User:Juhhmi/Pewu

Pewu (pe-u í'y) is a language whistled in the peninsula of Pewuty in northern Land of Rain. The language originates to forest hunting calls and shamanic singing rites, but it has remained in use while the people has entered an agricultural, civilized era.

Phonology

Description of the whistling sounds with approximated articulation. Pewu features overtone speaking aka simultaneously voicing with whistles and hisses.

Nucleus

Core sounds are classified into whistles and hisses according to their phonation. The length of a whistle or a hiss is also phonemic.

Whistles

Bilabial rounded whistles:

• Egressive voiceless: y /ɸẙ/, u /ɸʉ̥/
• Egressive voiced: vy (βy/, vu /βʉ/
  • Vocal chords (or vestibulars) vibrate while whistling
• Ingressive voiceless: -y /ɸẙ↓/, -u /ɸʉ̥↓/
  • Carries an innate pitch higher than egressive, but still distinguishes between tonal variations.
• Ingressive "voiced": -vy /ɸχy↓/, -vu /ɸχʉ↓/

Hisses

Labio-dental-alveolar egressive whistles:

• Voiceless: i /sf̞i̥/, e /sf̞ɨ̥/
• Voiced: zi /zʋi/, ze /zʋɨ/

Onset

Glottal stop ' /ʔ/ separates sounds.

Possible consonant-ejective whistle beginnings:

• q /q'/ with whistles only
• k /k'/ with both whistles and hisses
• c /c'/ with whistles only
• t /t'/ with whistles only
• p /p'/ with hisses only

Phonotactics

• Egressive whistles and hisses can't immediately follow each other, and they have to be separated by a plosive which often comes with an change into ingressive whistle.
• Voiced whistles and hisses can't be preceded by a plosive

Suprasegmental

Tones

Pewu language has six tones:

• Low: ỳ /ɸỳ/; [ɸy˩] or ingressive [↓˦]
• Medial (base): y /ɸy/; [ɸy˨] or [↓˦˥]
• High: ý /ɸý/; [ɸy˧] or [↓˥]
• Rising: y̌ /ɸy̌:/; [ɸy˩˧] or [↓˧˥]
• Falling: ŷ /ɸŷ:/; [ɸy˧˩] or [↓˥˦]
• Dipping: ỹ /ɸỹ:/; [ɸy˧˨˧] or [↓˥˦˥]

Tone sandhi

Level after another tone

1 low, 2 medial, 3 high, 13 rising, 31 falling, 323 dipping, + higher, - lower

After ejective consonants, shorter whistles:

• After q, lower whistle tones: 1-, 1, 1+, 1-2-, 2-1-, 2-1-2-
• After k, higher hiss tones

Morphophonology

• Egressive voiceless whistles are used mostly in nominals
  • Consonants are used in classifiers and for infixal derivation
    • "object-class of-wood-is table" = wooden table, "flat-class dirt-has table" = dirty surface, "massive-class spread table" = wide table-top mountain, ...
• Egressive voiced whistles appear in pronouns and sensory adjectives
• Ingressive voiceless whistles are used in adverbal affixes used for modifying both verbals and nominals and for derivation
• Ingressive voiced whistles appear in separate adpositions and conjunctions
• Voiceless hisses create stative verbal roots and adjectival words
  • Consonant addition gives rise to non-finite verb forms and numerals (headlike, eyelike, fingerlike, limblike and handlike numbers)
• Voiced hisses appear in dynamic verbs and in participative interjections