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{|border=1 align=right cellpadding=4 cellspacing=0 width=300 style="margin: 0 0 1em 1em; background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px #aaaaaa solid; border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 95%;"
{|border=1 cellpadding=4 cellspacing=0 width=50% class="bordertable" style="margin: 0 0 1em 1em; background: #f9f9f9; font-size: 95%; float: right;"
|colspan="2" bgcolor="#666666" align="center" |'''X-3'''
|colspan="2" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" align="center" | '''Quetch'''<br>'''''kʷətç'''''
|-
|-
|valign="top"|Spoken in:
|valign="top"|Spoken in:
||n.a.
|| nowhere
|-
|-
|valign="top"|Timeline/Universe:
|valign="top"|[[Conworld]]:
||n.a.
|| none
|-
|-
|valign="top"|Total speakers:
|valign="top"|Total speakers:
||n.a.
|| 0
|-
|-
|valign="top"|Genealogical classification:
|valign="top"|Genealogical classification:
||a priori experimental language
|| [[A priori conlang|a priori]] [[engineered language]]
|-
|-
|valign="top"|Basic word order:
|valign="top"|[[Basic word order]]:
||SVO
|| VSO
|-
|-
|valign="top"|Morphological type:
|valign="top"|[[Morphological type]]:
||agglutinating, polysynthetic
|| agglutinating; polysynthetic; [[Oligosynthetic language|oligosynthetic]]
|-
|-
|valign="top"|Morphosyntactic alignment:
|valign="top"|[[Morphosyntactic alignment]]:
||to be determined
|| active/stative
|-
|-
|colspan="2" bgcolor="#666666" align="center" |'''Created by:'''
|colspan="2" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" align="center" |'''Created by:'''
|-
|-
||[[User:WeepingElf|Jörg Rhiemeier]] ||2006
||[[User:WeepingElf|Jörg Rhiemeier]] ||2006-
|}
|}


'''X-3''' is an [[X-languages|experimental language]] by [[User:WeepingElf|Jörg Rhiemeier]].  It is a [[briefscript|speedtalk]]-style language with a huge phoneme inventory allowing for very short words - ''one phoneme per morpheme'', such that a word of three phonemes may contain an entire transitive clause.
'''Quetch''', also known as '''X-3''', is an [[X-languages|experimental language]] by [[User:WeepingElf|Jörg Rhiemeier]].  It is a [[speedtalk]]-style language with a huge phoneme inventory allowing for very short words - ''one phoneme per morpheme'', such that a word of three segments may contain an entire sentence.


<div class="boilerplate metadata" id="inuse" style="background: #cfc; border: 1px solid #aaa; margin: 0 2.5%; padding: 0 10px">
"Quetch" is an anglicization of the language's "native" name, '''kʷətç''', which means 'language of small time', 'speedtalk'.
<font size="3">'''This article is currently undergoing a major edit.'''</font><br />
'''The contents are incomplete and in need of elaboration and/or change!'''<br/>
As a courtesy, please do not make edits to this article while this message is displayed, in order to avoid [[Wikipedia:Edit conflict|edit conflicts]].  If you need to know who is working on the article and when the edit session began, please check the [{{SERVER}}{{localurl:{{NAMESPACE}}:{{PAGENAME}}|action=history}} edit history][[Template:Inuse|.]]
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==Phonology==
In Quetch, each morpheme is just one segment long.  The only exceptions are ''proper names'' which can be of any length and are enclosed in glottal stops (which otherwise do not occur in the language).  To keep the number of phonemes to a finite value, the language is [[Oligosynthetic language|oligosynthetic]].  It is planned to base the root vocabulary on that of [[Toki Pona]].  Concepts not in the root vocabulary are expressed by compounding.


The phoneme inventory of X-3 is very large: it contains several hundred consonants, 100 vowels and four tones, which means that there are as many as 40,000 CV syllables.
The purpose of Quetch is to test the proposition of [[Speedtalk]] that a more rapid communication can be achieved by building a language in which every root morpheme is just one segment long.  The plan is to build a speedtalk-type language, translate texts into it, measure the lengths of the original and the translation, and compare the results.


===Vowels===
There is some reason to doubt that an actual "speeding up" would be achieved: the brevity of the morphemes is certainly to some measure cancelled out by the larger number of morphemes needed because many concepts other languages have root words for need to be expressed by multi-member compounds due to the oligosynthetic nature of the language.


There are 10 basic vowel qualities:
==Morphology==


{|
There are two classes of morphemes: ''lexical'' and ''grammatical'' morphemes.  ''Lexical morphemes'' function as content words: nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, also pronouns.  A lexical morpheme either consists of a single consonantal segment, or is a ''proper name''.  Proper names consist of a sequence of one or more segments of any kind ''except'' glottal stops, which is enclosed by two glottal stops.  Examples of proper names are '''ʔaʔ''', '''ʔjœrgɣimajɚʔ''', '''ʔkʷətçʔ'''.  Further content words can be made from lexical morphemes by compounding.  Compounds are head-initial.  Example: '''kʷətç''', which consists of the lexical morphemes '''''' 'to speak; language', '''t''' 'time' and '''ç''' 'small', put together: 'language of small time, speedtalk' (the '''ə''' is just a pronunciation aid).  ''Grammatical morphemes'' express relations between content words. They function as prepositions or case markers, and conjunctions. A grammatical morpheme consists of a single vowel.
|| ||Front<br>unrounded||Front<br>rounded||Back<br>unrounded||Back<br>rounded
|-
||High ||'''i'''||'''ü'''||'''&iuml;'''||'''u'''
|-
||Mid ||'''e'''||'''ö'''||'''&euml;'''||'''o'''
|-
||Low ||'''ä'''|| ||'''a'''||
|}
 
Each of these ten vowels can be ''plain'', ''rhotacized'' (as in American English ''her''), ''lateralized'' (pronounced with the sides of the tongue lowered, as if pronouncing the vowel and [l] at the same time), or can form a ''diphthong'' with either an ''i-offglide'' or an ''u-offglide''.  Each of these 50 vowels can furthermore be ''nasalized'', making for a total of 100 vowel phonemes.
 
===Tones===
 
There are four tones in X-3: ''high'', ''low'', ''rising'' and ''falling''.
 
==Morphology and syntax==
 
In X-3, each morpheme consists of a single phoneme.  ''Nouns'' and ''pronouns'' consist of a single consonant, ''verbs'', ''prepositions'' and a small number of other particles consist of a single vowel with distinctive tone.  There are no derivational or inflectional affixes.


A word in X-3 contains an entire clause.  Morpheme order is SVO.  Thus, in a word such as '''bat''', '''b''' would be the subject, '''a''' the verb and '''t''' the object.
[[Category: Conlangs]]
[[Category: Engelangs]]
[[Category: Kitchen sink conlangs]]

Latest revision as of 10:31, 8 January 2014

Quetch
kʷətç
Spoken in: nowhere
Conworld: none
Total speakers: 0
Genealogical classification: a priori engineered language
Basic word order: VSO
Morphological type: agglutinating; polysynthetic; oligosynthetic
Morphosyntactic alignment: active/stative
Created by:
Jörg Rhiemeier 2006-

Quetch, also known as X-3, is an experimental language by Jörg Rhiemeier. It is a speedtalk-style language with a huge phoneme inventory allowing for very short words - one phoneme per morpheme, such that a word of three segments may contain an entire sentence.

"Quetch" is an anglicization of the language's "native" name, kʷətç, which means 'language of small time', 'speedtalk'.

In Quetch, each morpheme is just one segment long. The only exceptions are proper names which can be of any length and are enclosed in glottal stops (which otherwise do not occur in the language). To keep the number of phonemes to a finite value, the language is oligosynthetic. It is planned to base the root vocabulary on that of Toki Pona. Concepts not in the root vocabulary are expressed by compounding.

The purpose of Quetch is to test the proposition of Speedtalk that a more rapid communication can be achieved by building a language in which every root morpheme is just one segment long. The plan is to build a speedtalk-type language, translate texts into it, measure the lengths of the original and the translation, and compare the results.

There is some reason to doubt that an actual "speeding up" would be achieved: the brevity of the morphemes is certainly to some measure cancelled out by the larger number of morphemes needed because many concepts other languages have root words for need to be expressed by multi-member compounds due to the oligosynthetic nature of the language.

Morphology

There are two classes of morphemes: lexical and grammatical morphemes. Lexical morphemes function as content words: nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, also pronouns. A lexical morpheme either consists of a single consonantal segment, or is a proper name. Proper names consist of a sequence of one or more segments of any kind except glottal stops, which is enclosed by two glottal stops. Examples of proper names are ʔaʔ, ʔjœrgɣimajɚʔ, ʔkʷətçʔ. Further content words can be made from lexical morphemes by compounding. Compounds are head-initial. Example: kʷətç, which consists of the lexical morphemes 'to speak; language', t 'time' and ç 'small', put together: 'language of small time, speedtalk' (the ə is just a pronunciation aid). Grammatical morphemes express relations between content words. They function as prepositions or case markers, and conjunctions. A grammatical morpheme consists of a single vowel.