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.

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	ı [i] ıı [iː]		u [ɯ] uu [ɯː]
Middle		o [ə]
Low			a [ɑ] aa [ɑː]

Diphthong	aj [ɑɪ̯]	ja [jɑ~ɪ̯ɑ]	ju [jɯ~ɪ̯ɯ]

Tone

	High	Low	Third
	a [a˦]	ȧ [a˨~a̰]	ǎ or aa [a(ː)˨˩˦]
Vowels	a, o, ja	a, o, ja	a, aa, ja

Not all tones in Śituul can be realized on all vowels. Only low and high tone may be realized on a vowel in a checked syllable (i.e. a reduced vowel), while an "iotized" vowel or un-checked vowel may accept any tone. Likewise, a long vowel is restricted to only taking "third" tone.

Some speakers render low tone as a phonation quality rather than a true "tone" and pronounce low tone syllables as though they were creaky-voiced ones instead. For these speakers, high tone may have more range in possible tonal qualities and third tone is rendered as just a long vowel with almost no presence of a discernible tone contour.

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/ as well as the iotated vowels are treated like long vowels, as such they are never reduced. However, unlike ay the iotated vowels can carry any tone, not just third.

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

Script

The native script is called Ćaanśoŋ (interpreted as "speaking paper" or "written speech"). Ćaanśoŋ is similar to an abugida, except that a letter's location 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	ŋ
File:SHI-p.png			File:SHI-f.png
a	i	u	o		-j	ja	ju	w		+◌̱
					File:SHI-y.png	File:SHI-ja.png	File:SHI-ju.png	File:SHI-w.png		File:SHI-emph.png

Ćaanśoŋ is ordinarily written in two horizontal rows from left to right. Originally, it was written on strips of a bamboo-like wood with brushes. Each consonant glyph carries an inherent /ɑ/ when written upon the "baseline." If a long vowel is desired, a vowel glyph must be written after a consonant glyph. There are two diacritics that exist to alter the inherent vowel to /i/ and /ɯ/, they are (respectively) a dot placed just above a glyph or an upward slanting "accent" placed just below the baseline. A long vowel's corresponding glyph must match the vowel of the previous glyph or it will be interpreted as a seperate syllable (so an /i/ glyph must be used following a dotted /ka/ glyph to create /kiː/).

Final consonants are written below the baseline of the last vowel or consonant glyph in that syllable. As such, the syllable /kət/ is written by placing a /ka/ glyph on the baseline and then writing the /ta/ glyph below it. Any consonant glyph written below the baseline is understood to lack its inherent vowel.

In order to write a syllable containing an "iotated" vowel, the glyph for /ja/ is written below the baseline for a syllable containing ja and a special form of /ja/ is written below the baseline for ju (it lacks the middle connecting stroke). Should an iotated syllable also contain a final consonant, it is written below the baseline as well and to the right of the vowel glyph. The space above this consonant glyph is not written in to keep from confusion as to which syllable contains the final consonant.

For affricates, a special diacritic written to the right of a consonant is used, this diacritic is in the form of a line that extends from the height of a standard glyph through the baseline to touch where the bottom of a glyph written below the baseline would end. Writing /pa/ with this bar forms the labial affricate, /ta/ the alveolar affricate, and the velar affricate has since merged with /h/, but would have been written with the /ka/ glyph. To disambiguate between /t͜s/ and /t͜ʃ/, a variant form of the "affricate bar" is used for /t͜ʃa/ that actually connects to the right-most stroke of the /ta/ glyph.

In order to write a syllable that begins with a reduced vowel, one must use the "null" vowel sign above noted as o. In any other case in which the reduced vowel appears, the normal version of the glyph can be used, it is just assumed to contain /ə/ rather than the inherent /ɑ/.

Finally, to write a strong consonant, one must use the "emphatic" mark directly following the glyph containing the consonant to be strengthened. If this syllable ends in a consonant, the consonant glyph is written below the baseline and under the consonant portion, not below the emphatic mark.

There is one respect in which Ćaanśoŋ is considered a "defective" script, and that is that tone is never indicated in the written script. It must either be determined from context and knowing the correct word, or some measure of ambiguity will result. For instance, ḵara means fruit, but ḵarå means beer, so some confusion could definitely result from the written word in isolation (however, if the word is accompanied by he verb 'eat' it becomes quite clear which is meant). The following examples show some of the different results one can achieve by writing them in differing combinations of glyphs:

File:SHI-p.png

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File:SHI-p.png

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File:SHI-p.png

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File:SHI-p.png

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File:SHI-p.png

File:SHI-ju.png

paat	pa.ot	paa.ta	pot	pjut

Examples

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

File:SHI-j.png File:SHI-w.png File:SHI-stroke.png File:SHI-grave.png Śiśituuljaan w̱a. Śi śituul jaan w̱a speak Śituul.abs 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 βanaanḵarajoŋ ni? Maa βa naan ḵara joŋ ni int neg eat fruit.abs 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 Fiiwacajol. Fii wacay ol flow water.abs 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.)