Shitullian

Shitullian Śitaall
Pronounced:	Native: /ʃi.təːʟ/ Anglicized: /ʃiː.tʌl.i.ən/
Timeline and Universe:	Alternate Earth
Species:	Human
Spoken:	Carnassus
Writing system:	"Abugida"
Genealogy:	Language Isolate
Typology
Morphological type:	Somewhat Isolating
Morphosyntactic alignment:	Ergative-Absolutive
Basic word order:	Typically VSO
Credits
Creator:	Thrice Xandvii | ✎
Created:	January 2014

Phonology

Śituul has 21 consonants and 7 distinct vowels (if you include the syllabic rhotic). It also has a system that was once phonemic tone, but is now most commonly seen as combination of phonational qualities and vowel lengths.

Consonants

	Labial	Coronal	"Palatal"	Dorsal
Nasal	m /m/	n /n/	ń /ɲ/	ŋ (ng) /ŋ/
Plosive	b /b/	t /t/		k /k/
		d /d/		g /g/
Fricative	ϕ (v) /β/ ~ [ɸ]	s /s/	ś /ʃ/	h /x/
		z /z/	ź /ʒ/
Affricate	pϕ (bv) /b͜β/ ~ [p͜ɸ]	ts /t͜s/	tś /t͜ʃ/
		dz /d͜z/	dź /d͜ʒ/
Approximant		l /ɺ/ ~ [ʟ]

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	ı (i) /i/	a /ə/	u /ɯ/
Middle	e /e/		o /ɔ/
Low	ạ /æ/ ~ [a]

	Syllabic
Approximant	ŗ (r) /ɹ̩/ ~ [ɚ]

Tones

	Level	Falling	Dipping
Tone	a /ə/ ~ [ə˦]	â /ə̰/ ~ [ə˥˩]	aa /əː/ ~ [ə˨˩˦]

Tones in Shitullian are not always rendered strictly as tone. Some speakers use length and different phonation qualities to render the same phonemic distinctions for which others would use more traditional tonal contours. Falling tone (which may also be a low tone in some dialects), when pronounced this way, is seen as a creaky-voiced phonation while the dipping tone would exist as increased vowel length with no presence of tone or alternate phonation. A syllable with a level tone in this situation would be "plain," that is with no noticeable alternate phonation and an unlengthened vowel.

Phonotactics

The building of a syllable in modern Shitullian is governed by this basic expression: (C)V(D, l)τ, where V is any vowel, C is any consonant, D is any dorsal consonant, and l is /ɺ/ which is realized as [ʟ] when in the coda. Finally, τ stands for the tone applied to that syllable.

Stress

The system of stress is governed on the moraic level. By that, it is meant that when a syllable is stressed, it must have at least two morae, elsewise, the syllable will be altered such that it does. This can mean a change of 'tone' in the form of a lengthened vowel, the addition of a coda consonant, or the non-phonemic lengthening of the initial consonant of the syllable. These alternations will be spelled out more completely as the language develops.

Allophony

As the language develops, there will be additional restrictions and changes that will be listed here. At present, the syllable structure is a bit too new to have found combinations that are no acceptable.

Script

The native script is called Tśaaśuŋ (interpreted as "paper-speak" and anglicized as Chaashung). Chaashung is similar to an abugida, except that a letter's location can impact the status of its inherent vowel, and separate glyphs exist to represent the vowels in isolation as well as to write a long vowel. The following table lists all of the glyphs used to write Shitullian and their meaning as bare phonemes.

Initials ma na   ba ta/da   ϕa sa śa File:SHI-f.png pϕa tsa tśa File:SHI-pf.png Øa la

Nuclei ı u ạ o a e ŗ

Codas -ŋ -k -g -h   -ll

Chaashung is ordinarily written in two horizontal rows from left to right. Consonants have an inherent vowel, a. In order to over-ride that vowel, a sign can be added to indicate what vowel stands in its place. There are two types of signs: strong signs, and weak signs. High signs are written above the consonant glyph that is affected and never change positions. However, weak signs are generally written below the consonant glyph. That is, except when that consonant has a following coda consonant. In that case, the weak sign is instead written above the consonant glyph. It is that movement that distinguishes weak and strong signs. (Also, in general, weak signs are simpler in appearance.) Each vowel, except the inherent a, has a sign to indicate it. The following table uses the "null" glyph to illustrate which vowels take which signs.

Weak Signs ı u ạ

Neutral Sign a

Strong Signs e o ŗ

There is one way in which Chaashung is a defective script. That way is that tone is underspecified in the written language. Only long vowels are indicated, whereas the falling/creaky tone is never noted. This is rarely confusing, as context is usually sufficient to determine what is meant. (This is shown in the first example below.)

Examples

Śıtaallńậtśu is spelled in Chaashung like this:

And ollńa sậ tsaamû (which means "(There) exists a phrase/sentence") is written as:

Grammar

Coming... at some point. (Soon™)

Lexicon

—For a full list of words in Śituul, see: Lexicon.

The word list for Śituul is small at the moment, but expanding.

Creator Comments

I have worked on many different conlangs in the past, and all have died a slow painful death. This one was meant to be one I could focus on for the long haul and finally move from being a "scrapper" (i.e. someone who creates the skeleton of a language and then immediately stops working on it in favor of a new language) into being more of a "completist." I have had some success, but my attention has wandered still.

What I aim to do here, is create a mostly naturalistic language that integrates features from some of my scrapped languages over the years, as well as develop a language that is pleasing to me. This page will likely be slow to update, but rest assured that the script, at the very least, will be described fully here! (Scripts tend to be the feature of languages that I work on the hardest and enjoy creating the most.)