Ciètian

Ciètian/Lexicon
Ciètian/Swadesh list
Ciètian/Names

Ciètian
a :hAnvyrav
Pronunciation	[/ə ɣaːħ ˈhanvɨɾəv/]
Created by	User:IlL
Setting	Verse:Tricin
Native speakers	100 million L1 speakers (300 million L2 speakers) (fT 1670dd (2676))
Language family	Quihum Talmic Thensaric Old Eevo Ciètian
Language codes
ISO 639-3	qtg

Ciètian (y g:ghâħ :hAnvyrav /i ɣaːħ ˈhanvɨɾəv/) is a Talmic language (in the subbranch of Tigolic, which also includes Eevo) somewhat inspired by Irish. On the planet of Tricin (Ciètian: y Samòch /i səˈmɔːx/), it is an analogue of German in terms of influence and grammar. Ciètian is the official language of the Talman nation Anvyr and of former colonies in Cualuav and Txapoalli; it is the second-largest Talmic language in terms of number of speakers. Like most modern Talmic languages, Ciètian is a descendant of Thensarian. It is spoken on the northwest coast of the continent of Etalocin (called Eħa /ˈɛħə/ in Ciètian) on the planet of Clotricin. Thanks in large part to the printing press, Modern Ciètian rapidly gained prominence over a larger area in Northern Talma and came to serve as a lingua franca for northern mainland Talma. Today, Ciètian still enjoys status as a "cultured" language and is one of the most widely taught foreign languages.

This language began as Tíogall, which was a thought experiment posing the question "What would Irish look like with umlaut instead of palatalization?". For a while it developed as an Irish-German hybrid. At one point I decided to remove all "giblangs" from modern Tricin, or languages with the aesthetics of one natlang (unless the premise was funny, like Bhadhagha or Clofabosin). Since Tíogall was basically an Irish with German characteristics, it was abandoned. I still decided that Talmic languages needed somewhat more internal diversity (in particular, a "German" analogue to Eevo's "English"), so I decided to revive this project. Since I don't want a German analogue to be so obviously Hiberno-German, this time I'm eschewing obviously German features in the aesthetic such as front rounded vowels, and I'm trying a somewhat Old English and West Slavic (particularly Czech and Sorbian) aesthetic. Also grammar-wise, while keeping a somewhat Celtic grammar (e.g. mutations, head-initial syntax), I'm playing with decidedly non-Celtic grammatical features such as split-ergativity (which was in my original Tíogall), and a singulative-collective-plurative system.

Todo

• Should have had more dh's
• Single vs. double negatives: use both
• Vdh > lowered vowels - a source of /ɛ: ɔ:/ in addition to Old Eevo ae ao
• need vowel changes from Old Eevo
  • a > ea, e > eo, i > iu in certain conditions - what type of pal'n do these new vowels trigger
    • e.g. cell 'small' > *cĕoll > ċol /tʃow/
  • already have eo éu iu íu/iú
• Actually palatalization is NOT as simple as this. y ø a o u vs. i ie vs. ia io iu vs ja jo ju je/ĺa ĺo ĺu ĺe affect consonants differently.
• Get rid of initial clusters:
  • CrV- > CVrV-
  • sX- > asX- (X = obstruent)
  • sR- > sVR- (R = m, n, ń, ŋ, r)
• mê yn âvaħ (this DEF book) = 'this book'
• Revise Thensarian declension based on Anvyrese
• Have a separate schwa phoneme a /ə/?

Notes

Symbols

• ^L - lenition/aspiration
• ^N - eclipsis

Phonology

The following describes Ciètian as spoken in Jalcvè /jawk'vɛː/. The orthography used in this article aims for aesthetics and ease of reading phonetically.

Stress

Stress is not phonemic and is weight-sensitive: the last long vowel is stressed. If there is no long vowel the first syllable is stressed.

In most compound words, primary stress falls on the first member and a secondary stress falls on the second member. Place names are sometimes exceptions to the preceding rule: for example, the element -vè is always stressed.

Consonants

Ciètian has a relatively large consonant inventory.

Ciètian consonants

		Labial	Dental/Alveolar	Postalv.	Palatal	Velar	Pharyngeal	Glottal
Nasal		m /m/, mm /m:/	n /n/, nn /n:/		ń /ɲ/, ńń /ɲ:/	ŋ /ŋ/, ŋŋ /ŋ:/
Stop	fortis	p /p/	t /t/			c /k/
	lenis	b /b/	d /d/			g /g/
Affricate	fortis		ț /ts/	ċ /tʃ/	ć /tɕ/
	lenis		ḑ /dz/	ġ /dʒ/	ǵ /dʑ/
Spirant	unvoiced	f /f/			hj /ç/	ch /x/	ħ /ħ/
	voiced	v /v/				gh /ɣ/
Sibilant	unvoiced		s /s/	ṡ /ʃ/	ś /ɕ/			h /h/
	voiced		z /z/	ż /ʒ/	ź /ʑ/
Liquid			r /ɾ/	ṙ /r̝/
Approximant		l /w/			j, ĺ /j/

Notes

• An initial /ʔ/ can be added to null initials (but is not mandatory).
• Voiceless stops are aspirated syllable-initially; voiced stops devoice after voiceless sounds.
• Ciètian has a form of Auslautverhärtung: voicing is neutralized for word-final stops but not word-final fricatives.
• /n, t, d/ are usually dental [n̪, t̪, d̪].
• /s/ is laminal alveolar [s].
• /ŋ, k, g/ are usually velar [ŋ, k, g], but are often labialized pharyngealized uvular [qʷ, qʷˁ, ɢʷˁ] next to /ʀ~ʟ/. /kʟ/ becomes an affricate or a trilled affricate [qχ].
• /ŋ, k, g, x, ɣ/ are prevelar before front vowels.
• In dialects and classical singing and drama, l /w/ is pronounced as [ɫ] and ĺ is a separate phoneme /lʲ/.
• After a vowel, /ɣ/ colloquially disappears with compensatory lengthening of the vowel if the vowel is short (unless the /ɣ/ begins a stressed syllable.)

Mutations

Consonant mutations

Grapheme	m	p	b	f	nn	t	d	ńń	ć	ǵ	s	ś	c	g	ŋŋ	ċ	ġ	0
Lenited	v	f	v	h	n	ħ	0	ń	ś	ź	h	ś	ch	gh	ŋ	ṡ	ż	h-
Eclipsed	m	b	m	v	nn	d	n	ńń	ǵ	ń	s	ś	g	ŋ	ŋŋ	ġ	ń	n-

Vowels

Ciètian has a moderately large vowel system.

Ciètian vowels

	Front		Central		Back
	unrounded		unrounded	rounded	unrounded	rounded
	short	long	short	long	short	short	long
Close	y, i /ɪ/	ŷ, î /iː/		û /ʉː/		u /ʊ/	[uː]
Mid		ê /eː/	[ə]	ô /ɵː/	[ɤˁ]		[oː]
Open-mid	e /ɛ/	è /ɛː/				o /ɔ/	ò /ɔː/
Open			a /a/	â /aː/

/ʉː, ɵː/ retain fully back allophones [uː, oː] before /ɾ/, /w/ and /j/.

As in Czech, y, ŷ is used as a non-palatalizing variant of i, î.

Phonotactics

All initial clusters are prohibited except those of the form /Cw/ and /Cj/. Final clusters are allowed, though.

Prosody

Ciètian has a distinctive intonation paradigm.

• In declarative sentences, the stressed syllable of the focus word (if there is no focused constituent, the last word) has a lower pitch than the immediately preceding syllable. ("...mid ꜜ LOW mid...") This originates from discursive uptalk in older forms of Ciètian, which has since generalized to all declarative sentences. A few accents, such as Tumacan accents, do not use this pattern.
• In interrogative sentences, the stressed syllable of the focus word has a higher pitch than the syllable immediately before. ("... mid ꜛ HIGH mid ... ?")
• In exclamations, the pattern is "... mid ꜜ LOW-HIGH mid ... !", possibly with a gradual drop to low pitch in the end. Angry or indignant questions also use an exclamatory intonation.

Dialectology

Ciètian is subject to a fair amount of accentual and dialectal variation.

Morphology

For a Tigolic language, Anvyrese is quite highly inflected (especially its declension system).

Pronouns

(TODO: gender in 3pl pronouns)

(TODO: accusative forms)

	I	you (sg.)	he	she	it	we (exc.)	we (inc.)	you (pl.)	they (m.)	they (n.)	you (semi-polite)	you (polite)	impersonal
Independent	nâ	fiar	hu	hi	he	âv	gêd	sêd	hêṙ	hâr	Sêd	Lâ	car

Politeness

Modern Anvyrese has three levels of politeness in pronouns:

• fiar (sg.) is used for family members, friends, pets, inanimates, deities, and among blue-collar workers. It is becoming more common among young people.
• Lâ is used as a polite second-person pronoun (for both singular and plural) for strangers or persons in positions of authority. It is still considered acceptable for some professions, such as superiors in military or schoolteachers, to refer to their counterparts with the familiar pronouns fiar and Sêd, although nowadays using Lâ is becoming more common.
• Sêd is roughly intermediate in formality between fiar and Lâ. The pronoun Sêd is used when an apprentice addresses their master, when university students address professors or when professors address students. In universities and some schools students use swad for each other. (In vocational schools tlaw is used for student-instructor conversation.) Books intended for a general audience and strangers on the Internet also use swad.
  • In archaic Eevo, swad is used as a polite pronoun for persons of higher class (say nobles or royalty), or among the upper class.

Nouns

Anvyrese nouns have three genders (masculine, feminine and neuter), three numbers (singular, plural and collective), and three states (nominative, genitive and construct). Collective nouns take singular agreement with verbs and adjectives.

• The nominative singular, nominative plural, and genitive singular must be memorized for every noun. Feminine plurals tend to end in -r.
• The genitive plural is formed by affixing -ń to the genitive singular.
• The singular construct is formed by affixing -aħ to the nominative singular.
• The plural construct is formed by affixing -u to the nominative singular if the nominative singular ends in a consonant, and -v to the nominative singular if it ends in a vowel.

The article

The article inflects and triggers mutation based on number and gender.

The singular definite article is always yn (with no mutation) before a masculine or neuter noun starting with a V.

Collective nouns are by nature definite.

To be revised:

Definite article

	singular			plural			collective
	m.	f.	n.	m.	f.	n.	m.	f.	n.
nom.	yN	yL	y	na	nar	naN	baN	baL	ba
gen.	naL	yN	yN	na	na	na	baL	baN	baN

Adjectives

Adjectives must agree with nouns in gender, number and case.

Verbs

The verb system is significantly simpler. There is a closed class of about 20-30 auxiliaries which are conjugated for tense and person. The main verb is used as a verbal noun. Example:

Ńan gariav lan d:tarsiad icân c:chaṙî.

[ɲan ˈgəɾiəv wən daɾˈsiət iˈkaːn xəˈr̝iː]

PRES.1SG go.VN to-DEF.GEN.SG.N school.GEN.SG every.F day.GEN.SG

I go to school every day.

	I	thou	he	she	it	we (exc.)	we (inc.)	you (pl., semi-polite)	you (polite)	they	one (impersonal)
present1	ńan	ńer	ńav	ńas	ńa	ńam	ńad	ńach	ńal	ńaħ	ńar

¹ from Old Eevo ar.nédh 'to dwell at'. (The verb acquired a meaning like Vietnamese ở 'be at' which then turned into a progressive construction with a verbal noun.)