Tarise

For the Sak language, see here. For the Tarise with Teeth, see here.

Tarise was a language spoken in Taryte between 1085 AD and 1900 AD, whereupon it began to divide into many dialects. Some dialects had begun splitting off even earlier than this, but were considered the same language until 1900 for political reasons. The rise of the Star Empire led to the recognition of the dialects as independent languages.

Proto-Tarise divided into five languages spoken along the tropical coast where the rainfall was greatest. Here, people lived closely packed together and had a tense relationship with the Empire of ^{???Para-Atlam} to the west and a somewhat more peaceful relationship with Wax to the east.

Further inland, there were also five languages, but these had spread from just one of the coastal languages, and therefore they were much more similar to each other than were the five coastal languages.

In later times, Taryte invaded the Thunder Empire and began settling the cold plateau to their north. They defeated the Thunderers quickly, and spread their language to the two new provinces they built on the plateau. These were also derived from the same branch that had spawned the inland languages, but due to geographic separation, it soon went its own way and divided into two more languages, thus bringing the total number of languages spoken in Tarise to 12 by the time of the consolidation of the Empire of Halasala.

Tropical Rim daughter languages I-III

Syllabic consonants are preserved. In some daughters, disyllabic consonant sequences such as /-isi-/ contract into single syllabic consonants, while unstressed monosyllables like /si/ become simple, nonsyllabic consonants. The vowels also had widely spaced allophones, largely due to a contrast between /i/ and /yi/ and between /u/ and /wu/.

Some of these languages might actually have begun splitting apart prior to 1900 AD.

Proto-Tarise (1900) to Tropical Rim I

This is the westernmost language, and has the warmest and wettest climate as well as the smallest habitat.

The consonant inventory at this time was:

Labials:                   m  w              
Alveolars:           s  z  n  l
Palatals:                     y      
Velars:        k  ḳ  x     ŋ (Ø)     
Postvelars:          h  g       

And the vowels were

Short vowels:          a  e  i  o  u  
Long vowels:          aa ee ii oo uu 
Falling diphthongs:      ae ei ao ou
                                  iu

NOTE: There will probably need to be more vowel changes here.

Tones were still preserved.

1. The sequences se ze sa za so zo shifted to te re ta ra to ro when not after a closed syllable.
2. The vowel sequences e ee ae ei shifted to ya yaa ai yai.
3. The velars k ḳ shifted to q q̇ before any /a o/.
4. The falling diphthong iu shifted to ū.
5. All g shifted to ʕ. Then ʕʷ (phonetically /ʕu/) shifted to w.
6. The vowel sequences o oo ao ou shifted to u uu au uu. Note the asymmetry with the previous shift evolving /e/.
7. The sequences ky ḳy shifted to ć unconditionally. Then ty ry became č ž.
8. The sequences xy hy merged as ś unconditionally. Then sy zy became š ž.
9. The voiced alveolar stop d shifted to r unconditionally.
10. After any palatal or postalveolar consonant, the labial glide w disappeared to Ø.
11. The vowel sequences ai au shifted to ē ō.

Therefore the consonant inventory was

Labials:                       m   w       mʷ
Alveolars:     t       s   z   n   l   r   nʷ
Postalveolars: č       š   ž           
Palatals:      ć       ś           y
Velars:        k   ḳ   x       ŋ           ŋʷ  kʷ  ḳʷ  xʷ
Uvulars:       q   q̇   h   ʕ                   qʷ  q̇ʷ  hʷ

The vowel inventory was

Short vowels:          a     i     u  
Long vowels:           ā  ē  ī  ō  ū 

All diphthongs had been eliminated by previous shifts.

Proto-Tarise to Tropical Rim II

Probably spoken in the extreme southwest, but not influenced by Kxesh.

The consonant inventory at this time was:

Labials:                   m  w              
Alveolars:           s  z  n  l
Palatals:                     y      
Velars:        k  ḳ  x     ŋ (Ø)     
Postvelars:          h  g       

1. The sequences se ze sa za so zo shifted to te re ta ra to ro when not after a closed syllable.
2. The sequence iu shifted to ū. This did not include /ju/ inherited from earlier /igu/.
3. The velars k ḳ shifted to q q̇ before any /a o/.
4. The vowel e in any context shifted to ya. The /y/ was not present if the preceding consonant was /w/ or a labialized consonant.
5. The vowel o in any context shifted to a true schwa ə.
6. The sequences xy hy sy merged as š. Then ky ḳy ty merged as č.
7. The sequences ry gy ŋy ly shifted to ž ž ň ł.
8. The sequences ae ao shifted to e o.
9. The labial approximant w disappeared after consonants; intervocalically, it was shifted to g.

Thus the consonant inventory had become:

Labials:                      m              
Alveolars:     t     s  z  n  l  r
Palatals:      č     š  ž  ň  ł  y      
Velars:        k  ḳ  x     ŋ      
Postvelars:    q  q̇  h  g

And the vowel inventory was /a e i o u ə/.

Proto-Tarise to Tropical Rim III

This language may have some Qaš-like characteristics.

Proto-Tarise (~1900) to Qaš (3700)

This language ends up with a phonology similar to Khulls but very different phonotactics. Khulls speakers consider it to sound harsh.

Cladistically, this is simply Tropical Rim IV. However, it is listed here separately because its sound change list is far longer than the others and because it spawned daughter languages of its own.

The consonant inventory at this time was:

Labials:                   m  w              
Alveolars:           s  z  n  l
Palatals:                     y      
Velars:        k  ḳ  x     ŋ (Ø)     
Postvelars:          h  g       

Qaš has a very long list of sound changes, but most of them are conditional, and up to three conditions can be present. Thus the total rate of change is similar to that of Khulls.

1. In unstressed syllables, the vowels i u merged to the schwa vowel ə, which was spelled as /i/. Thus, the vocoids of unstressed syllables had a six-way contrast between /a ya wa ə yə wə/. However, this schwa vowel soon became silent (Ø) in many positions. There were no unstressed long vowels.
2. The labialized nasals mw nw ŋw all merged to m. The palatalized nasals mʲ nʲ ŋʲ shifted to ň.
3. The sequences sy zy ky ḳy shifted to š ž č č .
4. The sequences xy xw shifted to hy hw.
5. Before the vowel [a], the velars k kw ḳ ḳw x became uvulars q qw q̇ q̇w ħ. In the same environment, s z (but not the labialized forms) shifted to t d. Thus, in stressed syllables, /t d/ and the uvulars occurred only before [a], while plain /s z/ and the velars occurred only before [i u].
6. The unstressed schwa vowel disappeared when adjacent to a stressed syllable. The fricatives h g (but not /x/) disappeared when they came to occur after a stop or another fricative. Thus sequences like /ta ka/ were restored.
7. The voiced fricative z shifted to r before a vowel.
8. The sequences sw zw lost their labialization and thus became s z.
9. In word-initial position before a nasal, the consonants ŋ l s z g disappeared while the dorsal fricatives h x changed position. xl hl shifted to lx lh.
10. In pretonic position before a stop, the fricatives x h made that stop voiceless and aspirated, and then disappeared.
11. The clusters km ḳm qm q̇m became labialized to kʷm ḳʷm qʷm q̇ʷm.
12. An h bordering any tautosyllabic stop or fricative in either direction made that other consonant voiceless, and then disappeared.
13. In pretonic position, the nasal clusters mn mŋ nm nŋ ŋň shifted to n m m ń ń. Note the asymmetry of the last two clusters.
14. In pretonic position before a nasal, the palataloids š ž y hy all merged as ň.
15. Nasals occurring in pretonic position before any /ň/ disappeared.
16. The consonant clusters rg rz rl rň shifted to z dz zl dň.
17. In pretonic secondary position after a nasal or /l/, the voiceless sounds s q k x shifted to h. In the same environment, the consonants z ḳ q̇ became silent.
18. The voiced velar fricative g disappeared to Ø when occurring in a cluster of any kind. Labialized forms left their coarticulation and then disappeared.
19. In pretonic position before any /t d s z/, The dorsals x k ḳ kʷ ḳʷ shifted to k; in the same position, the dorsals q q̇ qʷ q̇ʷ shifted to q.
20. Any nonlabialized dorsal stop before /ň/ shifted to č.
21. The cluster žz shifted to ž. Any other cluster of a palataloid fricative followed by a sibilant shifted to š.
22. Palatalized stops followed by primordial sibilants shifted to kš.
23. In pretonic secondary position after a dorsal stop, the coronals t d s z shifted to s. Thus the original sample of 36 different consonant clusters was reduced to a contrast between /ks/ and /qs/. (This does not interfere with the shift above that produced /kš/ because that sibilant was shifted out of the reach of this shift.)
24. The nasals m n ň ŋ disappeared in word-initial position after an /ň/, /č/, or any dorsal stop.
25. The nasals m n ŋ disappeared in word-initial position after the coronals /t d r/.
26. In a syllable onset, the ejective stops ḳ q̇ became aspirated to k q when following any /t d r s z h x k q hʷ kʷ qʷ/. They also became aspirated when preceding any /k q x/.
27. In pretonic position, the clusters ld lt shifted to dl tl.
28. In pretonic secondary position after any palatalized sound, the voiceless dorsals x k ḳ q q̇ shifted to č and deleted the preceding consonant.
29. Velars preceding uvulars became uvular. Uvulars preceding velar stops (but not fricatives) became velar.
30. In pretonic secondary position after any /t d r s z/, the voiceless dorsals k ḳ x shifted to ć .
31. All consonants disappeared before a pretonic /ć/. (There may have been clusters involving /č/ that did not delete.)
32. The true palatals ć ń shifted to č ň before the front vowel /i/, and to k ŋ otherwise.
33. The nasals m n ň ŋ became the voiced stops b d ǯ ġ in pretonic position before the coronals /t d l/.
34. In pretonic secondary position, the voiced stop d was deleted to Ø when occurring after another voiced stop.
35. A voiced stop or fricative bordering an /s/ in either direction became voiceless.
36. All non-dorsals were delabialized. Thus the labialized coronals tʷ dʷ shifted to plain t d and labialization disappeared on all bilabials and palatals.
37. The pretonic clusters tň dň ňt ňd shifted to č ǯ č ǯ. td dt shifted to t.
38. The pretonic coronals d r shifted to t before any /s/. tz shifted to ts.
39. The pretonic coronals d t r s z disappeared before any /d t q/. (But note that /sd/ and other mismatched pairs did not occur.)
40. The lateral l disappeared after /ǯ/ or any labialized consonant.
41. All tautosyllabic geminates were simplified to singletons.

The consonant inventory at this time was:

Labials:       p  b           m (Ø)    w           
Alveolars:     t  d     s  z  n  l  r
Palataloids:   č  ǯ     š  ž  ň  ł  y                   
Velars:        k     ḳ  x  g  ŋ        kʷ ḳʷ            
Postvelars:    q     q̇  h              qʷ q̇ʷ

Unlike the other Tarise languages, Qaš had many consonant clusters, and the unified Tarise syllabary was useless to write Qaš. Instead, they adopted an alphabetic script from the Gold people.

Proto-Tarise (~1900) to Tropical Rim V ("River People")

The consonant inventory at this time was:

Labials:                   m  w              
Alveolars:           s  z  n  l
Palatals:                     y      
Velars:        k  ḳ  x     ŋ (Ø)     
Postvelars:          h  g       

The possible codas were /n l x k ḳ/, and there were three rare syllabic nasals, /ṁ ṅ ŋ̇/.

1. In bisyllabic roots, if the vowel in the second syllable was /i/, then u in the first syllable changed to uj.
2. The sequence ai shifted to ei.
3. In closed syllables (including the high tone, which had developed final /ʔ/ by areal influence), the vowels o i u shifted to a e ə (IPA /æ ɪ ʊ/).

   NOTE THAT THIS ae VOWEL DOES NOT BECOME /e/, EXCEPT IN DIPHTHONGS.

4. Syllabic nasals between consonants all shifted to ə.
5. All stressed vowels became high-tone; thus tones were eliminated. The tones left no effects on surrounding consonants, and the allophonic affricates that appeared for some fricatives did not survive.
6. The clusters ks kt kl kx kh kg all merged as k.
7. The sequences ḳya ḳye ḳyi ḳyo ḳyu ḳyə became ta če či to tu tə.
8. Then, gy became y and hy xy merged as ś.
9. All codas were deleted; note that a previous shift had made all vowels in closed syllables into /a e ə/.
10. In unstressed syllables, the mid vowels e o shifted to i a. (The same as Pabappa's much later word-final shift.)

    This may need to be modified, just like in Pabappa, so that they harmonize with the stressed vowel instead. The 2010 writeup for this language had assumed that closed syllables existed eve n in unstressed position, and harmonized them the other way.

The orthography may need to be changed, as the presumably most common vowel is spelled o, but it is an IPA cardinal [ɑ].

This language may be associated with the Crystals, but it is not their main language. More to the point, this is the language of the River People who rescued a troop of orphans in the year 4190 and then moved with them into a hillside campground in the tropical empire of Kxesh. Thus the language may survive inside Kxesh and sprout a second daughter language. However, the hillside settlement was very small and the orphans had little reason to spend time learning a new language when they were busy trying to gather food.

River People Syllabary

The River People spelled their language with syllables that fit into a 12x12 grid, reminiscent of the much older 10x10 grid that had been used to spell Tapilula. There were many gaps in the River People grid, even though such syllables existed; the River People chose not to create glyphs for the less common syllables, instead using digraphs. For example, the uncommon sequence /sa/ was spelled as /sə/ + /a/.

  yi    i   ye    e   ya    a   yo    o   yə    ə   yu    u
  li   ḷi   le   ḷe   la   wa   lo   wo   lə   wə   lu   wu
  mi   ṃi   me   ṃe   ma        mo        mə        mu
  si   ṣi   se   ṣe        ṣa        ṣo   sə   ṣə   su   ṣu
  ti        te        ta        to        tə        tu
  zi   ẓi   ze   ẓe   da   ẓa   do   ẓo   zə   ẓə   zu   ẓu
  ni   ṇi   ne   ṇe   na   ṇa   no   ṇo   nə   ṇə   nu   ṇu
  ki   ḳi   ke   ḳe   ka   ḳa   ko   ḳo   kə   ḳə   ku   ḳu                                           
  xi   x̣i   xe   x̣e   xa   x̣a   xo   x̣o   xə   x̣ə   xu   x̣u
  ŋi   ŋ̇i   ŋe   ŋ̇e   ŋa        ŋo        ŋə        ŋu
  hi        he        ha        ho        hə        hu
  gi        ge        ga        go        gə        gu

All consonants are palatalized before any /e i/ unless marked with a dot. The degree of palatalization is greater for /l s t z n x ŋ/ and less for /m k h g/. Yet, all are distinct from each other. Before other vowels, the underdot marks labialization on all consonants except k, where it marks glottalization and (perhaps) an articulation slightly further back.

Spelling rules

The syllabary above does not list all of the possible syllables in the language. There are no separate symbols for combinations like /ńa/, etc. since these are much rarer than the ones with /e/ and /i/, and because a sequence of /ńe/~/ńi/ + /a/ (or any other vowel) would never occur.

Tropical Rim V (3900) to Castle Tarise (7950)

1. After a vowel, sĭ tĭ kĭ ḳĭ changed to š č č č .
2. Unaccented long vowels and diphthongs were reduced to the monophthongs o i u .
3. All long vowels became short; however, diphthongs such as /ai/ remained.
4. All final vowels in bisyllabic roots were deleted. If the vowel deleted was /ĭ/, the vowels in the first syllable changed from o a e ə̈ to ei ei i ĭ.^{what is ĭ? ə̈?}

   NOTE ON POLITICS: This is about 4800 AD *if* the parent language was 3900 AD.

5. 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.

   This shift, and everything below it, assumes the speakers had radically shifted northward into Poswob territory. If not, the language must have gone extinct around 4800 AD.

6. In clusters, and in word-final position, the labiodental fricatives f v became p b.
7. Before front vowels (including ʉ?), the velar stops k ġ were fronted to the postalveolar affricates č ǯ, which were considered single phonemes rather than clusters.
8. The labiodental fricatives f v became the bilabial stops p b in all positions.
9. Voiced stops became prenasalized after a tense vowel; lax vowels before voiced stops became allophonically tense but did not gain prenasalization.
10. Unstressed ʉ became a true schwa. The script was now written with the old /ʉ/ series as the inherent vowel (previously it was schwa).
11. Sequences of /a/ + vowel came to be velarized; if the consonant was velar, it became labiovelar.

Proto-Tarise (~1900) to Amade

This branch may survive for a very long time, but note that most of Amade's time as a major power occurred near the very beginning when their language was little different from Tarise. It is possible that this could be replaced with a pre-Tarise language branching around 600 AD, or around 1085 AD if it is assumed to be a separate "Leaper" settlement. But note that Amade and Tarise were in closer contact than either was with settlements further out such as Atlam.