Town Speech [UBS]
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Registered by
藤咲瑠奈 on 26 November 2014
Language type
A posteriori
Species
Human/humanoid
About Town Speech
Town Speech(町語, pronounciation /bʊɹgspɹɑ:k/) is the main language of Tokkijins(德基人), it is a West Germanic language with heavy influences from Sinosphere languages, especially Japanese, the language of the Yamato people, and Tokkijins also are similarly influenced by East Asians both culturally and genetically.
Besides "Town Speech", another common name for Town Speech is Folk Speech(民語, pronounciation /fɔɫkspɹɑ:k/). The name Folk Speech predates the name Town Speech.
Features:
- Town Speech is a Low German language closely related to certain Dutch and Low Saxon dialects.
- The basic word order is SVO, with preverbal negations and prepositions, Germanic V2 order has been lost
- An initial question particle, rather than the subject–verb inversion, is used to form yes-no questions.
- Generally right-branching but is basically left-branching in nominal phrases
- The grammar is largely analytic: no adjective declensions, nominal cases, although nouns have plural forms and verbs conjugate according to tense and person.
- The plural form of most nouns are formed by adding -/(ə)s/(written -す) to the endings of them, but there's still a considerable amount of nouns whose plural formes are formed by adding -/(ə)n/(written -ん) to the endings of them.
- an invariant relativizer rather than interrogative pronouns is used to form relative clauses.
- Town Speech has a profound East Asian influence and is written in a Japanese-derived writing system and it tends to use more Kandji(漢字) compared to modern Standard Japanese.
- Town Speech has many loanwords from Japanese, Chinese, etc., and uses Sino-Xenic vocabulary from Japanese as academic vocabulary to express complex ideas and also interjections; while the grammatical structure, functional words and words for everyday life are still largely Germanic.
Besides "Town Speech", another common name for Town Speech is Folk Speech(民語, pronounciation /fɔɫkspɹɑ:k/). The name Folk Speech predates the name Town Speech.
Features:
- Town Speech is a Low German language closely related to certain Dutch and Low Saxon dialects.
- The basic word order is SVO, with preverbal negations and prepositions, Germanic V2 order has been lost
- An initial question particle, rather than the subject–verb inversion, is used to form yes-no questions.
- Generally right-branching but is basically left-branching in nominal phrases
- The grammar is largely analytic: no adjective declensions, nominal cases, although nouns have plural forms and verbs conjugate according to tense and person.
- The plural form of most nouns are formed by adding -/(ə)s/(written -す) to the endings of them, but there's still a considerable amount of nouns whose plural formes are formed by adding -/(ə)n/(written -ん) to the endings of them.
- an invariant relativizer rather than interrogative pronouns is used to form relative clauses.
- Town Speech has a profound East Asian influence and is written in a Japanese-derived writing system and it tends to use more Kandji(漢字) compared to modern Standard Japanese.
- Town Speech has many loanwords from Japanese, Chinese, etc., and uses Sino-Xenic vocabulary from Japanese as academic vocabulary to express complex ideas and also interjections; while the grammatical structure, functional words and words for everyday life are still largely Germanic.
Language family relationships
Language treeGermanic
⤷ Proto-Germanic
⤷ West Germanic
⤷
Old Saxon
⤷
Middle Low German
⤷
Plattdytch
⤷
Town Speech
⤷ Proto-Germanic
⤷ West Germanic
⤷
Old Saxon⤷
Middle Low German⤷
Plattdytch⤷
Town Speech[view] About GermanicThe Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of approximately 500 million people mainly in North America, Oceania, Western and Northern Europe. Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approxima...
[view] 避忌用語 (Avoidance Speech)The avoidance speech of Town Speech is used in certain occasions where the use of the regular speech is a taboo. It is believed that the avoidance speech in Town Speech was due to the influence from the Ame substrate.
Phonology
| Consonants | Bilabial | Labio- dental | Alveolar | Post- Alveolar | Palatal | Labio- velar | Velar | Glottal | ||||||||
| Nasal | m | n | [ŋ]1 | |||||||||||||
| Plosive | p | b | t | d | k | g | ||||||||||
| Fricative | f | [v]2 | s | z3 | ʃ | h | ||||||||||
| Affricate | (t͡s) | t͡ʃ | d͡ʒ | |||||||||||||
| Lateral approximant | l | |||||||||||||||
| Approximant | ʋ | ɹ | j | [w]4 | ||||||||||||
| Trill | [r]5 | |||||||||||||||
- allophone of /n/
- allophone of /f/
- allophone of /s/ in native germanic words, but an independent phoneme in words from other languages
- allophone of /ʋ/
- allophone of /ɹ/
| Vowels | Front | Near- front | Central | Near- back | Back | |||||
| Close | i i: | u u: | ||||||||
| Near-close | [ɪ]1 | [ʊ]2 | ||||||||
| Mid | e̞ e̞: | ə | o̞ o̞: | |||||||
| Open-mid | [ɛ]3 | [ɔ]4 | ||||||||
| Open | ä ä: | [ɑ:]5 | ||||||||
| Polyphthongs | ai | au | oi | iu |
- allophone of /i/
- allophone of /u/
- allophone of /e̞/
- allophone of /o̞/
- allophone of /ä:/
OtherThe pronounciation of the consonant cluster /pt/ fluctates between [pt] and [ft]; the pronounciation of the consonant cluster /kt/ fluctates between [kt] and [xt](and [xt] may also be realised as [çt] after front vowels)
Initial clusters are often broken into different syllables with unstressed epenthetic vowels. An unstressed /ɪ/ is often inserted before initial clusters starting with /s/; when the initial cluster starts with consonants other than /s/, /ɪ/ is often inserted between the first and second consonant of a consonant cluster.
For words ending in fricatives other than /s/ or a consonant cluster, epenthetic vowels added to the end of the word are also used. /ʊ/ is used if a word ends in /f/ or /v/; /ɪ/ is used otherwise.
The the use of [ft] and [xt] for /pt/ and /kt/ and the non-use of epenthetic vowels are considered as more formal.
As a result of [pt] [kt] release for /pt/ /kt/, and the use of epenthesis, words like /blaʊ/ "blue", /kli:n/ "small", /stɔp/ "stop(n.)", /dɹɪpt/ "drift", /fɪʃ/ "fish", /ˈspɹe:kən/ "to speak", /fɹi:zən/ "to freeze" are often realised as [bɪˈlaʊ], [kɪˈli:n], [ɪsˈtɔp], [dɪˈɹɪptɪ], [ˈfɪʃɪ], [ɪspɪˈɹe:kən], [fɪˈɹi:zən] respectively in colloquial speech; while the same words are realised as [blaʊ], [kli:n], [stɔp], [dɹɪpt], [fɪʃ], [ˈspɹe:kən] [fɹi:zən] in formal variants.
Initial clusters are often broken into different syllables with unstressed epenthetic vowels. An unstressed /ɪ/ is often inserted before initial clusters starting with /s/; when the initial cluster starts with consonants other than /s/, /ɪ/ is often inserted between the first and second consonant of a consonant cluster.
For words ending in fricatives other than /s/ or a consonant cluster, epenthetic vowels added to the end of the word are also used. /ʊ/ is used if a word ends in /f/ or /v/; /ɪ/ is used otherwise.
The the use of [ft] and [xt] for /pt/ and /kt/ and the non-use of epenthetic vowels are considered as more formal.
As a result of [pt] [kt] release for /pt/ /kt/, and the use of epenthesis, words like /blaʊ/ "blue", /kli:n/ "small", /stɔp/ "stop(n.)", /dɹɪpt/ "drift", /fɪʃ/ "fish", /ˈspɹe:kən/ "to speak", /fɹi:zən/ "to freeze" are often realised as [bɪˈlaʊ], [kɪˈli:n], [ɪsˈtɔp], [dɪˈɹɪptɪ], [ˈfɪʃɪ], [ɪspɪˈɹe:kən], [fɪˈɹi:zən] respectively in colloquial speech; while the same words are realised as [blaʊ], [kli:n], [stɔp], [dɹɪpt], [fɪʃ], [ˈspɹe:kən] [fɹi:zən] in formal variants.
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