Qasunattuuji

Qasunattuuji
Qasunattuuji
Pronunciation	[qasunatˈtuːʐi]
Created by	GJS
Date	2023 - present
Setting	Alt-history North America, Western portion of Alaska
Native to	Tuujiyumix Ilihuu
Language family	Indo-European Qasunattuuji
Writing systems	Latin Cyrillic Braille
Official status
Official language in	Tuujiyumix Ilihuu

Qasunattuuji is an Indo European language (classification pending feedback) spoken in the country of Tuujiyumix Ilihuu (real-life Alaska), where it enjoys an official status. Although its words are derived from PIE, its phonology and most of its morphology show traces related to the Inuit languages, as it's polysynthetic and has only the vowels /a/, /i/, and /u/, with length distinctions. It was created for an alternate history timeline where some PIE-speakers migrated all the way from Eastern Europe to Alaska and where the Russians made Alaska a protectorate instead of a colony.

Etymology

The name Qasunattiiji means real people or true people, while Tuujiyumix Ilihuu means Land of all Peoples. The name of the country was chosen to replace the old 'Greater Alaska' in order to distance the new country from Russia shortly after its independence in 1917.

Phonology

Phonological history

• Clipping en masse
• bʰ → pʰ → ɸ → h → q
• gʰ → dʰ → x → q
• ɣʷ → ɢ
• ɢː → ʁː
• gʲʰ → gʰ → dʰ → x → q
• tʲ → tʃ → ʃ → ʂ
• gʲ → dʒ → tʃ → ʃ → ʂ
• kʲ → tʃ → ʃ → ʂ
• gʷ → w → v
• gʷʰ → gʷ → kʷ → p
• dʰ → tʰ → t
• kʷ → p
• {e,o}j → iː
• {eː,oː}j → aː
• {e,o}w → uː
• {eː,oː}w → uː
• {eː,oː} → {iː,u}
• epenthetic /a/ appears to break invalid consonant clusters, except in words borrowed from Russian and English.
• epenthetic /i/ appears before [l ʐ ɢ] if they occur in the beginning of words.

Consonants

Consonant phonemes

	Labial		Alveolar		Palatal		Retroflex		Velar		Uvular
Nasal		m		n						(ŋ)
Stop	p		t						k		q	ɢ
Fricative	f	v	s				ʂ	ʐ			χ	(ʁ)
Lateral				l
Approximant						j

Notes:

• Before /n/, /ŋ/ /ʁ/ are the allophones of /k/ and /q/, respectively.
• /ŋ/ also appears in Inuit borrowings.
• /ʁ/ is also used in verbal morphemes that are borrowed from Inuit. Its geminated version is equivalent to a /ɢː/.

Vowels

	Front	Back
Close	i(ː)	u(ː)
Open	a(ː)

Prosody

Stress falls always on the penultimate syllable.

Phonotactics

[l ʐ ɢ] can't appear at the beginning of words, but can occur at the beginning of a medial syllable, while [p t k q s j m n v ʂ j f χ] can occur both at the beginning of a word and at the beginning of a medial syllable.
[ŋ] can only come at the beginning of a medial syllable after another [ŋ].
If there is a long and a short vowel in sequence, and vice versa, for example [aːi], an epenthetic [ŋ] appears to break this hiatus, in this case, becoming [aːŋi].
[t] and [b] become [ʐ] and [v], respectively between vowels (assibilation).
[k], [q] and [t] become [ŋ], [ʁ] and [n], respectively, before [n]
Consonants can be geminated, but in this case, they should be pronounced as if there were two of them.

Orthography

Qasunattuuji alphabets

Latin letter (since the 1920s)	Cyrillic letter (between the XVII century and the 1920s)	IPA
A, a	A, а	/a/
F, f	Ф, ф	/f/
G, g	Г. г	/ɢ/ or /ʁ/ (see consonants)
H, h	Х, х	/χ/
I, i	И, и	/i/
J, j	Ж, ж	/ʐ/
K, k	К, к	/k/
L, l	Л, л	/l/
M, m	М, м	/m/
N, n	Н, н	/n/
Ŋ, ŋ	Нг, нг	/ŋ/
P, p	П, п	/p/
Q, q	Кь, кь	/q/
S, s	С, с	/s/
T, t	Т, т	/t/
U, u	У, y	/u/
V, v	В, в	/v/
X, x	Ш, ш	/ʂ/
Y, y	Й	/j/

Notes:

• In both alphabets, long vowels are written as double letters (aa,:ии, уу, aa, ii, uu).
• Double кь and нг were written кькь and нгнг, respectively.

Morphology

Nouns

Nouns decline in eight different cases: absolutive, ergative, instrumental, allative, ablative, locative, perlative and similative, and in number, for singular, dual and plural.

Nouns

	Singular	Dual	Plural
Absolutive
Ergative
Instrumental
Allative
Ablative
Locative
Perlative
Similative

Ergative

The ergative is used to mark the subject of a transitive sentence and to mark the genitive, specifically, marking the possessor of a possessed entity, except in sentences like "is my X", where the ergative falls in the pronoun.

Instrumental

The instrumental also marks the indefinite "object" of syntactically intransitive verbs.

Allative

The allative also marks objective, beneficiary and destination.

Ablative

The Ablative is also used to mark the comparison's source, with the verb receiving the suffix -lu(k) before the person, number and mood suffix.

muu maalujuq siixipahahi
/muː maːˈluʐuk siːʂipaˈχaχi/
muu	maa	-luk-	-tuq	siixipahaŋ-	-hi
mouse	small-	-comp-	-3s.ind	groundhog-	-abl
A mouse is smaller than a groundhog

Perlative

The perlative indicates the manner or the way of transportation and also marks the path and the subject of the conversation.

vijunipisigik qayipi?
/viʐuniˈsiʁik qaˈjipi/
vip-	-tuni-	-pisigik	qayi-	-pi
talk-	-ger-	-3s.int	winter	-perl
Are you talking about the winter?

Vocative

The vocative shows the addressee, including the subject of an imperative sentence. It doesn't have its own suffix, but is marked by elongating the noun's last vowel (if it's short), and in the case of proper nouns, it's not marked orthographically.

miih—Miih!
/miχ/ — /miːχ/
mih-	-∅- /	miih
mother	-abs.sg /	mother	-voc.sg
Mother/Oh, mother

Derivation and structure

The morpheme ti is suffixed to the verbs in order to indicate the agent: pi (hunt) → piji (hunter).
The suffix -maq transforms a verb into an instrument to do so: sayu (sew) → sayumaq (sewing machine).
The suffix -(ŋ)ilu indicates the diminutive: viin (woman) → vinilu (ggirl).
The suffix -ppak creates a noun that in theory is bigger than the primitive: ixav (caribou) → ixappak (horse).
There are also suffixes for quantities, such as hayaat (many) or payaak (each).

The maximum structure of nouns is:

root-(derivational)-(inflecional)-(number and case)

Derivational can be an adjective or other derivational suffixes, such as the cited above, and inflectional can be an adverb that isn't a free morpheme. There can have several derivational or inflectional suffixes, but, only one nominal root per noun.

Syntax