The Colian Language Family
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This public article was written by [Deactivated User], and last updated on 6 Apr 2023, 18:35.
[comments] edvlaeppocolhyo
?FYI...
This article is a work in progress! Check back later in case any changes have occurred.
This article is a work in progress! Check back later in case any changes have occurred.
The Colian languages are a family of language spoken by approximately 12 million people [somewhere because they're no longer on Sahar but I need to figure that out still]. They are all descended from the Colian language, last spoken approximately between 900 and 1000 years ago. They are members of the larger Soscarian-Colian family, which is attested by one other language, Soshan.
Colian (DODDU COLÉUSU Dqddo Cqléoso /d̪od̪:u kol̪e:us̪u/, most likely from COLEA, "to share"; "shared speech") is the mother of the modern Colian languages (hence the language family's name). Colian had a free word order but preferred VSO, and heavily marked nouns and adjectives for gender, animacy, case, and number. Verbs marked only for person, number, and tense, with no aspectual distinctions. Colian had a hefty inventory including geminated consonants, palatalized consonants, and front rounded vowels. Colian also distinguished animacy on nouns, adjectives, and verbs.West Colian Languages
Edievian (Taaevaod Ta xvqd /t̪aɛvɔd̪/, from itacu gebe "our land", eroded to the word taaev "Edievia") is the most phonologically conservative of the Colian languages. It also has the most speakers, boasting approximately 7.5 million native speakers. Edievian is entirely VSO and makes use of frequent compounding. Its alphabet, derived from the Colian alphabet, is the basis of the other Colian languages' writing systems (when not using the Latin alphabet). Edievian has a highly inflected verbal system (marking for polarity, tense, aspect, with optional passivity and a desiderative mood) and a mixed system of final consonant mutation and ablaut to distinguish number on nouns. Edievian is also the only Colian language to have fully preserved reflexes of all the Colian palatalized consonants.
Laendish (Lahgenòd La jgenqd /laɣenɔd/, from lahge, "mountain(s)") is the second most-spoken language, having approximately 3.8 million speakers. Laendish is characterized by its frequency of diphthongs ending in [u̯]. The language faced an uncertain future during the past century as Edievian was pushed as the national language, but has continued on and grown in speakers and usage in spite of the challenges. Laendish is moderately inflected, and makes use of a system of initial consonant mutations. Its verbal system is simplified from Colian, making use of non-inflecting particles for the past and future combined with verbal stems.
Poanapian (Poanape Poa na pe /poanapə/, from po anap "in [the] north") is the smallest of the Colian languages, with approximately 700,000 speakers. Poanapian is by far the most innovative of the family, having entirely shifted to a pseudo-SVO structure and having lost much of its nominal and verbal inflection. In spite of that, it redeveloped accusative pronouns (the only member of the family to have done so) and front rounded vowels, though of a different source than Colian's.South Colian Languages
Hollese (Chollur Cjqllor /xɔɬuɾ/, from Colian Coléusu, "Colian, shared") is the only living South Colian language, having developed outside of the strong areal influence that Edievian exerts. Hollese merged Colian vowels in a different scheme than the West Colian languages, and also experienced a wide-spread syncope of vowels (c.f. Colian HULASJUSU "osprey" > Hollese llysur "kite", compare Edievian holasiós). Hollese is the only Colian language to have preserved relics of Colian nominal morphology: Hollese preserves a nominative vs. oblique distinction on nouns and adjectives, with all cases except for the nominative collapsing into the oblique.Default VSO Order
All West Colian languages have a default VSO order for declarative sentences. Interrogatives and changes in tense may adjust this word order. Edievian is the most staunch; there are no exceptions to VSO. Questions never display fronting except for interrogatives like vames "where" or vals "when", which are treated like adverbs and hence can go ahead of the verb. Others like vaos "who" and vos "what" are kept behind the main verb (Siáoméis vos? "What are you eating?", lit. "you eat what?"). Poanapian and Laendish (in non-present verb tenses) instead display a VTSVMO structure: VT is a tense-marking auxiliary, and VM is the main verb. Laendish is open to fronting any interrogative, while Poanapian acts similarly to Edievian and only permits fronting of adverbial interrogatives.
Hollese, as a South Colian language, displays more flexibility in word order. SVO is generally preferred; however, due to the retention of case marking on pronouns, other orders such as OSV or OVS can occur, dependent on the focus of the sentence.
Inflected Prepositions
Colian, Edievian, and Laendish all have inflected prepositions for the different personal pronouns. They originated in Colian as simple contractions, but are mandatory inflections in Edievian and Laendish. Poanapian lost them due to sound change and instead use the accusative forms of pronouns with prepositions.
Plurals via Ablaut
Colian marked plurals with inflected endings and the lengthening of one or more vowels in the noun's stem. Edievian, Laendish, and Poanapian, however, mark plurality with vowel quality, each having their own system of correspondences. All three languages mark plurals via ablaut of the final vowel of the word. Edievian has the most regular and predictable paradigm. Due to sound change, many Laendish and even more Poanapian words are invariable and have identical singular and plural forms.
Hollese generally does not show plural via ablaut due to the nature of its evolution from Colian, but some nouns do demonstrate an alternation between /ə/ and /a/ (written as ⟨y, a⟩, respectively).
Articles
The living Colian languages (Edievian, Laendish, Poanapian, and Hollese) all lack indefinite articles but have definite articles. Edievian and Poanapian frequently contract the definite articles with prepositions (Edievian prefers to use an inflectional preposition stem, and Poanapian just suffixes on a consonant), while Laendish rarely contracts them. Poanapian and Hollese both permit the definite article to be prefixed onto a noun, and Poanapian goes so far as to allow it to suffix to other words within the same clause if it cannot be prefixed.
| Colian | Edievian | Laendish | Poanapian | Hollese | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Verbal | |||||
| Aspect | none | 3: gnomic, perfect, imperfect | none | 2: unspecified1, progressive | unspecificed, perfect |
| Tense | 3: past, present, future | 3: past, present, future | 3: past, present, future | 3: past, present, future | 4: past, pluperfect, present, future |
| Polarity marking | pre-verbal particle NA | verbal prefix an-, na- | verbal prefix na-, inflected tense marker | post-verbal particle la(g) | post-verbal particle |
| Copula-dropping | no | no | non-present | non-present2 | no |
| Nominal | |||||
| Case | 4: NOMNominative (case) TRANS subject, INTR argument, ACCAccusative (case) TRANS direct object; patient DATDative (case) indirect object; recipient, beneficiary, location, GENGenitive (case) possessive | none | none | none | 2: NOMNominative (case) TRANS subject, INTR argument, OBLOblique (argument) indirect or demoted object |
| Gender | 2: masculine, feminine | none | none | none | 2: masculine, feminine |
| Animacy | 2: animate, inanimate | none | none | none | none |
| Number marking | case endings and vowel-lengthening | ablaut and final consonant mutation | ablaut | ablaut | ablaut (limited), case endings |
| Pronominal | |||||
| Case | 4: NOMNominative (case) TRANS subject, INTR argument, ACCAccusative (case) TRANS direct object; patient DATDative (case) indirect object; recipient, beneficiary, location, GENGenitive (case) possessive | 3: NOMNominative (case) TRANS subject, INTR argument+ACCAccusative (case) TRANS direct object; patient DATDative (case) indirect object; recipient, beneficiary, location, GENGenitive (case) possessive | 3: NOMNominative (case) TRANS subject, INTR argument+ACCAccusative (case) TRANS direct object; patient DATDative (case) indirect object; recipient, beneficiary, location, GENGenitive (case) possessive | 4: NOMNominative (case) TRANS subject, INTR argument, ACCAccusative (case) TRANS direct object; patient DATDative (case) indirect object; recipient, beneficiary, location, GENGenitive (case) possessive | 3: NOMNominative (case) TRANS subject, INTR argument, OBLOblique (argument) indirect or demoted object, GENGenitive (case) possessive |
| Mandatory subject pronouns | no | no | with non-present verbs | yes | no, but often preferred |
2: Dependent on grammatical analysis; the tense auxiliary verbs are descended from the Colian copula, and are mandatory in all independent clauses. They can be glossed as a copula, and do not require a secondary verb in copular sentences; O'gh can. PRESPresent tense (tense)
current.SGSingular (number)
one countable entity-1SFirst person singular (person)
speaker, signer, etc.; I man "I am a man."
| Colian | Edievian | Laendish | Poanapian | Hollese | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| one | no /n̪o/ | nao /n̪ɔ/ | no /no/ | no /no/ | no /nɔ/ |
| two | tjíi /t̪ʲi:i/ | tií /t͡ʃi/ | chi /ʃi/ | chi /hi/ | si /si/ |
| three | cenu /ken̪u/ | caen /kɛn̪/ | ce /ke/ | ce /ke/ | chen /xɛn/ |
| four | lǿ /l̪ø:/ | le /l̪e/ | le /le/ | le /le/ | le /le/ |
| five | nágje /n̪a:gʲe/ | náig /n̪aʒ/ | nay /naj/ | nagh /naʒ/ | nath /naθ/ |
| six | ymø /ymø/ | emae /emɛ/ | eme /eme/ | eme /eme/ | ime /imɛ/ |
| seven | sata /sat̪a/ | sad /sad̪/ | sad /sad/ | sav /sav/ | syth /səθ/ |
| eight | atettu /at̪et̪:u/ | adaet /ad̪ɛt̪/ | ahdèt /aðɛt/ | aviet /avi̯et/ | ythet /əθɛt/ |
| nine | cábu /ka:bu/ | cab /kav/ | cau /kau̯/ | cau /ko/ | chap /xap/ |
| ten | íýmu /jy:mu/ | im /im/ | im /im/ | yin /jin/ | im /im/ |
| Colian | Edievian | Laendish | Poanapian | Hollese | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| cloud | oblacca /oblak:a/ | aoblac /ɔbl̪ak/ | obalc /obalk/ | ouley /ulej/ | oplyc /ɔplək/ |
| eat | sjomea /sʲomea/ | siáomae /ʃɔmɛ/ | ome /ome/ | van /van/ | som /sɔm/ |
| hand | renta /ren̪t̪a/ cármentta /ka:rmen̪t̪:a/ | raend /ɾɛn̪d̪/ carmaend /kaɾmɛn̪d̪/ "glove" | rèn /ɾɛn/ | rien /ɾi̯en/ carmien /kaɾmi̯en/ "grip" | reth /ɾɛθ/ |
| head | talnu /t̪al̪n̪u/ | taln /t̪al̪n̪/ | tau /tau̯/ | tau /to/ | thywn /θɪwn/ |
| ice | hunu /hun̪u/ | hon /hon̪/ | ondro /ondɾo/ | ondre /ondɾe/ | hun /hun/ |
| mouth | brosu /bros̪u/ | braos /bɾɔs̪/ | bròs /bɾɔs̪/ | brua /bɾu̯a/ | prol /pɾɔl/ "lips" |
| nose | ansomu /an̪s̪omu/ | iop /jop/ dial. asaom /as̪ɔm/ | yob /job/ | asuan /asu̯an/ | yrom /əɾɔm/ |
| see | scolea /skolea/ | scaolae /s̪kɔl̪ɛ/ | scole, scou /skole, skou̯/ | icou /iku/ | chol /xɔl/ |
| speak | dóddea /do:d:ea/ | dodae /d̪od̪ɛ/ | dode /dode/ | dov /dov/ | tod /tɔd/ |
| star | ysca /yska/ | aesc /ɛs̪k/ | èsc /ɛsk/ | ey /ej/ | ich /ix/ |
| stone | páddacca /pa:d̪:ak:a/ | padac /pad̪ak/ | pahdac /paðak/ | pavey /pavej/ | fadyc /fadək/ |
| water | oruva /oruva/ | aorov /ɔɾov/ | orov /oɾov/ | orou /oɾu/ | oraw /ɔɾau̯/ |
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