Ciètian

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Ciètian
i hEnvirav
Created byUser:IlL
SettingVerse:Tricin
Native speakers100 million L1 speakers (300 million L2 speakers) (fT 1670dd (2676))
Quihum
  • Talmic
    • Thensaric
      • Old Eevo
        • Ciètian
Language codes
ISO 639-3qtg
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Ciètian (i γgaaħ hEnvirav /i ɣaːħ ˈhanviɾəv/) is a Talmic language (in the subbranch of Tigolic, which also includes Eevo) somewhat inspired by Irish. On the planet of Tricin (Ciètian: i Samąχ /i səˈmɔːx/), it is an analogue of German in terms of influence and grammar. Ciètian is the official language of the Talman nation Anvir and of former colonies in Cualuav and Txapoalli; after Eevo, 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 Tricin. 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 Slavic 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

  • 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 > chow /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)
  • mee in aavaħ (this DEF book) = 'this book'
  • Revise Thensarian declension based on Envirese
  • Have a separate schwa phoneme a /ə/?
  • -ac is cognate to Eevo -ahd (both from Old Eevo -aitt)
  • -z is one plural suffix (often used for single syllable nouns ending in vowels; from palatalized lenited -dh)
    • -a pl. -az, not -aí as in irish or tiogall
  • cht > c à la Wenedyk, final slender -t > -cy
  • slender b > j?
  • sk palatalizes to shcy? shch? sh?
  • Get rid of initial geminate nasals

Notes

Symbols

  • L - lenition/aspiration
  • N - eclipsis

Phonology

The following describes Ciètian as spoken in Ascemmiin. The orthography used in this article aims for aesthetics and ease of reading phonetically.

Stress

Stress is not phonemic and is weight-sensitive. The rule is: 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 -vę is always stressed.

Consonants

Ciètian has a large consonant inventory (about 37 consonants).

Ciètian consonants
Labial Dental/Alveolar Postalv. Palatal Velar Pharyngeal Glottal
Nasal m /m/, mm /m:/ n /n/, nn /n:/ ny /ɲ/, nny /ɲ:/ ŋ /ŋ/, ŋŋ /ŋ:/
Stop fortis p /p/ t /t/ k /k/
lenis b /b/ d /d/ g /g/
Affricate fortis c /ts/ ch /tʃ/ cy /tɕ/
lenis j /dz/ jh /dʒ/ jy /dʑ/
Spirant unvoiced f /f/ hy /ç/ χ /x/ ħ /ħ/
voiced v /v/ γ /ɣ/
Sibilant unvoiced s /s/ sh /ʃ/ sy /ɕ/ h /h/
voiced z /z/ zh /ʒ/ zy /ʑ/
Liquid r /ɾ/ rh /r̝/
Approximant w /w/ y /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].
  • /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.)

Vowels

Ciètian has a moderately large vowel system (7 vowel qualities).

Ciètian vowels
Front Central Back
unrounded unrounded rounded unrounded rounded
short long short long short long
Close i /ɪ/ ii /iː/ u /ʊ/ uu /uː/
Mid ee /eː/ [ə] oo /oː/
Open-mid e /ɛ/ ę /ɛː/ o /ɔ/ ą /ɔː/
Open a /a/ aa /aː/

There are also two diphthongs: ia /iə/ and ua /uə/.

Unstressed /əw/ becomes /ɔ/. This is not reflected in the transcription.

Phonotactics

Envirese doesn't like initial clusters. All initial clusters are prohibited except those of the form /Cw/. Geminate nasals are also not allowed word-initially.

Final clusters are allowed, however.

Prosody

Ciètian has a distinctive intonation paradigm. It 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 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...")
  • 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 stressed syllable starts low and receives a rising intonation ("... 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.

Morphophonology

Mutations

Consonant mutations
Root consonant m p b f t d cy jy s sy k g ch jh 0, y
Lenited vm fp vb hf ħt d scy zjy hs hsy χk γg sch zjh h-
Eclipsed m bp mb vf dt nd jcy njy zs zsy gk ŋg jch njh (pronounced like ny) n-

Palatalization

  • e/i-palatalization
    • l not affected
  • ä-palatalization
  • ia/io/iu-palatalization
    • l softens to /j/
  • soft L-palatalization
    • k, t > cy
  • initial vs. non-initial pal'zn

Umlaut

i-umlaut often operates in inflections and derivation:

o oo u uu ua > nonpalatalizing e ee i ii ia

a > somewhat palatalizing e

I-umlaut is triggered by Old Eevo final -(a)e, -(a)é, -(a)i and -(a)í.

Anbhair > Anvir > Änvir > Envir,

Andaegoor > Andaghur > Annuur

Dialectology

Ciètian is subject to a fair amount of accent and dialect variation.

Morphology

Pronouns

I you (sg.) he she it we (exc.) we (inc.) you (pl.) they you (semi-polite) you (polite)
Emphatic gonin gonas gonu gonyi gona gonav gonid gonaχ gonar gonaχ gonawaa
Genitive naa fiar hu hi he aav geed seed haar seed waa
Accusative moon moos moov mooy moo moom meed mooχ moor mooχ mowaa

Politeness

Modern Envirese has three levels of politeness in pronouns:

  • gonas, moos (sg.) is used for family members, friends, pets, inanimates, deities, and among blue-collar workers. It is becoming more common among young people.
  • gonalaa, mowaa 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 gonas and gonaχ, although nowadays using gonawaa is becoming more common.
  • gonaχ is roughly intermediate in formality between gonas and gonawaa. The pronoun gonaχ 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 gonaχ for each other. (In vocational schools gonawaa is used for student-instructor conversation.) Strangers on the Internet and books intended for a general audience also use gonaχ.
    • In archaic Envirese, gonaχ is used as a polite pronoun for persons of higher class (say nobles or royalty), or among the upper class.

Nouns

Envirese nouns are quite conservative: they 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 -ny to the genitive singular.
  • The singular construct is formed by affixing -ahh 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 i changes to in (with no mutation) before a starting with a V and receiving no mutation or eclipsis. For example:

  • in uar (masculine) 'the sense (nominative)';
  • in aavaħ (neuter) 'the book (nominative)'.

But:

  • i h-yowm (feminine) 'the star (nominative)'.

Collective nouns are by nature definite, and the collective of a noun is formed by using the collective article before the singular form.

To be revised:

Definite article
singular plural collective
m. f. n. m. f. n. m. f. n.
nom. iN iL i na nar naN baN baL ba
gen. naL iN iN na na na baL baN baN

Adjectives

Adjectives must agree with nouns in gender, number and case. Adjectives also have nominative singular, genitive singular and nominative plural as principal parts. The genitive plural always ends in -ny.

Attributive forms of chow, chow, chowa 'small'
singular, collective plural
m. f. n. m. f. n.
nom. jchow schow chow chowa chowa jchowa
gen. schow jchow jchow chowany chowany chowany

Verbs

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:

Nyan garhiav lan dtarsiad ikaan χkarhii.
[ɲan ˈgar̝iəv 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 nyan nyer nyav nyas nya nyam nyad nyaχ nyaw nyaħ nyar

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