Tameï: Difference between revisions

|agency        = Central National Committee of the Tameïan Language (''Gülavüniy Lâneychär′üchän Komityetü mu Lâvih Tameïchin'' - ''GLKLT'')

'''Tameï''' ({{IPA|[tʲæmʲe̘ˈi̘ː]}} or ''lâvõh Tameïchön'' {{IPA|[ˈlᵞɒwe̙χ tʲæmʲe̘ˈi̘ːɕɤn]}}; also ''Tamei'' in modern orthography) is a language isolate spoken in the Tameï Islands (''neyny Tameïchey'' {{IPA|[nɘ͡ee̝̯ɲ tʲæmʲe̘ˈi̘ːɕɘ͡ee̝̯]}}), an independent volcanic archipelago country in the [[w:Indian Ocean|Indian Ocean]], along the [[w:Ninety East Ridge|Ninety East Ridge]], about 1000 km WSW of [[w:Sumatra|Sumatra]] and roughly halfway between [[w:Sri Lanka|Sri Lanka]] and the [[w:Australia|Australian]] territory of the [[w:Cocos (Keeling) Islands|Cocos (Keeling) Islands]].

Tameï is Earth's second most spoken language isolate (after [[w:Korean language|Korean]]), being the native tongue of about 42 million people, mostly in the Tameï Islands but also in countries of the former [[w:Soviet Union|USSR]]. Tameï is one of two official languages in the country - the '''Tameïan People's Socialist Republic''' (officially ''Lânny Tameïchey mu Risüpübülika Ciotcialicütitcheciükaya'' and ''Социалистическая Республика Тамеиского Народа'') as [[w:Russian language|Russian]] is still official for historical and cultural reasons, despite actual Russian native speakers being only 1% of the Tameï population.

This history, and the varied ethnic composition of the Tameï state (which saw a large influx of West and South Asians during the British period, as well as European communists during the 20th century), are reflected in its language, which has up to 20% of its lexicon of foreign origin, with early loans from [[w:French language|French]] (borrowed early enough to have underwent Tameï vowel shifts), then from [[w:English language|English]], [[w:Persian language|Persian]], [[w:Pashto language|Pashto]] (the latter two especially in more colloquial registers), and more recently from Russian and [[w:Japanese language|Japanese]] (the latter because of heavy Japanese cultural influence since the end of the Communist era). Tameï was first written under French rule in a French-derived spelling which did not consistently represent all the sounds of the language; the first native Tameï orthography, designed by Russian-educated Chlʌǥī′ey Neykachūnī<ref>The name is cited in modern orthography; during his time his name was written in the French-based spelling as ''Cheláguëaï Naïcacheauni'', or as ''Шлѧґӣӏай Найкашӯнӣ'' in the orthography that bears his name.</ref> in 1884 (and therefore known as Neykachūnī orthography), was an adaptation of Cyrillic to the Tameï language - while it did not gain recognition outside of the growing Tameï intelligencija, it formed the basis for the current orthography, established in 1901 (which is most commonly used with a Cyrillic-derived alphabetic order and maps diacritic forms or digraphs 1:1 to the Cyrillic Neykachūnī orthography, even if some conventions - as the use of '''x''' or '''ch''' are ultimately derived from the French-based spelling), which also shows some developments that had become standard across most of the Tameï Islands in the meantime. Today's Tameï orthography is not completely phonemic, as it shows vowel length distinctions (as '''ī ū â''') that are not kept anymore in most dialects); some words (mostly French and Russian proper names) keep the original spelling (transliterated in the case of Russian), but pronounced as a Tameï word. For example, the country's second-largest city, ''La Gracieuse'', is pronounced as [laguɹaˈɕuz], and the third-largest, ''Stalinahowa''<ref>Tameï for "Stalin City".</ref>, is [ˈtalinaˌhowa].

Tameï is a mostly agglutinating language, with complex inflected verbs but light nominal morphology (mostly consisting of highly irregular pluralization patterns). On the phonetic side, it is, together with [[w:Damin|Damin]], one of only two non-African languages using [[w:Click consonant|click consonants]]; it also has the cross-linguistically rare phoneme /ɢ/ (written '''ǥ''').

Modern Standard Tameï (based on the dialect of the capital region in central Heyta Hʌna island) has a phonemic inventory of 7 (or 8) monophthongs, two diphthongs, and 37 consonants (including 8 clicks).

{| class="wikitable"

! !! Front !! Central !! Back

! High

| '''i ī''' i || || '''u ū''' u

! High-mid

| '''e''' e || || '''o''' o

! Low-mid

| '''ä''' æ～ɛ || || '''ʌ''' ʌ～ɔ

! Low

| || '''a â''' a (aː) ||

! Diphthongs

| '''ey''' e̞ɪ̯ || || '''ow''' o̞ʊ̯

The 7 monophthongs are /i u e o ɛ ʌ～ɔ a/, mainly written 〈i u e o ä ʌ a〉; /i u/ may also be spelled 〈ī ū〉for etymological reasons, while many speakers still distinguish /a/ from /aː/ (the latter consistently written 〈â〉). The ''â'' vowel has such treatment because, unlike 〈ī ū〉from historical /eː oː/, it is not historical /aː/ (which became /ʌ/ in all Tameï dialects), but a later development mainly from /aɣ/ (and also /aŋ/) sequences - in fact, the French and the Neykachūnī orthographies show the earlier forms; compare the earlier spellings of "person" as ''laguenaï'' and ''лағнай'' with modern ''lâney''. For an /aŋ/-derived ''â'', see the name ''Françoise'', which was still written with /ŋ/ in the Neykachūnī orthography as ''Фыранғсѧсы'' /fɯɹaŋˈsɑːzɯ/, but in the modern spelling it is ''Furâxʌz'' (or the variant ''Furâxʌzī''), representing /fuɹaˈsʌz(i)/.<br/>This consonant-loss and lengthening process was ongoing in the late 19th century, as also shown by other sources like /ah/ followed by a consonant, as in the Persian loan ''châr'' [ɕa(ː)ɹ] from شهر ''šahr''<ref>Standard Persian /æ/ usually corresponds to Tameï /a/, not /æ～ɛ/.</ref> (Neykachūnī orthography ''шахыр'', representing /ˈɕahɯɹ/).

Note that the grapheme '''i''' always represents a vowel and is therefore always in hiatus with any preceding or following vowel, unless it forms a plural noun in ''-iemi''.

{| class="wikitable"

! colspan=2 | → PoA <br/> ↓ Manner !! Labial !! Dental !! Alveolar !! Palatal !! Velar !! Uvular !! Glottal

| '''m''' m || || '''n''' n || '''ny''' ɲ || || ||

| '''p''' p || '''t''' t || || || '''k''' k || '''q''' q || '''′''' Ɂ

| '''b''' b || '''đ''' d || || || '''g''' g || '''ǥ''' ɢ ||

| '''p′''' ʘ || '''t′''' ǀ || '''r′''' ǃ || '''c′''' ǂ || || ||

| '''mp′''' ʘ̃ || '''nt′''' ǀ̃ || '''nr′''' ǃ̃ || '''nc′''' ǂ̃ || || ||

! rowspan=2 | Affricates || <small>Central</small>

| || || || '''c''' tɕ || || ||

| || || '''ŧ''' tɬ<br/>'''ŧ′''' tɬ' || || || ||

| '''f''' ɸ || '''s''' θ<br/> '''d''' ð || '''x''' s<br/>'''z''' z || '''ch''' ɕ<br/>'''yh''' ç || '''ӿ''' x || || '''h''' h

| || || '''ł''' ɬ || || || ||

| || || '''r''' ɹ || '''y''' j || '''w''' w || ||

| || || '''l''' l || || || ||

 

/l ɹ j m n ɲ/ can also be geminates.