Qasunattuuji

Qasunattuuji
Qasunattuuji
Pronunciation	[qasunatˈtuːʐi]
Created by	GJS
Date	2023 - present
Setting	Alt-history North America
Native to	Tuujiyumix Ilihuu
Language family	Indo-European Qasunattuuji
Writing systems	Latin Cyrillic Braille
Official status
Official language in	Tuujiyumix Ilihuu

Qasunattuuji is an Indo European language (classification pending feedback) spoken in the country of Tuujiyumix Ilihuu (real-life Alaska), where it enjoys an official status. Although its words are derived from PIE, its phonology and most of its morphology show traces related to the Inuit languages, as it's polysynthetic and has only the vowels /a/, /i/, and /u/, with length distinctions. It was created for an alternate history timeline where some PIE-speakers migrated all the way from Eastern Europe to Alaska and where the Russians made Alaska a protectorate instead of a colony.

Etymology

The name Qasunattiiji means real people or true people, while Tuujiyumix Ilihuu means Land of all Peoples. The name of the country was chosen to replace the old 'Greater Alaska' in order to distance the new country from Russia shortly after its independence in 1917.

Phonology

Phonological history

• Clipping en masse
• bʰ → pʰ → ɸ → h → q
• gʰ → dʰ → x → q
• ɣʷ → ɢ
• ɢː → ʁː
• gʲʰ → gʰ → dʰ → x → q
• tʲ → tʃ → ʃ → ʂ
• gʲ → dʒ → tʃ → ʃ → ʂ
• kʲ → tʃ → ʃ → ʂ
• gʷ → w → v
• gʷʰ → gʷ → kʷ → p
• dʰ → tʰ → t
• kʷ → p
• {e,o}j → iː
• {eː,oː}j → aː
• {e,o}w → uː
• {eː,oː}w → uː
• {eː,oː} → {iː,u}
• epenthetic /a/ appears to break invalid consonant clusters, except in words borrowed from Russian and English.
• epenthetic /i/ appears before [l ʐ ɢ] if they occur in the beginning of words.

Consonants

Consonant phonemes

	Labial		Alveolar		Palatal		Retroflex		Velar		Uvular
Nasal		m		n						(ŋ)
Stop	p		t						k		q	ɢ
Fricative	f	v	s				ʂ	ʐ			χ	(ʁ)
Lateral				l
Approximant						j

Notes:

• Before /n/, /ŋ/ /ʁ/ are the allophones of /k/ and /q/, respectively.
• /ŋ/ also appears in Inuit borrowings.
• /ʁ/ is also used in verbal morphemes that are borrowed from Inuit. Its geminated version is equivalent to a /ɢː/.

Vowels

	Front	Back
Close	i(ː)	u(ː)
Open	a(ː)

Prosody

Stress falls always on the penultimate syllable.

Phonotactics

[l ʐ ɢ] can't appear at the beginning of words, but can occur at the beginning of a medial syllable, while [p t k q s j m n v ʂ j f χ] can occur both at the beginning of a word and at the beginning of a medial syllable.
[ŋ] can only come at the beginning of a medial syllable after another [ŋ].
If there is a long and a short vowel in sequence, and vice versa, for example [aːi], an epenthetic [ŋ] appears to break this hiatus, in this case, becoming [aːŋi].
[t] and [b] become [ʐ] and [v], respectively between vowels (assibilation).
[k], [q] and [t] become [ŋ], [ʁ] and [n], respectively, before [n]
Consonants can be geminated, but in this case, they should be pronounced as if there were two of them.

Orthography

Qasunattuuji alphabets

Latin letter (since the 1920s)	Cyrillic letter (between the XVII century and the 1920s)	IPA
A, a	A, а	/a/
F, f	Ф, ф	/f/
G, g	Г. г	/ɢ/ or /ʁ/ (see consonants)
H, h	Х, х	/χ/
I, i	И, и	/i/
J, j	Ж, ж	/ʐ/
K, k	К, к	/k/
L, l	Л, л	/l/
M, m	М, м	/m/
N, n	Н, н	/n/
Ŋ, ŋ	Нг, нг	/ŋ/
P, p	П, п	/p/
Q, q	Кь, кь	/q/
S, s	С, с	/s/
T, t	Т, т	/t/
U, u	У, y	/u/
V, v	В, в	/v/
X, x	Ш, ш	/ʂ/
Y, y	Й, й	/j/

Notes:

• In both alphabets, long vowels are written as double letters (aa,:ии, уу, aa, ii, uu).
• Double кь and нг were written кькь and нгнг, respectively.

Morphology

Nouns

Nouns decline in eight different cases: absolutive, ergative, instrumental, allative, ablative, locative, perlative and similative, and in number, for singular, dual and plural.

Nouns

	Singular	Dual	Plural
Absolutive	-∅	÷ju²	÷ix¹ / -mix
Ergative	÷huu	÷juh²	÷ixi¹ / -mixi
Instrumental	÷hak / -k	÷kat / tuk	÷kix²
Allative	÷hi	÷hit	÷him
Ablative	÷hahip / -hip	÷huut	÷hum
Locative	÷haqi / -qi	÷haq / qu	÷qix²
Perlative	÷hapi / -pi	÷it¹ / -t	÷pix²
Similative	÷hasi / -si	÷sit²	÷six²

Notes:

• ÷: if the root ends in a consonant, remove it.
• ¹: if the root ends in a consonant, remove both it and the vowel before it, except in monosyllabic words, in which case the suffix goes after the consonant.
• ²: if the root ends with the suffix's first consonant, the suffix is applied in its totality, without removing consonants.
• If there are two forms, the second is used if the root ends in a vowel.

Example: mihat (mother)
	Singular	Dual	Plural
Absolutive	mihat	mihaju	mihix
Ergative	mihahuu	mihajuh	mihixi
Instrumental	mihahak	mihakat	mihakix
Allative	mihahi	mihahit	mihahim
Ablative	mihahahip	mihahuut	mihahum
Locative	mihaqi	mihaqu	mihaqix
Perlative	mihapi	mihit	mihapix
Similative	mihasi	mihasit	mihasix

Example: puulu (son)
	Singular	Dual	Plural
Absolutive	puulu	puuluju	puulumix
Ergative	puuluhuu	puulujuh	puulumixi
Instrumental	puuluk	puulujuk	puulukix
Allative	puuluhi	puuluhit	puuluhim
Ablative	puuluhip	puuluhuut	puuluhum
Locative	puuluqi	puuluqu	puuluqix
Perlative	puulupi	puulut	puulupix
Similative	puulusi	puulusit	puulusix

Ergative

The ergative is used to mark the subject of a transitive sentence and to mark the genitive, specifically, marking the possessor of a possessed entity, except in sentences like "is my X", where the ergative falls in the pronoun.

Instrumental

The instrumental also marks the indefinite "object" of syntactically intransitive verbs.

Allative

The allative also marks objective, beneficiary and destination.

Ablative

The Ablative is also used to mark the comparison's source, with the verb receiving the suffix -lu(k) before the person, number and mood suffix.

muu maalujuq siixipahahi
/muː maːˈluʐuk siːʂipaˈχaχi/
muu	maa	-luk-	-tuq	siixipahaŋ-	-hi
mouse	small-	-comp-	-3s.ind	groundhog-	-abl
A mouse is smaller than a groundhog

Perlative

The perlative indicates the manner or the way of transportation and also marks the path and the subject of the conversation.

vijunipisigik qayipi?
/viʐuniˈsiʁik qaˈjipi/
vip-	-tuni-	-pisigik	qayi-	-pi
talk-	-ger-	-3s.int	winter	-perl
Are you talking about the winter?

Vocative

The vocative shows the addressee, including the subject of an imperative sentence. It doesn't have its own suffix, but is marked by elongating the noun's last vowel (if it's short), and in the case of proper nouns, it's not marked orthographically.

miih—Mihaat!
/miχ/ — /miχaːt/
mihat-	-∅- /	mihaat
mother	-abs.sg /	mother	-voc.sg
Mother/Oh, mother

Derivation and structure

The morpheme ti is suffixed to the verbs in order to indicate the agent: pi (hunt) → piji (hunter).
The suffix -miq transforms a verb into an instrument to do so: sayu (sew) → sayumiq (sewing machine).
The suffix -(ŋ)ilu indicates the diminutive: viin (woman) → vinilu (ggirl).
The suffix -ppak creates a noun that in theory is bigger than the primitive: ixav (caribou) → ixappak (horse).
There are also suffixes for quantities, such as hayaat (many) or payaak (each).

The maximum structure of nouns is:

root-(derivational)-(inflecional)-(number and case)

Derivational can be an adjective or other derivational suffixes, such as the cited above, and inflectional can be an adverb that isn't a free morpheme. There can have several derivational or inflectional suffixes, but, only one nominal root per noun.

Verbs

Every verb has an obligatory inflection for person, number, and mood (all marked by a single suffix), and can have other inflectional suffixes such as tense, aspect, modality, and various suffixes carrying adverbial functions.

Tense

Tense marking is always optional. The only explicitly marked tense is the future tense. Past and present tense cannot be marked and are always implied. All verbs can be marked through adverbs to show relative time (using words such as "yesterday" or "tomorrow"). If neither of these markings is present, the verb can imply a past, present, or future tense.

Aspect

Marking aspect is optional in Qasunattuuji verbs. It has a perfective versus imperfective distinction in aspect, along with other distinctions, such as: frequentative (-ataq; "to repeatedly verb"), habitual (-simavi; "to always, habitual verb"), inchoative (-hiŋaat; "about to verb"), and intentional (-sahuma; "intend to verb"). The aspect suffix can be found after the verb root and before or within the obligatory person-number-mood suffix. number-mood suffix.

Future tense

Tense	Example
Present	Pijavimiq telephone-INSTR vigiipuk. we-1DU.3SG-talk Pijavimiq vigiipuk. telephone-INSTR we-1DU.3SG-talk We (two) talk on the phone.
Future	Pijavimiq telephone-INSTR viniagiipuk. we-DU-FUT-talk Pijavimiq viniagiipuk. telephone-INSTR we-DU-FUT-talk We (two) will talk on the phone.
Future (implied)	Suujuqqanu give birth probably savisuhuu sister's ilaa I kaluuŋiluuk. tomorrow Suujuqqanu savisuhuu ilaa kaluuŋiluuk. {give birth probably} {sister's} {I} tomorrow My sister (will) give(s) birth tomorrow. (the future tense "will" is implied by the word tomorrow)