Ish

Ish
Created by	User:Prinsessa
Language family	? Ish

Introduction

Ish is the anglicised exonym of a language mostly spoken around coastal areas. Its speakers are in close contact with speakers of Ash, who are relative newcomers to the area, but this dates back many centuries and has led to a great deal of cultural and linguistic exchange between the two. Most speakers of either language has at least some degree of familiarity with the other, and pidgin forms exist.

Phonology

Ish has a small phonemic inventory but allows consonant clusters. The maximum syllable structure is /CɰVCɰ/.

Vowels

There are four phonemic vowels, romanised like their IPA counterparts.

	Front	Back
Oral	/e/	/a/
Nasal	/ẽ/	/ã/

The back vowels are sometimes rounded to [ɒ] and [ɒ̃] by an adjacent /ɰ/ and are then spelled o and õ.

Consonants

	Coronal	Dorsal
Plosive	/t~ɾ/ d	/k/ c
Affricate	/tˢ~s/ t	/kˣ~x/ q
Sonorant	/l~ɾ/ l~d	/ɰ~w~j/ w~y

The phoneme /ɰ/ is palatalised to [j] by a nearby /e/ in which case it is romanised as y.

Lenition, fortition, and nasalisation

Consonants except for affricates may be nasalised by a nearby nasal vowel. Nasality can also spread from roots to affixes. Between oral vowels consonants may also voice or change in other ways. Word-final changes in pausa also occur.

Initial

	/k/ / #_V	/t/ / #_V	/l/ / #_V
Oral	[k] c	[t] d	[l] l
Nasal	[ŋ] ŋ	[n] n

Medial

	/k/ / V_V	/t/ / V_V	/l/ / V_V
Oral	[g] c	[ɾ] d
Nasal	[ŋ] ŋ	[ɾ̃] d

Final

	/k/ / V_##	/t/ / V_##	/l/ / V_##
Oral	[k̚] c	[t̚] d	[l̚] l
Nasal	[ŋ̚] ŋ	[n̚] n

Labiovelar ligatures

One of the most salient features of the phonology is the free variation in pronunciation of labiovelar clusters, romanised with additional letters.

	/kɰ/	/lɰ/
Oral	[gʷ~bᶭ] ȹ (c + p)	[ɾʷ~ⱱᶭ] ȸ (d + b)
Nasal	[ŋʷ~mᶭ] ɱ (m + ŋ)	[ɾ̃ʷ~ⱱ̃ᶭ] ȸ (d + b)

The forms shown here are medial, but they otherwise follow the same pattern of initial and final forms as the other consonants.

Grammar

Words in Ish do not have a lot of morphology besides a very productive affinity for compounding. Most content words do not fit neatly into any particular class of words, but are either verbs or nouns depending on their syntactic position, making word order somewhat rigid. However there are function words, some of which are fused.

Syntax

The basic word order in sentences with a pronominal participant is VOS (verb-object-subject) where the object is preceded by a particle expressing whether it is direct or indirect, the latter sometimes also expressing involuntary action, and requiring a prefix on the verb.

tay e qay ye tˢaɰe e(k) kˣaɰe (e)ɰe see DIR water PROX I look at water.

attay a qay ye at-tˢaɰe a(t) kˣaɰe (e)ɰe NDIR-see NDIR water PROX I see water.

When the object is a pronominal participant, fused forms of the particles and clitic are used. These are quite reduced and irregular.

ɱõȸ ote qaye
lɰõlɰ a(t)-(e)ɰe kˣaɰe
good NDIR-PROX water
I have good water.

Here ɱõȸ is the verb and the sentence can be literally said to mean "the water for me is good".

Valency

A direct object can be directly followed by an indirect object to form a more complex sentence.

nẽd e ɱõȸ odo ye
be DIR good NDIR-DIST PROX
tẽl e(k) lɰõlɰ a(t)-(a)ɰa (e)ɰe
I made them something good (to eat).

A verb can be made passive by omitting the subject.

tatay ece
tˢa~tˢaɰe e(k)-(e)ɰe
CONT~see DIR-PROX
I am being watched.

Relative clauses

When a nominal referent is the subject of a verb with no intervening objects, a determiner must be inserted between the two. A verb can be made an attributive part of a noun phrase by inserting the same determiner, but the order of noun and verb is then inverted.

qot o dadat kˣatˢ (a)ɰa tatatˢ bad DIST house The house is bad.

accey a dadot o qat e at-keɰ a(t) tatatˢ (a)ɰa kˣatˢ (e)ɰe NDIR-move NDIR house DIST bad PROX I see water.

Glossed examples

The following examples are given with both variations on the labiovelar realisations.

Possession

ɱõȸ ote tedoȹ
/lɰãlɰ atˢe tˢetakɰ/ [mᶭɒ̃‿ⱱ̃ᶭɒ.se tˢe.ɾɒp̚ᶭ]~[ŋʷɒ̃‿ɾ̃ʷɒ.se tˢe.ɾɒk̚ʷ]
good NDIR-PROX mouth
I speak well.

Question

qa nãtẽɱ o tot o
/kˣa tatˢẽkɰ a(t) tˢatˢ (a)ɰa/ [kˣã nã.sẽ‿mᶭɒ tˢɒ‿sᶭɒ]~[kˣã nã.sẽ‿ŋʷɒ tˢɒ‿sᶭɒ]
Q in-live NDIR place DIST
Where do you live?

Continuous aspect

tececey ad aqoȹo ya
/tˢekekeɰ at akˣakɰa (e)ɰa/ [tˢe.ʔe.gej aɾ‿a.xɒ.bᶭɒ ja]~[tˢe.ʔe.gej aɾ‿a.xɒ.gʷɒ ja]
away-go~CONT NDIR Appa PROX
We are going to Appa.