User:Ceige/LandOnePopTongue

Dialects

There are three main dialect groupings. These are informally split between two dubious branches, "North" and "South", due to the increasing influence of the southern speakers vs the traditional North-Eastern homeland. Northern speakers are generally happier with just saying "East", "West", and "Novel", with "Novel" including both the obscure nomadic dialects and the Southern trade dialects.

• North-East (Traditional)

The North-East dialects are reknown for their more rigid vowel-breaking and almost mandatory final vowel epenthesis which is generally subject to vowel harmony.

• North-West (Quirky)

The North-West dialects have less rigid vowel-breaking, often happy with monophthongs coming from vowel combinations instead, and also tend to lack vowel epenthesis when the last consonant is voiceless.

• Southern (Common)

The Southern dialects are far less traditional and source vocabulary and phonology from both other branches and from other language families too. Vowel epenthesis is rather haphazard and vowel harmony is happily ignored, such as in "yrga".

In any case, speakers from all branches borrow from each other colloquially and in attempts to sound worldy and sophisticated, but the NE and NW branches are more likely to calque or "traditionalise" vocabulary from the South.

Sound Changes

Vowels

Initial Vowel Shifts

• /a/ and /o/ merge into /a/

Vowel Mutations

• /[a~ɔ]+i/ yields /ɛ/ ⟨ä⟩
• /a+u/ yields /ɔ/ ⟨å⟩
• /e+i/ yields /i/ (?)
• /[e~ɛ]+u/ yields /jø/
• /[e~i?]+a/ yields /jɛ/
  • /ja/ > /jɛ/ despite technically being /ĭa/ in some analyses is less regular and more dialectal
• /o+i/ yields /œ/ ⟨ö⟩ (?) (does o even come up now?)
• /ɔ+i/ yields /jœ/
• /u+i/ yields /ü/ (?) ⟨y⟩? (or ju?)
• /u+a/ yields /o/ (< /wɔ/)

Secondary Vowel Shifts

In some cases short /i/ > /e/ ⟨é⟩ and /u/ > /o/ ⟨ó⟩. In other cases, open /a/ > /å/ and in others open /a/ > /ä/.

Consonants

Palatalisation

• Voiced consonants including nasals and fricatives+ j > j
  • Montānea > Montä(ja)
  • Snaigu > Njö > Jö
  • Tria > T[rja] > T[jä] > Tjä (this word evolved irregularly though)
• Unvoiced consonants + j > tj
  • Tri/Trai > Tjä

Voicing

• Before palatalisation, all fricatives undergo voicing. Afterwards, they either devoice again or collapse into a plosive, like with /ð/ > /d/.

Word List

• alp: kytmontä
• boss: pätyrga, yrgapät.
• brother: rå, räja
• cat: kätti
• dark: mjörku > jörku
• dog: tjuppi, juppi
• God: djupå > jupå (< *dieuspa)

• father: på, päja (-jä too)
• mother: må, mäja

• mountain: montäja > montä
• white: kjuti, kjut, kyt, pjätta > tjätta

• lord, master: pät, päti
• work: yrgi, jorga (neo: yrga)

• sea: djö > jö vétti~jatta) (< *saiwi)
• see, know: ytti, jutti; *yssi, *jussi (< presumed to be from *widti, which also yielded vétta)
• sister: sosto, söja
• snow: njö > jö (kjuti) (< *snaigu)
• triangle: tjåna (< tjä+åna)
• water: jö (from snow/sea), also åkko (< *akwa)
• #1: jät
• #2: vå
• #3: tjä
• #4: vottu
• #5: (t)jömpu (> ~ jöppi)
• #6: jöksi
• #7: jäpta
• #8: åttå, attå
• #9: njöa > jöa