Greetings, Xenolinguists in training. In the interest of facilitating cross-species understanding, the UEE Diplomatic Corps’ Office of Xenolinguistic Protocol and the Xi’an Imperial Academy have prepared a broad overview of the Xi’an Language for Human study. This document, while not comprehensive, is meant to provide a solid grounding in the basics of Xi’an language and culture. After mastering this overview, you will not only gain understanding of how to construct Xi’an phrases and sentences, you will also begin to understand the nuances of Xi’an culture and protocol. This understanding will be key on your journey towards obtaining fluency in Xi’an Language (uo’aXy’an).

Xi’an Language

Xi’an Language, or uo’aXy’an in Standard Romanized Xi’an (SRX), is a tonal language with vowel and consonant sounds that will be familiar to many Humans. Those who have a background in other tonal languages may have an easier time mastering uo’aXy’an than Humans without similar backgrounds. However, any spoken language can be mastered by those willing to put in the effort to learn.

There are many dialects of uo’aXy’an. The SaoX’yan (Xi’an Empire) spans multiple systems, and has developed unique slang, tonal quirks, and pronunciation differences that are not understandable to the untrained human ear. Knowledge in Proper Xi’an (uo’a e thle’a) provides the best baseline to comprehending many Xi’an dialects. The Service Dialect (uo’a se Hyath), another popular permutation of uo’aXy’an, breaks some of the rules of uo’a e thle’a, while still maintaining its status as a Xi’an language. You will see this from time to time in your studies. For now, we will focus on attaining familiarity with uo’a e thle’a.

Language Lessons in This Document

The Full Xi’an Alphabet

Introduction to Standard Romanized Xi’an

Pronunciation Guides

Parts of Speech

Relational Particles

Formal Versus Informal Language

Basic Sentence Construction

And more

Xi’an Culture

True language mastery can only be obtained with thorough study and experience in the culture from which the language originated. With that in mind, many common pitfalls Humans face when conversing with our Xi’an allies have been covered in this document. For example, it is important to use polite speech while conversing with an unfamiliar Xi’an, but it is equally important to avoid communicating a feeling of artifice (ngiyoching). Once you’re close enough with a Xi’an, it is similarly important to become comfortable with casual language. But how do you know when you’ve reached that level of familiarity? What clues do you look for? What if you make a mistake? All these questions will be addressed, providing you with the tools you need to succeed when you interact with the Xi’an.

Cultural Lessons in this Document

Xi’an Family Structure

Xi’an Relationships

An Overview of Xi’an Colors

Personal Names versus Family Names

Common Societal Titles

How to Shop in the Xi’an Empire

Notes on Xi’an Religions

And more

A Strong Foundation

Xi’an culture, just like human culture, is complex enough that it isn’t easy to cover in a single document. If it were comprehensive, it would span several volumes and take years of constant study and practice to understand. This overview, therefore, is not complete. But it does represent a first step into a larger universe of understanding.

As Professor Tai puts it in his letter: yanlēkol — Best wishes for your studies.

UEE Diplomatic Corps

Office of Xenolinguistic Protocol

New York, Earth, Sol

2947 • III.1164

note: a corrected version of this pdf was posted on November 10, 2017. Spelling errors and formatting errors were addressed.

note: an expanded version of this pdf was posted on November 23, 2019. The dictionary was extensively expanded, the Xi’an text was replaced with a new font, and an International Phonetic Alphabet pronunciation guide was added.