Dialects of Rokadong

Template:See also Rokadong, being a language spoken across many natural barriers, has a large number of dialects. The official dialect of the Quill Kingdom, from which the language originates, is called Pahang, but there are many other important dialects, organized into three broad varieties: Continental, Coastal, and Oceanic. Inter-dialectal intelligibility is relatively high within varieties, and while speakers of each variety have more difficulty understanding speakers of the other two varieties, their language is still generally intelligible, so it is considered one language for all intents and purposes.

Geography

"Continental" refers to the dialects of Rokadong spoken in the interior of Quillan and northern Graphine. This variety is sometimes divided into Northern Continental and Southern Continental, for those in Quillan and Graphine respectively.

"Coastal" refers to the dialects of Rokadong spoken on the west coast of Quillan and in the Rokasela archipelago. This variety is considered ancestral to the other two, due to Oceanic Rokadong having a larger degree of semantic drift and Continental Rokadong having a larger degree of loaning from other languages. The Pahang and Puram dialects are both considered Coastal, though Puram Rokadong is more similar to continental Rokadong dialects than Pahang Rokadong is.

"Oceanic" refers to the dialects of Rokadong spoken by settlers of islands mostly to the west of Quillan. This is the most divergent variety from Old Rokadong of the three. It is thought that Kairitelan and Rokadong started to diverge around the same time as Oceanic and Coastal Rokadong, which would make it the most divergent "dialect" of Rokadong.

Overview of dialects

The following table lists a few dialects of each variety of Rokadong, and their common characteristics. A detailed description of each quality follows the table. A "+" indicates that the dialect has the trait. A "-" indicates that the dialect does not have the trait. A "~" indicates that the dialect has the trait, but under limited circumstances.

Characteristics of Rokadong dialects

	Coastal			Continental			Oceanic
	Pahang	Puram	Tatara	Tishakuwil	Karítatana	Sainatana	Kihiteláh	Ahoteláh	Lerabteláh
[s θ] merger completion (shuzasá)	-	+	-	+	~	+	-	-	+
[u] unrounding	-	-	+	-	-	-	+	+	+
final /a/ raising	+	-	+	+	-	-	+	+	+
nonfinal /a/ raising	-	-	-	+	-	-	-	+	+
/ɾ/ approximation (karará)	-	~	-	~	+	+	-	-	-
/ɾ/ lengthening (gantará)	~	-	~	~	~	-	~	+	+
loss of inter-heterovocalic /h/	+	+	+	+	+	~	+	-	~
loss of /h/	-	-	-	-	+	-	+	-	-
disyllabic reduction	-	-	~	-	-	-	~	+	+

Dialectal variations

Tékuhasá and shuzasá

Sá is the name of the Rokadong letter for /s/ (S), though generally, this variation type also applies to its voiced counterpart /z/. In dialects with tékuhasá ("all S"), both major allophones of sá are present - that is, [s θ]. In Old Rokadong, these were separate phonemes, but they have since become one phoneme. For /z/, the equivalent phones are [z ð]. If only the sibilant phone of each is present, then the dialect has shuzasá (snake S).

Generally, shuzasá is the condition of Continental Rokadong and eastern Coastal Rokadong, while the other dialects have tékuhasá, but it is not quite that cut and dry.

In coastal Rokadong, tékuhasá is relatively simple - the sibilant allophones [s z] are used in the onset, while the non-sibilant allophones [θ ð] are used in the coda. Coda /s z/ may be in free variation, but this is still described as tékuhasá.

While continental Rokadong generally is shuzasá, Karítatana Rokadong differs in that final [θ] is maintained, but not final [ð], or either non-sibilant word-medially.

In oceanic Rokadong, the two pairs of allophones are usually in free variation, not following the phonotactical rules of coastal Rokadong. Kihiteláh Rokadong speakers, for example, regularly use the non-sibilant in the suffix -sona, despite the /s/ in that suffix being an onset. Lerabteláh Rokadong, on the other hand, takes the relatively radical approach of merging all four phones, using [s] intervocalically and adjacent to unvoiced consonants, and [z] adjacent to voiced consonants.

Disyllabic reduction

Dialects with this sound change are characterized by removing the first vowel of the sequence /CVCV/, where each C and each V are the same, for at least one consonant. However, it is not reduced at the beginning of a word, though in some dialects the first V is instead epenthesized with the first C. Either way, the result is a geminate consonant /(V)CːV/.

However, Lerabtelah is unique in that the sequence /kukV/ also is reduced for any V, not just /u/, and in that /l ɾ/ are considered the same phoneme for this sound change, turning any combination of those two consonants into [r], much as with Pahang Rokadong /lɾ ɾl/.

Disyllabic reduction is rarely written orthographically, though it can be specified using the coda glottal stop letter ', which phonetically creates geminate plosives even in dialects without this sound change, in place of the first consonant and its diacritic.

In order, the most common consonants this change can apply to are /k t s p ʃ ɾ l f/. Only one needs to be present for the dialect to be said to exhibit disyllabic reduction. This sound change can occasionally happen in dialects not said to exhibit disyllabic reduction due to talking speed and/or prosody - a dialect is said to have disyllabic reduction only if this sound change is applied for slow and/or careful speech.

Interestingly, free variation tékuhasa dialects rarely apply both that sound change and disyllabic reduction on the same sequence - that is, [sː] is more common than [θː].