Shitullian

File:Flag-Kheng.png
Shitu / Khengese Śituul
Pronounced:	Native: /ʃi.'tɯːɭ/ Anglicized: /'ʃi.tu/ or /'kʰɛŋ.iːz/
Timeline and Universe:	Alternate Earth
Species:	Human
Spoken:	Island of Kheng
Writing system:	Caamśůn (Abugida-esque)
Genealogy:	Śituul is a language isolate
Typology
Morphological type:	Somewhat Isolating
Morphosyntactic alignment:	Ergative-Absolutive
Basic word order:	Typically VSO
Credits
Creator:	D. Matthew Mikalowsky
Created:	January 2014

Background

Śituul is a language isolate spoken by the Khengaali people on the Island of Kheng (an island that exists on an Earth in the distant future that is composed of land that was a part of present day Brazil). The name of the language is a compound word meaning "speaking tongue" (śi- being the verbal root for "to speak" and tuul meaning "tongue").

The language is mostly isolating, except for the usage of noun incorporation to express the morphosyntactic alignment (absolutive arguments are incorporated), and in the process of verb serialization in which verb stems can sometime merge.

Phonology

Śituul has 19 consonants, six pure vowels (three short, three long), one reduced vowel, and one diphthong (if you don't count the other vowel combinations with /j/).

Consonants

Plosives and certain approximants in Śituul are classified as either plain or strong. In most cases, strong consonants are aspirated, with the exception of w in which case the distinction is one of voicing.

Whenever a strong consonant is followed by /j/ the consonant and /j/ merge to form a different phoneme, in most cases this is an affricate that assimilates to the POA of the strong consonant. This behavior will be described more fully when discussing allophony below. Further, the script handles the orthography of these changes differently than the romanization which always indicates the change with a different letter.

		Labial	Coronal	Dorsal
Nasal		m [m]	n [n]	-n [ŋ]
Plosive	Plain	p [p]	t [t]	k [k]
	Strong	p̄ [pʰ]	ṯ [tʰ]	ḵ [kʰ]
Fricative		f [f]	s [s] and ś [ʃ]	h [ç~x]
Affricate		β [p͜f]	ć or c [t͜ʃ~t͜s]	x [k͜x]
Lateral Approx.			-l [l~ɭ]
Approximant	Plain	w [w]	r [ɹ~ɻ]	j [j]
	Strong	w̱ [ʍ]

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i [i] ii [iː]		u [ɯ] uu [ɯː]
Middle		ů [ə]
Low			a [ɑ] aa [ɑː]

Diphthong	ay [ɑɪ̯]

Allophony and Alternations

Perhaps the most interesting case of allophony or alternation in Śituul comes in the form of the merger of /j/ with any strong consonant, and its influence over a few other select consonants, and its pronunciation in certain environments. The below list should explain quite fully what changes take place around /j/.

• /pʰj/ → [p͜f]
• /tʰj/ → [t͜ʃ]
• /kʰj/ → [k͜x]
• /ʍj/ → [ç]
• /sj/ → [ʃ]

As you can see, most often in these changes, an affricate results, with the exception of /s/ and /ʍ/.

One may have noticed the convention above of noting [ŋ] with -n, this is due to the fact that [n] can only occur as an initial in a syllable and whenever it would appear as a final, it is realized instead as a velar nasal. In addition to the above alternations with /j/, the combination /nj/ changes to [ɲ] syllable initially, but remain distinct when they occur across word or syllable boundaries.

Another place allophony surfaces in the consonant system is in the case of /ɻ/. While /ɻ/ is considered the base phoneme, it freely alternates with [ɹ] in initial position, and is realized as [l~ɭ] when appearing as a final consonant in a syllable. While the retroflex pronunciation is the more common pronunciation, [ɹ] and [l] are heard often as well.

Despite the smallish size of the vowel system, a surprisingly small amount of allophony presents here. One place it is universal, is in the case of a checked syllable. Any short vowel that appears in a checked syllable is reduced to [ə]. This is due to a gradual merger of the various vowel qualities that existed as reduced forms of each of the "pure" vowels in the past. Additionally, the diphthong /ɑɪ̯/ is treated as a long vowel.

Owing to the fact that /ɯ/ is unrounded, it does round to [u] when following a bilabial consonant.

Script

The native script is called Caamśůn (interpreted as "speaking paper" or "written speach"). Caamśůn is similar to an abugida, except that a letter's orientation 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 Śituul and their meaning as bare consonants (or vowels as the case may be).

p	t	k	f	s	r	m	n
File:SHI-p.png			File:SHI-f.png
a	i	u	-y	j	w	ů	+◌̱
			File:SHI-y.png	File:SHI-j.png	File:SHI-w.png		File:SHI-emph.png

The script for Śituul is written in three horizontal rows, with the middle row consisting of glyphs that are automatically interpreted as the consonant they represent plus an inherent a, unless a diacritic is added to shift that vowel to i or u. Consonant glyphs that appear above or below that middle baseline do not carry an inherent vowel, and are instead interpreted as a final consonant to the previous syllable. In the example below, we also see that a bar extending from the top row into the middle row is used to indicate that the previous syllable has a j that appears between the vowel and consonant (giving us a CjV shaped syllable). Additionally, there is a shorter bar that appears in the middle row that makes the consonant from the previous syllable strong (forming a C̱V syllable), and finally, there as another variety of bar that extends from the middle row into the bottom row. This final mark indicates that the previous syllable has both a strong consonant and a j preceding the vowel (forming a C̱jV syllable).

The following example shows the differences in pronunciation depending on the placement of a final consonant glyph:

File:SHI-p.png		|	File:SHI-p.png		|	File:SHI-p.png

paat	pa.ůt	paa.ta

Examples

The following written examples serve to help illustrate how these elements work together in the native script.

File:SHI-bar.png File:SHI-bar.png File:SHI-j.png   File:SHI-w.png File:SHI-stroke.png File:SHI-grave.png Śiśituuljaam w̱a. Śi śituul jaam w̱a to speak Śituul.abs to do.vol 1sg.erg I (am) speak(ing) Śituul.*

File:SHI-p.png File:SHI-bar.png File:SHI-stroke.png File:SHI-j.png   Maa βanaamḵarajůn ni? Maa βa naam ḵara jůn ni int neg to eat fruit.abs to occur.avol 2sg.erg Don't you (accidentally) eat fruit?

File:SHI-f.png File:SHI-w.png File:SHI-bar.png File:SHI-y.png   Fiiwacayůl. Fii wacay ůl to flow water.abs to be.stat Water flows.

• Note: It would also be possible to translate this sentence as using the stative ending, but that translation would have less emphasis on what is happening, and more on the fact of being able to speak the language. As is, the action is in the speaking the language, not in being able to.

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.)