Koṭärt
| Koṭärt | |
| Spoken in: | Lakkāl |
| Universe: | Paukaṣṣat |
| Writing system: | Koṭärt abugida (modern) |
| Genealogical classification: | Śäts Valley languages
|
| Typology | |
| Morphological type: | Agglutinative |
| Morphosyntactic alignment: | Fluid-S Ergative-Absolutive |
| Conlang details | |
| Conlang type: | Artificial language |
| Real-world inspirations: | Tocharian languages, Finnish, Turkish, Sanskrit, Lithuanian, Tamil etc. |
| Created by: | |
| Hyacinth Fairfax | |
Koṭärt (Native names: Koṭärt /ko̞ˈʈæɹt/, lyāpṣmä wë Koṭärt /ʎɑːpˈʂmæ wə ko̞ˈʈæɹt/, or Koṭärtlyap /ko̞.ʈæɹˈc͡ʎ̝̊ap/) is an artificial language created by Hyacinth Fairfax for a conworld project, Paukaṣṣat, and a future book. It is a most commonly spoken, literary, and academic language in the land of Lakkāl, serving as a lingua franca between various Lakkālt communes. It is also the most spoken human language in Paukaṣṣat.
History
WIP
Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Alveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | p | t | ʈ | c~k̟ʲ | k | (ʔ) |
| Nasal | m | n | ɳ | ɲ | ŋ | |
| Fricative | s | ʂ | ɕ | ɣ | ||
| Affricate | t͡s | ʈ͡ʂ | t͡ɕ | |||
| Lateral Affricate | t͡ɬ | c͡ʎ̝̊ | ||||
| Approximant | w | ɹ | (ɻ) | j | ɰ | |
| Lateral Approximant | l | ɭ | ʎ | |||
| Flap | ɽ |
Notes:
- Certain consonants can be prolonged, and some plosives can be pronounced with no audible release at the end of words (with the following word starting with a consonant) or in the clusters in the syllable's coda.
- The pronunciation of /c~k̟ʲ/ varies, the forms [c], [k̟ʲ] and [c̠] oftenly coexist and are dependent on the speaker. Historically it derives from Old Koṭärt /kʲ/
- [ɻ] is usually an allophone of /ɹ/ around retroflex consonants. However some speakers always pronounce /ɹ/ as [ɻ].
- [ɣ] is an allophone of /ɰ/ when followed by /i/ or /y/. /ɰ/ is a result of a sound change from Old Koṭärt to Modern Koṭärt and appears in a Koṭärt-Weśte Standard dialect, as an example.
- /ŋ/ is realized variously and can also be an allophone of /n/. Around vowels (/Vŋ/) it is pronounced simply as a nasalized vowel ([Ṽ]), however when followed by a velar plosive it is usually pronounced as a standalone consonant with preceding vowel nasalized ([Ṽŋk]). Rarely, whenever /ŋ/ is in the consonant cluster, following /t/, it is usually realized as /t/ with nasal release: [tⁿ].
- Glottal stop is not a phoneme in Koṭärt, but it may sometimes appear in speech, e.g. in the beginning of words which start with vowel, to put emphasis, or to avoid hiatus.
| Letter | IPA | Letter | IPA |
|---|---|---|---|
| p | /p/ | s | /s/ |
| t | /t/ | ṭ | /ʈ/ |
| ḳ | /c~k̟ʲ/ | ṣ | /ʂ/ |
| k | /k/ | ś | /ɕ/ |
| m | /m/ | ts | /t͡s/ |
| n | /n/ | c | /ʈ͡ʂ/ |
| ṇ | /ɳ/ | ć | /t͡ɕ/ |
| ñ | /ɲ/ | tl | /t͡ɬ/ |
| ṃ | /ŋ/¹ | tly | /c͡ʎ̝̊/ |
| ṛ | /ɽ/ | w | /w/² |
| y | /j/³ | r | /ɹ/ |
| l | /l/ | g | /ɰ/ |
| ly | /ʎ/ | ḷ | /ɭ/ |
Notes:
¹ – The ⟨ṃ⟩ represents the phonetic /ŋ/, meaning it also indicates vowel nasalization
² – ⟨u⟩ as a semivowel in diphthongs
³ – ⟨i⟩ as a semivowel in diphthongs
⁴ – The digraph ⟨wy⟩ represents [jː], historically pronounced as [wj]
Vowels
Vowels in Koṭärt are more complicated than consonants. It differentiates long and short monophthongs, with long vowels being phonologically different vowels than short ones. This is a because of sound changes that resulted in a vowel shift. There are also many diphthongs. The vowels operate within umlaut and ablaut systems, see Phonetics part for explanation.
All vowels can be nasalized, in romanization it's represented as ⟨Vṃ⟩, m with a dot below.
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i y | (ɨ) | u |
| Close-mid | (ɵ) | ||
| Mid | e̞ ø̞ | ə (ɵ̞) | o̞ |
| Open-mid | (ɜ) | ||
| Near-open | æ | (ɐ) | |
| Open | a |
Notes:
- /ø̞/ can have different phonological values, depending on a dialect, and even speaker's idiolect (just as certain aforementioned nuances with some consonants), it may be realised as [ø̞], [ɵ], or [ɵ̞].
- [ə], in addition to its role as a phoneme, is an allophone of /a/ when unstressed, however [ɐ] is an unstressed allophone of /a/ as well, but in two-syllable words and when it precedes a stressed syllable in a multisyllable word. For example, ṣtaṃśau [ʂtɐ̃ˈɕaʊ̯̈].
- [ɜ] is a stressed allophone of /ə/, however some put stress on /ə/ nonetheless.
- [ɨ] is an allophone of /i/ when it follows a retroflex consonant.
- If a vowel that isn't open or near-open is followed by rhotic, then it's not infrequent to be pronounced as a r-colored vowel.
| Front | Near-front | Central | Near-back | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close | yː | ||||
| Near-close | ɪː | ʊː | |||
| Open-mid | ɛː œː | ɜː | ɔː | ||
| Near-open | ʌ̞ː | ||||
| Open | ɑː |
Long vowels are pronounced with a length of two morae. Lengthening plays a role in morphology and semantics of words.
| -/u/ | -/i/ | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phonetic | Unstressed | Pre-stress | Stressed | Phonetic | Unstressed | Pre-stress | Stressed | |
| /e̞/- | /e̞u̯/ | [eʊ̯̈] | [e̞ʊ̯̈] | [e̞ʊ̯̈] | /e̞i̯/ | [eɪ̯] | [e̞ɪ̯] | [ɛi̯] |
| /ə/- | /əu̯/ | [əu̯] | [əu̯] | [ɜʊ̯̈] | /əi̯/ | [əi̯] | [əi̯] | [ɜɪ̯̈] |
| /ɛː/- | /ɛːu̯/ | [ɛːʊ̯̈] | [ɛːʊ̯̈] | [ɛːʉ̯] | /ɛːi̯/ | [ɛːi̯] | [ɛːi̯] | [ɛːi̯] |
| /ɜː/- | /ɜːu̯/ | [ɜːʊ̯] | [ɜː⁽ʊ̯̈⁾] | [ɜːʊ̯̈] | /ɜːi̯/ | [ɜːɨ̯] | [ɜːɨ̯] | [ɜːɪ̯̈] |
| /a/- | /au̯/ | [əʊ̯] | [ɐu̯] | [aʊ̯] | /ai̯/ | [əi̯] | [ɐi̯] | [ai̯] |
| /æ/- | /æu̯/ | [æʊ̯] | [æʊ̯̈] | [æu̯] | /æi̯/ | [æɪ̯̈] | [æi̯] | [æi̯] |
Koṭärt phonotactics allow vowel hiatus up to two consonants in a row, which are oftenly pronounced as a vowel-semivowel pair, meaning phonologically there are more diphthongs than presented on a table, yet they do not carry any sort of semantic significance, and can be alternatively substituted by two vowels with an intervocalic glottal stop.
| Short vowel | IPA | Umlaut | IPA | Long vowel | IPA | Lengthened Umlaut | IPA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| a | /a/ | ä | /æ/ | ā | /ɑː/ | á | /ʌ̞ː/ |
| i | /i/ | ī | /ɪː/ | ||||
| u | /u/ | ü | /y/ | ū | /ʊː/ | ú | /yː/ |
| e | /e̞/ | ē | /ɛː/ | ||||
| ë | /ə/ | é | /ɜː/ | ||||
| o | /o̞/ | ö | /ø̞/ | ō | /ɔː/ | ó | /œː/ |
Phonetics
WIP
Phonotactics
WIP
Syntax
WIP
Grammar
WIP
Morphology
WIP
Orthography
WIP
Lexicon
WIP
Notes
Links
- Koṭärt on Linguifex
