Tarise

The Tarise language can refer to either of two distantly related languages, both spoken in the state of Taryte.

Gold Tarise

Gold Tarise was an independent branch of the Gold family with only one member. It was spoken in the Gold Empire, having split off from its parent language around the year 1700 AD. (Seven thousand years ago.) Although the majority of Taryteans were loyal to the Gold Empire, the state of Taryte produced several independence movements, and uprisings within Taryte repeatedly attempted to overthrow their Gold masters. When these failed, a group of Taryteans decided to invade the Gold stronghold of Subumpam. Here they were put into slavery, but were eventually freed and became a welcome minority within Subumpam.

Sak Tarise

see [1].

Phonology

The phonology of Tarise is fairly conservative, resembling that of the Gold language from which it originated. Being west of Khulls, it shares none of the common traits of the languages spoken to the north and east of Khulls, but shares some traits with Khulls itself.

The consonant inventory was:

                       BASIC                             LABIALIZED  
Bilabials:             p   b   m   f   v  (w)            bʷ  mʷ  fʷ  vʷ  w  
Dentals:               ṭ   ḍ   ṇ       ḷ                 ḍʷ  ṇʷ          ḷʷ
Alveolars:             t   d   n       l             tʷ  dʷ  nʷ          lʷ
Postalveolars:         č   ǯ           y                 ǯʷ    
Velars:                k   ġ   ŋ   h   g       ḳ         ġʷ  ŋʷ  hʷ  gʷ
 

Unlike Fojy, the tone of one syllable was not predictable from the syllable before it: two low tones could occur in a row, and there were more than two tones. Thus, in the sound change list below, descriptions like "after a high tone" are defined narrowly, rather than, for example, also applying before a low tone.

Pre-Tarise to Proto-Tarise

1. After a long tone, all voiceless sounds became voiced. This change had happened earlier in Gold but was not fully extended to all positions because of variable stress and word boundaries; here the change became generalized.
2. The voiced velar fricative g disappeared.
3. After a low (or long) tone, the voiceless aspirated stops p ṭ t tʷ č k shifted to fricatives f þ s sʷ š x. This did not affect emphatics. After a high tone, these sounds were pronounced as /pf ṭ c č k/, but the spelling of the fricatves was used here. Thus Tarise lost phonemic /p t/ entirely.
4. The voiced stops b ḍ d dʷ ǯ ġ shifted to v ð z zʷ ž g. The same change also affected the labialized forms: bʷ ḍʷ dʷ ǯʷ ġʷ became vʷ ðʷ zʷ žʷ gʷ. All but the velars had affricate allophones.

   Note that Tarise does not have the /b/>/d/ shift that characterized Gold, and therefore both /b/ and /d/ occurred frequently in the proto-language.

5. After a high tone, the sonorants m ṇ n ŋ l shifted to m̀ ṇ̀ ǹ ŋ̀ l̀ (glottalized). The palatal glide y changed to ž in the same environment.
6. The ejective stop ḳ changed to a plain k after a low tone.
7. The primordial labialized consonants sʷ nʷ shifted to postalveolars š ň. /hʷ/ became uvular.
8. All unstressed syllables became CV only, with no tones. Disappearing nasals (and probably other consonants) changed following fricatives into stops. (?)
9. The schwa vowel ə changed to u after a labialized consonant, and to i otherwise.

   Alternate idea: /ai au/ > /ə/, high tone always. The main problem here is that the original schwa was a high vowel, and these would be mid.

10. Labialization was defeated. It may have velarized some of the consonants. Also, /hʷ/ may precipitate as p~h depending on tone rather than just /h/. It depends how the allophones developed.
11. The glottals /h Ø/ became [q ʔ] after a high tone, but this was not phonemic. The /h/ by this time was primarily uvular.
12. The long falling tone vowels ā ī ū became high tone à ì ù unconditionally. They did not acquire glottalization; therefore the previously allophonic glottalization of the high tone now became phonemic. This also introduced new voiced phonemes from what had previously been allophones: the fricatives v ð z ž became new sounds ḅ ḍ ʒ ǯ after *what had been* the high (glottalized) tone, since a new high tone had mergedw ith it.
13. Affricate pronunciation of /f x h Ø/ was reverted for most speakers. Thus the only affricates remaining were voiced sounds and sibilants.
14. h was raised to a uvular when after a high tone, in some speakers merging with /x/.

The consonant inventory at this time was:

Labials:             f  v  m    (Ø) ḅ  m̀
Dentals:          ṭ     ð  ṇ        ḍ  ṇ̀
Alveolars:           s  z  n  l̀  l  ʒ  ǹ
Postalveolars:       š  ž        y  ǯ
Velars:           k  x  g  ŋ           ŋ̀  ḳ   
Postvelars:          h

The consonants in the right most columns could only occur after high tones, and could not have preceding consonants. Thus they could be analyzed as clusters, but *not* as allophones. The dental stop /ṭ/ was [þ] in some environments.

There were three vowels: /a i u/, on two tones. A vowel could be followed by /i/ or /u/, even if another consonant was in the coda. (Unless /u/ + conso was removed when labialization was.)

Other info

Culture and demographics

Khulls speakers often divided the peoples around them into two groups. Those living to the north and east, such as the Pabaps, the Repilians, and the Thaoa, were considered too soft and submissive to be fully human. The Khulls speakers pointed out that even though these people had diverse languages, all of them lacked "sharp sounds" such as ejectives and seemed incapable of sounding aggressive. Pabappa had not yet acquired its modern "baby talk" sound, but it had lost its ejective consonants early on. Pabappa, indeed, at this time resembled Thaoa with all /l/ shifted to /w/.

By contrast, the people living to the south and west of the Khulls speakers were considered too stupid and violent to be truly human. Their languages were harsh and guttural, full of ejective consonants and other stereotypically sharp sounds such as /k/ and /t/, but with relatively few "nice" sounds to balance them out. Thus, the Khulls speakers said, the Tarise were too quick to resort to violence, and should be approached only with caution. The Tarise people accepted this stereotype, and promised each other that they would outgrow and subdue the Khulls people even as the Khulls people preyed upon the "soft" people all along their northern border.