Êanglluk

Êanglluk

=Summary= Êanglluk is a future version of English meant to be spoken by space colonists who have been isolated from Earth for long enough to develop their own language. The phonology has changed drastically, for example tone developed when consanants began to alter the pitch of nearby vowels. After consonant mergers tone became phonemic e.g. byet pronounced with a low tone means "bread", and with a rising tone means "breath". Other notable features are the development of ejectives, implosives and glottalised resonants, with the voicing distinction being lost everywhere except affricates. Uvular, retroflex and pharyngeal consonants have also emerged. The range of possible syllable structures has shrunk to (C) (j) V (C).The grammar has also changed, with noun incorporation becoming much more productive. Word order has become Topic Verb (Subject) (Object) and the alignment has changed to ergative-absolutive.

= Phonology =

Vowels
The vowel system is simply the 7 cardinal vowels.

There are several diphthongs: iu /iu/, eu /eu/, eau /εu/, au /au/, ou /ou/, ei /ei/ or /εi/, ai /ai/, oi /oi/ or /ɔi/ and ui /ui/.

Before a nasal consonant all vowels and diphthongs are nasalised.

Consonants
(Phonemes in brackets are marginally phonemic)

After a front vowel the velarised lateral l /ɫ/ is pronounced as a palatal []. Velar ng /ŋ/ can only occur after a vowel, and ll /l/ can only occur before a vowel. Retroflex consonants, ejectives, aspirated consonants, r /ɾ/, y /j/, rk /q/, q /ʔ/ and w /v/ can also only occur before a vowel.,The "glottal nasal" is realised as nasalisation of the preceding vowel (like some Japanese speakers do for moraic /N/. It can only occur after a vowel.

As noted above the range of possible syllables is restricted to (C) (j) V (C). However /j/ can only occur after velar and bilabial stops. Also after an open syllable, the next syllable in the word must begin with a consonant.

Accent
Words in Êanglluk can either be accented or unaccented (this is distinct from tone). If a word bears accent then it can only occur once per word. It does not occur on syllables but on syllable boundaries, and is marked by a h before the cpnsonants that divide the syllables. It can also occur at the beginning or end of a word. Thus nanan (unaccented), hnanan (accent before the first syllable), nahnan (accent between the first and second syllable) and nanahn (accent after the second syllable) would all be considered different words.

The most common way that accent manifests itself is by consonant mutation. p /p/ and t /t/ become implosive b /ɓ/ and d /ɗ/ respectively. The cluster ky /kj/ becomes implosive j /ʄ/, and in other cases k /k/ becomes pharyngeal c /ʡ/. The velar affricate x /kx/ becomes pharyngeal ch /ʢ/ and the glottal stop q /ʔ/ becomes h /ɦ/. The affricates pf /pf/ and ts /ts/ are voiced to bv /bv/ and dz /dz/ respectively. Nasals and approximants become creaky voiced. The accent cannot fall on syllable boundaries containing consonants that are aspirated or ejective, nor if there is the uvular stop rk /q/ or the retroflexes rt /ʈ/ and rts /ʈʂ/ although it can fall on the retroflex approximant rz /ɻ/. A substantial minority of speakers downstep the tones for the rest of the word after an accent, with or without the consonant changes described above. The tone in a syllable immediately before an accent must be either Low or Falling, and in the syllable immediately after an accent it must be Low, Rising or High. If such a syllable has High Tone, then the next syllable must begin with an aspirated consonant.

If an aspirated consonant occurs in an accented word, then the accent is always exactly one syllable before it and the intervening syllable has High Tone. If there is a syllable before this High Toned syllable, then it can only take Low or Falling Tone e.g. boathò /ɓɔ˦to˦˨/ - to be given battle, and q i boathò /ʔi˨ɓɔ˦to˦˨/ - who was given battle? are possible words (in both cases the accent is before the oa, turning p /p/ into b / Apart from this case aspirated consonants cannot exist in accented words.

Tone
There are 6 tones in Êanglluk, although the system is simplifying to 5. There are many rules about how tones in a word can combine with each other and with consonants such as aspirates, ejectives and implosives.

Low Tone: a /a˨/ pronounced at the bottom of the speaker's vocal range and either level or slightly falling

Rising Tone: á /a˨˦/ starting at the bottom of the speaker's vocal range and rising.

High Tone: a (unmarked) /a˦/ starting at the top of the speaker's vocal range and either level or rising slightly.

Falling Tone: à /a˦˨/ starting at the top of the speaker's vocal range and falling.

Dipping Tone: ä /a˦˨˦/ this is in the process of merging into the high tone, and is only marginally phonemic if at all. It can only occur in a syllable before another syllable beginning with an aspirated consonant, where a high tone can never occur.

Glottal High Tone: â /aʔa ˦˥˦ / pronounced like the high tone, but with tense voice and interrupted by a glottal stop (tense voiced) midway through. This tone can only occur once per word and only in unaccented words.

One important tone rule in words with two or more syllables is that if a the tone of a syllable begins high (High, Falling, Dipping and Glottalised Tones), then the tone on the preceding syllable in the word (if any) must have ended high (Rising, High, Dipping and Glottalised Tones). Likewise if the tone of a syllable begins low (Low and Rising Tones), then the tone on the preceding syllable must have ended low (Low and Falling Tones). The only exception to this rule is that a High Tone can occur after a syllable with Low or Falling Tone only if there is an accent between them. In this case the syllable immediately after the High Tone syllable will always begin with an aspirated consonant.

Another important rule is that the tone in syllables beginning with aspirated consonants can only be High or Falling. No other tones are possible in these syllables. Also if a word ends with an open syllable (without a consonant at the end) then it can only have Low or Falling Tone.

=Basic Grammar= ...

=Dictionary =

Numbers
1 - hlan

=Example text= ...