Ris
- πρανάσση, ἄι ουαθά πανἂννη!
- pranássē, hai ouathá panā́nnē!
- Remember: You walk with your feet!
| Ris | |
|---|---|
| Rhánzi ris | |
 | |
| Pronunciation | [/ˈ/] |
| Created by | – |
| Native to | Italy, Cyprus; Sicily |
| Native speakers | 301,486 (2012) |
Menmer languages
| |
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 and orthography
Consonants
The following is the inventory of consonants in the Ris language. There are 18 contrastive 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/.
| ἒτρο | ||||
| hétro | ||||
| /ˈhɛtrɔ/ | = | /ˈxɛtrɔ/ | = | /ˈçɛtrɔ/ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 | |||||
| /ˈhʏ̩.ɔ/ | → | [ˈçʏ̩.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.
- 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 cat͡ʃɛˈraskʰɔɪ̯] | |||
| root .in.gen | how | pride. .f.pat | Where did I write it? | |||||||||||
Phonological processes
Vowels
There are 10 vowel phonemes in the Hrasic language. In addition to these, the open mid-back unrounded vowel, /ʌ/, is an allophone of /ɑ/.
| Front | Near-front | Central | Near-back | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close | é /i/ | í /ɨ/ | ú /ɯ/ | ||
| Near-close | i /ɪ/ | u /ʊ/ | |||
| Close-mid | |||||
| Mid | e /ə/ | ||||
| Open-mid | ó /ɞ/ | a /ʌ/ · o /ɔ/ | |||
| Near-open | á /æ/ | ||||
| Open | a /ɑ/ |
Morphology
Nominal
Declension
| 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!