Minhast/Dialectology
Introduction
Minhast is divided fourteen several dialects, twelve of which are the historical dialects spoken in the Prefectures, and two new dialects that have arisen in modern times, a standardized "national" dialect, and an urban colloquial dialect. An additional two dialects, the Knife Speaker dialect, and the Heron Speaker dialect1, are now extinct. The Knife Speaker dialect is poorly attested.
The dialects of the Prefectures have been traditionally grouped under two branches, Upper Minhast, and Lower Minhast. Within Upper Minhast, a further dialectal split emerged, leading to the Salmon Speaker and Wolf Speaker dialects. Minhast grammarians have traditionally classified the dialects according to the following phylogeny:
Officially Recognized Dialects
Intelligibility
Mutual intelligibility between dialectal groups is affected by several factors. As a whole, the Upper Minhast group is more grammatically conservative compared to the Lower Minhast group, but even within each group there may be great differences in the lexicon arising oftentimes from differences in environment and lifestyle that may affect intelligibility. For example, the extremely conservative Salmon Speaker dialect has nevertheless developed a specialized vocabulary for terminology reflective of their riverine and coastal environment, while the Horse Speakers lack such terminology for the simple reason that their homeland is landlocked. Moreover, dialectal mixing is the norm, not the exception. The Gull Speakers, although grouped as a Lower Minhast dialect, can communicate with the Dog Speakers, who belong to the Upper Minhast branch, with little difficulty. This is because both Speakers share a common border and have long had extensive trade contacts with each other which have leveled lexical differences. The Osprey Speakers find the Stone Speakers almost totally unintelligible even though both are grouped under the Lower Minhast branch; in fact Osprey Speakers report they can converse much more easily with the Wolf Speakers, an Upper Minhast dialect, despite the Wolf Speaker dialect's conservative features and affiliation with the Upper Minhast branch. The Osprey Speakers territories border Salmon Speaker Country; they too have had extensive trade relations with the Salmon Speakers and as a consequence both groups can understand each other despite belonging to two different branches. Bilingualism is common, and diglossia from usage of the prestige language, Classical Minhast, also complicates the linguistic landscape.
Classificatory Models
Traditional Model
Traditional Phylogenetic Tree of the Minhast Dialects
| Classical Minhast |
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Criticisms
Academics criticize grouping the dialects under two branches as problematic. The most obvious problem is that of the Stone Speaker dialect, which not only has a large number of loans from Golahat and Peshpeg that far exceed those in the rest of the Lower Minhast dialects, but appears to be in the early stages of developing from a canonical SOV language into a non-configurational one. Arguments for classifying the Stone Speaker dialect as a separate language have been gaining momentum, the most vocal and convincing proponent being Dr. Napayshni Tashunka of the University of the Lakota Nation at Three Pipes. A new branch has been proposed for the Elk and Seal Speaker dialects, which realize -ūy with the voiced labio-velar approximant /w/, as in -ūwe and -ūwi respectively, in contrast with the voiced palatal consonant /j/ found in the rest of the Upper Minhast dialects. The Gull Speaker dialect presents its own problems. When the uyyi min kirim test is applied, the results are inconclusive: the dialect can be classified as a member of either the Upper or Lower Minhast branches, as both -we and -ia are found. Moreover, the -we form and other features point towards a relationship with the Elk and Seal Speakers, which are grouped with the Upper Minhast dialects, yet the Gull Speakers do not share a contiguous border with them, so dialectal mixing has been ruled out at this point. The Palatization Test is also inconclusive, primarily due to dialect mixing with their Salmon Speaker and Dog Speaker neighbors, which belong to the northern dialects, and their Osprey Speaker and Egret Speaker neighbors, which belong to the southern dialects.
The Tashunka Model
In his seminal work, Minhast: A Diachronic and Theoretical Study of a North Pacific Paleosiberian Language, Dr. Tashunka remarked, "The traditional division of the Minhast dialects depicts a simple phylogeny. With the exception of the Salmonic dialects, which diverged from a common dialect after the Salmon Speaker-Horse Speaker War of 1472, no additional forks extend beyond each of the two main branches: each dialect within each branch is a sibling of each other. Nothing could be further from the truth. The current classification scheme does not account for the the discrepancies of the Gull Speaker data from that of the of the other Lower Minhast dialects with which it is grouped. The Horse Speaker data show that the dialect is much more conservative than has been previously thought, in some ways more so than the Salmonic dialects. Justification for placing the Elk and Seal Speaker dialects under the Upper Minhast branch lacks supporting data; although the Elk and Seal Speaker dialects are said to be more conservative than the dialects grouped under the traditional Lower Minhast dialects, the data indicate if anything that this characterization is at best overstated. Moreover, the evidence indicates that Classical Minhast, as it shares more in common with the dialects that have been traditionally classified as Upper Minhast, is not the ancestor of the Minhast dialects, but instead is an archaic dialect that diverged from one of the sub-branches of the northern dialects1. Specifically, Classical Minhast shares more features with the Salmonic and Plateau dialects than with the other dialects; extreme conservatism by the Salmonic and Horse Speaker dialects cannot explain why they share these features with the classical language while all the other dialects do not exhibit at any point in time in their written history that they ever had these features. Only a close relationship, within a shared dialectal grouping, could account for these discrepencies.2 Moreover, rather than attempting to account for both the extinct and new dialects, the traditional classification scheme conveniently ignores them. Clearly, the evidence indicates a more complex picture of the Minhast dialects, but the current system is based on biased sources ultimately derived from both Minhast literary tradition and historical regional politics: twelve pre-eminent Speakers, thus twelve dialects." 3 To address these issues, Dr. Tashunka has proposed a new phylogenetic tree (dashes indicate conjectural relationships):
Tashunka Phylogenetic Tree of the Minhast Dialects
| Old Minhast |
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1 The reclassification of Classical Minhast has received especially scathing criticism from native Minhast grammarians and linguists. Dr. Tashunka proposes in another paper, "On the Position of Classical Minhast and the Modern Languages", that Classical Minhast was actually a prestige dialect spoken by another nomadic northern Minhast tribe, similar in lifestyle and social structure to today's modern Horse Speakers. He argues that this northern Minhast tribe, like the Horse Speakers, were extremely warlike and at one time may have united all of the Minhast groups under their rule, essentially forming a tribal empire. As a result, the speech of this northern tribe became a prestige dialect throughout all the Minhast groups.
It must be noted that this theory is highly speculative; no mention of another northern Speaker, one that was highly militarized and that had managed to conquer all of Minhay, is recorded elsewhere. However, the Dagitoy a Sursurat nga Amianan a Pag'arian (The Book of the Northern Kingdom), widely regarded as an ancient treatise of the Empire of Yamato by an anonymous court writer in the Kirmay Rajahnate, has various passages suggestive that the kingdom in question was not Japan. Dagiti kawes dagiti tatta'u dutdút a nalamúyut gapú ta ti ul'ulida nakalalam'ek ket ti danúm nagbalbalin kasta ti batú. Ngem no agawid idiay balbalayda, napudút ta isúda dutdút a nalamúyut met" (The men wore fur because their homeland was cold, the water becoming hard as stone; but after returning home, their houses were warm, for they too were of fur), is especially peculiar: unless the author was referring to Ainu enclaves in the island of Honshu in northern Japan, no native Japanese home is constructed out of fur.
2 Notice that Classical Minhast has moved from its basal position, as depicted in traditional phylogenies, to the Highland sub-branch of the Northern dialect branch. Old Minhast now occupies the basal position, making the tree consistent with the hypothesis that the Stone Speaker branch is a separate language.
3 Dr. Tashunka also notes that Minhast numerology plays an important role: the number 12 is a fortuitous number, portending good fortune.
4 We have an exact date when the Salmonic sub-branch split into the Salmon and Wolf Speaker dialects: The Salmon Speaker - Horse Speaker War of 1472
5 Modern Standard Minhast, although created as a "compromise" dialect with elements from both Upper and Lower Minhast dialects, nevertheless has a grammar that is mostly from Upper Minhast sources.
6 Many Minhastic linguists, including Dr. Tashunka, argue that the Stone Speaker dialect should be reclassified as an independent language, based on how divergent it is from the other dialects. See discussion above.
‡Dr. Tashunka notes, "Limited attestation hinders the classification of the Knife Speaker dialect. However, based on what texts we do have, we can determine which branches the Knife Speaker dialect does not belong to. The presence of Golahat words rules it out as a member of the Northern and Western Branches; the absence of -we- after application of the uyyi min kirim-test rules it out as a member of the Gullic branch. Dialectal mixing between the Heron Speakers and Stone Speakers is absent, but a few Stone Speaker words crop up in the Knife Speaker texts; this provides evidence that the Knife Speaker dialect should not be considered a member of the Insular Branch. This leaves only two other candidates, the Coastal and Montaigne groups, which the Knife Speaker dialect may grouped under, or it may even constitute a separate branch."
The Modern Dialects
The two new dialects have both arisen in the National Capital Region (NCR). Modern Standard Minhast, a conglomeration of the Upper Minhast dialects and Classical Minhast serves as the standard dialect used for government, commerce, and media. The dialect is classified as part of the Upper Minhast branch. The National Academy of the Minhast Language serves as the official body in creating and maintaining the standardized form of the language and biannually publishes the Minhastim Kirim min Suharak (Dictionary of the Minhast Language). In spite of its official status, the adoption of Modern Standard Minhast by the Prefectures has been limited due to resistance from the local speech communities. The second dialect, known as the City Speaker dialect (aka Modern Colloquial Minhast), is an admixture of several dialects; although most of the lexicon comes from the dialects of the Common Branch, many Stone Speaker words from the Montaigne branch have been imported. Nevertheless the grammar is ultimately derived from the Common branch. Spoken mostly by people in their 30's and younger, it contains more loanwords from foreign languages than the standard language, especially in areas of technology and the Internet, and from foreign films and media. The City Speaker dialect allows CCC consonant clusters in medial and final syllabic positions, while only medial and final CC clusters are found. Initial CC clusters are also possible for a limited set of combinations, e.g. /kw/, /kr/, /kl/, /sm/, /sn/, /šm/,/šn/, /sl/, /šl/ . This new dialect is also replete with slang, loanwords (especially from Western sources) and nonstandard jargon that is often looked down upon by older generations, and Speakers from the more conservative Prefectures. The City Speaker dialect remains outside the Upper and Lower branch classification system, providing yet another argument against the traditional two-branch dialectal division.