Tsakxa

Tsakxa (IPA: [tʃɑkǃa]) is a language isolate, or dialect continuum, spoken by the Tsakxa people of central Siberia.

Phonology

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close			u
Mid	e
Open		a

Allophony

Vowel allophony is not very advanced in most Tsakxa dialects. Before the dental click, /e/ is usually realised as allophonic [ɤ] in stressed syllables or [ɘ] in unstressed syllables and /a/ as, almost universally, [ɑ].

Consonants

Tsakxa is most notable for its system of clicks, which are otherwise unknown outside of the continent of Africa and the ritual languages of Australia. Its click system is not particularly advanced, however.

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	[m] <n>	[n] <n> [nǀ] <nx>			[ŋ] <ng> [ŋǃ] <ngx> [ŋǀ] <ngq>
Plosive	[p] <p>	[t] <t>			[k] <k> [kǃ] <kx> [ǀk] <kq>	[ʔ] <ʔ>
Fricative	[f] <f>	[s] <s>	[ʃ] <sh>		[ç]	[h] <h>
Approximant		[l] <l>		[j] <y>	[w] <w>
Trill			[r] <r>;

Grammar

Tsakxa is an agglutinative, topic-prominent language with active alignment.

Nouns

Main article: Tsakxa nouns

Tsakxa nouns are inflected by number into singular, dual and plural and, it is sometimes argued, for case (there are a large number of morphemes analysed variously as clitics and case inflection).

Verbs

Main article: Tsakxa verbs

Tsakxa verbs are inflected for aspect and mood. Certain verbs can also inflect, to a very restricted degree, to show person, but this is non-productive, erratic and irregular.

Lexicon and derivative morphology

Main article: Tsakxa lexicon