Ris

πρανάσση, ἄι ουαθά πανἂννη!

pranássē, hai ouathá panā́nnē!

Remember: You walk with your feet!

Ris
Rhánzi ris
Pronunciation	[/ˈr̥ʰand͡z͎ɪ rɪs͎/]
Created by	–
Native to	Italy, Cyprus; Sicily
Native speakers	301,486 (2012)
Language family	Menmer languages Ris
Early form	Proto-Men
Language codes
ISO 639-1	ri
ISO 639-2	ri
ISO 639-3	qhr

Ris is my attempt to unite the sketchy constructed languages of mine; those lost forever in incomprehensible grammar, unsatisfying aesthetics and cumbersome phonologies. They stand united by the one shared feature - their relationship to the Greek language; my greatest influence no matter the language.

The Ris language, ῤάνζι ρις /r̥ʰand͡z͎ɪ rɪs͎/, is a language isolate, and is thus not known to be related to any extant language. Ris has a normal-sized inventory of consonants and a fair amount of allophony. It is a fusional language and is morphosyntactically active-stative and with a fluid subject. The morphology is evenly split between nominal and verbal inflections.

Background

The Ris language, ῤάνζι ρις /r̥ʰand͡z͎ɪ rɪs͎/, is a constructed language, but does have a fictional background set in the real world. It is spoken on Sicily and on Cyprus and has about 300,000 native speakers. Or 1. Depends on how you count.

Phonology

Consonants

The following is the inventory of consonants in the Ris language. There are 18 contrastive consonants.

Ris consonants

Consonants
		Bilabial	Denti-alveolar		Palatal	Velar	Glottal
			plain	whispered
Nasals	plain	m /m/	n /n/			[ŋ]
Plosives	aspirated	ph /pʰ/	th /tʰ/			kh /kʰ/	[ʔ]
	unvoiced	p /p/	t /t/			k /k/
	voiced	b /b/	d /d/			g /g/
Fricatives	unvoiced			s /s͎/	h /ç ~ x ~ h/
	voiced		z /d͡z ~ d͡z͎ ~ z ~ z͎/		[ʝ]
Trills	aspirated			r /r̥ʰ/
	voiced			r /r/
Approximants		ou /w/
Laterals				l /l ~ ʎ/

Consonant allophony

Allophony is common to many consonants, and sandhi forces them to be realised different in different environments.

The glottal fricative

The phoneme /h/, the so called glottal fricative, is in free variation with the unvoiced palatal fricative /ç/ as well as the unvoiced velar fricative /x/.

ἒτροι
hétroi
/ˈhɛtrɔɪ̯/	=	/ˈxɛtrɔɪ̯/	=	/ˈçɛtrɔɪ̯/
normal, okay

The velar fricative is the most common one, but the phones are all affected by palatalisation from front vowels, producing the palatal fricative [ç].

ὒο				ἢστιμι
hýo				hḗstimi
/ˈhʉ̩.ɔ/	=	[ˈhʉ̩.ɔ]		/ˈheːs͎tɪmɪ/	→	[ˈçeːs͎tɪmɪ]
to leave .ind.m.				pride .f

Palatalisation

Palatalisation occurs due to two main factors:

• Internally: Front vowels tend to palatalise preceding consonants if the syllable is stressed.
  • C[-pal, -rhotic, -appr] → C[+pal, -rhotic, -appr] /_V[+front, +stress]_
• Externally: A final near-close near-front vowel, /ɪ/, palatalises the initial consonant of the following word.

All consonants but the rhotic trills and the labio-velar semivowel are affected.

Plain	/m/	/n/	/p	/t/	/k/	/b/	/d/	/g/	/pʰ/	/tʰ/	/kʰ/	/s/	/z/	/h/	/l/
Palatalised	[mɲ]	[ɲ]	[pj]	[t͡ʃ]	[c]	[bj]	[ɟ]	[ʝ]	[p]	[t]	[k]	[ʃ]	[ʒ]	[ç]	[ʎ]

ρἂκι				τή				ἢστιμι				τί κατεράσχοι
rā́ki				tḗ				hḗstimi?				tí kateráskhoi?
/ˈrakɪ/	→	[ˈracɪ]		/ˈteː/	→	[ˈt͡ʃeː]		/ˈheːs͎tɪmɪ/	→	[ˈçeːs͎tɪmɪ]		/ˈtɪ katɛˈraskʰɔɪ̯/	→	[ˈt͡ʃɪ catɛˈraskʰɔɪ̯]
root .in.gen				how				pride. .f.pat				Where did I write it?

Vowels

	Ptḗgna i rháki? Tān ptḗgi i khrísti! —Common Ris saying, Idioms and phrases in Ris: An analysis. pg. 34
	The saying The hollow triangle? Rather the Christmas tree! is a nationalist idiom which represents the Ris people's belief that their language is superior to their neighbours. This is due to their vowel inventory creating an image of either an hollow triangle, or a pine tree.

There are 7 vowel phonemes in the Ris language. In Ris, the system of vowels are known as ptḗgna i rháki - 'the hollow triangle', due to their symmetrical places of articulation.

Ris vowels

		Front	Near-front	Central	Near-back	Back
Close	short			y /ʉ/
	long			ȳ /ʉː/
Near-close	short		i /ɪ/		ou /ʊ/
	long		ī /ɪː/		ou /ʊː/
Close-mid		ē /eː/				ō /oː/
Mid
Open-mid		e /ɛ/				o /ɔ/
Near-open
Open	short			a /ä/
	long			ā /äː/

Orthography

Ris is primarily written in the Latin alphabet, but the original alphabet was in fact Greek. In its classical and modern form, the alphabet has 24 letters, ordered from alpha to omega; or ai mḗ otḗma in Ris. The below table shows the two alphabets and the Ris names for the letters, as well as the pronunciation in Standard Ris and the colloquial Ouis dialect.

Orthography
Greek		Latin		Pronunciation
				Ris	Ouis
Α α	άλπα	A a	ai	/a/
Β β	βήτα	B b	bou	/b/	/β/
Γ γ	γάμμα	G g	gou	/g/	/ɣ/
Δ δ	δέλτα	D d	da	/d/	/ð/
Ε ε	έψιλαν	E e	egnás	/ɛ/
Ζ ζ	ζήτα	Z z	za	/d͡z ~ d͡z͎ ~ z ~ z͎/
Η η	ήτα	Ē ē	etḗma	/eː/	/eɪ̯/
Θ θ	θήτα	Th th	tha	/tʰ/	/θ/
Ι ι	ιότα	I i	iou	/ɪ/
Κ κ	κάππα	K k	kau	/k/
Λ λ	λάπτα	L l	la	/l/
Μ μ	μύα	M m	ḗma	/m/
Ν ν	νύα	N n	ḗna	/n/
Ξ ξ	ξία	X x	ḗxa	/ks͎ ~ gz͎/
Ο ο	ομίκραν	O o	ognás	/ɔ/
Π π	πία	P p	pau	/p/
Ρ ρ	ρό	R r	ría	/r/	/ɹ/
'Ρ ῤ	ῤαυ	Rh rh	rhau	/r̥ʰ/	/r/
Σ σ ς	σίγμα	S s	sa	/s͎/
Τ τ	τάυ	T t	tau	/t/
Υ υ	ύψιλαν	Y y	hytḗma	/ʉ/	/ʏ/
Φ φ	φία	Ph ph	pha	/pʰ/	/f/
Χ χ	χία	Kh kh	kha	/kʰ/	/x/
Ψ ψ	ψία	Ps ps	ḗpsa	/ps͎/
Ω ω	ώμεγα	Ō ō	otḗma	/oː/	/oɪ̯/

Diacritics

The Ris alphabets, both the Latin and Greek one, use a few different diacritics to modify the pronunciation. There are five diacritics that mark the following:

• A stressed vowel in a syllable.
• A long vowel in a syllable.
• An aspirated vowel; preceded by /h/. Can also mark the phoneme /r̥ʰ/.
• A stressed, aspirated vowel.
• A long, aspirated vowel.

The use of aspiration here does not refer to the co-articulating process, but rather that the vowel is preceded by an /h/, a "glottal fricative".

Stressed vowels

Stressed vowels are marked with an acute accent, <´>, in the Latin script. In the Greek alphabet, the diacritic is the acute accent as well, only slightly different; <΄>. These mark that the syllable with the vowel is to be stressed, and thus articulated stronger, than other syllables.

File:Greek acute.png	File:Greek grave.png	File:Latin eta.png
Acute	Grave	Eta
File:Greek asper.png	File:Greek asper acute.png	File:Latin eta acute.png
Spiritus asper	Asper acute	Eta acute

Long vowels

Long vowels are vowels pronounced vowels articulated for a longer period of time. These get a grave accent in the Greek alphabet, <`>, and a macron in the Latin script, <¯>. Long vowels grave accent in the Greek script when stressed. In the Latin alphabet, however, the stressed long vowels get a second acute accent above the macron, <' ̄́'>.

As previously mentioned, all vowels can be long vowels, but there are two vowels that change their quality when elongated; the /ɛ/ and /ɔ/. These are raised to /eː/ and /oː/ respectively. In the Latin script these are marked as expected, <ē> and <ō>. However, in the Greek script, they are replaced by the letters eta <η> and omega <ω> respectively.

Aspiration

Aspiration, when a vowel is preceded by /h/, is marked by a so-called dasia in the Greek script, <῾>. In the Latin manner of style though, the letter <h> precedes the vowel, as it does phonetically.

In the Greek script, the dasia can be combined with the acute and grave accent, producing <῞> and <῝>.

The dasia can also be placed on the Greek ro sign, <ρ>. The pronunciation of <ῤ> becomes /r̥ʰ/, an aspirated voiceless alveolo-dental trill.

Morphology

Nominal

Declension

Declension of gýtē

Animate marked collective
ma.an	gýtē - fish
	singulative	dual-collective	plurative
Patientive	gýtē	gytḗn	gytḗr
Agentive	gytḗr	gytḗrne	gytḗra
Dative	gytḗs	gytḗnse	gytḗi
Instrumental	gytḗn	gytḗnne	gytḗs
Genitive	gýtēa	gýtēan	gytēái
Locative	gýtēia	gýtēian	gýtēiar
Vocative	gýta	gýtan	gytár

Samples

• thýo hā́ katḗrrazas
• tḗ rhánzatha
• gytḗra ouārathí ērikí
• inḗ gýtē mna.
• Atḗ, inḗ gytḗn ~ Atḗ, inḗ gýtē ne!