Ish

Ish
Created by	User:Prinsessa
Language family	Proto-Ash-Ish Proto-Ish 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. Going back many millennia the languages are in fact related through Proto-Ash-Ish but speakers were separated until recently. Most speakers of either language have 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/. Stress is phonemic and falls on the first syllable unless otherwise marked (by an acute accent, e.g. á) in the romanisation.

Vowels

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

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

The back vowels are rounded to [ɒ] and [ɒ̃] by an adjacent /ɰ/ and are then romanised as o and õ. Likewise in this context the front vowels are fronted even further to [i] and [ĩ] and then romanised as i and ĩ.

Consonants

	Coronal	Dorsal
Plosive	/t/ d	/k/ c
Aspirate	/tˢ/ t	/kˣ/ q
Sonorant	/l~ɾ/ l~d	/ɰ/ 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 aspirates 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

The aspirates /tˢ/ and kˣ are not affected by nasalisation but reduce to pure fricatives [s] and [x] medially except in the onset of a stressed syllable.

Labiovelar ligatures and palatalisation

One of the most salient features of the phonology is the free variation in pronunciation of labiovelar clusters (i.e. /Cɰ/), romanised with additional letters. These occur before the vowel /a/ or its nasal counterpart /ã/.

Initial

	/kɰ/ / #_V	/tɰ/ / #_V	/lɰ/ / #_V
Oral	[kʷ~pᶭ] ȹ (c + p)	[tᶭ] d	[lᶭ] l
Nasal	[ŋʷ~mᶭ] ɱ (m + ŋ)	[nᶭ] n

Medial

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

Final

	/kɰ/ / V_##	/tɰ/ / V_##	/lɰ/ / V_##
Oral	[k̚ʷ~p̚ᶭ] ȹ	[t̚ᶭ] d	[l̚ᶭ] l
Nasal	[ŋ̚ʷ~m̚ᶭ] ɱ	[n̚ᶭ] n

In /Cɰ/ clusters before /e/ and /ẽ/ the suprasegmental becomes [ʲ] instead of [ʷ]~[ᶭ] and no labialisation occurs.

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.

daci dayyi
[ˈta.gʲi ˈtaj.ji]
/takɰ=e(k) taɰ=ɰe/
enter=DIR fire=PROX
I went into the fire.

addoȹo dayyi
[ˈat̚.tɒ.bᶭɒ ˈtaj.ji]
/VC-takɰ=a(t) taɰ=ɰe/
NDIR-enter=NDIR fire=PROX
I fell into the fire.

Particles and determiners are both clitics that attach to the preceding word and may change its exact form or even surface merely as a change in stress. They are therefore romanised as part of the word to which they are attached. Roots therefore appear to have many allomorphs depending on the grammatical context.

nẽɱo qayi
[ˈnẽ.mᶭɒ ˈkˣa.ji]
/tẽkɰ=ɰa kˣaɰe/
be=DET water
There is water.

nĩŋi qayí
[ˈnĩ.ŋʲi kˣaˈji]
/tẽkɰ=e(k) kˣaɰe=ɰe/
be=DIR water=PROX
I made the water.

This also happens to verbs.

attayáti dow
[at̚.tˢaˈja.sʲi ˈtɒw]
/VC-tˢaɰe=a(d)-ɰe taɰ/
NDIR-appear=NDIR-PROX fire
I saw the fire.

attayáti dayyi
[at̚.tˢaˈja.sʲi ˈtaj.ji]
/VC-tˢaɰe=a(d)-ɰe taɰ=ɰe/
NDIR-appear=NDIR-PROX fire=PROX
I looked at the fire.

Note also that these two examples showcase an impersonal verb with different syntactic requirements than a regular verb.

Another example is the following minimal pair:

attayáti
[at̚.tˢaˈja.sʲi]
/VC-tˢaɰe=a(d)-ɰe/
NDIR-appear=NDIR-PROX
I saw it.

attayatí
[at̚.tˢa.jaˈtˢʲi]
/VC-tˢaɰe=a(d)-ɰe=ɰe/
NDIR-appear=NDIR-PROX=PROX
I looked at myself.