PRACTICAL nanigani FOR SINOANGLOPHONE SPEAKERS
si hihoni nanigani gehi suho sahinisi hani hinigirisi de bibori

Kai-hsu Tai (gahisihu sihanihinisoni)

Contents


I INTRODUCTION

nanigani (also known as Nangangyu), the language used by the 300 million nanigani people living on the asteroid nanigani off the Earth by 6.023 221 23 x 10^-2 light years is apparently very simple to learn as far as the fraction of Earthmen who is fluent in both English and Mandarin Chinese is concerned.

This work is just fit for these people.

If you are qualified in speaking the Earthlanguages specified, and you do pay attention, you will be speaking nanigani fluently after you finishes reading this work.

II HISTORY OF THE nanigani LANGUAGE, AND OF nanigani RESEARCH ON EARTH

As far as most Earthlanguages are concerned, nanigani is comparatively young. It is developed in about 2 weeks by the Ministry of Culture and the naniganiphone Community (gurisiri hani naniganifonigomihuniti minisiteri) of the Celestial Federation of the Asteroid nanigani, Galaxy Vogon, Planet Earth, Spatialisland Xuanxuan, and Black Hole Gnathphoskova (hasitirohiti nanigani, galakisi hogoni, bilaneti herisi, sipatihalihahilaniti suhanisuhani, hani bilaki holi ginasihosikoha de selesitihalifeteraseni).

It is not an old news that the Earthmen get to know nanigani. In the late 1994, Kai-hsu Tai, along with Chung-chieh Ken SHAN, introduced nanigani to the Spatialisland of Taiwan, Asia, Earth. Capita LAI, knowing the profound meaning and interestingness of the nanigani culture, devoted to the publishing the nanigani books.

III THE CULTURE OF nanigani

Because that no single Earthman have been on the nanigani Asteroid and come back with information, the knowledge of the nanigani culture is not available to its full extent. But we do know that the nanigani people are very studious, and able to abstract voluminous information and data in a considerably short time. Let us read about the nanigani culture courtesy of the Ministry of Culture and the naniganiphone Community.

nanigani names

The name of each nanigani people are very special, and usually have a profound meaning which outsiders might not know. Take the nanigani name nihu batoteri and nani masoni for example. "nihu" means "female", as "Nyu" in Mandarin Chinese, and "ba" means "father", as "Baba" in Mandarin Chinese. "toteri" means "daughter", as "daughter" in English. "nani" means "male", as "nan" in Mandarin Chinese, and "ma" means "mother", as "Mama" in Mandarin Chinese. "soni" means "son", as "son" in English.

So there are naming rules in nanigani:

MALE: given-name mother's-given-name+soni
FEMALE: given-name father's-given-name+toteri
It's a bit like the system they used in the Earthisland of Iceland, but the last name is a little different. There are no specific family name, so no nanigani can trace back where their ancestors are with solely last name.

When a male nanigani person gets his first baby daughter, or a female nanigani person gets her first baby son, they add the middle part of their names:

MALE:   given-name daughter's-name+haseri mother's-given-name+soni
FEMALE: given-name son's-name+moseri father's-given-name+toteri
When more than one children of the same gender is born, the middle name gets longer, like this:
MALE:   given-name
        first-daughter's-name+second-daughter's-name+...+haseri
        mother's-given-name+soni
FEMALE: given-name
        first-son's-name+second-son's-name+...+moseri
        father's-given-name+toteri
The lengthy nature of the middle name makes the usual convention of initializing the middle name most acceptable.

Therefore, you can draw the family tree of somebody by knowing the full name of the person concerned:

        hanisigi sonihagisonihaseri sahotisoni

                sahoti (f)
                  |
                hanisigi (m)
                |      |
          soniha (f)  gisoni (f)

The History of nanigani

We don't know much about the history of nanigani, but some traceable linguistical relation can be found in the Asteroidlanguage nanigani and the Earthlanguage English and the Earthlanguage Mandarin Chinese. Most historians suggest the high possibility of the ancestors of nanigani people being pilgrims of early Eurasian people is considerably convincing. The extraordinary system of the last name makes it probable that the nanigani are from the Viking islands, such as Greenland and Iceland.

The research directed by Kai-hsu Tai in early 1995 proved that nanigani has no less linguistical devices to describe water in the liquid form than that of English and Mandarin Chinese totaled. This makes the abovementioned hypothesis more persuading.

The nanigani Zap Code

The nanigani Zone Acceleration Program (Zap) Code is proposed by the United DHL, FedEx, Mail, Post, TNT and UPS Board of the CeleFed (selefedi de uitihimibitihu boridi). It divide the Asteroid of nanigani into 3 timezones: Past, Present, and Future. The Code is simple. Let's presume that you are mailing a letter to hanisigi so sahotisoni in the Future Zone, just write in nanigani:

to hanisigi so. sahotisoni
   heri fi hihiba mehiruni sitiriti sirini
   futuri soni, huhinigi
   nanigani     ^^^^^^^^ The Code is here
The Past Zone's Zap Code is nigile, and the Present Zone senisahinigi.

IV THE nanigani PHONETIC SYMBOLS, AND THE PRONUNCIATION OF EACH

There are 5 vowels and 8 consonants in nanigani. They are:

Vowels (bahurisi)

a  e  i  o  u
When pronounced separately, they should be read as
ha he hi ho hu
^  -
|  |  |  |  |
         -  v
The symbols written at the bottom is the standard ASCII rendering of the nanigani phonetic symbols (reterisi).

Consonants (gonisonanitisi)

h  b  g  r  n  s  m  t
When pronounced separately, they should be read as
hi bi gi ri ni si mi ti
|  '  ,  ;  .  ^  =  +
nanigani reterisi should never be read singularly as can be done in Chinese or English, such as /b/*, /i/*, or /ak/*. They should be read always as coupled consonant-vowel-pair (gonisonanitibahuriberi), such as /bi/, /hi/, or /hagi/. If you want to mention a vowel without a consonant or vice versa, add /h/ before the vowel, /i/ after the consonant.

There are no diphthongs (tihisonisi) in nanigani. /ei/* is not recognizable to a nanigani person who only know Standard nanigani (bihaho suni nanigani). Some dialects, as you may encounter in some part of nanigani, do recognize vowels without consonants, consonants without vowels, and diphthongs.

This is according to the NASI (nanigani Asteroid Standard Institute, or nahasihi, nanigani hasiterohiti sitanitariti hinisititihuti, in nanigani), which is listed below:

---------------------------------------------------------------------- nanigani reterisi rini + = ^ . ; , ' | ti mi si ni ri gi bi hi -- -- <---------------------- reterisihoreteri ;+;|^;+; - - ^ | | | | | v - hu ho hi he ha ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The sitanitaritisi in this work is all romanized into Latin letters except sometimes we want to leave the nanigani original reterisi or ASCII rendering.

reterisihoreteri (letterorder) the order for sorting the nanigani lists. It is somewhat like the alphabetical order in English.

nanigani is written from right to left, so take care when you learn to write it. And there are no capital letters in original, rendered or romanized nanigani. So do not write capitalized letters when you romanize nanigani.

From experience, the best way to learn nanigani is thru the nahasihi sitanitaritisi. We will be reading these standards one by one later in the lesson.

With these reterisi we can combine them into gonisonanitibahuriberisi. There are only 40 combinations.

   *
   * |  ,  '  .  =  +  ;  ^
   * hi gi bi ni mi ti ri si
****************************
^  * ^  ^  ^  ^  ^  ^  ^  ^
|  * |  ,  '  .  =  +  ;  ^
   *
ha * ha ga ba na ma ta ra sa
****************************
-  * -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -
|  * |  ,  '  .  =  +  ;  ^
   *
he * he ge be ne me te re se
****************************
   *
|  * |  ,  '  .  =  +  ;  ^
   *
hi * hi gi bi ni mi ti ri si
****************************
   *
|  * |  ,  '  .  =  +  ;  ^
-  * -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -
ho * ho go bo no mo to ro so
****************************
   *
|  * |  ,  '  .  =  +  ;  ^
v  * v  v  v  v  v  v  v  v
hu * hu gu bu nu mu tu ru su
It is OK to pronounce hu as fu or vu; gu as ku or gku; bu as pu or bpu; etc. If you don't go too far, nanigani bibori (people) can understand you and you can understand them too.

---------------------------------------------------------------------- nanigani reterisi hasigi reniterini hi + ^ = . ; , ' | ti si mi ni ri gi bi hi 43 94 61 46 59 44 39 124 tesimari - ^ | | | | | v - hu ho hi he ha 118 45 32 45 94 tesimari ---------------------------------------------------------------------- As we have see so far, nanigani reterisi can be rendered into ASCII. Below we are going to see the mechanics of nanigani.

V THE MECHANICS OF nanigani

As we have said earlier, nanigani is very close to the Earthlanguages of Chinese and English. But in what way?

First, its vocabulary is very similar to that of the 2 Earthlanguages. The nouns are identically transliterated English, and other parts of speech are identically transliterated Chinese. Pronouns are in transliterated Chinese.

Second, its grammar are identical to that of Chinese.

And that's all! That is why Sinoanglophone speakers are very privileged in learning to speak nanigani.

The following sitanitariti is the transliteration rules from firstly English and then Chinese.

---------------------------------------------------------------------- nanigani tiranisiriterehiseni sitanitariti heri hinigirisi gonisonanitisi p as in pig > ' b as in big > ' t as in kit > + d as in dot > + k as in kit > , g as in fog > , f as in fog > | v as in vet > | th as in thin > ^ TH as th in then > ^ s as in sit > ^ z as in zip > ^ sh as in shop > ^ zh as s in measure > ^ h as in hat > | tsh as ch in chain > ^ dzh as j in job > ^ m as in mat > = n as in net > . ng as in sing > . l as in let > ; j as y in year > | w as in win > | r as in rot > ; v hinigirisi bahurisi - - EAt > | Ill > | dAY > || bEd > | ^ ^ hAt > | Ox > | dOg > | tOE > || - v- - - bOOk > | pOOr > | Up > | Aside > | v v - - EARth > ;| actOR > ;| sahinisi gonisonanitisi b > ' p > ' m > = f > | d > + t > + n > . l > ; g > , k > , h > | j > ^ q > ^ x > ^ zh > ^ ch > ^ sh > ^ r > ; z > ^ c > ^ s > ^ sahinisi bahurisi ^ - - a > | o > | e > | e > | - ^ - ^ ai > || ei > || ao > || ou > || - v- ^ - ^ - an > .| en > .| ang > .| eng > .| - er > ;| i > | u > | yu > || v v ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nanigani has no punctuation. So there is no more characters in nanigani to learn. You should be able to talk in nanigani now! Before we move on, Let us see now how nanigani is romanized into Latin characters. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nanigani sitanitariti romanahisehiseni sani gonisonanitisi | ' , ; . ^ = + hi bi gi ri ni si mi ti bahurisi ^ - | | | | | - v ha he hi ho hu ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Other types of romanization may be recognized correctly but I think you should not take the risk. thi may be recognized correctly as ^ but may also be misrecognized as +. Don't try your luck when you don't have to.

VI SUMMARY

  1. nanigani has 8 consonants and 5 vowels, and any of them shall be combined into pairs.
    hi nanigani hihohu ba ge gonisonanitisi hani hu ge bahurisi ta meni tohu hihaho pehi seni berisi
                                           ^ -    ^    ^    - ^      ^ ^
                                        ^;|' , | .| ^+..^., , ' ||| .,.. |
                                           v    v        - -     v-
    
                                                     -  -  -  ^      - ^
                                                   ^;' ;^ |' ||| |+ .= +
                                                             -   v-
       
  2. nanigani and English share the same set of nouns.
    heri nanigani hani hinigirisi goni hihoni toni hi su nahunisi
                                          ^                      ^  ^ ^  -
                                       ^.|. ^ | .+ .|| ;, ^;,.| .| .,.. ;|
                                         v  v    -  -   -
       
  3. nanigani and Chinese share anything in the parts of speech but nouns.
    sani nanigani hani sahinisi goni hihoni suho hihohu sibisi de baritisi su re nahunisi
                            ^ -      ^ -                      ^  ^  ^ ^  ^
                         ^.|. ; ^ ^|;' + ^'^ ||| |^ .|| ., ^.|^ .| .,.. .^
                           v    v            v-  -v  -   -
       
  4. Please support nanigani!
    si sini si si nanigani
                                                              ^ ^
                                                             .,.. ^ ^ .^ ^