The Kanasa language is an ancient yet melodious language with
its roots in the Austronesian family of languages. The language doesn’t bear
much close relation to the rest of the languages in this family except for some
aspects of the sound system and its grammar. This is mainly because the
Kanasans were so isolated for such a long period of time, their language
changed greatly over this period becoming virtually unrecognizable to speakers
of other Austronesian languages. Kanasa was also one of the few Austronesian
languages which developed its own script in the year 200 AD. It is thought that
the script was originally invented by Kanasan scholars to right down religious rites
and astronomical events but soon turned into a script for general usage within
the next 100 years.
When the European missionaries first arrived, they did their
utmost to wipe out all aspects of Kanasan culture including the language. But
the language and the script survived and it is used virtually by everyone in
Kanasa.
Below are links to various
aspects of the language:
Copyright 2003
Damien Ponech