Etzeá

Etzeà
etzeà
Pronunciation	[ed͡zeɑ]
Created by	Jukethatbox
Date	2023
Native to	Etzeàn Island
Language family	Yeldhic Etzeic(?) Etzeà
Early forms	Proto-Yeldhic Proto-Etzeic(?)
Standard form	Etzeà Standard
Dialects	Duzuyel-Nyimörs dialects Southern Sunyr dialects Tisli dialect Ntifi dialect
Official status
Recognised minority language in	Moshurian Empire
Etzeàn Island. Most Etzeà speakers live on the western side of the island, past the Tûzogyâud Range.

Etzeà(etzeà; [ed͡zeɑ]) is the secondary language spoken on the island of Etzeàn within the Moshurian Empire. Due to its early geographic isolation from mainland Yeldhic languages, Etzeà became the closest modern living relative to Proto-Yeldhic in the Yeldhic language family, making the language a key contributor in modern reconstructions of Early Proto-Yeldhic. Since the arrival of the Taskaric Nèekh people in the Tûznam Basin around 1350 UH, various Nèekh loanwords and Taskaric language loanwords in general have seeped into the Etzeà lexicon, such as ungesku [uŋesku] "long spear", from Nèekh unghêsgu [uŋɣejsgu] "Izhkut spear", from Izhkut khungëskue [xuŋˈɛskuɨ̯] "spear with twisted blade".

Etzeà has also been influenced by the indigenous Myshon language spoken around Ipuśtovek, and the Tuzak languages spoken in and around the Dżedi Forest, as well as the Bir Basin.

History

Etymology

The name etzeà's etymology is heavily debated, though one theory is that it developed agglutinatively by the combination of one word and a case marker: Proto-Yeldhic *eðu, "land" and ablative case marker *-ē, or in other words, *eðʷē, "away from the mainland". However, this theory has been criticised, as the actual Etzeà descendant of *eðu is edyu "earth, land", so the reconstructed descendant form of *eðʷē should be *edyê, not etzeà or Etzeàn.

Formation

The first Etzeic peoples were a Proto-Yeldhic people who probably inhabited Kokiso Point, the closest coastal landmark on Talkoch to Etzeàn Island. They probably arrived on Etzeàn Island around 2400 UH, just in time before the development of the Paleoyeldhic languages on the mainland in 2370 UH. On Etzeàn Island, the Etzeic peoples spread all the way to the Tûzogyâud Range(Etzeà: [tuːzoɡjaːud]) by 1750 UH. The areas around Mount Ogoñi(Etzeà: Ogoñigyed) was settled later, around 1600 UH.

Arrival of the Nèekh

Around 880 UH, the Taskaric Nèekh people first arrived by boat on the eastern side of the Tûzogyâud Range(Nèekh: tzêgoz Tîkhgudd [tɪxɡud̪]), rapidly settling much of the Tûznam Basin. According to Etzeà legend, the first contact between the two peoples occurred in 700 UH, when the king of the Gòtyaz(Etzeà: [ɡɔcaz]) people decided to follow the Sunyr(Etzeà and Nèekh: sunîr) river to its source, crossing the treacherous Tûzogyâud for the first time in doing so. Soon after finally reaching flatter land on the other side of the mountains, he saw pastures of a "strange crop" across the landscape, indicating the existence of a "strange people" that would be able to cultivate this crop.

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Post-alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Plosive		p b	t d		c ⟨ty⟩ ɟ ⟨dy⟩	k g
Nasal		m	n		ɲ ⟨ñ⟩	ŋ ⟨ng⟩
Tap/trill			ɾ ⟨r⟩ · r
Lateral approximants			l		ʎ ⟨ll⟩
Fricatives	pulmonic		s z	ʃ ⟨c⟩ ʒ ⟨j⟩	ç ⟨ch⟩	x ⟨h⟩
	palatalised		sʲ ⟨ss⟩ zʲ ⟨zz⟩
Affricates		pfʷ ⟨ŵ⟩	t͡s ⟨ts⟩ d͡z ⟨tz⟩		(t͡ɕ) (d͡ʑ)
Semivowel		w			j ⟨y⟩

⟨th⟩ is a digraph that was once used to represent Moshurian /ð/. Modern speakers pronounce ⟨th⟩ as /s/.

/t͡ɕ/ and /d͡ʑ/ are allophones of /t͡s/ and /d͡z/ before /i/.

The diphthong /kw/ is written ⟨qu⟩, and /gw/ is written ⟨gu⟩.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i iː		u uː
Close-mid	e eː		o oː
Open-mid	ɛ		ɔ
Open		a aː	ɑ

/ɑ/, /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ are shown by the letters ⟨à⟩, ⟨è⟩ and ⟨ò⟩ respectively. Long vowels are represented by circumflexes, as in ⟨â, ê, î, ô, û⟩ for /aː eː iː oː uː/ respectively. All Proto-Yeldhic vowels, including long vowels, are preserved in Etzeà, except *é which merged with /e/.

Morphology

Personal pronouns

		Singular		Plural
		nom.	acc.	nom.	acc.
1st		en	nè	so	mos
2nd	formal/polite	tsus	itsûr	(tsi)pella	(tsi)pellêro
	informal	o		ôe
3rd		o	òn	oyo	òlò

When formally addressing people, most speakers use nominative pella and accusative pellêro, derived from Proto-Yeldhic *ble "group of", making it cognate with Moshurian bzenë. However, alternative forms of pella/pellêro exist, namely tsipella and tsipellêro, though these are generally considered archaic and are only generally seen in old literature.

T-V distinction

Etzeà employs a very specific T-V distinction, where the T(o and ôe) is only used among friends one knows very well, and in almost all other cases the V(tsus and pella) are used, including to one's own family. This has led to some linguists classifying the Etzeà T as a profanity, though this is a dubious claim, as there are no known harsh social consequences and the use of the T is not discouraged in the right contexts.

Possession

Etzeà possessive pronouns are identical to the accusative forms of the personal pronouns, and they are placed before the noun in the same manner as adjectives. For example:

Nè kuzao

"My bottle"

However, unlike regular adjectives, it is not grammatically incorrect to place the possessive after the head. However, the semantics change: it can either be a copulative statement("The bottle is mine") or simply remain a clause("The bottle that is mine").

Kuzao nè

"The bottle that is mine/The bottle is mine."

Kuzao nè sàtzan'ch.

"The bottle that is mine, is blue.

Note that the structure of the second sentence, though grammatically correct, is generally uncommon. It is more likely to be formulated by a native speaker as Nè kuzao ch'sàtzan.

Syntax

Constituent order

Etzeà has a SVO word order and adjective-noun order. However, if an adverb is modifying the head, it is always placed before. Examples:

O tsia po jol ênez.

[o t͡ɕia po ʒol eːnez]

3.sg go-past sbj.abl.art red.sg house

"He went from his red house."

"He went quickly from his red house" would be:

Tâcta o tsia po jol ênez.

[taːʃta o t͡ɕia po ʒol eːnez]

fast-adv 3.sg go-past sbj.abl.art red.sg house