The Human Languages of Yantas

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Re: The Languages of Yantas

Post by sangi39 »

And for vowels:

/i y ɨ ʉ ɯ u/ <i ü į ų ï u>
/ɪ ʏ ɪ̈ ʊ̈ ɯ̽ ʊ/ <i̥ ü̥ į̊ ų̊ ï̥ u̥>
/e ø ɘ ɵ ɤ o/ <e ö ę ǫ ë o>
/ɛ œ ɜ ɞ ʌ ɔ/ <e̥ ö̥ ę̊ ǫ̊ ë̥ o̥>
/a ɶ ɑ ɒ/ <ä ɔ̈ a ɔ>

As with consonants, the diacritics used do follow a pattern. The umlaut switches a vowel front front the back and vice versa while the ogonek makes it central, the over- and under-rings lower the vowel. In cases where near-open and open vowels contrast, the open vowel is represented with the lowering diacritic. The purely mid vowels are indicated by means of an underbar (or an overbar in the case of central vowels), e.g. /ə/ as <ę̄>

Again, as with consonants, there is a degree of “wiggle room”, allowing, for example, /ə/ can be written simply as <ë> rather than <ę̄> if it doesn't contrast with /ɤ/.
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Re: The Languages of Yantas

Post by sangi39 »

One of the reasons I'm doing this is so that I can start naming things on maps in a way that a) looks more like a romanisation than IPA while, b) actually represents something close to phonetically accurate, c) shows

In a lot of names I have so far, I've found them quite... clunky. I've got things like Syavan and Lyakar when I'd prefer something like śavän and ĺakar, which just looks a bit nicer to my eyes.
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Re: The Languages of Yantas

Post by sangi39 »

sangi39 wrote:And for vowels:

/i y ɨ ʉ ɯ u/ <i ü į ų ï u>
/ɪ ʏ ɪ̈ ʊ̈ ɯ̽ ʊ/ <i̥ ü̥ į̊ ų̊ ï̥ u̥>
/e ø ɘ ɵ ɤ o/ <e ö ę ǫ ë o>
/ɛ œ ɜ ɞ ʌ ɔ/ <e̥ ö̥ ę̊ ǫ̊ ë̥ o̥>
/a ɶ ɑ ɒ/ <ä ɔ̈ a ɔ>

As with consonants, the diacritics used do follow a pattern. The umlaut switches a vowel front front the back and vice versa while the ogonek makes it central, the over- and under-rings lower the vowel. In cases where near-open and open vowels contrast, the open vowel is represented with the lowering diacritic. The purely mid vowels are indicated by means of an underbar (or an overbar in the case of central vowels), e.g. /ə/ as <ę̄>

Again, as with consonants, there is a degree of “wiggle room”, allowing, for example, /ə/ can be written simply as <ë> rather than <ę̄> if it doesn't contrast with /ɤ/.
The rings are most often written simply as dots, with some texts leaving out the dot of the plain <i> (and its other close vowel derivative).
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Re: The Languages of Yantas

Post by sangi39 »

So, I posted the Classical Kusan alphabet about three and a half year ago now, but I want to design other, related scripts as well, so I thought I'd try to give it an ancestral form, and this is what I've come up with so far:

Image

Admittedly, it became a bit more like Futhark than I'd initially expected, but I think it's something I can work with.
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Re: The Languages of Yantas

Post by Davush »

I'm enjoying reading how this is developing. Having one romanisation for the whole world is interesting (and convenient). I was thinking of something similar, but I like how different romanisations can give very different 'feels' too much. I also really like the alphabet - conscripting is something I've never managed to get round to.
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Re: The Languages of Yantas

Post by sangi39 »

Davush wrote:I'm enjoying reading how this is developing. Having one romanisation for the whole world is interesting (and convenient). I was thinking of something similar, but I like how different romanisations can give very different 'feels' too much. I also really like the alphabet - conscripting is something I've never managed to get round to.
I'm kind of going half and half on the "global orthography" and it might be better to call it something like "the official romanisation of foreign place names employed by the Kusan". Like you, different romanisations give different conlangs different feels, and sometimes I aim for something more etymological than phonetic, which is why the romanisation for Proto-Sirdic uses <ś> and <'>for /ɬ/ and /h/ respectively, and Proto-Skawlas uses both <i u a ë> and <ị ụ ạ ẹ> to represent /i u a ə/ (the former being "original", except for /ə/ which is the result of vowel reduction in certain unstressed syllables, while the latter are syllabic variants of /j w ʔ h/). The only "non-standard" thing about Lesi Kirra is its use of <x> for /ʃ/ (similarly, <> is employed for Proto-Gadar /ŋ/).

I tend to use certain things consistently, though. <j> is almost always /j/, umlauts rather than different vowel letters like <y> (which I tend to leave for representing voiced coronal fricatives). Just keeps everything straight in my head I guess [:P]
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Re: The Languages of Yantas

Post by Reyzadren »

Conlangs with Futhark/rune-like conscripts <3

Yes pls.
Image conlang summary | Image griushkoent thread
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Re: The Languages of Yantas

Post by sangi39 »

Reyzadren wrote:Conlangs with Futhark/rune-like conscripts <3

Yes pls.
Works for me [:D] I'm trying to work on another script to go with it, but just struggling to pin down the basics before I can actually move forward with it. Getting there [:P]
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Re: The Languages of Yantas

Post by sangi39 »

Just a preliminary outline of the second script:

Image

Each letter derives from the runic original.

What I need to do, which is something I did with the Kusan alphabet is add in some extra stroke differentiation on top of the basic stroke rules (in Kusan, for example, the leftmost vertical stroke bulges outwards unless there's a connector at the top, likewise the rightmost vertical stroke bulges outwards unless there's a connector at the bottom and central strokes are straight. "d" is an exception but I've actually forgotten why [:P] )

EDIT: A bit like this:

Image

Left ascenders now slant towards the right smoothly while simple right ascenders require a slight back stroke (there are then two different "topped" ascenders). Left descenders slant more sharply to the right, while right descenders slant smoothly towards the left. Unconnected right most non-ascending verticals, including "x", also slant slightly to the right.

I also went and created a "rounded" version of the same script.

And just a quick example for some comparison, the word "sirden" in all three four scripts:

Image
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Re: The Languages of Yantas

Post by sangi39 »

I'm going to redo the Proto-Lorgyak phonology. The one I had before just didn't sit well with me.
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Re: The Languages of Yantas

Post by sangi39 »

Redoing Proto-Lorgyak's phonology because I utterly hated the last one. The basic principles are the same, but I think this one feels better. Still resulting in the Lorgyak languages, spoken in the light blue region in 1AD:

Image



Consonants

/tʰ kʰ qχ/
/p t k q qʷ ʔ/
/ɓ ɗ g/
/m n ŋ/
/f s χʷ h/
/ɣ/
/l̥/
/w l/



Vowels

/i i: ɯ ɯ: u u:/
/e e: ɤ ɤ: o o:/
/ɛ: ɜ/
/a a:/



Syllable Structure

The syllable structure is to (s)(C)(l/w)V(:/C), although anything more complex than CV is reserved for the stressed syllable of a root

/l/ and /w/ cannot occupy the first C slot.
The second C can be any of /p t k q qʷ ʔ ɓ d~ɗ g m n ŋ~ɴ s h ɦ l̥ l/
/l/ cannot follow /l̥/
/w/ can follow labialised consonants



Stress

Stress falls on the final syllable of a root, with roots often being monosyllabic and bisyllabic.



Allophony

Several consonants have a number of different allophones:

/s/, preceding a voiced sound, is realised as [z]
/ŋ/ is realised as [ɴ] when word-final
/ɗ/ is realised as [d] syllable-finally
/l/ is realised as [r] when post-vocalic. However, when /l/ appears twice in the same syllable or in adjacent syllables, the first is realised as [r] and the second as [l], e.g. /sklal/ > [skral] or /lala/ > [rala].
/kʰ/ is realised as [kx] when followed by /w/ and /l/
/ɣ/ has a number of different realisations. It appears as [ʝ] before front vowels, [v] before back rounded vowels [ɣ] before other vowels as well as before /w/ and /l/ and [ɦ] before other vowels and when word-final
/ɓ/ appears as [m] syllable-finally.

/ɜ/ varies between [ɐ] and [ə] and is often rounded when following /qʷ/, /χʷ/ and /w/. When immediately preceded or followed by another vowel is drops out completely, with /ɜ.ɜ/ resulting in [ɜ:]~[ɔ:]. Similarly, if the coda of a syllable can appear as an onset, VCɜ sequences reduce to VC.

Regressive de-aspiration also occurs, e.g. /kʰatʰu/ > [katʰu]. /f qχ χʷ/ are also grouped with aspirated plosives in this regard, e.g./fakʰo:/ > [pakʰo:].
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Re: The Languages of Yantas

Post by sangi39 »

So this time I wanted to work on a language with no phonemic or phonetic nasals at all, and a pretty gappy plosive series. I chose the Siltom languages (in dark blue) because of their proximity to the Vuluka languages, and Proto-Vuluka only has a set of nasal vowels, not nasal consonants, so I wanted to set up a region on the Bridge where nasals (both consonants and vowels) are a fairly unstable feature.

Image



Consonants

/tʼ kʼ ʔ/ <t' k' q>
/t k/ <t k>
/b d/ <b d>
/ɸ s/ <f s>
/ɦ/ <h>
/r~l/ (the exact realisation of this phoneme is uncertain) <r>



Vowels

Tense:/i u e o ɑ/ <i u e o a>
Lax: /ɪ ʊ ɛ ɔ æ/ <ị ụ ẹ ọ ạ>

Tense vowels could be long or short, while lax vowels could be short or "checked", i.e. followed by /ʔ/.
Stress can be marked by means of an acute accent, although it is often unwritten
Checked syllables are written with <'> after the vowel instead, and long vowels as two consecutive vowel, e.g. /i:/ <ii>



Syllable Structure

The syllable structure was quite simple, being just CV, but V could either be long, short or checked, so some choose to analyse the syllable structure as CV(:/ʔ)



Stress

"Stress" would fall on the antepenultimate "mora" of a given word, and every second mora back from that point. In this instance, long vowels and checked vowels count as two morae, thus stress could fall on either the penultimate or antepenultimate syllable of a word, and at various positions back through the word.

Stress also had an effect on the pronunciation of vowels, since long tense vowels were only contrastive in stressed syllables. Long tense vowels becomes short while short tense vowels become short lax vowels (note that checked syllables still occur in unstressed syllables). Tense vowels in syllables carrying secondary stress remain long if already long, unless that syllable immediately precedes the syllable carrying primary stress, in which case long tense vowels becomes short, with short tense vowels remaining tense, rather than becoming lax as they do in unstressed syllables. This shift takes place after stress placement.



Pitch

As well as stress accent, each word also had a pitch accent which fell at first on the penultimate mora, unless that mora was a coda /ʔ/ in which case pitch accent would fall on the preceding mora.

Pitch accent was marked by high pitch on the accented syllable. If the surface syllable contained a long vowel, then this was marked as a rising tone, peaking at the end of the syllable. If the surface syllable contained a short vowel (or was checked) then the rise in tone occurred on the previous vowel.

The pitch of a word before this point was linked directly to stress accent. Mora carrying secondary stress carried a higher tone than unstressed mora, but the highest pitch fell on the pitch accent mora. If a mora carried primary stress but did not carry pitch accent, it also carried a high tone (accented coda glottal stops were ignored)



The combination of stress accent and pitch, for the final three syllables of a word can be demonstrated by the following examples:

Code: Select all

       /si-tʼæ-re/ >         /ˈsi˦-tʼæ˥-re/ >     /ˈsi˦.tʼæ˥.re/ > [ ˈsi ˦  tʼæ ˥ rɛ˨ ] sit'ạrẹ
     /si-tʼæ-ʔ-re/ >        /si˨ˈtʼæ˥-ʔ-re/ >     /si˨ˈtʼæʔ˥.re/ > [  sɪ ˨ ˈtʼæʔ˥ rɛ˨ ] sịt'a'rẹ
     /si-tʼæ-re-e/ >       /si˨ˈtʼæ˦-re˥-e/ >    /si˨ˈtʼæ˦.re:˥/ > [  sɪ ˨ ˈtʼæ ˦ re˥ ] sịt'ạre
   /si-tʼæ-ʔ-re-e/ >    /ˌsi˧-tʼæ˨ˈʔ-re˥-e/ >  /ˌsi˧ˈtʼæʔ˨.re:˥/ > [ ˌsi ˧ ˈtʼæʔ˨ re˥ ] sit'ạ're
       /si-tʼɑ-re/ >         /ˈsi˦-tʼɑ˥-re/ >     /ˈsi˦.tʼɑ˥.re/ > [ ˈsi ˦  tʼæ ˥ rɛ˨ ] sit'ạrẹ
     /si-tʼɑ-ɑ-re/ >       /si˨ˈtʼɑ˦-ɑ˥-re/ >     /si˨ˈtʼɑ:˦˥.re/ > [  sɪ ˨ ˈtʼɑ:˦˥ rɛ˨ ] sịt'aarẹ
     /si-tʼɑ-re-e/ >       /si˨ˈtʼɑ˦-re˥-e/ >    /si˨ˈtʼɑ˦.re:˥/ > [  sɪ ˨ ˈtʼɑ ˦ re˥ ] sịt'are
   /si-tʼɑ-ɑ-re-e/ >   /ˌsi˧-tʼɑ˨ˈɑ˦-re˥-e/ >  /ˌsi˧ˈtʼɑ:˨˦.re:˥/ > [ ˌsi ˧ ˈtʼɑ:˨˦ re˥ ] sit'aare
     /si-i-tʼæ-re/ >       /si˨ˈi˦-tʼæ˥-re/ >    /ˈsi:˨˦.tʼæ˥.re/ > [ ˈsi:˨˦  tʼæ ˥ rɛ˨ ] siit'ạrẹ
   /si-i-tʼæ-ʔ-re/ >    /ˌsi˧-i˨ˈtʼæ˥-ʔ-re/ >   /ˌsi:˧˨ˈtʼæʔ˥.re/ > [ ˌsi ˧˨ ˈtʼæʔ˥ rɛ˨ ] sit'ạ'rẹ
   /si-i-tʼæ-re-e/ >   /ˌsi˧-i˨ˈtʼæ˦-re˥-e/ >  /ˌsi:˧˨ˈtʼæ˦.re:˥/ > [ ˌsi ˧˨ ˈtʼæ ˦ re˥ ] sit'ạre
 /si-i-tʼæ-ʔ-re-e/ >  /si˨ˌi˧-tʼæ˨ˈʔ-re˥-e/ > /ˌsi:˨˧ˈtʼæʔ˨.re:˥/ > [ ˌsi ˨˧ ˈtʼæʔ˨ re˥ ] sit'ạ're
     /si-i-tʼɑ-re/ >       /si˨ˈi˦-tʼɑ˥-re/ >    /ˈsi:˨˦.tʼɑ˥.re/ > [ ˈsi:˨˦  tʼæ ˥ rɛ˨ ] siit'ạrẹ
   /si-i-tʼɑ-ɑ-re/ >   /ˌsi˧-i˨ˈtʼɑ˦-ɑ˥-re/ >   /ˌsi:˧˨ˈtʼɑ:˦˥.re/ > [ ˌsi ˧˨ ˈtʼɑ:˦˥ rɛ˨ ] sit'aarẹ
   /si-i-tʼɑ-re-e/ >   /ˌsi˧-i˨ˈtʼɑ˦-re˥-e/ >  /ˌsi:˧˨ˈtʼɑ˦.re:˥/ > [ ˌsi ˧˨ ˈtʼɑ ˦ re˥ ] sit'are
 /si-i-tʼɑ-ɑ-re-e/ > /si˨ˌi˧-tʼɑ˨ˈɑ˦-re˥-e/ > /ˌsi:˨˧ˈtʼɑ:˨˦.re:˥/ > [ ˌsi ˨˧ ˈtʼɑ:˨˦ re˥ ] sit'aare
 
This gives the impression, at the surface level, of stress appearing somewhat irregularly throughout the word, most often on the penultimate syllable, but sometimes on the antepenultimate syllable instead. Similarly, pitch accent can occur on either the final or penultimate syllable in a word, with the overall tonal "shape" of a word being dependent on stress accent and pitch accent (some words have a gradual rise towards a high pitch, others rise to it suddenly, and others still meander their way towards a high pitch, becoming lower along the way )
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Re: The Languages of Yantas

Post by sangi39 »

Image

Going for Proto-Limba this time, the languages at 1AD spoken in the sandy-coloured regions of Sirden:



Consonants

/pʰ tʰ tʰʲ tɬʰ kʰ kʰʲ kʰʷ/
/pʼ tʼ tʼʲ tɬʼ kʼ kʼʲ kʼʷ/
/p t tʲ tɬ k kʲ kʷ ʔ/
/m n nʲ/
/ɸ θ s sʲ ɬ xʲ xʷ x~h/
/ð z zʲ ɣ~ɦ/
/r rʲ l lʲ j w/

The glottal pronunciations of the plain dorsal fricatives occurs word initially, while the velar pronunciations appear word medially



Vowels

/i i: u u:/
/e: ə o:/
/ɛ ɛ: ɔ ɔ:/
/æ: a ɑ:/

Back vowels preceded by palatalised consonants as pronounced slightly forward of their default position, while /i i: e/ are pronounced somewhat back of their default position when not preceded by a palatalised consonant.



Stress and Vowel Allophony

Stress is usually found on the antepenultimate syllable of a word, the result being that any word with three or fewer syllables has initial stress. Secondary stress is also present, appearing most often on the initial syllable of a word (unless immediately preceding the stressed syllable), with compound words being stressed primarily on the head and secondarily on other components. Several affixes also tend toward carrying secondary stress as well.

Stress primarily determines vowel quality, with several alternations occurring:

Code: Select all

Primary    : /i u e: o: ɛ: ɔ: i: u: ɛ: ɔ: æ: ɑ: ɛ ɔ a/
Secondary  : /ə ə ɛ  ɔ  a  a  i  u  ɛ  ɔ  a  a  ə a a/
Unstressed : /ə ə ə  a  a  a  ə  ə  a  a  a  a  ə a a/
Long vowels can only occur in primarily stressed syllables, with 13 vowels in total appearing in such a position. This collapses down to 6 vowels in secondarily stressed syllables, in which only short vowels can appear, further reducing down to 2 vowels in unstressed syllables, in which only central vowels can occur.



Syllable structure

CV(N/S/H/T/ɬ/G), where N is a nasal (matching for POV with the following consonant, else /n/), S is a sibilant (matching for voicing), H is a dorsal fricative (voicing), T is a dental fricative (voicing), and G is one of /r l j w/ (/j/ not appearing after /i/ or /i:/ and /w/ not appearing after /u/ or /u:/.



Unlike a number of languages with ejectives, there seems to be no restriction against ejectives appearing in adjacent syllables, although later daughter languages did develop such restrictions.
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Re: The Languages of Yantas

Post by sangi39 »

Finally decided on a vowel inventory to go with one of my click-having proto-languages, and decided to attribute it to Proto-Hirbol, ancestral to the language family marked in brown below:

Image



Consonants:

Image

There are two "varieties" of , one written as , as expected, and the other written as *~. The "tilde" corresponds to what was a velar nasal, , which, like other nasal consonants, causes preceding vowels to nasalise, but which has merged into .



Vowels:

There are 10 underlying vowels in Proto-Hirbol:

*i *u
*ɪ *ʊ
*e *o
*ɛ *ɔ
*a

... and a syllabic *r.

All 10 vowels appear in both oral and nasal forms, which are allophonic, and the nine non-consonantal can also be long and long nasalised, with the distinction in this case being phonemic. The underlying forms, however, undergo a number of distinct changes which result in various morphophonemic alternations on the surface level:

Short vowels:

*i *u > *i *i
*ɪ *ʊ > *e *ʊ
*e *o > *ɛ *o
*ɛ *ɔ > *a *ɔ
*a > *a

Allophonic nasal vowels:

*i *u > *ĩ *ʊ̃
*ɪ *ʊ > *ĩ *ʊ̃
*e *o > *ẽ *ã
*ɛ *ɔ > *ẽ *ã
*a >

Long vowels:

*i: *u: > *ie *uo
*ɪ: *ʊ: > *i: *u:
*e: *o: > *e: *o:
*ɛ: *ɔ: > *ɛa *ɔa
*a: > *a:

Phonemic long nasal vowels:

*i: *u: > *ĩ: *ũ:
*ɪ: *ʊ: > *ĩ: *õ:
*e: *o: > *ẽ: *õ:
*ɛ: *ɔ: > *ɛ̃: *ã:
*a: > *ã:

The syllabic *r appears allophonically as a syllabic *n


This gives the surface vowels as:

Code: Select all

*ie *uo     *i:  *u:     *i  *ʊ     *ĩ:   *ũ:    *ĩ   *ʊ̃ 
            *e:  *o:     *e  *o     *ẽ:   *õ:    *ẽ
*ɛa *ɔa                  *ɛ  *ɔ     *ɛ̃:
              *a:          *a          *ã:         *ã

In the majority of cases, long vowels (both oral and nasal) are found in the initial syllable of roots, although they do also appear word-internally, most often as the result of vowel syncope.



Allophonic nasal vowels, as mentioned above, appear immediately before nasal consonants, in contrast to long nasal vowels which can appear before any consonant (likewise long oral vowels can appear before any consonant). For example. /a.ma/ surfaces as [ã.ma] while /a.ba/ surfaces as /a.ba/. On the other hand /a:.ma/ contrasts with /ã:.ma/ as well as /a:.ba/ and /ã:.ba/.

Because of the nature of *~, there are minimal pairs between short oral and short nasal vowels before appearing before , but because of the distribution of these cases short nasal vowels are simply classed as allophonic.



Tone:

Each syllable carries one of two tones, i.e. "high" or "low" with the exception of root-initial syllables which can carry a third "mid" tone. The high falls gradually across both words and across phrases, with the low tone remaining more or less constant (it does fall somewhat, but only across the phrase, not the word). In each syllable, the high tone must be lower than the preceding one, and if the root-initial syllable begins with a mid tone, then the following high tone will be equal in height to the mid tone.

At the end of each word, the high pitch of the following word is equal in tone to the previous high tone. At the end of each phrase, the high and mid tones are reset. As an example:

Code: Select all

        Phrase 1                          - Phrase 2
        Word 1    - Word 2    -  Word 3   - Word 1
        1 – 2 – 3 - 1 – 2 – 3 - 1 – 2 – 3 – 1 – 2 - 3
(high)  H                                            
            H                                        
(mid)               M   H           H       M   H    
                                        H            
(low)           L           L   L                   L
The low tone remains roughly equal across the entirety of speech, but the high tone can fall almost to the point of being nearly indistinguishable from the low tone.



Vowel Harmony:

Proto-Hirbol exhibits what might be called "three-dimensional" vowel harmony, i.e. vowel harmony with three conditions:

Code: Select all

          FRT  BCK     FRT BCK    FRT   BCK     FRT BCK                                                               
ATR HIGH  *ie  *uo     *i  *i     *ĩ:   *ũ:     *ĩ  *ʊ̃
    LOW   *e:  *o:     *ɛ  *o     *ẽ:   *õ:     *ẽ  *ã
                                                                 
RTR HIGH  *i:  *u:     *e  *ʊ     *ĩ:   *õ:     *ĩ  *ʊ̃
    LOW   *ɛa  *ɔa     *a  *ɔ     *ɛ̃:   *ã:     *ẽ  *ã
                                                                
"ntl"        *a:         *a          *ã:          *ã
1) RTR/ATR - The first vowel of a root triggers RTR harmony, with all following vowels either having to belong to the same class. For example, if the first vowel is, say, , then the next vowel must belong to the RTR class. The following vowel could also be neutral.

2) Frontness - The first vowel of a root triggers frontness "harmony" as well, but only in the immediately following syllable. If the vowel is front, then the next one must also be front or neutral. Likewise, back vowels must be followed by back or neutral vowels.

3) Height - This works as a sub-level of frontness harmony, with root-initial "high" vowels causing the immediately following vowel to also be high (or neutral). Non-high vowels do not trigger this.

The final two instances of vowel "harmony" are particularly weak associations compared to tongue root harmony.

As an example, *!ũ:kilɛ would be a viable word (the first vowel is ATR, back and high, the second is ATR, back and high, and the third vowel is ATR), but *egǁʊzi is not (the first vowel is RTR, high and front, the second is RTR and high, but back, and the third is ATR).
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Re: The Languages of Yantas

Post by Creyeditor »

Yay for Downstep and ATR/RTR-harmony. Devices much underused in current conlanging.
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Re: The Languages of Yantas

Post by sangi39 »

Creyeditor wrote: 24 Feb 2018 19:36 Yay for Downstep and ATR/RTR-harmony. Devices much underused in current conlanging.
Thanks [:)] I can't remember why I wanted to add downstep and tone terracing, but I liked the result just the same. Vowel harmony was a little accidental. Originally I wanted just short-range stuff, but then I threw in the ATR/RTR stuff just because of how I'd messed with the original underlying vowels.
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Re: The Languages of Yantas

Post by sangi39 »

This phonology might likely be attached to the Proto-Pirmal language, ancestral to the languages spoken in the light brown area in this map of Arenda:

Image



Consonants

The consonant inventory has already been mentioned elsewhere in the board, being:

Image



Vowels

The vowels I want to work with are:

/i u/ ~ /e o/ ~ /ɨ ɨ/
/e o/ ~ /e o/ ~ /ɨ ɨ/
/ɛ ɔ/ ~ /ɑ ɑ/ ~ /ɐ ɐ/
/ɑ/ ~ /ɑ/ ~ /ɐ ɐ/



Stress, metaphony and glottalic allophony

Stress has an effect on what vowels can appear in what syllables, with stressed vowels similarly affecting following vowels. Glottalised consonants (but not non-glottalised clicks) have similar effects. They don't affect words in order, like "stress rules before metaphony before glottalic allophony" but instead work in a sort of mish-mash pattern:

Stress is root-intial, with any root beginning with any of the seven vowels, but stress has an effect on how those vowels are realised:

1) Root initial syllables are stress, containing one of the following vowels: /i u e o ɛ ɔ ɑ/

2) Stressed /i u a/ vowels cause immediately following vowels to rise or fall. /i u/ shifts /e o ɛ ɔ/ > [ i u e o] while /ɑ/ shifts /e o ɛ ɔ/ > [ɛ ɔ ɑ ɑ] (applies to underlying vowels). E.g. /t'u.le/ > [t'u.li], /g!ɑ.me/ > [g!ɑ.mɛ]

3) Glottalised consonants cause following [ i] and [ u] to lower to [e] and [o], and [e] and [o] to lower to [ɛ] and [ɔ] (pre-lowering [ɛ ɔ ɑ] are unaffected). E.g. [t'u.li] > [t'o.li]

4) In syllables immediately following the stressed vowel, the height distinction collapses: /i u e o ɛ ɔ ɑ/ > [e o e o ɑ ɑ ɑ]. E.g. [t'o.li] > [t'o.le], /g!ɑ.me/ > [g!ɑ.mɑ]

5) In the next syllable (two after the stressed syllable) vowels are further reduced, with the frontness distinction collapsing > /i u e o ɛ ɔ ɑ/ > [ɨ ɨ ɨ ɨ ɐ ɐ ɐ]. E.g [t'oleke] > [t'olekɨ], [g!ɑ.mɑ.rɑ] > [g!ɑ.mɑ.rɐ]

6) In the syllable after that (three after the stressed syllable), or in a syllable immediately before the stressed one, vowels shift to [ɐ] or [ɨ] depending on the height of the preceding vowel (high after high, low after low), or the height of the following vowel in the case of pre-initial vowels ([ i u e o] are classed as high, [ɛ ɔ ɑ] are classed as low). E.g. [a't'olekɨ] > [ɨ't'olekɨ], [a'g!ɑ.mɑ.rɐ] > [ɐ'g!ɑ.mɑ.rɐ]

7) Glottalised consonant further cause following vowels vowels to lower to [ɐ] when they are completely unstressed. E.g. /ǀ'i.sɛ.mo.k'i/ > [ǀ'e.se.mɨ.k'ɨ] > [ǀ'e.se.mɨ.k'ɐ]

8) Glottalised consonants cause another glottalised consonants in the immediately preceding syllable to become voiced. E.g. /ǀ'i.t'ɛ/ > [ǀ'e.t'ɑ] > [gǀe.t'ɑ] (note that this change, as always, groups glottalised clicks with other glottalised consonants).

The majority of roots are either one or two syllables long, with longer roots often arising by means of reduplication or compounding, with the above changes applying in full to such compounds. As a result, /t'uli/ and /g!ɑ.me/ would appear as [t'o.le] and [g!ɑ.mɛ] when in isolation, but the compound /t'uli-g!ɑ.me/ would appear as [t'o.le.g!ɐ.mɐ], and a reduplicated /t'uli-t'uli/ would surface as [t'o.le.t'ɨ.lɨ].
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Re: The Languages of Yantas

Post by sangi39 »

A rough map showing the distribution and division of human vs. Kovur languages on Yantas:

Image

The human languages are marked in the sandy colour, and the Kovur ones in a light purple-ish colours (the light brown in Velkasta and surrounding islands indicates a lack of inhabitation by either species).

I need to work on a colour-coded language family map for the Kovur next.
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Re: The Human Languages of Yantas

Post by sangi39 »

I'll be dealing with the Kovur languages of Yantas in a separate thread, leaving this one as a thread dealing with the human languages of the planet instead. I'll be talking about them in "the Kovur Languages of Yantas" thread instead [:)]
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Re: The Human Languages of Yantas

Post by Birdlang »

Did you get the idea for g̃ /ŋ/ from Guarani? It’s used the same way in that language.
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