Koṭärt

Koṭärt
Spoken in:	Lakkāl
Universe:	Paukaṣṣat
Writing system:	Koṭärt abugida (modern)
Genealogical classification:	Śäts Valley languages Koṭärt languages Koṭärt
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 /ko̞ʈæɹˈc͡ʎ̝̊ap/) 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

Consonant inventory (Standard dialect)

	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.

Romanization for Consonants

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.

Short monophthongs

	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] 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 a rhotic, then it's not infrequent to be pronounced as a r-colored vowel.

Long monophthongs

	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.

Diphthongs

	-/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.

Romanization for Vowels

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

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Syntax

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Grammar

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Morphology

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Orthography

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Lexicon

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Notes

Links