Late Andanese had only 12 phonemes: the consonants /l h k m n ŋ s p t/ and the vowels /a i u/. And of these, the consonants /s/ and /ŋ/ are rare because they originated primarily from sequences rather than single phonemes. Vowel sequences are allowed, but final consonants are not. Thus there are only 30 syllables in the language.
The frequency of consonants is roughly the same as their order in the syllabary: /l h k m n p t ŋ s/. However, as detailed below, some consonants are more common before certain vowels, and it is more accurate to think of syllables rather than consonants and vowels as the minimal phonemic unit.
Andanese has three vowels: /a i u/. There are no tones, stress, or length distinctions. Unlike most of the languages of the [[Gold language|Gold]] family, Andanese is '''vowel-strong''': its vowels influence the pronunciation of preceding and following consonants, but the consonants have no influence on the pronunciation of the vowels. Vowels can only change due to the influence of adjacent vowels: an /i/ or /u/ before another vowel (even the same vowel) will contract into a semivowel. Other than this, there are no significant allophones of the three vowels.
Another way that Andanese differs from the Gold languages is that, although /a/ is the commonest vowel, it is noticeably less common by comparison to the other two vowels than it is in most Gold languages. The three vowels are all well represented in Andanese speech.
With only 30 syllables in the language, many sentences, even with basic vocabulary items, are highly repetitive. For example '''hahaha''' is the word for "hat, cap, headgear" (''ha-'' "shaped like" + ''haha'' "hair of the head").
Consonants besides /l h k/ are less frequent. The overrepresentation of the consonants /l h k/ (in roughly that order) is part of the reason why Andanese words are often so long even compared to other languages such as [[Babakiam]] that have small phonologies.
Boys' names were often extremely long-winded due to the deliberate repetition of similar-sounding words and syllables. Simple reduplication was avoided, but since the language had many homophones, long sequences of identical syllables piled up even so. By omitting classifier prefixes, the inventory of homophones increased vastly, with dozens of possible interpretations for each morpheme. Thus, even two boys with the same name could claim unique derivations.
One common name, '''Kukukukukukuku''', was an extreme example, since it consisted of the thematic syllable /ku/ seven times in a row. All speakers recognized ''kuku'' as their word for "leg, run", but from there, thousands of possible interpretations of the name opened up, since, with classifier prefixes removed, the same ''kuku'' could also mean "canopy; place high up", "night", or "road"; meanwhile, the remaining ''ku'' could also mean "forest", "hand", "arrow (weapon)", or "to expose, show publicly". Thus one boy with the name Kukukukukukuku might tell friends his name meant "running down trails at night" (''kuku kukuku kuku''; trails being roads in a forest) while another would say that it meant "sitting on a treetop with arrows in hand" (''kuku kukuku ku ku'', treetops being high places in a forest). Stress was placed only on the final syllable, irrespective of morpheme boundaries, just as in the language as a whole.
A more common name template would intersperse a dominant thematic syllable with several minor ones. '''Kaaaaaaya''' was a common boy's name, where the thematic syllable is /a/ and the two minor syllables are /ka/ and /i/. '''Haaaaaaaaaaa''' was also a very common boy's name. '''Taaaamaaaaaamaaaaa''' was less common. '''Aaaaaaaaaaatataaaa''' is another common boy's name. Each /a/ is a separate syllable. The longest boy's name in common use was '''Kakakaaakakatakakakakakakakakaka'''.
Some names had two thematic syllables; an example of this was '''Matamataamatatataamaataaaatata'''. The bare /a/ was common enough in the language as a whole that its repetition here was not considered to create a third thematic syllable.
Some names had abbreviated forms. For example, '''Lilalaayilalalalalalaa''' was another very long boy's name, but could be abbreviated to '''Lalaaalai'''.
A classroom of children would often sit quietly when a teacher called out their names, as though hearing lottery numbers read off, since a boy with a lengthy name would need to listen for quite a while to know whether the student being called up to the front of the class was him or his friend whose name differed only on the 17th syllable.
Girls' names typically did not use reduplication, and were thus typically shorter, but parents often chose long names that did not use reduplication. The number of girls' names in use was always much greater than the number of boys' names, and many parents coined novel names never used before.
The same pattern of repeating syllables showed up in placenames such as '''Mipatatatatai''' (Land of the Ruling Children of Tata) and party names such as '''Laaatilalatitiaa''' (Rusted Pearls).
Allophony in Andanese is best understood as a process that affects whole syllables rather than individually affecting consonants or vowels. With only 30 syllables in its phonology, the syllable has come to be the minimal phonological unit, and each of the 30 syllables behaves uniquely. For example, ''si'' behaves sometimes like ''ti'', sometimes like ''su'', and sometimes unlike either of them.
The vowel sequences ''ia ii iu'' are pronounced ['''ya yi yu'''], and this is reflected in Romanization. Likewise, ''ua ui uu'' are pronounced ['''wa wi wu'''.] In the case of ''ii'' and ''uu'', the on-glide is weak but still distinctly present, and the second vowel is lowered slightly. Note that the Romanization here uses '''v''' for IPA /w/ and '''y''' for IPA /j/.
Triple vowel sequences are resolved by starting from the right. For example, ''tiui'' can only be ['''tiwi'''], never [*tyui].
The vowel [a] changes very little in any context. The sequence ''aa'' is simply ['''a:'''], and the sequences ''ai au'' raise the /a/ only slightly. It is common to find long sequences of vowels, including /a/, especially in derived words. Here, the same rules are followed, and thus ''aaa'', ''aaaa'', and so on, are simply more lengthened versions of /a/. However, with sequences of three or more /a/'s, the intonation resets on every odd-numbered vowel (counting from either direction). Thus ''vapaaa'' is pronounced ['''wapa:a'''].
As /a/ is the commonest vowel in the language, the allophone of /h/ that occurs before /a/ is considered the primary one. This varies between [x] and [χ] depending on stress and emphasis. Before the vowel /i/, /h/ is fronted to a voiceless palatal fricative [ç], and before /u/, it becomes a sound that varies between a rounded voiceless bilabial approximant [hʷ] and a spread voiceless bilabial fricative [ɸ].
Since the allophones of /h/ are entirely determined by which of Andanese's three vowels follows it, in rapid speech the vowel may be spoken so quickly that the listener does not even hear it, and perceives instead a consonant cluster beginning with one of the above sounds. This shortening never occurs in word-final position, even when another word follows. Also, /a/ is less likely to be dropped than either of the two high vowels.
In rapid speech, syllables beginning with /h/ resemble those beginning with vowels, as the [h] spreads backwards over the vowel of a preceding syllable. This also entails contraction of the VC sequences ''-ih- -uh-'' into voiceless glides [ç ɸ]. For example, '''puha''' may sound like [pʰwa] or [pʷxʷa], and '''hihahuhi''' "womb" will be pronounced ['''çḁɸi'''], with the whisper tapering off only towards the end of the final vowel. In careful speech, this process is avoided if the preceding consonant is another fricative (/s/ or /h/), or if the preceding syllable is vowel-initial, and therefore in careful speech ''hihahuhi'' would sound like [çixaɸuçi], with four clear vowels, albeit very short ones.
In isolation, the syllables ''ka ki ku'' are pronounced like ['''ka ći kʷu'''], with the [ka] also slightly further back than velar. Before a vowel (including /h/+vowel in rapid speech) ''ki ku'' contract to ['''ć kʷ''']. The sequences ''ki ku'' are still audibly distinct from '''kii kuu''', however, because in the latter the starting point of the double vowel sequence is higher, and thus the glides [j w] are audible.
Before a syllable beginning with /p t s l/, the vowels in ''ka ki ku'' are spoken very quickly, and may be inaudible, the syllables thus being distinguished by their consonantal allophony only.
In isolation, the syllables ''ta ti tu'' are pronounced like ['''ta či ṭu''']. Before a vowel (including /h/+vowel in rapid speech) ''ti tu'' contract to ['''č ṭʷ''']. The sequences ''ti tu'' are still audibly distinct from '''tii tuu''', however, because in the latter the starting point of the double vowel sequence is higher, and thus the glides [y w] are audible.
Before a vowel (including /h/+vowel in rapid speech) ''pi pu'' contract to ['''pj pʷ''']. The sequence ''pu'' is still audibly distinct from '''puu''', however, because in the latter the starting point of the double vowel sequence is higher, and thus the glide [w] is audible.
In rapid speech, the sequences ''si su'' are pronounced ['''š ṣʷ''']. This contraction occurs even before consonants, except before another /s/.
The lateral approximant /l/ is advanced slightly before any /u/, and retracted slightly before any /i/, but these differences are very minor by comparison to the changes that affect /t/.
The vowels in the VC sequences ''-al- -il- -ul-'' are often very short, or even inaudible, when the preceding consonant is a plosive (''p t k''). Furthermore, the /l/ itself often then becomes voiceless.
The VC sequence ''-um-'' is pronounced like a syllabic ['''m̩'''] unless the preceding consonant is another labial.
The VC sequence ''-un-'' is pronounced like a syllabic ['''n̩'''] unless the preceding consonant is one of ''t n l''.
Before a vowel, the sequences ''ŋi ŋu'' are contracted to ['''ŋʲ ŋʷ'''], and in rapid speech, these can become IPA ['''j̃ w̃'''].
The VC sequence ''-uŋ-'' is pronounced as a syllabic ['''ŋ̍'''] unless the preceding consonant is one of ''k ŋ''.
Andanese is spoken so quickly that speakers of neighboring languages perceive it as a harsh, guttural language consisting mostly of consonants, especially /l h k/, the three most common consonants in the language. However, even though /s/ is rare, it is the loudest consonant in the language, and speakers of neighboring languages often perceive Andanese to be rich in /s/ as well.
The voiceless consonants /k s p t/ are always voiceless unaspirated, even between vowels in rapid speech.
Andanese uses prefixes for inflection, and bound '''postbases''' for derivation. There are no exceptions to this pattern, despite the strong influence of the many Gold-family languages surrounding Andanese, which use suffixes and infixes, but never prefixes. There are still some infixes inherited from Old Andanese, but because they can only infect the prefixes, Late Andanese is best described as a language that has tables of related prefixes, with one row of prefixes for each infix, rather than a system combining prefixes and infixes.
There is no morphological distinction between nouns and verbs in Andanese, but there is a fixed word order of Subject-Object-Verb, showing that verbs and nouns cannot be considered the same part of speech. In this respect Andanese resembles isolating languages such as Chinese and to a lesser extent English.
All words have classifiers, except for a few that are sometimes considered to have a null morpheme as their classifier. For example, the classifier '''gi-''' means "humans, human body parts". Its accusative form is '''na-'''. However, classifiers for inanimate objects do not have distinct forms for their accusatives.
Note that classifiers stack on top of the verbs. That is to say, any verb in the sentence will take a prefix agreeing with the noun classifier of the subject, unless it happens to already have the same classifier.
However, humans are spread across several classifiers, which mark different genders and ages of humans. These all share the same verbs, so it is not necessary to repeat the classifier before the object if the subject and object of a sentence are both human. For example, '''hinuhuki''' means teacher (adult female), '''tukuu''' means student (young child of either gender),"book" in dict, though and '''tuupi''' means to kiss. The accusative form of ''hi-'' is ''mi-''. Thus one can say :'''Tukuu minuhuki ''tututami''.''' ::The student ''kicked'' the teacher.
Classifiers stack across nouns that are dependent on other nouns. For example, '''kuha''' means "(a) piece", and '''sikupi''' means "wood", so one can speak of :'''Kuha ''kusikupi''.''' ::A piece ''of wood''.
However, when a two-word phrase such as this is used as an object in a longer sentence, the subject's classifier is repeated only on the first word: :'''Hinuma ''hikuha'' kusikupi hikigi.''' ::The woman scratched ''the piece'' of wood.
This can be thought of more clearly with an analogy to mathematics. The sentence above can be visualized in three dimensions, with ''kusikupi'' as a branch off of ''hikuha'', or as an equation: :'''Hinuma hi(kuha ku(sikupi)) hi(kigi).'''
A small number of words have no classifier prefix. Many of these are proper nouns or loanwords. These are treated as if their first syllable were a classifier prefix, and therefore behave exactly the same as other words except that they usually seem to be in the wrong noun class.
Andanese preserves the '''private verbs''' of Tapilula, which also persisted in the [[Gold language]] but were dropped in all of Gold's descendants, along with the classifier system itself. Private verbs are morphemes, usually only one or two syllables long, whose meaning depends on the preceding classifier prefixes. For example, there exists a verb '''vutami''' "to gallop, run quickly on all fours". This verb begins with ''vu-'', which is also the first syllable of the word for horse. Thus, if a horse is the subject, there is no need to repeat its classifier prefix before the verb; the classifier prefix is already there. If a man is galloping, one would say :'''Kilatu ki''vutami''.''' ::The man ''is galloping''. ::The man ''is running like a horse''.
Whereas if the subject is a horse or a similar animal, the sentence would instead be :'''Vuhapi ''vutami''.''' ::The horse ''is galloping''. ::The horse ''is running like a horse''.
Without the need for an extra syllable before the verb. Likewise, if the situation were reversed, one could say :'''Vuhapi vu''gitami''.''' ::The horse ''is running like a human'' (on its hind legs only).
The persistence of verbs like these is the main reason why Late Andanese has so many noun classes for specific animals such as turtles and rabbits with few nouns but larger numbers of verbs.
Note that the neuter prefix ''gi-'', rather than the masculine ''ki-'' or feminine ''hi-'', is used whenever animals are personified, regardless of the semantic gender of the animal.
New words can be formed by copying a word from one class to another. For example, there exists a word pair of '''gipihi''' "sharp tooth; canine" and '''kipihi''' "to bite". Thus, a noun became a verb by simply changing the classifier prefix.
For some classes, the entire vocabulary can be assumed to be copiable. As above, ''gi-'' nouns denoting body parts pair with ''ki-'' verbs denoting the action of striking or hitting something with that body part, and with ''mi-'' denoting that body part served as food.
Likewise, the word for a young student, '''tukuu''', is actually derived from the word for book, '''ikuu''', by changing the prefix from '''i-''', which denotes handheld objects, to '''tu-''', which marks the "human children" noun class.
Andanese is a head-initial language. That is, within a word, a classifier prefix will come first, giving the general broad meaning of the word, and each additional morpheme will narrow the meaning of the word further. This is the opposite pattern of most surrounding languages. Thus Andanese could be described as having a '''taxonomic vocabulary'''. Someone hearing the first part of a word will not know its precise meaning, but will have a general idea of what it might be. But someone hearing only the end of a word will have no idea which of the many possible categories of the vocabulary the word belongs to.
An exception to the rule that compounds are head-initial (i.e. "ears of corn") is that if one party is animate, the animate partner goes first; thus from '''vukia''' "horse" comes '''vukiakiki''' "horse ears".this probably isn't the reason why gold switched, though, because in goldnthe anime pRtenr oftem.goes last
The genitive prefix ''si-'' is never used within a word; this appears only heading up a full, independent word describing a definite object. Thus, all compounds are single words, and some can be very long. In general, Andanese words are often highly precise, and may seem long even given the small phonology of the language. Many words have been lengthened by adding additional morphemes over time, even when such lengthening was not necessary to prevent collision of the word with a homophone. For example, the word for heart, as inherited from [[Old Andanese]], is ''vi''. But this is padded with the body part classifier prefix ''li-'' on one side and the precising morpheme ''tu'' "blood" on the other; thus, the resulting word '''livitu''' can be analyzed as "body part heart of blood".
Words have moved from one class to another over time. For example, the inherited root word for snow, reflected in Late Andanese as ''gina'', is now indifferent to the form of precipitation and only pairs with classifiers: '''gagina''' "snow"; '''vugina''' "rain".
Classifier prefixes cannot be used as words of their own. Every classifier prefix has at least one '''titular stem''', whose meaning simply repeats one of the meanings of the classifier prefix so that it can be used as an independent word. For example, the classifier prefix ''sa-'' means "love", but the proper verb for "to love" is '''sanala'''. Thus one would say :'''Kikuhigi nanuma ''kitasanala''.''' ::The soldier ''loved'' the nurse.
Likewise, ''ka-'' means "tree", but the full form of the word for tree is '''kakupi'''.
Classifier prefixes with more than one meaning will have more than one titular word. Since ''ka-'' also means "insect", the word '''kakui''', meaning "insect, arthropod" is also considered a titular word.
Compounds of two nouns generally drop the classifier from the second noun, using semantics to disambiguate the possible meanings. For example, '''hikala''' "seashell" and '''lakala''' "bear" share the same two-syllable root, and have different noun classifier prefixes. But the compound word '''pugikala''', which adds ''pugi'' "claw", can only be used to mean "bear's claw" because seashells do not have claws. If a speaker did want to specifically say "seashell claw", then they would use ''pugi puhikala''.
Dropping the second classifier is mandatory when it is the same as the first classifier or of the same syntactic field. In fact, some teachers posit null morphemes before each element of a compound, each of which agrees with the outermost classifier. Thus, for example, they analyze ''pugikala'' "bear claw" as ''pugi pukala'', and claim this proves that there exists a secondary Andanese word '''pukala''' "bear" alongside '''lakala''', which is never used in bare form but is called up when speakers create compound words such as the above ''pugikala''. This theory is one way of explaining the limits of which compounds are allowed to drop the classifiers and which are not. However, a dictionary based on this theory would list over a million words, most of which would be unusable duplicates of others.
:''Note, the morphemes here may be in the wrong order, since animacy overrides head-first construction.''
Assignment of newly coined words to classifiers usually corresponds either to the place ("locative classifiers") or the purpose of the object ("thematic classifiers"). For example, a spoon is not an edible object, but it is frequently found with them, and therefore the word for spoon, '''miguha''' is in the food class rather than the handheld object class; '''iguha''' instead means "shovel".
Inanimate objects have classifiers that do not change for syntactical active or passive roles. Since the subject of a sentence is always animate, however, their classifier is always buried underneath another classifier that repeats the subject's classifier. Note that there are no sound changes; if two vowels come together, they are still pronounced separately. Since this happens also to the verb, often a sentence will consist of three alliterative words. Thus one can say :'''Tulata ''tuinuhu'' tuyula.''' ::The student threw ''the torch''.
Here, while a clever student might expect the sequence /tui/ to contract to /pi/, as it historically did in many similar constructions, the morphemes remain separate and the sequence is thus pronounced [twi].
All noun classifiers are one syllable long, but some '''second-order classifiers''' can follow other classifiers and create what are effectively two-syllable prefixes. Even so, the outermost classifier in such a word is the one that echoes throughout the sentence, not the pair.
'''a''' : roads, streets '''la''' : large land animals '''i''' : handheld objects '''ha''' : to worship; needle '''ka''' : trees; some flying insects '''u''' : water, liquid; land features (e.g. "beach", "hill") '''ma''' : some grasses '''ga''' : winter, things encountered in winter '''na''' : accusative of gi- (all senses) '''li''' : rung, plank, flat surface(?); water, liquid (alternates with u-) '''sa''' : love '''pa''' : some words for loose-fitting clothes '''ta''' : '''pi''' : pregnant women, babies, and couples '''hi''' : tree (bark); worm; the ocean(?); bowl, cup, dish; adult women (nominative); men, boys (accusative) '''ti''' : foot, motion '''si''' : genitive prefix (etymologically hi-i-; often seen in contracted form as s- before vowel-initial words) '''gi''' : protective objects; sharp, firm, protective; humans, human body parts; birdsNOTE. "humans, human body parts; birds" was originally listed under ''li'' but this is an error. Both come from Tapilula ''nʷə-'', meaning that humans and birds were considered as one even then. There is alternate form of the prefix, ''nu-'', which is the basis of the accusative. '''mi''' : food; breast, nourishment; adult women (accusative) '''ni''' : young girls; place of X, generic placenames; snakes '''pu''' : succulent fruit (doublet of ''tu-''); sexual reproduction, obscene body parts (only when following another classifier such as ''li-'') '''hu''' : fire; celestial objects; insects; tight clothes, "shaped like"; hair of the head, back of body; '''tu''' : small plants; children; blood, bodily humors '''su''' : oceanography (''hi-'' + ''-u-'') '''lu''' : some body parts (a 2nd-order classifier that often comes between the gender marker and the root word) '''ku''' : arrow, sharp weapon '''mu''' : '''gu''' : breast, nurture, nutrition (secondary use only) '''nu''' : fruit"Large enough to be eaten one at a time, but small enough to hold in one hand."; buildings '''ki''' : verbs of motion (corresponds to li- body parts); weapon, claw; men, boys; darkness, night, sleep; some buildings The sequences /ja ji ju va vi vu/ have taken on the role of pseudo-classifiers, since in initial position they are monosyllabic: '''ya''' : some grasses; pineapple, large fruit; meat, food '''yi''' : '''yu''' : '''va''' : '''vi''' : eye, vision, knowledge '''vu''' : rain, water; horse, rideable animal
If the root begins with a single vowel, the syllables /yi yu vi vu/ reverse to [iy iv uy uv]. If the root word begins with /i/ or /u/ followed by another vowel, however, the normal pronunciation is restored.
However, sequences such as /sia/, /nua/, and so on have not been reanalyzed as single syllables, and cannot serve as classifier prefixes.
Note that there are many monosyllabic morphemes that are not classifiers. For example '''i''' means "shoulder", but is only used with a body part classifier ''li-''.
Andanese inherited the consonant-based gender system from [[Tapilula]]. The genders are: '''li''': Babies; also used for humans of indeterminate age and gender (accusative is '''na-''') '''pi''': Pregnant; adult males and adult females together; parents, childbirth '''ki''': Men and boys (contracts to '''k-''' before a vowel; accusative is variable, alternating between '''hi-''' or '''s-''' when acted on by "weak" agents and a contracted form of the prefix of the agent itself for "strong" agents)from ''təlin'' "penis" '''tu''': Young children (accusative is '''ti-''') '''ni''': Young girls '''hi''': Adult women (accusative is '''mi-''')
There is no neuter gender and no epicene gender. Note that females have two genders (three if "pregnant" is considered to be exclusively feminine) but males have one. This is a trait common to many languages of the area, and was present in their common parent language of [[Tapilula]].
As in Gold, all objects found in bodies of water are grammatically feminine even if syntactically masculine.
A very small number of words show relics of the older internal mutations that marked gender in the [[Tapilula]] language. In Tapilula, classifier prefixes were dropped in more situations than they are in Late Andanese, and therefore the existence of separate stems for different genders was necessary. In Late Andanese, only a few such words survive, such as the word pair '''kilitu''' "king" and '''hiihu''' "queen". Even though the stems are different, the use of the prefixes is mandatory in Late Andanese.
Late Andanese marks the accusative case by changing the noun classifier prefix, if there is one. For example, the noun classifier for adult women is '''hi-''' in the nominative (agentive) case, but this changes to '''mi-''' when a woman is the patient (direct object) of a verb. This case is still padded with the additional case marker of the agent itself, meaning that there will be two noun classifiers stacked together. This is the normal case in Andanese when an noun is the direct object of a verb. Note that inanimate nouns and most non-human animate nouns do not have separate forms of their noun class prefix for showing the accusative.
The masculine noun class, marked by ''ki-'' in an agent role, is the most changeable of all noun class prefixes, and the only one whose accusative form depends on the noun class of the agent acting on them. That is, a man stung by a bee will have a different noun class than a man kissed by a woman, in addition to the noun class of the agent which is stacked before the noun class for the man. Furthermore, the agent and patient forms merge before certain vowel-initial words, and the agent form also takes a special form when the patient is male.
The various interrelated patterns are all due to etymology. The original form of the agent prefix was ''tə-'' in pre-Andanese, and the patient was ''hə-''. In early Old Andanese, this vowel either disappeared or changed to /i/, depending on environment. The /t/ soon changed to /k/, part of a general shift. Then, the sequences ''ki hi'' merged as '''s-''' before a vowel-initial word. But this change did not spread to words that became vowel-initial later on, meaning that only a few vowel-initial Late Andanese words trigger this assimilation, one of which is /atu/ "soldier". Further, although the nominative forms for male and female soldiers are both /satu/, in the accusative they diverge, with the masculine form being still /satu/ while the feminine form changes to /miatu/.
Any sequence of /hihi/ resulting from these shifts reduced to /hi/ by a general process of analogy. This occurred when a verb had a female agent and a male patient, but only when one of the other rules above did not force the inner /hi/ to contract into /s/. Lastly, the /hi/ disappears before many consonant-initial roots, as it evolved early on into a simple /h/ in these positions, which was then dropped.
Sample sentences below illustrate the different possibilities: :''' Satu'''. ::Male soldier. :'''Kuinau ''kusatu'' kutakiu.''' ::The bee stung ''the soldier''. :'''Hiuma ''hisatu'' hitakiihumi.''' ::The woman hit ''the soldier''. :''' Kikapi'''. :Male farmer. :''' Nianu ''nikapi'' nipihi.''' ::The snake bit ''the male farmer''. : ''' Hikapi'''. :: Female farmer. : ''' Nianu ''nimikapi'' nipihi.''' ::The snake bit ''the female farmer''.
Because of the noun classifier prefixes, most word bases are at least three syllables long. Exceptions are of two kinds: some very common words are used with no classifiers, and some words have classifiers but stems that are only one syllable. Generally these result from recent sound contractions.
Often, a classifier prefix is not sufficient to precisely define a word, and the word will take a ''second-order classifier'' between its "exposed" classifier that interacts with the grammar and the rest of the root word. For example, many body parts are classified under the prefix ''lu-'', such as '''gilulali''' "head", which breaks down as ''gi- + -lu- + lali''.
Most words of this type acquired their second-order classifiers only fairly recently, when drastic sound changes led to phonological collision of words even within the same noun class.
Some syllables can be used either as primary or secondary classifiers. For example, the ''-lu-'' above can only appear after a human gender classifier, but ''ku-'' "arrow, sharp object" often follows ''i-'' "handheld object" to create words for handheld weapons such as '''ikukivuni''' "slicing knife" and '''ikukuhigi''' "one-handed sword".
Andanese preserves the '''private verbs''' of its parent language Tapilula, whereas in the Gold branch of the family they disappeared early on.
Private verbs are verbs whose meaning is entirely dependent on the noun classes of the subject and object that precede it. For example, if the subject is "boy" and the object is "orange", a verb spelled ''lua'' could mean "to eat". If the subject is "boy" and the object is "girl", the same verb would mean "to kiss". The only commonality between the two verbs is that they both involve the mouth, and indeed, ''lua'' is derived from the word for mouth. The opposite meanings can be indicated by stacking additional classifier prefixes. For example, '''nulua''' means unambiguously "eat" in any context, so one can say :'''Kupu kihipu ''kitanulua'' '''. ::The boy ''ate'' the girl.
This could be translated narrowly as "The boy mouthed the girl like she was a fruit."
Through cultural osmosis, similar phenomena later reappeared in some of the Gold languages, particularly those most closely culturally linked to the Andanese.
Andanese has had several scripts. Commonly, the Andanese wrote their language with one of a series of artistic syllabaries, each with 30 glyphs, which were based on square tiles. Of these, the commonest one was based on squares with 90° and 45° angles inside them. In multi-line texts, the boundaries of the squares would often be omitted, resulting in a shape that resembles a Tangram puzzle.
The oddest looking script, "batam" (an exonym), was not a script at all but a means of drawing objects with the angular shapes of one of the many 30-letter syllabaries.
Late Andanese loanwords in other languages are mostly pronounced according to the closest match in the recipient language's spelling, since knowledge of the original language disappeared shortly after the war in 4175. Thus the pronunciation of these words varies from language to language even as the spelling has remained the same for thousands of years. However, no tradition has introduced phonemes not directly descended from one of the 30 syllables in the Late Andanese language.
The [[Palli]] language, spoken by the southern half of the defeated [[Thaoa]] people, lost most of its inherited vocabulary and replaced them with loanwords from Late Andanese.