Kirtumur

Kirtumur language
Kirtumur
Pronunciation	[/ˈkir.tu.mur/]
Created by	Raistas
Setting	Umu, planet Earth
Ethnicity	Umunnaki
Language family	Kyrdan languages East Kyrdan languages Kirtumur language
Early form	Proto-Kyrdan

Kirtumur is an Eastern language spoken for more than a thousand years in an eastern part of the continent, called Umu. It has been documented as a living language for at least 1500 years, according to the date of the earliest Kērsal documents. Though no longer spoken natively, Kērsalur continues to be used as a language of scholarship and cult, influencing Kirtumur, which is now the official language of Umu.

Along with Cirdamur and Kērsalur, Kirtumur belongs to the Kyrdan language family. Its position in a remote corner of the former interstellar empire shows it to be a last remnant of the ancient languages that preceded the arrival of Klīru and its sister languages, to which the Kyrdan languages are distantly related. The name "Kirtumur" comes from the Old Ķyrdum ķiur "proper (speech)" and the suffixes -tum of unknown etymology, related to "-dam" in Cirdamur. The Kirtumur speakers themselves used to call their language umunesal "the speech of Umu", but they changed its name to make it different from unstandardised varieties, spoken in that part of the continent. The southern alluvial plain where the Umunnak people lived is by itself hardly a hospitable region, but the climate is warmer and less windy, and together with plain terrain it made the are the centre of Umu with many relatively densely populated cities, which helped establishing Kirtumur as the new official language after the decline of Kērsalur.

Kirtumur belongs to the eastern branch along with Kērsalur and a few spoken varieties (also called Kirtumur dialects). The most important neighbour outside its close genetic relatives is Cirdamur, which has been in contact with Kirtumur for almost all of its history and both languages influenced each other, this is the most noticeable in their lexical similarity, for example supōlum "ship", which is a loanword from Cirdamur and has the same root as Kirtumur paulim "gliding"; or cilin "healthy" (another Cirdamur loanword) which is a cognate to Kirtumur kilin "whole, unbroken".

Dialects

The two distinct varieties (Ilusal and Ruosal), usually called Kirtumur dialects, can be considered separate languages, since both are quite different from Kirtumur and are more similar to each other and extinct Kērsal dialects than to Kirtumur. There is yet another dialect, called kirtumur erepurnu, which has more old loanwords from Kērsal and is more conservative, preserving a distinct [y(ː)] sound which became [i] in other dialects. In the north and northeast of Umu Kirtumur dialects merge [s] and [ʃ], leaving only the latter and also tend to pronounce [x] as [h]. They also use zela or hela instead of ŋala "to live" and mi instead of ma "not", which is also common in the west and is shared with Ruosal.

There are also various sociolects, that vary in levels of prestige with the high nobility speaking almost completely in Kērsalur with Kirtumur grammar and using longer words, while people of a low social class using less complex grammatical structures and more dialectal words in their speech. The Erepur dialect is the only exception as it is associated with religion, viewed as a link between Kērsalur and common Kirtumur, through which people can understand ancient texts and inscriptions.

Phonology

The analysis of Kirtumur phonology is based only on the standard language, though some additional data from dialects may also be included. The most important sound changes are discussed too.

All Kirtumur syllables have the structure V, CV, VC or CVC, the vowel being either long or short. The vowel-initial syllable are not as often as the consonant-initial ones, but vowel-initial words are quite common. The consonant clusters can only appear between vowels and vowel sequences are possible, after a consonant between them elided due to various sound changes.

Consonants

		Bilabial	Dental		Postalveolar	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n			ŋ
Stop	tenuis	p	t			k
	aspirated	ph /pʰ/	th /tʰ/			kh /kʰ/
Affricate	tenuis		c /t͡s/
	aspirated		ch /t͡sʰ/
Fricative			z /θ/	s	š /ʃ/	x	h
Approximant		w	r		y /j/
Lateral Approximant			l

Kirtumur distinguishes between aspirated and unaspirated plosives and affricates. It is unknown whether this was the original distinction or it was originally based on voicing like in Cirdamur, or a different contrast. Consonant length is phonemic in Kirtumur but only in word-medial position, that is to say, between vowels only, but it can also be interpreted as a consonant cluster, considering the origin of gemination, which is assimilation of certain consonants that would otherwise create a prohibited cluster (an example of which is the word kukkapir "column", itself a borrowing from Kērsalur, originally *gubgabir from the root *gub "to support". Here *bg became *gg which gave "kk" in Kirtumur). Certain consonants, like /r/, /w/, /j/, /h/ or any aspirated consonants can not be geminate.

Many speakers do not distinguish /x/ in their speach word-initially and medially, merging it with /h/. Mountain dialects typically pronounce "l" as [ɫ] when geminate or syllable-final and this is viewed as standard, though a denti-alveolar [l] is preferred. /r/ is usually a trill, though a tapped pronunciation (as [ɾ]) is possible too, mostly in fast speech of a common class, this is, however, considered inappropriate among the nobility. Just like Kērsal, the old Kirtumur writing system used signs for a specialized sound, romanised "ř", the exact pronunciation of which is unknown. Through a number of sound changes, /ř/ disappeared as an independent phoneme from all Kyrdan languages, but it likely sounded similar to /r/, since it merged with this phoneme in Kirtumur with several marginal exceptions, where it instead became pronounced [t], for example: eicat "it sold" (from *eiʒař), utun "meanwhile" (from *uřu "between").

The voiceless aspirated stops were generally lost in syllable-final position, merging with their plain voiceless counterparts or assimilating to the following consonant. In southwestern dialects the /tʰ/ irregularly became /r/ between vowels. This is also true for the standard, but limited to a few verbal prefixes before person markers. The consonants /h/, /w/ and /j/ are rare and can only be found word-initially or between vowels, they disappear when preceded by any consonant.

Vowels

Vowels

	Front	Back
Close	i	u
Mid	ē [eː]	ō [oː]
Open-mid	e [ɛ]
Open		a [ɑ]

Vowel length was phonemic in East Kyrdan, but in Kirtumur the only vowel that has both a short and a long versions is /e/, which is still differentiated by quality: the short counterpart is noticeably more open. Kirtumur also has two diphthongs: "ei" [eɪ] and "au" [aʉ], with the second being pronounced [ɛʏ] in the northeast.

Early in its history a sound change took place that gave rise to the Kirtumur vowel harmony. According to this rule, a front vowel differs depending on the vowel in the following syllable. When the next syllable contains a high vowel ([i] or [u]) or a diphthong, then the vowel is [i] and in other cases it is [ɛ], for instance: enethachi "she/he gave it to them", inišuki "she/he bought it for them". Certain prefixes, like the locative prefix, does not change, however. If the vowel is [ɛ], then both [i] and [ɛ] can appear before it, but the latter appears much more often then the former.

Consonant clusters

The number of permissible clusters is high, but not every consonant sequence is allowed. If a certain prohibited cluster would form, the first consonant usually assimilates to the second. but this is not always the case. Here, in the table below the most common assimilation types are shown. The first consonant is in the leftmost column, while the second consonant of a cluster is in the topmost row.

Consonant Clusters

	ph, p	th, t	kh, k	ch, c	z	s	š	x	h	w	y
ph, p	pp	pp	pp	pp	zp	sp	šp	p	p	p	p
th, t	tt	tt	kt	tt	t	st	št	xt	t	t	xt
kh, k	kk	kk	kk	kk	zk	sk	šk	xk	k	k	k
ch, c	cc	cc	cc	cc	c	sc	sc	c	c	c	c
z	p	t	k	c	zz	zz	zz	zz	z	z	k
s	p	t	k	c	ss	ss	ss	ss	s	s	k
š	p	t	k	c	šš	šš	šš	šš	š	š	k
x	p	t	k	c	zk	sk	šk	kk	x	x	k
h	p	t	k	c	z	s	š	h	h	h	h

Stress

Like other Eastern varieties, Kirtumur does not possess a strong stress and thus it generally does not cause any vowel reduction of unstressed syllables (a feature, shared with Kērsalur, but not with some westernmost dialects, like Ilusal). A stress is generally fixed on the root vowel of a word, but some suffixes can cause the stress shift to the right, like the inanimate locative marker -enei which receives stress on its first vowel ([ˈlum] "surface" - [lu.ˈmɛ.nɛɪ] "on the surface" ) or the negative active present conjugation, which shifts the stress to the person suffix ([ˈkʰɑ.tʰɑ] "to stop" - [kʰɑ.ˈtʰeɪ.ŋi] "I'm not stopping him/her". In composite words the stress always falls on the second root vowel or a suffix - [nɑm.sɑ.ˈlir] "speech, the manner of speaking".

Morphology

The word is perhaps the most basic unit of grammar and morphology deals with the internal structure of words. Kirtumur is consistently classified as an agglutinative language. Although it differs from a standard agglutinative language, where each morpheme carries one meaning and they remain unchanged after their unions. Some of its morphemes act similarly to morphemes in a fusional language, which tend to use a single morheme to carry multiple meanings. For example, the verb misa ("to eat") has the first-person singular subject present tense form misi ("I eat it"); the single suffix -i represents both the features of the direct agreement between first and third persons and present tense, instead of having a separate affix for each feature (although the present tense morpheme can also be analysed as zero).

Prefixes and suffixes make up a single grammatical word together with the stem they are attached to. Thus, a verbal form makes a single word, as the parts of a verbal form always occur in a fixed order and cannot be separated from each other. Stem and affixes together make up a single linguistic unit that cannot be broken up in any way, while clitics (such as noun case clitics) are grammatical words, because they can be separated from the linguistic units they are attached to, but they are not separate phonologically from nouns they modify.

Nouns

Nouns is an open class in Kirtumur. In principle, the number of nouns is unlimited. Apart from a large number of simple nouns, there are numerous complex nouns, most of them compounds, such as wimmuk ("basket", from wek- "cover" and muk "bundle"), but derivation by means of affixes is also common. Nouns are inflected for three grammatical categories: case, possession and number. The category of gender (or animacy) is tied to the former categories. Nouns are not marked for definiteness and there is no article.

Animacy

Kirtumur has two nouns classes, mostly based on animacy. Humans, gods, all living organisms, stars and planets belong to animate gender, while everything else belongs to inanimate gender. Groups living beings are inanimate, even though the singular subjects that comprise them are animate. This animacy distinction is marked on nouns with different case forms, but it also shows itself in pronominal and verbal agreement.

Number

Kirtumur nouns inflect for three numbers: singular, dual and plural, though only animate and a few naturally paired inanimate nouns can have dual forms.

The dual and plural of an animate noun are indicated with suffixes: -u (dual) and -ek/-ak (plural). The marker is attached directly to the animate noun regardless of its position in a noun phrase, while the plural marker is attached to the last word of a noun phrase, if the noun is inanimate, and has the form -ka/-kan depending on case markers, attached to it. Dual of naturally paired inanimate objects behaves the same way as the dual of animate nouns. The number marker always comes before any case markers and behaves either as a suffix or a clitic depending on the class of the noun, which it modifies.

Case

Cases play an important role in Kirtumur. Every noun phrase is marked with some case, which shows, how the phrase is related to the verb or to other parts of the sentence. Kirtumur cases express syntactic functions such as the subject and the various types of objects. The category of case is expressed by enclitic case markers which are attached to the last word of the noun phrase the case of which they indicate. There are four cases in the modern language, but the fifth case, called vocative is often used by the nobility, preserved in their speech through Kērsalur influence. Kirtumur nouns belong to one of three declension types, based on their animacy and whether they end in a consonant or a vowel.

The case clitics are:

Case	Animate	Inanimate I	Inanimate II
absolutive	ŋiri	khiŋ	kōwa
ergative	ŋires	khiŋem	kōwa
dative	ŋirara	khiŋex	kōwōx
locative	ŋirinei	khiŋenei	kōwōnei
Translation	head	day	back

Unlike in Kērsalur and other old languages, Kirtumur nouns do not have short forms which appear in more complex noun clauses in other Eastern languages, however noun case markers are clitics and are attached to the last word in a noun clause nevertheless. If a noun clause contains more than one noun, all case markers are stacked onto the last word in the order of those nouns, for example:

Kōl	entiri	ualennararax
kōl	entiri	ual-enn-ar-ar-ex
name	god	great-3rd.PL-DAT.AN-DAT.AN-DAT.INAN
"for the name of the great gods".

The dual of or plural markers are used with the noun they modify, although this particular example is from an old text. In modern colloquial language the word "gods" would be entirik instead, the second animate dative marker would be dropped too.

Possession

Possession is a category that describes an asymmetric relationship between two constituents: the possessor and the possessed. The possessed can be further divided into alienable and inalienable. When something is inalienably possessed, it is usually an attribute or a quality that can not be physically removed from the possessor and blood relations. A distinct inalienable category exists only for first and second persons in Kirtumur.

Like number, possession is marked with suffixes (inalieble possession is marked with prefixes instead), but they share some clitic-like behaviour with the case markers, for example: ōl ŋiwinu nōsa phasanu (blue eye-du bright.3rd.sg-stative wide.3rd.sg-stative-3sgPoss) "his/her wide bright blue eyes", where -nu "his" is phrase-final, even though the possessed is ŋiwinu "eyes". Since both "bright" and "wide" are stative verbs, they do not receive a possessive marker, but if an adjective is noun-like, a possessive marker will be used to denote the relation to the noun it modifies: uheim ukhinaušatnu "a magnificent palace" (palace magnificent-3sgPoss). Multiple possession suffixes can be used to mark more than one possessor, but, unlike case markers, they do not necessarily stack at the end of a phrase: ninnau ephenu "their child’s hair" (child-3duPoss hair-3sgPoss, but nini ephenunau is equally possible and is a marker of a noble speech), in this example the absolutive marker -i is not used with the noun, it is never used with possessed nouns.

The possessive suffixes are:

Alienable
	Type I			Type II
	singular	dual	plural	singular	dual	plural
1st	-u	-au	-em	-yu	-yau	-me
2nd	-šu	-ašu	-šen	-šu	-šau	-šne
3rd	-nu	-anu	-nen	-nu	-nau	-nne
Inalienable
	Type I			Type II
	singular	dual	plural	singular	dual	plural
1st	ani-	anu-	anne-	an-	anu-	ann-
2nd	ari-	aru-	arne-	ar-	aru-	arn-

Type I are used after (or in case of inalieble markers - before) consonants when they are word-final (or word-initial), while Type II are used after or before vowels. The possessive markers are always placed before case clitics: phasa muphastur araltenunux "for his/her wide beautiful yard".

Pronouns

In terms of grammatical behaviour, the pronouns can be divided into three main classes: interrogative, demonstrative and indefinite. Their behaviour is mostly noun-like, meaning that they can receive case markers and form new pronouns by means of word composition.

Demonstrative

Kirtumur has many demonstratives, which are usually formed from nouns. For instance, for expressing the meanings "here" and "hither", it uses the venitive prefix ni- with yum "the place", forming niyum "here" and neiyum "hither". Usually, however, the information that would be represented with these pronouns is marked on verbs instead: neithalapeyan "put it over there", where the andative prefix tha- indicates motion further away. Similarly, the noun thautra "during that time" is used to denote "then" and the like. There is special word for "now", though: yer, which originated from yira "this time" (also used as word for "now" by the nobility). Old words, like yi "this" or ta "that" became pronominal clitics and are the source of new words: yiŋiri "this person", which is treated as a separate word. A demonstrative clitic -ea ("this thing") can be used with both nouns and verbs, it can also be used with endophoric reference, referring back to something mentioned earlier: ōttōm nathaktēa "he/she has provided these supplies".