Proto-Cathani [PQT]
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Registered by
[Deactivated User] on 28 September 2017
Language type
Proto-Conlang
Species
Human/humanoid
About Proto-Cathani
The oldest language of the Cathani language family, a major family in Jeehoop and surrounding areas. Proto-Cathani had an unusual phonology, including prenasalised stops and sibilants, lateral fricatives and a mixed vowel harmony system. Additionally, despite the large obstruent series, there were hardly any sonorants with the 'approximants' frequently surfacing as voiced fricatives in daughter languages, suggesting variation between the two. Coronals were also unusual for having complete harmony between dental/alveolar and retroflex series.
Proto-Cathani was a marked nominative language with 6 cases, 3 degrees of past tense remoteness and a number of aspects. There was also 3 degrees of evidentiality: witness, non-witness and indirect. Mood was seemingly limited to just a realis-irrealis distinction. Grammatical number was a bit more complex as nouns were marked for so-called 'classifiers' which encoded a combination of gender, size, shape, and number.
Proto-Cathani was a marked nominative language with 6 cases, 3 degrees of past tense remoteness and a number of aspects. There was also 3 degrees of evidentiality: witness, non-witness and indirect. Mood was seemingly limited to just a realis-irrealis distinction. Grammatical number was a bit more complex as nouns were marked for so-called 'classifiers' which encoded a combination of gender, size, shape, and number.
Sample of Proto-CathaniCan't find any yet.
Language family relationships
Language treeCathani
⤷ Proto-Cathani
⤷ Proto-Cathani
[view] About CathaniA relatively small language family spoken in South-Eastern Miraria (Parshita). All peoples and languages in this family are collectively called Cathani but the name only comes from, and traditionally referred to, the Cathan people - the largest ethni...
Phonology
Consonants | Bilabial | Dental | Alveolar | Retroflex | Labio- velar | Velar | Uvular | Pharyngeal | Glottal | |||||||||
Nasal | m | n̪ | ɳ | ŋ | ||||||||||||||
Plosive | p1 pʼ | b ᵐb | t̪2 t̪ʼ | d̪ ⁿd̪ | ʈ3 ʈʼ | ɖ ᶯɖ | k4 kʼ | g ᵑg | q5 qʼ | (ʔ)6 | ||||||||
Fricative | ð7 | s8 | z9 ⁿz10 | ʂ11 | ʐ12 ᶯʐ13 | x | ɣ14 | ħ15 | ʕ16 | h | ||||||||
Affricate | t͡sʼ | ʈ͡ʂʼ | ||||||||||||||||
Lateral approximant | [ɭ̝̥]17 | |||||||||||||||||
Lateral fricative | ɬ | |||||||||||||||||
Approximant | [ɻ̝]18 | w19 | ||||||||||||||||
Trill | r20 |
Blends | [ɽ͡r]21 |
- Likely [pʰ].
- Likely [t̪ʰ].
- Likely [ʈʰ].
- Likely [kʰ].
- Also reconstructed as [ʡ] or [ʔ].
- Phonemic status unclear; primarily occurs between vowels to break up hiatus or as part of a nucleus.
- Also reconstructed as [ɹ].
- Also reconstructed as [t͡s] or [t͡sʰ].
- Also reconstructed as [d͡z].
- Also reconstructed as [ⁿd͡z].
- Also reconstructed as [ʈ͡ʂ] or [ʈ͡ʂʰ].
- Also reconstructed as [ɖ͡ʐ].
- Also reconstructed as [ᶯɖ͡ʐ].
- Also reconstructed as [ɰ].
- Also reconstructed as [χ] or [ʜ].
- Also reconstructed as [ʁ] or [ʢ].
- Phonemic status disputed, likely retroflex harmony-conditioned allophone, allophone of /ɬ/
- Phonemic status disputed, likely retroflex harmony-conditioned allophone, also reconstructed as [ɻ], allophone of /ð/
- Also reconstructed as [β] or [ɣʷ].
- Also reconstructed as [ɾ].
- Phonemic status disputed, likely retroflex harmony-conditioned allophone, also reconstructed as [ɽ], allophone of /r/
Vowels | Front | Central | Back | |||
Close | i1 | y2 | ɯ3 | u4 | ||
Close-mid | e5 | ø6 | o7 | |||
Mid | (ə)8 | |||||
Open | ɑ9 |
- Also reconstructed as [e] in some words.
- Also reconstructed as [ø] in some words.
- Also reconstructed as [ɤ] in some words.
- Also reconstructed as [o] in some words.
- Also reconstructed as [ɛ] or [æ].
- Also reconstructed as [œ].
- Also reconstructed as [ɔ] or [ɒ].
- Epenthetic, does occur in some roots but unclear if phonemic or not. Also reconstructed as [ɨ].
- Also reconstructed as [ʌ] or [a].
Orthography
Below is the orthography for Proto-Cathani. This includes all graphemes as defined in the language's phonology settings - excluding the non-distinct graphemes/polygraphs.
Proto-CathaniOrthography [edit] | |||||||||
a/ɑ/1 | b/b/ | d/d̪/ | e/e/2 | g/g/ | ḫ/ħ/3 | h/h/ | i/i/4 | k/k/5 | k'/kʼ/ |
l/ɬ/, [ɭ̝̥]6 | m/m/ | m̆b/ᵐb/ | n/n̪/ | n̆d/ⁿd̪/ | n̆g/ᵑg/ | n̆rd/ᶯɖ/ | n̆rz/ᶯʐ/7 | n̆z/ⁿz/8 | ö/ø/9 |
o/o/10 | p/p/11 | p'/pʼ/ | q/q/12 | q'/qʼ/ | r/r/13, [ɽ͡r]14 | rd/ɖ/ | rn/ɳ/ | rs/ʂ/15 | rs'/ʈ͡ʂʼ/ |
rt/ʈ/16 | rt'/ʈʼ/ | rz/ʐ/17 | s/s/18 | s'/t͡sʼ/ | t/t̪/19 | t'/t̪ʼ/ | ü/y/20 | u/u/21 | w/w/22 |
x/x/ | y/ɯ/23 | z/z/24 | ŋ/ŋ/ | ə/ə/25 | ɣ/ɣ/26 | ʾ/ʔ/27 | ʿ/ʕ/28 | δ/ð/29, [ɻ̝]30 | |
✖ Unknown alphabetical order [change] |
- Also reconstructed as [ʌ] or [a].
- Also reconstructed as [ɛ] or [æ].
- Also reconstructed as [χ] or [ʜ].
- Also reconstructed as [e] in some words.
- Likely [kʰ].
- Phonemic status disputed, likely retroflex harmony-conditioned allophone
- Also reconstructed as [ᶯɖ͡ʐ].
- Also reconstructed as [ⁿd͡z].
- Also reconstructed as [œ].
- Also reconstructed as [ɔ] or [ɒ].
- Likely [pʰ].
- Also reconstructed as [ʡ] or [ʔ].
- Also reconstructed as [ɾ].
- Phonemic status disputed, likely retroflex harmony-conditioned allophone, also reconstructed as [ɽ].
- Also reconstructed as [ʈ͡ʂ] or [ʈ͡ʂʰ].
- Likely [ʈʰ].
- Also reconstructed as [ɖ͡ʐ].
- Also reconstructed as [t͡s] or [t͡sʰ].
- Likely [t̪ʰ].
- Also reconstructed as [ø] in some words.
- Also reconstructed as [o] in some words.
- Also reconstructed as [β] or [ɣʷ].
- Also reconstructed as [ɤ] in some words.
- Also reconstructed as [d͡z].
- Epenthetic, does occur in some roots but unclear if phonemic or not. Also reconstructed as [ɨ], loan words only
- Also reconstructed as [ɰ].
- Phonemic status unclear; primarily occurs between vowels to break up hiatus or as part of a nucleus, loan words only
- Also reconstructed as [ʁ] or [ʢ].
- Also reconstructed as [ɹ].
- Phonemic status disputed, likely retroflex harmony-conditioned allophone, also reconstructed as [ɻ]