User:Meschigene/Sandbox

(Old) Kulashian (natively Kullaštū, Minkullaštū in newer texts) is the ancestor

Consonants
/m n/

/p t k b d g/

/s z ʃ ʒ x ɣ ɦ/ 

/ts dz tʃ dʒ/ 

/ʋ ɾ r l ɫ j/

Vowels
/a ɛ i o u e:/ 

Long vowels are marked by macrons: <ā ē ī ō ū> /a: ɛ: i: o: u:/. /e:/ is already long enough, no need to further lengthen it.

Syllable structure
The "neutral" vowel used to break impossible consonant clusters is always  after palatalized consonants and can be either  or  after non-palatalized consonants; the exact vowel depends on the vowel in the syllable preceding it. (not fully thought out yet.)

Consonants
Nasals and fricatives can be lengthened, this is marked in writing by doubling the letter.

All non-palatal consonants (except /ɫ/ and /l/, the latter is usually already palatalized) can be palatalized, this is marked by placing  after the "target" consonant.

/e:/ and /i:/ palatalize all preceding consonants except /ɫ/.

/ɦ/ and /ɣ/ both palatalize to [ʝ].

/ʋ/ is labial and is realized as [w] after /j/, /ɦ/ and velar consonants.

Vowels
/i/ is realized as [ɪ] after postalveolar consonants and /ɫ/ and when unstressed, and as [ɨ] after /ɫ/ in a stressed syllable, but is always pronounced as [i] word-finally regardless of stress, unless preceded by /ɫ/ or a postalveolar consonant, in which case it's pronounced as [ɪ].

/i:/ and /e:/ are realized as [ɨ:] and [ɛ:]

/ɛ/ is lowered when stressed.

Pronouns
Note: a common relative pronoun is il(k)-.

Nouns
Note: plural is formed by -m if the noun is polysyllabic and -mo if it's monosyllabic, except if it's monosyllabic and ends in a consonant cluster, in which case it's -Vm, e.g. irkam "fingers". (pretty sure I'll drop the -o in Kulashian's daughter languages.)

Note: if a noun ends in a (single?) consonant, the singular instrumental ending is -s instead of -(a)rr, so kas "human" > kass, jūrr "hand" > *jūrrs > jūš, ūk "cow" > *ūks > ūss. (irk "finger" > *irks > *irss > išš?)

Note: kúsō could've been changed its meaning from "woman" (and replaced by the word for "wife" in that meaning) to just "female" and yielded the root kus- as a backformation.

Note: a simple affixing of -a and -i to the root kas can lead to kási, meaning "man" as in "human male", and sā (< ssa < ksa < kusá) meaning just "male".

First declension
This declension covers most (if not all) polysyllabic nouns ending in vowels (-a, -o, -i, -u, -ō, -ū). This declension includes all three genders: nouns of this declension ending in -a and -i are masculine, ones ending in -ō are feminine, and ones ending in -o, -u and -ū are neuter.

Possessives
Kulashian nouns don't have a true genitive or possessive case. Instead, possessives are formed with help of clitics: enclitics i (masc./neut.), is (fem.) and mi (plural), derived from 3rd person possessive pronouns, (e.g. neghva i sdal [nɛ'ɣwaj.zdal] "(the) count's horse", svarkō is sdal ['sʋaɾ.ko:j.stal] "(the) cunt's horse" and sīmam mi xadžvo ['si:.ma.m:i 'xa.dʒʋo] "cat food") and the proclitic lli, most frequently used to mean "by", "from" and "made of", (e.g. missō lli Ukvanti ['mɪ.s:o: ɫu'kwan.ti] "(a) book by Ukvanti").

The clitics are often reduced: i [i] and is [is] are reduced to [j] and [js] respectively after vowels, and lli [ɫɨ] is reduced to [ɫ] before vowels.

Ablaut
Ablaut in Kulashian is usually triggered by back vowels, most notably <ō>, which typically "closes" the root vowel. Older and nonstandard forms were rife with ablaut, but all that's left of it in the "glorified" form is a few ablauted nouns, most of which denote male and female animals and people (usually workers) (e.g. sdila and sdilō from sdal) or are personal names (e.g. the theonym Skūma from skōmū "tongue").

Note: a strange case is the word svirka "mage, enchanter, sorcerer", which has two feminine forms with different meanings: the regular svirkō, which means "sorceress", and the (bizarrely) ablauted svarkō, which originally meant "witch" or "hag", but has devolved to a common swear word that can mean anything from, well, "witch" to "ill-tempered woman" to "damn!".

Syntax
Note: "it is ours" is amī tu, dunno what to make of that yet.

Writing system
Note: originally the Kulashian alphabet was pretty straightforward with a bit of ambiguity (a bit like the runes), but then some broke-ass scribescientistkindafellow decided that it'd be nice to invent some letters for consonant clusters, but only the ones that can occur in one syllable, because, you know, parchment is freaking pricy, but this isn't a KSL. That's all so far. And the romanization I created to be both more or less logical and aesthetically pleasing to me. Though it's not a direct transliteration: see  for /ɣ/ and all other digraphs (they're single letters in the Kulashian alphabet) and  for palatalization (natively it's denoted by a tiny irk, the Kulashian , over the "target" letter, so it'd be logical to palatalize using  , but nope,  is prettier and more versatile. never mind that they used to be the same letter).