The First of Many: The Retla Thread
Posted: 22 Jun 2015 21:09
Retla
Well, for starters, Retla is a language on the CollabWorld of Teles. It is a Gigxkpoyan Language, one of the 18 direct (~ 1500 years) descendants of Proto-Gigxkpoyan (That's why it's the first of many, i plan on having threads for all of them, and, eventually, for their descendants).
It was spoken at 9 000BK. (PG was spoken at 10 500BK).
Here's a map of Teles and a map of the gigxkpoyan languages to help you situate:
The Second map is a detail of the Southeastern Coast of the Northwestern Continent (which is called Amalan). Retla is [3]
Let's get to the actual stuff:
Phonology
Retla has 21 distinct consonants (not considering [x], which is an allophone of either /ʀ/ or /ɣ/), and 5 distinct vowels. 26 distinct phonemes. Proto-Gigxkpoyan (henceforth referred to as PG, do not mistake it for Proto-Germanic) had far more phonemes (31 consonants and 9 vowels to be exact), but many mergers took place.
Stress is strictly word initial (just like PG). The most common syllable patterns are CV (43%) CCV (22.5%) and CVC (19%).
Consonants
/m n ŋ/ <m n ŋ>
/p pʰ t tʰ k kʰ/ <p ph t th k kh>
/f v s z ɕ~ʃ~ʂ ʑ~ʒ~ʐ ɣ/ <f v s z ṣ ẕ g>
/w ɹ j ʁ/ <w r j x>
/ɾ/ <l>
Unaspirated plosives are the overwhelmingly more common consonants, the five more common consonants being /t p j l k/, which together account for 52% of consonants.
Vowels
/i e a o u/ <i e a o u>
Quite the vanilla inventory. /i/ is by far the most common, it's the most common reflex of PG /i y e ɛ/, especially in unstressed positions.
Phonotactics
Syllable structure seems to be (C)(C)(C)V(C)(C), although there doesn't seem to be any words with the biggest possible configuration. It is quite free, allowing clusters of mostly anything with anything.
Retla tends towards the isolating end of the spectrum, with verbs being the only word class to truly inflect. Posts on other word classes may be a bit boring. I'll probably have morphology posts later today.
Well, for starters, Retla is a language on the CollabWorld of Teles. It is a Gigxkpoyan Language, one of the 18 direct (~ 1500 years) descendants of Proto-Gigxkpoyan (That's why it's the first of many, i plan on having threads for all of them, and, eventually, for their descendants).
It was spoken at 9 000BK. (PG was spoken at 10 500BK).
Here's a map of Teles and a map of the gigxkpoyan languages to help you situate:
The Second map is a detail of the Southeastern Coast of the Northwestern Continent (which is called Amalan). Retla is [3]
Let's get to the actual stuff:
Phonology
Retla has 21 distinct consonants (not considering [x], which is an allophone of either /ʀ/ or /ɣ/), and 5 distinct vowels. 26 distinct phonemes. Proto-Gigxkpoyan (henceforth referred to as PG, do not mistake it for Proto-Germanic) had far more phonemes (31 consonants and 9 vowels to be exact), but many mergers took place.
Stress is strictly word initial (just like PG). The most common syllable patterns are CV (43%) CCV (22.5%) and CVC (19%).
Consonants
/m n ŋ/ <m n ŋ>
/p pʰ t tʰ k kʰ/ <p ph t th k kh>
/f v s z ɕ~ʃ~ʂ ʑ~ʒ~ʐ ɣ/ <f v s z ṣ ẕ g>
/w ɹ j ʁ/ <w r j x>
/ɾ/ <l>
Unaspirated plosives are the overwhelmingly more common consonants, the five more common consonants being /t p j l k/, which together account for 52% of consonants.
Vowels
/i e a o u/ <i e a o u>
Quite the vanilla inventory. /i/ is by far the most common, it's the most common reflex of PG /i y e ɛ/, especially in unstressed positions.
Phonotactics
Syllable structure seems to be (C)(C)(C)V(C)(C), although there doesn't seem to be any words with the biggest possible configuration. It is quite free, allowing clusters of mostly anything with anything.
Retla tends towards the isolating end of the spectrum, with verbs being the only word class to truly inflect. Posts on other word classes may be a bit boring. I'll probably have morphology posts later today.