Sasat

General information
Sasat is a language isolate spoken in northern regions of Mexico and in scattered pockets throughout the southwest United States. The Southern dialect of Sasat is considered to be the most "correct" form of the language and will be the focus of this page. Sasat is a possible member of the Utian or Uto-Aztecan language families, based on lexical similarities between uncommon words, but these declarations have not been substantiated. Furthermore, the excessive use of particles and the infix- and consonant-based morphological peculiarities are traits not common of any local language families. The correlating series of nasals, plosives, and laterals have caused some linguists to suggest a distant relation to certain Australian languages, though grammatical differences bring heavy doubt to these claims. Other linguists have suggested the possibility that Sasat is a remnant of a larger super-language family, linking the language families of northern Mexico to the Amazonian language families. These claims are largely due to the dialectal, voiceless nasalized glottal approximant, an extremely rare phone found in parts of the western Amazon, namely within the Mura language branch. Disappointingly, the highly agglutinative nature and tonality of the Mura language branch, in addition to its whistled speech, make any relation to Sasat highly unlikely. Finally, despite any logical contact, claims have been made that Sasat is Basque's -- another language isolate's -- closest relative. Though the phonologies are similar, Sasat uses many more laterals, and Basque distinguishes voicing. Evidence of similar reliance on articles has also been brought forth, but Sasat's system of articles and other particles is so much more extensive that the claims are hardly warranted. For now, most linguists accept that Sasat is simply a language isolate.

Phonology
 Dialects 

'''There are four main dialects of Sasat: Northeastern, Northern, Central, and Southern. The Southern dialect is the most "normal," having no additional phones, and having an interdental -- rather than a dental -- fricative phone. The Central dialect is more strongly nasalized, having the voiceless nasal glottal approximant as well as phonemic nasalization on all front and central vowels immediately following a nasal consonant. The Northeastern, Northern, and Central dialects all have allophonic nasalization on all front and central vowels immediately following a nasal consonant, and they do not differentiate between the two glottal consonants. Also, the Central dialect pronounces and writes all open-mid central vowels as open-mid front vowels. The Northern dialect uses the "c" diacritic to represent nasal sounds; the Northern dialect also has the additional dental affricate, alveolar affricate, dental lateral approximant, and velar lateral approximant phones. Finally, the Northeastern dialect uses the dental symbol underneath the dental fricative, rather than the "c" diacritic of the Northern dialect. Other than the dental fricative -- instead of the interdental fricative of the Central and Southern dialects -- the Northeastern dialect is the most similar to the "correct," Southern dialect.'''

Consonants
Southern Dialect

=== All extra occurrences of a phoneme within a single cell are simply additional ways of representing the same phoneme. The sole exception is the dental fricative cell, in which θ represents an interdental fricative, and s̻ and sc both represent a dental fricative. ===

Vowels
===In the Central dialect of Sasat, all front and central vowels following a nasal consonant are phonemically nasalized. This nasalization is marked by a tilde over the vowel. Additionally, the open-mid central vowel is not recognized within the Central dialect, and all instances of the vowel are instead written and pronounced as the open-mid front vowel.===

Phonotactics
All words must contain at least a vowel.

(C)V(V)(V)(V)(C)(C)(V)(V)(V)(V)(C)...

Though not illegal, no words contain more than four vowels in a sequence, and having only one vowel in a row is most common. The same vowel may not appear twice in a row, and vowel length is allophonic. Palatals, lateral approximants, and the trill may only appear at the beginning of a syllable, and trills may not appear word-initially.

Sound Change

Syllable-final nasals and plosives have no audible release. Both vowels and consonants have very irregular and complex rules for sound change as a result of morphological changes. Consonants, especially, are liable to change place of articulation or manner of articulation to match the consonant of the derivational or affixal ending. Another common feature in Sasat is the lenition of consonants as a result of morphological change. Highly derived and conjugated words tend to have many /h/ phonemes within them.

Gemination is another popular feature in Sasat. Two adjacent consonants that are the same will form a geminated version of the consonant. All geminated consonants are held slightly longer than the non-geminated consonants. Plosives and glottals, especially, become highly aspirated and very breathy during gemination. Gemination also exists across word boundaries, even after morphological changes have taken place. In these instances, the final consonant remains ungeminated, while the beginning of the subsequent word becomes geminated. Due to the fact that some words begin with a geminated consonant, it is possible for triple-gemination to occur. As in regular gemination, the final consonat of the primary word remains ungeminated, and the first consonant of the secondary word becomes geminated. However, in these rare instances, vowels following the "triple-geminated" phoneme become more front and open. /i/ and /u/ become /e/; /ɜ / becomes /ɛ /; and /ɛ / and /a/ become a fully front and open vowel, a more fronted /a/. This vowel shift is not marked in the word but merely pronounced.