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 Capital Territory (7950)

1. Intervocalically, the dental consonants ṗ ḅ ṭ ḍ came to be written as pf bv tṣ dẓ, and to be treated as consonant clusters.
2. In word-initial position and after another consonant they became the plain fricatives f v ṣ ẓ.
3. The vowel u came to be spelled "ū"; this was a spelling change rather than a phonetic one.
4. In bisyllabic roots, if the vowel in the second syllable was rounded, the vowels in the first syllable changed from a e i o ū ə to â ū y ô y u, where "â" spells the SAMPA sound Q, "ū" spells u:,"ô" spells u:,and "y" spells y.
5. If the vowel in the second syllable was /i/, then o ū in the first syllable changed to oj ūj.
6. High tone vowels came to be distinguished primarily by being lax rather than by being of high pitch. Allophonic pitch distinctions began to arise(?), and soon tone had been completely replaced by laxness.
7. Consonant clusters and final consonants, aside from /c ʒ č ǯ/ were simplified: any p š at the end of a syllable disappeared and made the preceding vowel into a lax vowel.
8. (although in the case of /žb/ and /šp/, the ž and š survived and the labials didn't). Double consonants and affricates simplified to singles and also laxed the preceding vowel. Final m disappeared with no effect, although it began to spread as an allophone to places in which it had never been before. Voiceless nasals also laxed the preceding vowel.
9. The dental fricatives f v changed to ṣ ẓ at the beginning of a word and between vowels.
10. The postalveolar affricates č ǯ became the fricatives š ž in all positions.
11. The alveolar stops t d and the affricates c ʒ merged as č ǯ before front vowels. In other positions they remained the same.
12. In clusters the dental fricatives ṣ ẓ became the alveolar stops t d.
13. All unstressed short vowels were reduced to the set /ă ĭ u ə/ . If they had been lax, they also laxed the preceding vowel.
14. After a vowel, wĭ changed to j,
15. sĭ changed to š,
16. and kĭ tĭ coalesced as č.
17. Unaccented long vowels and diphthongs were reduced to the monophthongs a e i o u y.
18. The remaining long vowels ā ē ī ō ū ȳ ə̄ changed to a aj i aw ū y ə. The letter ū was not a true long vowel any longer, but only a higher and clearer version of /u/.
19. All final vowels in bisyllabic roots were deleted. If the vowel deleted was /ĭ/, the vowels in the first syllable changed from a à è ì ə to aj àj e i ĭ.
20. In compound words and certain inflected forms, the second vowel in the word was deleted if the resulting consonant cluster was acceptable ("the Debra shift"). If the second vowel occurred between two labial consonants, the first labial consonant was deleted and the second was metathesized so that it took the place of the first. Then the place of articula33333333tion of that consonant changed to match the vowel it occurred next to, as the vowel was deleted. #u ù became fronted to mid vowels but there was no change in spelling. All roots that came from Rúló had been either one or two syllables. With this sound shift they nearly all came to be one syllable, although due to changes in grammar they were almost always used with a suffix containing a vowel and thus adding a syllable. That is to say, the suffixes from the old monosyllables were applied to these new monosyllables, making the old suffixes and infixes for bisyllables obsolete.
21. The dental fricatives ṣ ẓ changed back to f v in all positions.
22. The labiodental fricatives f v became h g in word-initial position before a back vowel and between a back vowel and another vowel of any type;
23. In clusters the labiodental fricatives f v became p b.
24. Before the front vowels /e è i ì û ú/, the velar stops k ġ were fronted to the postalveolar affricates č ǯ, which were considered single phonemes rather than clusters.
25. At the end of a closed syllable the bilabial stop b came to be pronounced as ə, with a common allophone of [w]; however there was no change in the native spelling.
26. At the end of a closed syllable the bilabial stop p came to be pronounced as ʔ, however there was no change in the native spelling. That is, the ligatures of vowel + /p/, which are transliterated with grave accents, continued to be used.
27. The labiodental fricatives f v became the bilabial stops p b in all positions, although at the end of a few words they disappeared completely. They were spelled with the letters for the "hard" /p b/ because in some writings the letters for the ordinary p b were used for /ʔ ə/.
28. Voiced stops became prenasalized after a tense vowel; lax vowels before voiced stops became allophonically tense but did not gain prenasalization.
29.   The lax/tense distinction in vowels disappeared, leaving vowel quality alone to distinguish them and meaning that glottal stops after certain vowels were no longer pronounced. However, the changes that the earlier system had inflicted on the consonants still remained.
30. A chain shift occurred: the old vowel ì came to be pronounced as e, meaning that the old vowel e came to be pronounced as ɛ, which caused the old vowel è to become pronounced as a, which caused the old vowel a to become pronounced as a back ɑ. Meanwhile a similar shift occurred in the back vowels: o became ɔ, which caused ò to become a low back ɒ. Now, only roundedness and frontness distinguished the two forms of /o/ and /a/; the heights were the same.
31. In some idiolects, a religious taboo forbade the pronunciation of the phonemes k ġ except when used for the names of the forces of good and evil; in other contexts they shifted to q G.
32. Most speakers began to merge the new q G phonemes with h g.
33. Roundedness disappeared on o ò, thus leaving only frontness to distinguish them from a à.
34. Unstressed u became a true schwa. The script was now written with /u/ as the inherent vowel (previously it was schwa).
35. o òmerged with a à.
36. The low vowel a rounded and moved to the back position and à became low to replace it. The alphabet now consisted of the consonants /p b š ž m w t d s z n j c ʒ č ǯ k g h x ŋ r l ř/ and the vowels /@ i e E a A O o u y/.

    The spelling of the vowels was as such:

    ə i e ɛ a ɑ ɔ o u y

    u i ì e è o a â ô û

    o could also be spelled à, and a could also be spelled ò.

37. Letters with inherent vowels sometimes appeared as the onset of a stressed syllable (mostly in loans, but in a few

native words also). Previously the /u/ ones were pronounced with /w/, but that disappeared, and as it did so the ones with /a/ became velarised and in some cases (especially velars) also labialized.

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.