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| From ''tal'' 'tree' + ''ra'' 'speak' + ''-en'' agentive suffix: 'Treespeaker', used metonymically. If compounded currently instead of anciently, this results in ''tallen'', which is used to indicate the individual Treespeaker (roughly equivalent to a shaman) as opposed to the language. | | From ''tal'' 'tree' + ''ra'' 'speak' + ''-en'' agentive suffix: 'Treespeaker', used metonymically. If compounded currently instead of anciently, this results in ''tallen'', which is used to indicate the individual Treespeaker (roughly equivalent to a shaman) as opposed to the language. |
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| Taalen is spoken in a trilunar Realm of the [[Plasm]], the Otherworld common in the Tell's mythology. The Tell is this world, here, separated from the Plasm by the Caesura, a mystical veil. More to come...
| | =Demographic and ethnographic information= |
| | == The name of the language== |
| | What is the language known as to outsiders? |
| | What term do the people use to distinguish themselves from other language groups? |
| | What is the origin of these terms (if known)? |
| | ==Ethnology== |
| | What is the dominant economic activity of the people? |
| | Briefly describe the ecosystem, material culture, and cosmology (these will be intimately related). |
| | ==Demography== |
| | Where is the language spoken, and how are the people distributed in this area? |
| | Are there other language groups inhabiting the same area? |
| | What is the nature of the interaction with these language groups? Economic? Social? Friendly? Belligerent? |
| | In social/economic interactions with other groups, which groups are dominant and which are marginalized? How so? |
| | ==Genetic affiliation== |
| | What language family does this language belong to? |
| | What are its closest relatives? |
| | ==Previous research== |
| | What published and unpublished linguistic work has been done in this language and/or its close relatives? |
| | ==The sociolinguistic situation== |
| | ===Multilingualism and language attitudes=== |
| | What percentage of the people are monolingual? (Treat men and women separately). |
| | What language(s) are people multilingual in, and to what degree? |
| | As far as you can tell, what is the attitude of the speakers of this language toward their language, as opposed to other languages they know? If possible, give evidence for your claims even though it may be anecdotal. |
| | ===Contexts of use and language choice=== |
| | In what contexts are multilingual individuals likely to use the language described in this sketch? When do they use other languages? |
| | ===Viability=== |
| | Are children learning the language as their first language? If so, how long do they remain monolingual? |
| | What pressures are there on young people to (a) learn another language, and (b) reject their own language? How strong are these pressures? |
| | Are there partially competent speakers? |
| | ===Loan words=== |
| | Does the lexicon of this language contain many words from other languages? If so, in what semantic domains do these tend to occur? Give examples. |
| | ==Dialects== |
| | Is there significant dialect variation? What kinds of differences distinguish the dialects? Give examples. |
| | What dialect is represented in this sketch? |
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| =History=
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| ==External==
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| I started working on Taalen in the summer of 2000. Anticipating grad school, and unhappy with where Aelya was going, I started over. There's a lot of Aelya's aesthetic in Taalen - one might say that Aelya evolved into Taalen, but not definitely not in a diachronic way!
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| It has been heavily inspired by the Celtic and Uralic languages, as well as Native American languages of various families.
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| ==Internal==
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| There will be a proto-language and sister languages, but nothing has been developed in any detail yet.
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| =Phonology=
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| ==Consonants==
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| Taalen's phonetic inventory is fairly simple, and should be familiar to any English speaker, with a few exceptions. The voiceless nasals, bilabial fricatives as well as palatal and velar fricatives, and the lateral fricatives are likely familiar from languages such as Welsh, Japanese, and German. The palatal plosive is unusual, and most easily approximated by English speakers with /ts/. Note also the presence of syllabic resonants.
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| {| cellpadding="5"
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| ! || Bilabial || Labiodental || Dental || Alveolar || Postalveolar || Palatal || Velar || Glottal
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| |- align="center"
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| | '''Plosive''' || /p/ /b/ || || || /t/ /d/ || || || /k/ /g/
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| |- align="center"
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| | '''Nasal''' || /m̥/ /m/ || || || /n̥/ /n/ || || || /ŋ̥/ /ŋ/
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| |- align="center"
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| | '''Fricative''' || || /f/ /v/ || /θ/ /ð/ || /s/ || /ʃ/ || || /ɣ/ || /h/
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| |- align="center"
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| | '''Approx.''' || || /w/ || || || || /j/
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| |- align="center"
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| | '''Flap''' || || || || /ɹ̥//ɾ/ || ||
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| |- align="center"
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| | '''Lat. App.''' || || || || /l/ || ||
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| |- align="center"
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| | '''Lat. Fric.''' || || || || /ɬ/
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| |}
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| As in English, the voiceless stops are usually aspirated ([pʰ tʰ kʰ]) initially, but also when geminate.
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| Some resonants may also be syllabic: /m̩/ /n̩/ /ɾ̩/ /l̩/ as in <bottom>, <button>, <butter>, and <bottle>.
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| Continuants (excluding voiceless nasals, liquids, voiced nasals, and fricatives) may be geminate (i.e. long), with onset in the coda of one syllable and release in the onset of the next. Such geminates are considered two morae.
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| ==Vowels==
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| Basic description/intro will be here.
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| {| cellpadding="5"
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| ! || '''Front''' || '''Central''' || '''Back'''
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| |- align="center"
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| | '''Close''' || /i/ /ɪ/ || || /ʊ/ /u/ ||
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| |- align="center"
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| | '''Close-mid''' || /e/ /ø/ || || /o/ ||
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| |- align="center"
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| | '''Open-mid''' || /ɛ/ /æ/ || /ə/ || ||
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| |- align="center"
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| | '''Open''' || /a/ || || /ɑ/||
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| |}
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| Vowel length is not phonemic, though it can affect stress location.
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| ==Diphthongs==
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| Taalen possesses seven diphthongs, all falling: /aɪ eɪ oɪ əɪ aʊ oʊ əʊ/. Diphthongs are always conisidered to be two morae in length.
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| ==Allophones==
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| * [ç] and [x] are allophonic variants of /h/, the former appearing only near a front vowel, and the latter before a consonant or finally.
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| * /f/ appears as [ɸ], and /v/ as [β], in free variation.
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| * [ɬ] and [ɮ] also appear in free variation.
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| * [ʌ] alternates with /ə/ in stressed syllables.
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| * [ɾ] surfaces as [ɹ̥] when syllabic.
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| ==Stress==
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| Taalen words are regularly stressed on the penultimate syllable. The only exception is when an unvoiced plosive ([p t k]) appear non-initially, in which case that syllable is stressed.<br>
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| Cadarina /ˌka.də.ˈɾi.nə/ : normal stress, with normal Taalen spelling<br>
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| Catarina /kə.ˈtʰa.ɾi.nə/ : spelling closer to standard, and exceptional stress placement<br>
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| ==Mutation==
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| Taalen is rich in mutation, partly a result of its polysynthetic typology. There are three primary types of mutation, lenition, nasaliszation, and vocalization. None of the mutations are strictly grammatical in nature, instead resulting from the morphophonology. Because of the nature of some morphemes, it can be difficult to see this, as the surface realization of a particular marker might only be mutation in the majority of cases.
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| ===Lenition===
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| Historically, lenition arose most often from /s ʃ/ + stop intervocalically and from geminate stops. It also arose in syllabic codae, but only on stops. It creates fricatives from stops, nasals are unvoiced, and fricatives tend to be weakened to approximants.
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| {| cellpadding="5"
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| |''p'' -> ''ph'' /f/||''b'' -> ''bh'' /v/||''m'' -> ''mh'' /m̤/||align="center"|''f'' -> 0||''v'' -> ''u'' /ʊ/
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| |- align="center"
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| |''t'' -> ''th'' /θ/||''d'' -> ''dh'' /ð/||''n'' -> ''nh'' /n̤/||''th'' -> ''h'' /h/||''dh'' -> ''y'' /j/
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| |- align="center"
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| |''c'' -> ''h'' /h/||''g'' -> ''gh'' /ɣ/||''h'' -> 0||''gh'' -> ''y'' /j/
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| |- align="center"
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| |''s'' -> ''sh'' /ʃ/||''sh'' -> ''h'' /h/||''l'' -> ''lh'' /ɬ/
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| |}
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| ===Nasalization===
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| Arising from nasal assimilation, nasalization mutates unvoiced stops into voiced stops, and voiced stops into nasals.
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| {| cellpadding="5"
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| |''p'' -> ''b'' /b/||''t'' -> ''d'' /d/||''c'' -> ''g'' /g/
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| |- align="center"
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| |''b'' -> ''m'' /m/||''d'' -> ''n'' /n/||''g'' -> ''ngh'' /ŋ/
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| |}
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| ===Vocalization===
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| '''''This section is being edited. Please bear with me as I make corrections.'''''
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| The most common (and most complex) mutation, vocalization is the primary means by which medial clusters are simplified in Taalen. In addition to voiced consonants becoming vowels, unvoiced consonants simplify or cause other changes. Some vowels arise simply as a result of compensatory lengthening, which is not technically vocalization, but has been classed as such by the Elders. In a similar vein, some consonants do not vocalize, but aspirate or otherwise mutate, and these are classed as vocalization mutations as well.
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| The diphthong-rich vocabulary of Taalen owes much of it's existence to this mutation historically. Because it is so complex, and not yet fully understood, here are some characteristic examples with (as yet) meaningless syllables:
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| *''rag-'' 'to carry' + ''-de'' RES = ''raede'' /ɾəɪ.dɛ/ : stative verb 'to be borne, carried'
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| *''rad-'' + ''-de'' = ''raide'' /ɾaɪ.dɛ/
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| *''rab-'' + ''-de'' = ''raude'' /ɾaʊ.dɛ/
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| *''rab-'' + ''-da'' = ''raoda'' /ɾəʊ.də/
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| *''dol'' + ''glas'' = ''doughlas'' /doʊ.ɣlas/
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| *''tam'' + ''bran'' = ''taubran'' /taʊ.bɾən/
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| *''tas'' + ''bran'' = ''taafran'' /tɑ.fɾən/
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| *''sar'' + ''los'' = ''saalos'' /sɑ.los/
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| ==Phonotactics==
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| Syllabic onsets may consist of any consonant. In addition, the following clusters are permitted: <br>
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| * voiced stops + liquids: /bɾ bl dɾ dl gɾ gl/
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| * /s/ + voiceless stop: /st sp sc/ (only word initially)
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| * stop + glide: /pj bj tj dj kj gj/ (only in word initially)
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| * nasal + glide: /nj ŋj mw ŋw/ (*/nw mj/ are not allowed)
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| * /sr sv lj/
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| Syllabic nuclei consist of a single vowel or diphthong. Vowels cannot remain in hiatus (*/aɛ/) but instead become a diphthong or introduce a glide: */iə/ -> /ijə/. The lax vowels /ɪ ʊ æ ø/ cannot appear without a coda finally, and tend to create geminate consonants medially. ''Y'' cannot appear as a vowel in a stressed syllable, unless it is a monosyllable. Note that it can be the only orthographic vowel in a syllable, to indicate a syllabic resonant.
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| The coda of a syllable can only be a continuant (excluding voiceless nasals and glides) or null. Immediately preceding an onset cluster, no coda is allowed. In compounding, codae often [[#Vocalization|vocalize]] before a cluster: /tam/ + /bran/ -> /taʊbrən/ (with unstressed /a/ -> /ə/). Geminate consonants are limited to continuants (liquids, voiced nasals, and fricatives). Syllabic resonants are only permitted word finally.
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| Cross-syllable (i.e. medial) clusters are limited. <br>
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| * nasal + homorganic voiced stop: /mb nd ŋg/
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| * nasal + glide: /nj ŋj mw ŋw/
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| * /l/ + heterorganic nasal: /lm lŋ/
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| * liquid + glide: /lj lw rj rw/
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| * /ɬ/ + voiceless stop: /ɬp ɬt ɬk/
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| * certain fricative + liquid clusters: /fɾ vɾ θɾ ðɾ ʃɾ xɾ ɣɾ θl ðl/
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| * sibilant + voiceless stop: /sp st sk ʃp ʃt ʃk/
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| * fricative + homorganic glide: /çj xw/
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| * /h/ + voiceless stop: /hp ht hk/
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| Syllables are therefore ON, NC, or ONC, where O is onset, N is nucleus, and C is coda. Words tend to be 3 syllables or less.
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| =Orthography=
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| {| cellpadding="5"
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| ! ||Phoneme||Romanization
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| |- align="center"
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| |'''Stops'''||/p t k b d g/||''p t c b d g''
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| |- align="center"
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| |'''Nasals'''||/m̥ m n̥ n ŋ̥ ŋ/||''mh m nh n ñh ñ''
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| |- align="center"
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| |'''Fricatives'''||/f v θ ð s ʃ ɣ h/||''f v th dh s sh gh h''
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| |- align="center"
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| |'''Sonorants'''||/w ɹ̥ ɾ j l ɬ/||''u rh r y l lh''
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| |- align="center"
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| |'''Vowels'''||/i ɪ ʊ u e ø o ɛ æ ə a ɑ/||''i y u u e eu o e ea y a aa''
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| |- align="center"
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| |'''Diphthongs'''||/aɪ eɪ oɪ əɪ aʊ oʊ əʊ/||''ai ei oe ae au ou ao''
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| |}
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| The letter ''y'' is also used to mark syllabicity on the four resonants: ''yn'' = /n̩/, ''ym'' = /m̩/, ''yr'' = /ɾ̩/, and ''yl'' = /l̩/. It is also used to indicate /ə/, as can the simple vowels in unstressed syllables. These syllabics can only appear word finally.
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| ''U'' before a vowel is /w/, which never occurs before a back vowel (''o'' or ''u''). In the case where composition brings ''u'' before such a vowel, it becomes ''v'': ''-au'' + ''o-'' = ''-avo-''.
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| Though vowels cannot remain in hiatus (two sequential vowels which do not indicate a diphthong), they do appear frequently with understood glides between. For example, ''ia'' represents two syllables, /i.jə/, and ''uan'' can be one or two syllables, /wan/ or /u.wən/. The two syllable reading is usually distinguished with ''y'', which is not a primarily stressed vowel unless in a monosyllable, making ''uan'' and ''uyn'' (exactly as the native script does). It can also be indicated in romanization with ', so that the two could be distinguished as ''uan'' and ''u'an''.
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| The digraph ''ch'' does not appear, replaced in mutation by ''h''. The phoneme /ŋ/ is always represented by ''ñ'', even in a cluster: /ŋg/ ''ñg''.
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| Because Taalen does not allow stops finally, stems or words ending in stops aspirate them, and mark them with ' to indicate their origins:
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| {|
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| | ''ragh'' /ˈɾaɣ/ 'mist' || ''ragha'' /ˈɾa.ɣə/ 'mists'<br>
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| |- align="center"
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| | ''rag'h'' /ˈɾaɣ/ 'he carries' || ''ragen'' /ˈɾa.gɛn/ 'I carry'
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| |}
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| A newer romanization is gaining ground, in which such distinctions are not written, and left to the reader to clarify. The use of the apostrophe therefore has acquired an antiquated, victorian feel to its use.
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| Geminate consonants (such as ''ll'' /lː/) are generally represented by doubling. In the native writing system, a special symbol is used for this (as well as in ''aa''). The geminate digraphs are represented by ''tth'', ''ddh'', ''ggh'', ''nng'', ''ssh'', and ''llh'', (''ph'' and ''bh'' only appear as the result of mutation, and thus won't appear geminated).
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| =Links= | | =Links= |
| | [[Taalen Phonology]] |
| [[Taalen Morphology]] | | [[Taalen Morphology]] |
| Taalen
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| Spoken in:
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Sovrandas /so.ˈvran.dəs/
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| Timeline/Universe:
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The Coil (the Crux universe)
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| Total speakers:
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2.8 million (or something)
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| Genealogical classification:
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Súren branch of the Sovrandian family
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Pronounced /'tɑ.lɛn/.
From tal 'tree' + ra 'speak' + -en agentive suffix: 'Treespeaker', used metonymically. If compounded currently instead of anciently, this results in tallen, which is used to indicate the individual Treespeaker (roughly equivalent to a shaman) as opposed to the language.
Demographic and ethnographic information
The name of the language
What is the language known as to outsiders?
What term do the people use to distinguish themselves from other language groups?
What is the origin of these terms (if known)?
Ethnology
What is the dominant economic activity of the people?
Briefly describe the ecosystem, material culture, and cosmology (these will be intimately related).
Demography
Where is the language spoken, and how are the people distributed in this area?
Are there other language groups inhabiting the same area?
What is the nature of the interaction with these language groups? Economic? Social? Friendly? Belligerent?
In social/economic interactions with other groups, which groups are dominant and which are marginalized? How so?
Genetic affiliation
What language family does this language belong to?
What are its closest relatives?
Previous research
What published and unpublished linguistic work has been done in this language and/or its close relatives?
The sociolinguistic situation
Multilingualism and language attitudes
What percentage of the people are monolingual? (Treat men and women separately).
What language(s) are people multilingual in, and to what degree?
As far as you can tell, what is the attitude of the speakers of this language toward their language, as opposed to other languages they know? If possible, give evidence for your claims even though it may be anecdotal.
Contexts of use and language choice
In what contexts are multilingual individuals likely to use the language described in this sketch? When do they use other languages?
Viability
Are children learning the language as their first language? If so, how long do they remain monolingual?
What pressures are there on young people to (a) learn another language, and (b) reject their own language? How strong are these pressures?
Are there partially competent speakers?
Loan words
Does the lexicon of this language contain many words from other languages? If so, in what semantic domains do these tend to occur? Give examples.
Dialects
Is there significant dialect variation? What kinds of differences distinguish the dialects? Give examples.
What dialect is represented in this sketch?
Links
Taalen Phonology
Taalen Morphology
