Yassi
| Yassi | |
|---|---|
| Template:Unicode | |
| Created by | – |
| Native to | Afghanistan, China, Pakistan, Tajikistan |
| Native speakers | 150 (2004) |
Uralic
| |
Yassi is a Uralic language spoken in the Yas River Valley in north-eastern Afghanistan, northern Pakistan, China and Tajikistan.
Classification
For a long time, Yassi was seen as one of the languages that belong to the areal Pamir language group. Nowadays it's classified as a Uralic language, though its exact relationship to the Uralic languages is a matter of debate.
There are certain words of the basic vocabulary which show a closer relation to the Samoyedic than to the Finno-Ugric subgroup, like nǝk (PS *näk- instead of FU *kolme 'three') and swam (PS *time instead of FU *piŋe 'tooth'). However, research has shown that it's often not possible to derive these words from mainstream Proto-Samoyed: Rather, both Yassi swam 'tooth' and Proto-Samoyed *time 'tooth' seem to go back to PU *sewimä 'tooth'. Furthermore, Yassi pǝn 'comb' is assumed to be a cognate to FU *piŋe 'tooth'. Therefore, and as the subgrouping of the Uralic languages is still controversial, Yassi must remain classified an independent branch of Proto-Uralic.
Phonology
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Mid | e | ə | o |
| Open | a | ɑ |
Yassi also has the diphthongs /ai/, /ɑi/, /əi/, /ɑw/, /aw/, /oi/, /ui/.
Consonants
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Retroflex | Post- alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɳ | ŋ | ||||||
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t̪ | ʈ | k | q | ʔ | |||
| voiced | b | d̪ | ɖ | ɡ | ||||||
| Affricate | voiceless | t͡s | t͡ʃ | |||||||
| voiced | d͡z | d͡ʒ | ||||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | ʂ | ʃ | ç | x | h | ||
| voiced | z | ʐ | ʒ | ʝ | ɣ | |||||
| Approximant | l | j | w | |||||||
| Rhotic | r | ɺ̢ | ||||||||
The words that have been borrowed and are non-native to Yassi, are colour coded. The phonemes /q/, /f/ tend to be replaced by /k/, /p/.
Dialects
Slight differences in pronunciation and vocabulary show that Yassi can be divided in to mutually intelligible dialects. One surrounding the headwaters of River Yas, the other in the lower valley.
The former dialect has preserved various conservative peculiarities, whereas the latter has been influenced more deeply by neighboring Iranian languages. However, as far as the dichotomy in the vocabulary is concerned, it seems to have existed for a long time.
Vocabulary
The huge amount of the basic vocabulary is inherited from Proto-Uralic. However, there are also ancient loans from neighboring Iranian dialects or Proto-Iranian itself. Rather recent loans into Yassi include Persian (and through that, Arabic) and Hindustani.
Numerals
| Numeral | Inherited Yassi |
Loan from Proto-Iranian |
|---|---|---|
| one | ǝs | |
| two | kas | |
| three | nǝk | |
| four | per | |
| five | wit | |
| six | špağ | |
| seven | ow | |
| eight | ksoray | at |
| nine | sowr, swor | nǝ |
| ten | kǝswit | las |
| eleven | ||
| twelve | ||
| thirteen | ||
| twenty | ||
| thirty | ||
| forty | ||
| hundred | sǝl | |
| two hundred | ||
| thousand | zǝr | |
| ten thousand | wewar |