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. However, it went through vastly more sound changes than the Khulls branch, so although the superficial appearance is similar, lexical identities are few and the deep structure has been heavily reordered. Being west of Khulls, Tarise 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. The postalveolars č ǯ shifted to true palatals ć ǵ.
4. After a low (or long) tone, the voiceless aspirated stops p ṭ t tʷ ć k shifted to fricatives f þ s sʷ ś 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.
5. The voiced stops b ḍ d dʷ ǵ ġ shifted to v ð z zʷ ź 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.

6. 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.
7. The ejective stop ḳ changed to a plain k after a low tone.
8. The primordial labialized consonants sʷ nʷ shifted to postalveolars š ň. /hʷ/ became uvular.
9. All unstressed syllables became CV only, with no tones. Disappearing nasals (and probably other consonants) changed following fricatives into stops. (?)
10. 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.

11. The velar fricatives x g shifted to prevelars x⁺ g⁺ when not before /u/. This did not affect the inherited /h/, which was now postvelar.
12. Labialization was defeated on all consonants other than the velars and postvelars. However, even here, the contrast was also realized by having the labiovelars further back in the mouth.

    Since labialization backed the velars, it may have velarized some of the other consonants. Also, /hʷ/ may precipitate as p~h depending on tone rather than just /h/. It depends how the allophones developed.

13. The glottals /h Ø/ became [q ʔ] after a high tone, but this was not phonemic. The /h/ by this time was primarily uvular.
14. 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.

    Shown below as if /ḅ ḍ/ did not exist.

15. Affricate pronunciation of /f x h / was reverted for most speakers. Thus the only affricates remaining were voiced sounds and sibilants.
16. 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)    m̀
Dentals:          t     d  ṇ           ṇ̀
Alveolars:           s  z  n  l̀  l  ʒ  ǹ
Postalveolars:       š  ž        y  ǯ
Prevelars:           x⁺ g⁺
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.)

Daughter languages

Proto-Tarise (~1900) to Hawks' Nest Trail

This language is not likely to be the "cold" Tarise.

1. The voiced affricates ḅ ḍ shifted to the voiced fricatives v d unconditionally. (The "d" spelling is used instead of the "ð" because this language did not have a voiced stop there.) Therefore ð also comes to be spelled d. Therefore it's possible that it was a true stop even so.
2. The velars k g ŋ x ŋ̀ ḳ palatalized to ć y ń ś ʔń ć before an /i/ on any tone.
3. The postalveolars š ž ǯ became true palatals ś y ǵ before an /i/ on any tone.
4. In unstressed syllables, remaining u disappeared, forming consonant clusters. A yer-like rule prevented certain clusters from developing, but the epenthetic vowel was /i/, not /u/. Thus the language now distinguished only two vowels (/a i/) in unstressed syllables.
5. If two fricatives came together, the first one became a stop. Thus the stops p b t d q were created. (Preexisting ṭ ḍ were dentals.) Because of this rule, the affricate allophones of fricatives that appeared after high tones were reinterpreted as proper sequences. That is, for example, /-àš-/ came to be spelled /-àtš-/. The tone was still phonemic because new clusters had appeared that matched the forms that had previously been allophones of single sounds.
6. The glottalized nasals m̀ ṇ̀ ǹ ŋ̀ became p ṭ t k unconditionally.
7. Any fricative occurring after a nasal became a stop.

Other info

k˖ k⁺ k₊ k̟

k˖  k⁺  k₊   k̟

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.