖ			k	g
	Breathy	pʰ	bʱ	tʰ	dʱ	ʈʰ	ɖʱ			kʰ	gʱ
Affricate	Plain							t͡ɕ	d͡ʑ
	Breathy							t͡ɕʰ	d͡ʑʱ
Fricative				s		ʂ		ɕ				ɦ
Tap				ɾ
Approximant		ʋ		l				j

Vowels

Vowels

	Front	Back
Close	i i: ĩ ĩ:	u u: ũ ũ:
Open	a a: ã ã: