A note: I am honestly baffled as to how to transcribe some of the allophony, so I made up my own system. If you want to help me standardize it or if you are confused, please speak up!
South Eresian is a language in the Noro-Eresian family, which is spread throughout the Eresian Islands and a large part of eastern and southern Norua and includes languages such as Washar and Onostrian. It is part of the Eresian subfamily, the most notable other member of which is called Pirqharat or North Eresian. South Eresian, as is evident from its name, is spoken primarily in the southern Eresian Islands. Its internal name is T'antapi.
I will largely be talking about the Tlaqoyan dialect, which is generally considered the standard language and is spoken in Tlaqoya (a city in the southeast) and surrounding areas, especially by the educated. I will mention other dialects occasionally, but for simplicity's sake will mostly stick to Tlaqoyan.
So without further ado...
Phoneme Inventory:
Code: Select all
labial alveolar palatal velar uvular glottal
nasal m n
plosive p p' t t' k k' q q' ʔ
fricative s ʃ
approximant w l j
affricate ts ts' tʃ tʃ'
l. affricate tɬ tɬ'
tap ɾ
Code: Select all
i
e o
a
Many things are written as in IPA, but many are not. Here is a description of how it varies from IPA.
Simple variations:
/ʔ/ -> <h>
/ʃ/ -> <x>
/j/ -> <y>
/ts/ -> <z>
/ts'/ -> <z'>
/tʃ/ -> <ch>
/tʃ'/ -> <ch'>
/tɬ/ -> <tl>
/tɬ'/ -> <tl'>
/ɾ/ -> <r>
Complex variations:
/w/ -> <v> word-initially and intervocalically, <u> elsewhere.
/k/ -> <qu> before /i e/, <c> elsewhere.
/k'/ -> <q'u> before /i e/, <c'> elsewhere.
The sequence /qw/ is rare and only occurs at morpheme boundaries, where it is written <qü> before /i e/.
Stressed vowels are written with acute accents.
Phonotactics:
It is not quite possible to sum up South Eresian phonotactics with a simple syllable structure, but it is basically CVC. More specifically, the consonants can be put into two overlapping groups of phonemes that occur syllable-initially and phonemes that occur syllable-finally. Please note that in practice, many of these sounds do not actually occur in these positions, but this is governed by allophony. There is another group consisting of clusters that only occur medially within morphemes, which I will list here as Medial.
Initial: m n p p' t t' k k' q q' ʔ s ʃ w l j ts ts' tʃ tʃ' tɬ tɬ' ɾ pɾ kw k'w
Medial: (all Initial), ʔm ʔn mp mp' nt nt' nk nk' nq nq' nts nts' ntʃ ntʃ' ntɬ ntɬ' mpɾ nkw nk'w st st' sk sk' stɬ stɬ' skw sk'w ʃt ʃt' ʃk ʃk' ʃtɬ ʃtɬ' ʃkw ʃk'w lt lt' lk lk' lts lts' ltʃ ltʃ' lkw lk'w
Final: m n p t k q ʔ s ʃ w l j ts tʃ tɬ ɾ nw tw kw qw ʔw lw jw ɾw
The final internal morpheme structure is ultimately (I)V(MV)(F), with (MV) potentially occurring numerous times, and words can consist of this morpheme structure repeated numerous times with actual realizations governed by the allophony listed below.
Allophony:
All the allophonic rules are in a random order. I will fix them in the morning when I can think.
For the sake of simplicity, please assume that in all cases, unless otherwise marked, if a rule applies to a nonejective plosive or affricate, it applies to its ejective counterpart. These are the categories I will use so this section doesn't fill up the universe:
P = plosive: p p' t t' k k' q q' ʔ
A = affricate: ts ts' tʃ tʃ' tɬ tɬ'
T = P and A
Y = glide: y w
F = fricative: s ʃ
L = liquid: l ɾ
S = F and L
N = nasal: m n
When something is marked with a superscript number, that means that it is at the same PoA as other things marked with the same number within the rule and not at the same PoA as things marked with a different number.
Vowels:
/a/ -> [ɑ] / [+uvular / +glottal]_, _[+uvular / +glottal], _#, [+stress]
/e [-stress]/ -> [ɛ] / [+uvular / +glottal]_, _[+uvular / +glottal]
/o [-stress]/ -> [ɔ] / [+uvular / +glottal]_, _[+uvular / +glottal]
/i/ -> [ɪ] / [+uvular / +glottal]_, _[+uvular / +glottal]
/ow/ ->
/ij/ ->
/j/ -> 0 / tʃ_, ʃ_, _i
/aw ew/ -> [o] / (-stress)
/aj/ -> [e] / (-stress)
/ej/ -> / (-stress)
Consonants:
/ɾ/ -> [l] / _C(-Y), _#
/A/ -> [S] / _C(-Y)
/[+alveolar]j/ -> [+palatal]
/nT1/ -> [N1T1]
/mT1/ -> [N1T1w]
/w/ -> 0 / (+labial)_
/C:/ -> [C]
/P/ -> 0 / _T
/F1A2/ -> [F2]*
/F1F2/ -> [F2]
/F1A'2/ -> [A2]*
/ʔT Tʔ/ -> [T']
/m n/ -> [ŋ] / _#
/S1S2/ -> [S2A2]
/w/ -> 0 / C_#, C_C
*Note that these rules only apply if the original affricate has a corresponding fricative: /tɬ/ corresponds to the liquid /l/ (and to /ɾ/ to an extent), and clusters of /Ftɬ/ remain unchanged. Thus, /ˈmolas/ + /tɬaˈliʔ/ -> [molastɬaˈlɪʔ] <molastlalíh>, but /molas/ + /ˈtʃen/ -> [molaˈʃeŋ] <molaxén>.
(Nonejective) plosives and affricates are aspirated at the beginning of stressed syllables. Vowels following ejectives are always stressed; this is notable for being the only situation in which two stressed syllables can occur in a word.