Uehskuedawri / Uehtueawi

ysky:dcri / yty:cj

These two languages are essentially dialects of each other, spoken on the Cseng homeworld along the southern and eastern coasts of the large island (nicknamed "Greenland" by Terrans) in the north polar region . The differences are primarily cultural and stem from historical philosophical differences between the two groups. The nearest relative of this language is the Krzanh language spoken far to the south, three-quarters of the way to the equator. They both belong to the Khydaram branch of the Cseng language family, though the pattern of phonetic sound shift has not been fully determined. The relationship is postulated mostly on grammatical similarity, as well as a demonstrated, though not yet regularized, correlation in vowel shifts. As far as can be determined, Uehtueawi preserves the original vowel system, while Krzanh preserves the original consonantal system and phonological structure of their shared parent language, long extinct, with no written records surviving.

PHONOLOGY

The language has a fairly rich system of vowels by Terran standards, although there exist Terran languages with more vowels and more dipthongs. The latin version of the Uehtueawi script, when used in full "un-diacriticized" form is excessively unwieldy, so i will use a self-created ASCII form better suited to phonetic rendering of the language. The vowels are as follows:


i    high, front, unrounded

e    mid, front, unrounded

a    low, centralized, unrounded

o    mid, back, rounded

u    high, back, rounded

y    high, front, rounded (german "umlaut u")

The above-listed vowels from the "ordinary" vowel class, which are contrasted for length, but not necessarily for tense vs. lax. The short vowel is unmarked, while the long form of the vowel is followed by a full colon, eg, `ty', "wind", `ty:', "boat, kayak". The remaining vowels are all essentially pronounced in the long form, and are part of the "simple" class of vowels.


O   mid-low, front, rounded

C   mid-low, back, unrounded to slightly rounded

Y   extra-high, extra-tense, front-center, unrounded (grinning lips)

The last of these looks more confusing than it really is. Just make an overdone, overemphasized "ee" as in "feet", raise the entire front half of the tongue at the same time, and you've got it.

The distinction between "ordinary" and "simple" vowels will come in handy later, to save the Terran time in learning dipthongs.

The consonants are quite varied, and virtually every consonant has a voiced and unvoiced version. I will start with the sounds that have their standard IPA values:

b, p, d, t, f, v, g, k, h, l, m, n, s, z, w, j, q, r

The last three require only a little special attention: j is an english "y", q is an unvoiced uvular stop, and r is rolled as in german.

Now for those symbols that do not carry their standard IPA values:


ch    voiceless velar fricative (german "bach", scot "loch")

cz    voicelss avleolar affricate ("ch" in "church")

d^    heavily aspirated alveolar flap 

      (japanese or spanish "r" with lots of air)

dh    voiced interdental fricative ("th" in "either", "this")

th    voiceless interdental fricative ("th" in "ether", "thin")

g'    voiced alveolar affricate varying to fricative ("g" in "gym")

lh    voiceless lateral liquid (welsh "ll", zulu "hl")

mh    voiceless bilabial nasal stop (very rare)

mg    velarized bilabial nasal stop (also rare)

ng    velar nasal stop

nh    voiceless dental nasal stop

x     voiceless alveolar fricative, varying to retroflex in syllable-initial

Now, remember the "ordinary" and "simple" vowels? Only "ordinary" vowels permit j and w to occur either before and after them, e.g., both "ja" and "aj" are permissible. On the other hand, "simple" vowels have different rules, depending on the vowel:




vowel  |     initial    |      final       |

       |   w   |   j    |   w    |    j    |

-------+-------+--------+--------+---------|

       |       |        |        |         |

O      |   X   |   X    |        |    X    |

-------+-------+--------+--------+---------|

       |       |        |        |         |

C      |   X   |   X    |        |    X    |

-------+-------+--------+--------+---------|

       |       |        |        |         |

Y      |   X   |   X    |        |         |

-------^-------^--------^--------^---------'

As the table above shows, all 3 vowels permit w and j to precede them. However, none of them permit w to follow them, and Y also cannot have j after it. This lack of a full set of dipthongs is why these vowels are referred to as the "simple" set of vowels.

Phonotactics

Phonotactics, simply put, are the rules that tell you what kind of syllables a language allows. Some langauges only allow two kinds of syllables: V and CV, meaning a syllable with one vowel, or a syllable with a consonant followed by a vowel. Others, like english, allow lots combinations, including a couple CCCVC syllbles such as the word "strap". yty:Cj falls in between these two extremes, with one unusual feature: some of its grammatical particles are stand-alone consonants!

To use the C-V terminology above, the permissible combinations in the language are: C, V, (C)V(w or j)(d^, nasal or sibilant), (C)V(j)+/ht/.

Optional elements are enclosed in parentheses. The last two require a little extra explanation beyond that. yty:Cj syllables can only end four ways: with a vowel or vowel dipthong; with m, mg, mh, n, nh, ng; with h, ch, f, v, s, th, dh, x; or with the consonant cluster "ht". What this means is that `fan', `fas', 'fajch' and 'fawht' all sound okay to yty:Cj ears, but 'fat', 'far', or 'fad' sound "weird". It is unclear why the cluster `ht' is permissible; some linguists hypothesize the presence of a voiceless equivalent to d^ that eventually shifted to modern "ht". Evidence for this is still being sorted out.

Grammar

Word order
yty:Cj is a particularly difficult language for Europeans to learn, because it is a VSO language. To illustrate, the sentence "i see you" takes on the word order "see i you". This makes sense if one remembers, that like most Csengjit languages, modifiers follow their objects. Since the verb is the nucleus of any statement made by a Csengtiv, it makes sense that the verb would be first followed by its agent ("who is verb-ing?"), and then further modified by its destination or the object of the statement - "towards what or whom is X verb-ing?"

If the above has simply confused you, don't worry. Just remember that yty:Cj word order is as follows: Verb - adverb - Subject - adjective - DirectObject - adjective - IndirectObject - adjective. There are ways to move these around (which is where those consonantal particles come in), but we'll get to that later. If you hadn't gathered, yty:Cj has a tendency towards an isolating/analytical type of grammar, falling somewhere between English and Mandarin Chinese.

There are four basic pronouns, plus three plural forms.


"I"            czi:        "we"         czej

"he/she/it"    ki:         "they"       ki:o

"you"          si:         "you"(pl)    si:o

generic        ni:        *(gen. pl.    ni:o)

To make a stylistic point, an asterisk precedes a statement or a definition that a native speaker would tend to view as ungrammatical. Hence, yty:Cj would tend to view *ni:o as technically correct, but ungrammatical to use. The reason for this is quite logical in this case (some things, like in English, are wrong "because!"): ni: is a generic pronoun, functioning in a fashion similar to the French pronoun "on". It replaces a pronoun where the referent is obvious; it sometimes also functions as a "dummy pronoun" to refer to a second "you" or "she" where the use of the more typical pronoun would be confusing. Thus, if you are discussing Mary and Jane, the sentence "she went to the store and she went to the house" can mean two things - (1) one woman did both things or (2) each woman performed one action in the list. It is possible in yty:Cj to make it clear that the first "she" refers to Mary and the second "she" refers to Jane, simply by using ni: to refer to Jane (and thereby forcing the listener to choose the second interpretation). This generic-ness extends to having an implied plural when necessary, rather than having a separate plural form. After all, to be truly generic, it must apply in all situations! :)

Verbs yty:Cj verbs are a very interesting creature. For one thing, they are not marked for tense. If necessary, one can indicate the timing of an event by preceding an utterance with a "time word", a category of lexeme speakers of Chinese will be familiar with. They can, however, be marked for real vs. irreal, or more accurately, known versus hypothetical. This is at the speaker's discretion. It is basically a built-in way of conveying the degree of certainty a speaker has about a statement she is making.

Thus, `Ka:ko ni ki!' would mean, "I think you look attractive!". `Ka:kC [or, more properly, ka:koC] ni ki!' would mean, "I would suppose you look attractive (but don't have any direct evidence of this)." `Ka:koti ni ki!' means "You really look attractive!", or perhaps "I can see that you look attractive!"

To make the forms clear, an unmarked verb is just a plain statement. A verb with -C attached to it means that the information is hypothetical, inferred, or not directly provable. A verb with -ti after it indicates something absolutely known to the speaker, something self-evident, or something that can be directly proven. As a side note, when a word ends in /o/ and the morpheme -C follows it, the /o/ can be dropped off - as in the above example, where `ka:koC' became "ka:kC". One other elision does exist in yty:Cj - that is the transformation of a final -i (whose use we'll cover later) to /j/ after a vowel.

Modifiers Modifiers come in several forms. The basic modifier acts like any ordinary English adjective or adverb. Strictly speaking, the yty:Cj language does not distinguish between adjectives and adverbs; they are lumped together with particles in a class labeled "modifiers", because the English lexemes "good" and "well" are a single lexeme in yty:Cj, and function grammatically in the same fashion as particles.

Fortunately, there is nothing mysterious about where to put modifiers; they follow the word they modify. Thus, "I danced well" takes a literal translation of "Dance-realsuffix well I" [syfCti fi czi:]. (Note that syfC in the irreal verb form remains syfC.)

The peculiarity that throws off English speakers is that verbs can, on occasion, function as modifiers. This is somewhat like the Mandarin use of "zai" (to be located) in "Ta zai zher", literally "He at here", where a verb is used as an adjective ("zai" being used for the English particle "at"). An illustrative yty:Cj example is Ki: mos ha:j "it here located" (or, "it's at here") and Ha:j ki: mos "Located it here", the difference being somewhat like "here it is" versus "it's over here". But if you don't think about it too hard, it makes a certain amount of sense on a subconscious level.

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Last updated 23.Mar.98, 22:15 CDT.