Yeuz

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CarsonDaConlanger
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Yeuz

Post by CarsonDaConlanger »

The Yeuz Language

Yeuz, natively Leishiyéuz /lɪ.ʃiˈjøz/, is the language spoken by the inhabitants of the Tsij Kingdom. Named for the long, winding river it is centered on, the civilization roughly equivalent to a bronze age one on earth is a center of wealth and culture in its region. Its people have harnessed the river for massive agricultural production, as well as trade and travel (for those of the higher castes of course.) As such, the river is at the heart of their culture. For their language, I've drawn inspiration from Korean, Swahili, and Vietnamese. Yeuz is generally prefixing (with a few exceptions) with head initial noun phrases and head final verbal phrases. It's rather analytical, and although verbs/adjectives don't agree to it, it has an extensive system of noun classes which interplay with pronouns. Word order is usually based on class and formality, and the subject is frequently marked with the genitive.

Phonology, Phonotactics and You!

Yeuz has a rather large phonemic inventory, which is as follows:
Consonants:
/m n ɲ1 ŋ/ m n ny ng
/b t d t͡s t͡ʃ d͡ʒ k g ʔ/ b t d ts ch j k g '2
/f s z3 ʃ ʒ3 h/ f s z sh zh h
/l r j w/ l r y w

Vowels:
/i u/i u
4 ø ɤ o/ ei eu oi ou
/ɛ a ɔ/ e a o

Vowels harmonize to height and frontness, with the exception of /i/, which is a transparent neutral vowel with regards to frontness when it is not in the stressed position, and initiates either front or back harmony when stressed. /ø/ is transparent neutral with regards to height, but when stressed it can initiate either high or low harmony. Otherwise, the categories are as such:
high front: i ɪ ø
high back: i u o ɤ
low front: ɛ ø
low back: a ɔ

Notes:
1: /ɲ/ merges with /ŋ/ in the coda
2: /ʔ/ is not written word initially
3: /z/ and /ʒ/ are pronounced as [ɾ] (contrasting with /r/) in many southern dialects
4: /ɪ/ is lowered to [e] before /k g h ŋ/

Revision Below
Last edited by CarsonDaConlanger on 25 Jul 2021 23:43, edited 1 time in total.
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CarsonDaConlanger
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Re: Yeuz

Post by CarsonDaConlanger »

Addendum 1: I forgot to put in phonotactics lol

The basic structure is (C)C(j,w)V(C) with the following rules:
1: onset clusters of 2 obstruants will share the voicing 2nd one
2: bilabial or palatal consonants cannot precede any consonant in the onset other than a glide
3: glides cannot appear after a consonant but before /i/ or /u/

I guess since I've already got a 2nd post going, I'll do nouns too lol

Nouns and Classes

Nouns are divided into classes, marked with prefixes:

Singular
1 Na/ne/nei/ni- humans, deities, anything kind of human like
2 Reu/ro/rou- animals,
3 mi/me/ma- most inanimate objects, most loanwords
4 Yi/ye/ya- plants, food
5 U/i/o/e- tools, useful objects
6 Lei/loi/le/la- abstract concepts, nations, languages etc
7 dyo/dyeu/dyou- diminutives, small things
8 Iki/eke/aka- verbal nouns

Plural
1,2 san/sen/sein/sin-
3,4,5 ste/stei/sta/stoi-
6 go/geu/gou-
7 shod/sheud/shoud-
8 N/A

Class markers can also be used as pronouns referring to nouns of their respective class, and if a noun is the topic, they can substitute its in a sentence entirely.
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CarsonDaConlanger
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Re: Yeuz

Post by CarsonDaConlanger »

Updated: I've been thinking about this a lot and decided I wanted to go a different rout with this lang. So uh here's the new phonology:

/m n ŋ/ m n ng
/p b t d t͡ʃ d͡ʒ k g/ p b t d ch j k g
/f θ s h/ f th s h
/l r j w/ l r y w

/i ɪ y u/ i i ü u
/e ə ø o/ e e ö o
/a/ a
All stressed vowels may be lengthened, written VV
Stress is on the last syllable of all content words, secondary stress only exists in compounds (which preserve stress in their root words) or in trisyllabic loanwords which place it on every odd syllable from the final one. /ɪ ə/ are called unstressed vowels, and cannot be lengthened or possess primary or secondary stress. Some bisyllabic function words possess two unstressed vowels, and do not have any stress.

The phonotactics are somewhat complex. Clusters are only allowed in the onset of a stressed syllable, and are highly structured.

PN: pn- ch- kn- tm- chm- km-
Fn: fn- sn- thn-
Pt/Bd: pt- bd- cht- jd- kt- gd-
rP/rF: rp- rt- rch- rk- rf- rth- rs- rh-

Any cluster may be followed by y or w.
All consonants may be in the coda except for f th h ch j
Unstressed syllables cannot have a coda or a cluster in the onset.

All native content words are bimoraic, and monosyllabic loanwords are frequently given an /ɪ/- prefix that is removed in compounds. For example, the word sya "ink" is usually said as isya, but remains sya in the compound echünsys "stamp."
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