Shitullian
Śituul is a language isolate spoken by the Khongall people on Carnassus in a region known only as Khong. The name of the language is a compound word meaning "speaking tongue" (śi- being an archaic 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.
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| 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 20 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/).
Plosives and certain approximants in Śituul are classified as either plain or strong. In most cases, strong consonants are aspirated, with the exception of w̱ in which case the distinction is one of voicing.
In the past, /j/ had a prominent impact on allophony in Śituul. It caused strong consonants to become affricates, and in one case a fricative. It also was responsible for the emergence of /ʃ/ as well as /t͜ʃ/. In the modern language, one affricate has merged with /h/, and several other features have become permanent phonemes in the language and are no longer conditioned by environment. However, they do restrict syllables somewhat (which will be described later).
Consonants
| Labial | Coronal | Dorsal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m [m] | n [n] | ŋ [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 [x~h] | |
| Affricate | β [p͜f] | c [t͜s] and ć [t͜ʃ] | ||
| Approximant | Plain | w [w] | r [ɹ~ɻ] and -l [l~ɭ] | j [j] |
| Strong | w̱ [ʍ] | |||
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i [i] ii [iː] |
u [ɯ] uu [ɯː] | |
| Middle | o [ə] | ||
| Low | a [ɑ] aa [ɑː] |
| Diphthong | ay [ɑɪ̯] |
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Tone
Phonotactics
Syllable formation in Śituul is relatively free, but there are certain constraints upon where tone may arise, when vowels are reduced and which consonants are allowed to form codas. In general, each syllable can be constructed thusly: (C)(j)V(ː)(N,P,l), where C is any consonant, N is any nasal and P is any stop. In reality, no labial or post-alveolar consonants may form the coda, and neither the velar nasal nor laterals are found initially. Further, /j/ can only be followed by /ɑ/, /ə/ or /ɯ/, never /i/; it can never be preceded by a strong consonant, approximant or affricate.
Allophony
Due to the above mentioned syllable restrictions, and the emergence of phonemes as the result of past allophonic changes, Śituul currently has a relatively small amount of allophony throughout.
The combination /nj/ changes to [ɲ] syllable initially, but remains distinct when it occurs across word or syllable boundaries.
In the case of /ɻ/, it freely alternates with [ɹ], but in final position, it is realized as [l~ɭ]. While the retroflex pronunciations are the more common pronunciations, [ɹ] and [l] are heard often as well.
One place in which allophony is universal in the vowel system 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 once existed as reduced forms of each of the "pure" vowels in the past. The diphthong /ɑɪ̯/ is treated as a long vowel, as such it is never reduced and carries tone akin to the other long vowels.
Owing to the fact that /ɯ/ is unrounded, it does round to [u] when following a bilabial consonant.
Script
The native script is called Ćamśon (interpreted as "speaking paper" or "written speech"). Ćaamśon 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 | ś | h | r | m | n |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| File:SHI-p.png |  |
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File:SHI-f.png |  |
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| a | i | u | o | -y | j | w | +◌̱ | ||
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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 | |
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| | File:SHI-p.png | | | File:SHI-p.png |
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| paat | pa.ot | paa.ta | pot | pa.ta |
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The general rule, is that a final consonant glyph is always written above a consonant glyph, but it is written below a vowel sign. In essence, this means final consonants will be written below syllables with a long vowel, but above those with a short one (with the exception of those syllables that are only a short vowel and a final consonant).
Examples
The following written examples serve to help illustrate how these elements work together in the native script.
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- 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.)
