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. Being west of Khulls, it 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
 

Pre-Tarise to Proto-Tarise

1. All unstressed syllables became CV only, with no tones.
2. After a low (or long) tone, the voiceless aspirated stops p ṭ t tʷ č k shifted to fricatives f þ s sʷ š 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.
3. The voiced stops b ḍ d ǯ ġ shifted to v ð z ž g. The same change also affected the labialized forms: bʷ ḍʷ dʷ ǯʷ ġʷ became vʷ ðʷ zʷ žʷ gʷ.

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.