Re: Odd natlang features thread
Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2014 4:33 am
är, ehr > aˁː
er > oˁ
as far as I can tell.
er > oˁ
as far as I can tell.
Not so much. According some analyses, Spanish also contrasts /j/ and nonsyllabic /i/.Dē Graut Bʉr wrote:That's quite weird.
Fixed. (If it were a contrast with syllabic /i/, why would I bother bringing it up?)Dē Graut Bʉr wrote:Porphyrogenitos seemed to be talking about a contrast between /j/ and non-syllabic /i/ though.
Are you sure that those are rising diphthongs and not falling, i.e. are you sure that they're /i̯a u̯a/ and not /ia̯ ua̯/? The Wikipedia article doesn't actually say that they are /i̯a/ and /u̯a/, it simply writes /ia/ and /ua/. It does say that they pattern with long vowels which I believe is more common for falling diphthongs.Porphyrogenitos wrote:I'm not sure how weird this is, so I'll post it here for confirmation.
In Menominee, /i̯a/ and /u̯a/ are constrative with /ja/ and /wa/.
Meanwhile, the other language in the family, Chemakum, did not have any velars - though it did have labiovelars, plain and labial uvulars, and glottals.Quileute features an interesting prefix system that changes depending on the physical characteristics of the person being spoken to. When speaking to a cross-eyed person, [ƛ-] is prefixed to each word. When speaking to a hunchback, the prefix /c̀-/ is used. Additional prefixes are also used for short men (/s-/), "funny people" (/čk/), and people that have difficulty walking (/čχ̣/).
Are we sure that the last speakers weren't just pulling the legs of the linguists documenting the language?Porphyrogenitos wrote:Well, it turns out the Chimakuan languages (all two of them) are an odd bunch. Quileute has a very curious morphological feature:
Quileute features an interesting prefix system that changes depending on the physical characteristics of the person being spoken to. When speaking to a cross-eyed person, [ƛ-] is prefixed to each word. When speaking to a hunchback, the prefix /c̀-/ is used. Additional prefixes are also used for short men (/s-/), "funny people" (/čk/), and people that have difficulty walking (/čχ̣/).
Haha, I don't know. Odd little socio-morpho-phonological features like that don't seem terribly uncommon among Native American languages. For example, Natchez has a special register used when pretending to be a cannibal:hwhatting wrote:Are we sure that the last speakers weren't just pulling the legs of the linguists documenting the language?Porphyrogenitos wrote:Well, it turns out the Chimakuan languages (all two of them) are an odd bunch. Quileute has a very curious morphological feature:
Quileute features an interesting prefix system that changes depending on the physical characteristics of the person being spoken to. When speaking to a cross-eyed person, [ƛ-] is prefixed to each word. When speaking to a hunchback, the prefix /c̀-/ is used. Additional prefixes are also used for short men (/s-/), "funny people" (/čk/), and people that have difficulty walking (/čχ̣/).
Traditionally the Natchez had certain stories that could only be told during the winter time, and many of these stories revolved around the theme of cannibalism. Protagonists in such stories would encounter cannibals, trick cannibals, marry the daughters of cannibals, kill cannibals, and be eaten by cannibals. In these stories Natchez storytellers would employ a special speech register when impersonating the cannibal characters. This register was distinct from ordinary Natchez by substituting several morphemes and words for others.
In this example the standard optative prefix -ʔa- is exchanged for the cannibal register optative prefix -ka-
kapiʃkʷãː
ka-pi-ʃkʷ-aː-n
first.person.optative.(cannibal)-pl-eat-incompletive-phrasal.termination
"Let us [cannibals] eat him!"
Mithun gives a few pages for this in The Languages of Native North America and writes that when telling stories in the languages especially around the NW Coast area storytellers adopt a variety of different speech effects when doing the lines of certain legendary characters. She also includes Quileute in the examples though talks about different modifications for it than what you did and doesn't mention anything about modifications based on the addressee. Here are just some quotes from pp. 274-5 in the book:Porphyrogenitos wrote:Haha, I don't know. Odd little socio-morpho-phonological features like that don't seem terribly uncommon among Native American languages. For example, Natchez has a special register used when pretending to be a cannibal
Sapir reports that the Nootka culture hero Kwátiyaˑt typically inserts χ after the first vowel of a word ... Raven inserts -čχ- into words. Deer and Mink replace all sibilants with laterals (as one does for persons with defects of the eye).
(The same shift /m n/ > /b d/ happened at least in Makah, Ditidaht, Lushootseed and the Chimakuan languages causing them some extent of lack of nasals.)In Quileute mythological beings and animals also have distinctive speech. The culture hero Q'ǽtiˑ prefixes sx- to every word; Raven prefixes š-; Raven's wife prefixes c- and shifts d and l to n, and b to m ... Deer prefixes ƛk- to every word and shifts all sibilants to laterals. In Lushootseed Raven replaces b and d with corresponding nasals m and n. This pattern reverses a sound shift in Lushootseed whereby original nasals were replaced by the voiced stops.
Coyote's use of inappropriate vocabulary, distorted or nonsense speech, and special forms appears all over the West. He shifts s to š in Coeur d'Alene, s to š and n to l in Nez Perce, s to xʲ in Kutenai, infixes ʎ in Cocopa and Yuma, and suffixes -pai in Shoshone and -ajakʲ Chemehuevi.
Sapir reported that in Takelma the prefix sˑ- typically occurs in the speech of Coyote and ł- in the speech of Grizzly Bear.
Did Raven's wife have a cold?gach wrote:(The same shift /m n/ > /b d/ happened at least in Makah, Ditidaht, Lushootseed and the Chimakuan languages causing them some extent of lack of nasals.)Raven's wife prefixes c- and shifts d and l to n, and b to m ...
Probably was just a nagging conservative fed up with a misbehaving husband.alynnidalar wrote:Did Raven's wife have a cold?
This is awesome!!!Porphyrogenitos wrote:Well, it turns out the Chimakuan languages (all two of them) are an odd bunch. Quileute has a very curious morphological feature:
Quileute features an interesting prefix system that changes depending on the physical characteristics of the person being spoken to. When speaking to a cross-eyed person, [ƛ-] is prefixed to each word. When speaking to a hunchback, the prefix /c̀-/ is used. Additional prefixes are also used for short men (/s-/), "funny people" (/čk/), and people that have difficulty walking (/čχ̣/).
Notably, the same source mentions that the -čχ- morpheme in Nootka is also used when referring to greedy people, and that Raven, as portrayed in Nootka mythology, was noted for being a glutton. I'd guess that the morpheme, and probably many or all of the other Chimakuan speech patterns marking individual traits, emerged first in storytelling and were subsequently adopted into everyday speech, which is really cool. Kind of reminds me of Darmok... and suddenly I'm tempted to make a conlang with a whole set or morphemes used solely for making literary allusions.gach wrote:Sapir reports that the Nootka culture hero Kwátiyaˑt typically inserts χ after the first vowel of a word ... Raven inserts -čχ- into words. Deer and Mink replace all sibilants with laterals (as one does for persons with defects of the eye).