Tsakxa

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Tsakxa
Qunusu
щунусу
Spoken in: Russia (Русэйa - Ruseya)
Conworld: Earth
Total speakers: ~300
Genealogical classification:
Tsakxa
Basic word order: SOV
Morphological type: Agglutinative
Morphosyntactic alignment: Fluid-S saliency-based
Writing system:
Created by:
Welshy 2010 C.E.
Tsakxa (Qunusu, щунусу) is a language isolate, or dialect continuum, spoken by the Tsakxa people of eastern Siberia. Although typically written using Bokanovsky's Cyrillic alphabet, this and related articles will use Dawkins' romanised writing system.

Phonology

Vowels

Front Central Back
Close [u] <u у>
Mid [e] <e э>
Open [a] <a>

Allophony

Vowel allophony is not very advanced in most Tsakxa dialects. Before the dental click, /e/ is usually realised as allophonic [ɤ] in stressed syllables or [ɘ] in unstressed syllables and /a/ as, almost universally, [ɑ].

Consonants

Tsakxa is most notable for its system of clicks, which are otherwise unknown outside of the continent of Africa and the ritual languages of Australia. Its click system is not particularly advanced, however.

  Labial Dental Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal [m] <m м> [n] <n н> [nǀ] <nx нъ>     [ŋ] <ng ң> [ŋǃ] <ngx ңъ> [ŋǀ] <ngq ңь>  
Plosive [p] <p п> [t] <t т>     [k] <k к> [kǃ] <kx къ> [ǀk] <kq кь> [ʔ] <ʔ ъ>
Fricative [ɸ] <f ф> [s] <s с> [ʃ] <sh ш>   [ç] </span> [h] <h x>
Approximant   [l] <l л>   [j] <y й> [w] <w в>  
Trill     [r] <r р>      

Grammar

Tsakxa is an agglutinative, topic-prominent language with active alignment.

Pronouns

Main article: Tsakxa pronouns

Nouns

Main article: Tsakxa nouns

Tsakxa nouns are inflected by number into singular, dual and plural and, it is sometimes argued, for case (there are a large number of morphemes analysed variously as clitics and case inflection).

Verbs

Main article: Tsakxa verbs

Tsakxa verbs are inflected for aspect and mood. Certain verbs can also inflect, to a very restricted degree, to show person, but this is non-productive, erratic and irregular.

Syntax

Main article: Tsakxa syntax

Animacy

Main article: Tsakxa animacy

Lexicon and derivative morphology

Main article: Tsakxa lexicon