Carpathian language

Carpathian
Karpātiška/Karpātiska
Pronunciation	[kar.ˈpāː.tiʂ.ka/kɑr.ˈpɑ̄ː.tis.kɑ]
Created by	–
Native to	Slovakia, Ukraine, Poland
Ethnicity	Carpathians
Native speakers	400.000 (2018–2001)
Language family	Indo-European Carpathian
Early forms	Proto-Carpathian Proto-Carpathian
Standard forms	Eastern Carpathian Western Carpathian

Carpathian, (Western: Karpātiška tāra [kar.ˈpāː.tiʂ.ka. ˈtāː.ra]; Eastern: Karpātiska tāra [kɑr.ˈpɑ̄ː.tis.kɑ. ˈtɑ̄ː.rɑ]) forms an independent branch of the Indo-European languages, closely related to Balto-Slavic languages. It is spoken in the Carpathian region of Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine. Carpathian is written in the Latin alphabet, although Cyrillic had also been used during the Soviet period. The total number of Carpathian speakers worldwide is estimated between 360 and 400 thousand, including the Carpathian-speaking diaspora.

History

Classification and origins

Carpathian is classified as an independent branch of the Indo-European languages, although it shares many common features with the Balto-Slavic languages. Some linguists tentatively conclude that Carpathian was dialectally close to that subbranch and connect it to the extinct languages of the Balkans, Dacian in particular. It is of interest to linguists for its distinctive phonological conservatism among modern Indo-European languages. Just as the Balto-Slavic languages, Carpathian exhibits satemization (śum̃ta “hundred” from Proto-Indo-European *ḱm̥tóm), although some words developed as in the centum languages, such as gansìs “goose” from *ǵʰh₂éns (same as Slavic *gǫ̑sь).

The Carpathian region was a multilingual through its history, Carpathian vocabulary has historically been influenced by Paleo-Balkan, Slavic, Pannonian Avar and Hungarian, the latter two affected the language to a lesser extent.[42] Contact with German during the Austro-Hungarian period also resulted in a number of loanwords, particularly vocabulary related to trade and industry. There are two standardised modern literary forms, Eastern Carpathian in Ukraine and Poland and Western Carpathian in Slovakia, with which most contemporary dialects are mutually intelligible. Although Carpathians were known to history much earlier, both forms were codified in the 19th century.

Early contacts

Several linguists throughout the late 20th century noted the presence of so called "Carpathian substratum" – an unidentified, likely non-Indo-European language formerly spoken in the Carpathians. Because there are irregularities in Carpathian substrate words, they might have been borrowed from distinct, but closely related languages. In the west, the substrate languages probably had an š-type sibilant which corresponds to an s-type sibilant in the east. The speakers of the Proto-Carpathian language arrived in the region around 2500 BCE and fully assimilated the local Paleo-European population by the middle of 1st millennium BCE. The detailed reconstruction of this language (or languages) is impossible. Some of the borrowed words have cognates in all dialects of Carpathian, and semantically the substrate consists primarily of basic geographic and botanical terminology as well as toponymy, they are better preserved in dialectal vocabulary of the Carpathian Highlands. Some aspects of the Carpathian phonology, such as pleophony and consonant gemination, and grammar (absence of the passive voice, polypersonal agreement of verbs) are associated with the substrate.

The hypothesis that Carpathian is the closest living relative to the Paleo-Balkan languages originated in 1944, based on the number of proposed lexical cognates being greater than that of between Dacian and any other Indo-European subfamily. The other more recent proposal is Carpathian being a divergent Baltic language, it found the most support in Lithuania; the proposal also includes the Paleo-Balkan languages as a closely related subbranch. Noting that Dacian-speaking peoples inhabited the Carpathian region till the fifth century CE, providing a substratum of abstract, geographical and biological terms such as ramùs “peaceful” ( ← Dac. *ramus), kòpa/kàpa “mountain slope” ( ← Dac. *kapas), kérbā “swamp” ( ← Dac. *kerba), burùklā “cranberry” ( ← Dac. *brukla) or tī́ras “blank, desolate” ( ← Dac. *tiras). Other linguists have rejected the Dacian origins for many of these words and instead suggest native Carpathian etymologies, however some words, such as dìtas “bright” cannot be explained otherwise – PIE *dih₂tís “brightness” would have resulted in **dī́tas.

Shared features with Balto-Slavic

The evidence points out to a long-term proximity between Carpathian and Balto-Slavic, and the two branches share several linguistic traits not found in any other Indo-European branch, which suggests a common ancestor. Carpathian and Balto-Slavic share many close phonological, lexical, morphosyntactic and accentological similarities, and some scholars accept the division into three branches — Carpathic, Baltic and Slavic — as the default assumption, even though such a division faces many issues.

Common sound changes include Winter's law, Hirt's law (often levelled by analogical restoration), Ruki law, merging of PIE short *o and *a into *a (which in the Western dialects later gained a labialised allophone *å, resulting in new o-phoneme), development of syllabic sonorants into diphthongoids with the initial element being a high vowel (either *i or *u).

Common grammatical feautures are the usage of the genitive case for the direct object of a negative verb, instead of the accusative case (may be a common substratum influence), the use of the ending *-mīs in the instrumental plural instead of -bhis, *-ān of the instrumental singular in ā-stem nouns.

Some examples of words shared between Carpathian and Balto-Slavic languages: “linden” — Carpathian léipā, Lithuanian líepa, Old Prussian līpa, Common Slavic *lìpa; “hand” — Carpathian rankā́, Lithuanian rankà, Old Prussian ranka, Common Slavic *rǭkà; “head” — Carpathian galwā́, Lithuanian galvà, Old Prussian galwa, Common Slavic *golvà.

Many scholars instead prefer a dialect continuum model where the late PIE northeastern dialects developed into Balto-Slavic (or even separate Baltic and Slavic), while the southwestern dialect that had migrated into the mountains developed into Carpathian. This may explain many differences between the two branches, particularly in their corresponding verbal morphology and lexicon, as well as certain archaic Carpathian features, not found in Balto-Slavic, such as consonantal reflexes of Proto-Indo-European laryngeals *h₂ and *h₃, found only in the Anatolian languages and Armenian (irregularly): Carpathian harèlis^W/harìlis^E “eagle” (from PIE *h₃érō), with some words having doublets in dialects hwḗjas/wḗjas “air” (PIE*h₂weh₁- “to blow”), meibáheti “is telling me” (*bʰéh₂ti “to speak”).

Phonology

The sound system of Carpathian resembles the neighbouring Slavic languages: Ukrainian and Slovak. Some considerable variation exists among the Western and Eastern varieties.

Consonants

	Labial	Dental	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m	n		ɲ
Stop	p b	t d	(t͡ʂ) (d͡ʐ)	c ɟ	k g
Fricative	(f)	s z	ʂ ʐ	ɕ ʑ		h ~ ɦ
Approximant	ʋ ~ w	l		ʎ j
Trill		r		rʲ*

Phonetic details:

• Western Carpathian [ʂ] and [ʐ], written "š" and "ž", correspond to Eastern Carpathian [s] and [z]. The Eastern variety still has these sounds in words written with "š" and "ž", while occasionally denoting the former with "ś" and "ź", used in both Western and Eastern varieties historically. Instead of retroflex, they may have a postalveolar articulation [ʃ] and [ʒ]. In many Eastern dialects these sounds merge with [ɕ] and [ʑ], neutralising as postalveolar fricatives.
• There is no complete agreement about the phonetic nature of /ɦ/. According to some linguists, it can be voiceless [h] at least word-initially, while according to others, it is always voiced [ɦ]. In dialects it may disappear completely, which is common before /w/, after /r/ or between vowels. It disappeared after /l/ even in the standard — gèlhandis → Western gelandis “acorn” (the former spelling is allowed in the Eastern variety). In some dialects combinations "hw", "rh" and "lh" may be pronounced as [ʍ], [r̥] and [l̥], for example [wɛ̀.l̥is] welhis “ghost”.
• /w/ is most commonly bilabial [β̞] in the Eastern Carpathian and labiodental [ʋ] in Western Carpathian (although bilabial or labiovelar pronunciation is possible in both varieties). If /w/ occurs after /h/, the voiceless articulation [ʍ] is also possible in some varieties.
• /r/ is sometimes realized as a single tap [ɾ], particularly in fast speech. Its palatalised counterpart [rʲ] is obsolete in most dialects, where it either became [r] or broke into [rj], the former being a more common outcome. [rʲ] is still preserved in some remote Eastern dialects and is still the recommended pronunciation — giriā [gi.ˈrʲɑ̂ː], usually pronounced [gi.ˈrɑ̂ː] instead.
• The consonants [t͡ʂ], [d͡ʐ] and [f], written "č" "dž" and "f" respectively, are not native to Carpathian and only appear in borrowings – čarka [t͡ʂɑr̀.kɑ] “dessert cup”, čekolada [t͡ʂɛ.ko.lɑ̀.dɑ] “chocolate”, džungliā [d͡ʐùng.ʎɑː] “jungle” (often pronounced [d͡ʐùn.gɑ.ʎɑː] because of the difficult consonant cluster), faika [fɑɪ̀.kɑ] “smoking pipe, cigarette” (often pronounced [ʍɑɪ̀.kɑ]). Some Western dialects, mostly those spoken in Poland and Eastern Slovakia have [t͡s] and [d͡z], in other dialects they are marginal phonemes: cerkwa [ˈt͡sɛr̀.kwɑ] “Orthodox church” (usually pronounced [sɛr̀.kwɑ]).
• The velar fricative /x/ may be present in dialects, but not in the standard. It is not a native Carpathian phoneme and is usually replaced in writing (and pronunciation) by either "h" (humēlias “hop” from Slavic *xъmelь.) or "k" (kristijanas “Christian”).

Vowels

Standard Western Carpathian has five short and five long monophthongs. Eastern Carpathian has four short monophthongs, lacking [o], and five long monophthongs. Carpathian dialects have [y] and [e] as separate phonemes, sometimes both long and short, but they are not a part of the standard language, for example: Eastern sǖtùs [ˈsyː.tʊ̀s] “loyal” (the standard spelling would be śiltus from PIE *ḱl̥tós, but the word is not used in the standard language).

	Front		Back
	short	long	short	long
Close	i	iː	u	uː
Mid	ɛ	ɛː	o	oː
Open			ɑ	ɑː
Diphthongs	eɪ, ɑɪ, ɑʊ

The standard language has three diphthongs, both short and long, depending on the pitch accent. Short diphthongs are falling, long diphthongs are rising. The fourth diphthong [uɪ] is common in dialects, but is not found in the standard. The diphthong "ai" is typically fronted to [aɪ], while "au" rounded to [ɒʊ], especially if the syllable receives rising pitch.

The short high vowels are typically slightly more centralised, than their long counterparts, in some dialects all the way to [ɪ] and [ʊ]. Both short and long /ɛ/ are open-mid, not true mid, often coming closer to near-open [æ], especially if long and with rising intonation. The vowel [oː] is typically true mid, while its short counterpart in Western Carpathian can be either true mid [o] or open-mid [ɔ]. The vowel "a" is back /ɑ/, often slightly rounded in lowland dialects, south to the main Carpathian mountain range.

Pitch accent

Standard Carpathian and most of the Carpathian dialects, have mobile pitch accent. There are three types of tones:

• Rising, acute or tone-1 — rising tone if followed by another syllable, or a brief rise followed by a long fall, if followed by a pause: dílgas [ˈdíl.gɑ̄s] “long (masculine)” if followed by another word, or [ˈdíl.gɑ̀s] if followed by a pause; rankā́ [ˈrɑ̂ŋ.kɑ̀ː] “hand” if followed by a pause; The syllable preceding stressed syllable receives an upstep , when the stressed syllable is followed by pause.
• Level, circumflex or tone-2 — mid tone, steady throughout the syllable: tāra [ˈtɑ̄ː.rɑ̄] “language” if followed by another word, or [ˈtɑ̄ː.rɑ̀] if followed by a pause. The stressed syllable receives a downstep, if the preceeding word has rising pitch.
• Falling or tone-3 – short falling or low tone: ràgas [ˈrɑ̀.gɑ̄s] (Western rògas [ˈrò.gɑ̄s]) “horn”. The stressed syllable receives a downstep if the preceeding word has either tone-1 or tone-2.

Tones 1 and 2 are only possible for long syllables – those containing either a long monophthong, a diphthong, or a short vowel followed by a sonorant in a closed syllable. Short stressed syllables receive tone-3 by default, historically the distinction in pitch neutralised in short syllables to a low tone. Unstressed syllables (both short and long) harmonise with the stressed syllable, they do not receive a distinct tone on their own, but keep the pitch height of the stressed syllable. Historically some unstressed long syllables could receive rising pitch (tone-1), which used to be independent from the stress position, while all other long syllables received tone-2. However, the pitch distinction was later lost on all unaccented syllables, turning into the intonation distinction that spreads through the whole accented word.

Grammar

The first prescriptive printed grammar of the Carpathian language – Grammatica Carpathica was published in 1771 in Vienna, written in Latin.

The first comprehensive dictionary and grammar of the Carpathian language was published in German in 1867 at Charles University in Prague. It later became the foundation of modern standard Carpathian. In 1876, a standardised orthography was proposed, which remains practically unchanged to the modern day. In 1949 a standardised orthography, based on the Cyrillic alphabet, was proposed, but gained no support among the Carpathians themselves. Nevertheless, it remained in use, and in 1961 a Carpathian grammar book and a primer, based on the Eastern dialects, were published in Cyrillic.

Carpathian is a highly inflected language. There are four grammatical genders for nouns, adjectives, pronouns, some participles and the numeral one: masculine feminine, common and neuter. Every attribute must agree with the gender and number of the noun. There are three numbers: singular, dual and plural.

The nouns are grouped into seven declensions and three accentual paradigms, adjectives are grouped into two declensions, according to their stress pattern, and participles have one declension (four, if each gender forms a separate declension).

All parts of nominal morphology, except pronouns, are declined in seven cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, locative, and vocative (pronouns lack the vocative case).

Carpathian verbal morphology shows a number of innovations, when compared to other Indo-European languages, such as Balto-Slavic or Germanic; namely, the loss of passive, reduplication in perfect and aorist, the augment; having only relics of the imperative mood instead relying on optative; polypersonal agreement of transitive verbs (both monotransitive and ditransitive). The synthetic form of the future (or rather desiderative) tense and the aorist with the -s- suffix (which later merged with preterit) and three principal verbal forms with the present tense stem employing the -n- infix are features, inherited from Proto-Indo-European.

There are two types of verbal conjugation: athematic and thematic, though the latter is much more common, than the former, and is the only productive type. Every verb is conjugated for person (person and number of its subject and objects if present) and tense (or rather tense and aspect). There are five tenses in the indicative mood: present, aorist, imperfect, perfect and future. The optative mood has no tenses and the subjuctive is compound, formed by a verb in the indicative and an auxilliary verb.

Morphology

Ablaut

Main article: Carpathian ablaut

Carpathian has both qualitative and quantitative ablaut, inherited from Proto-Indo-European, but later extended to form new alternations. In most morphemes only two grades were represented, but some could have as many as five. Most of the reasons for the rise of vowel alternations were phonetic, connected to the prosody. On the other hand, the tendency to level out irregular or excess phonetic alternations resulted in simplifying the paradigms and eliminating the previous vowel alternations. In word derivation a certain percentage of words became obsolescent, fossilising some forms and making them obscure for ablaut. Numerous remnants of such former patterns exist in the language, for example: skalàndas “rod” – skōlangā “fence” – skèliaugas “osier” one may establish a pattern "a-ō-e", but there are no ē- or zero-forms, which either never existed or didn't survive. Such disconnected patterns exist solely as independent words, no new forms arise from that pattern. Different dialects may preserve different "parts" of the pattern: kalaušītei and kilūšītei “to listen”; bèberas and bàbaras “beaver”, iskùs and aiskùs “bright”.