Shitullian
| File:Flag-Kheng.png | |
|---|---|
| Shitu / Khengese Śituul | |
| Pronounced: | Native: /ʃi.'tɯːɭ/ Anglicized: /'ʃi.tu/ |
| Timeline and Universe: | Alternate Earth |
| Species: | Human |
| Spoken: | Island of Kheng |
| Writing system: | Cujaam, abugida |
| 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, three pure vowels, 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/ an affricate is formed that assimilates to the POA of the strong consonant.
| Labial | Coronal | Dorsal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m [m] | n [n] | -n [ŋ] | |
| Plosive | Plain | p [p] | t [t] | k [k] |
| Strong | ṗ [pʰ] | ṭ [tʰ] | ḳ [kʰ] | |
| Fricative | f [f] | s [s] and ś [ʃ] | h [ç~x] | |
| Affricate | ß [p͜f] | c [t͜s~t͜ʃ] | x [k͜x] | |
| Approximant | -l [l~ɭ] and r [ɹ~ɻ] | j [j] | ||
| Approximant | Plain | w [w] |
|---|---|---|
| Strong | ẉ [ʍ] |
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i [i] | u [ɯ] | |
| Middle | ë [ə] | ||
| Low | a [ɑ] |
| Diphthong | å [ɑɪ̯] |
|---|
Script
Script testing with tables:
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| Template:KHN | Template:KHN | Template:KHN | Template:KHN | Template:KHN | Template:KHN | |
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| Ṗaajët kuwi. | ||||||
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.)
