Cheyadeneen Scratchpad
Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2019 7:11 am
Ok - so this thread needs to be read alongside the Vedreki thread - (http://verduria.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=395) or some of the worldbuilding stuff will make much less sense. The languages are different enough that you will be able to follow the grammar of Cheyadeneen in isolation though.
Cheyadeneen is spoken by the majority human population of the Empire of Cheyaden, some 233m people, who together with 167m Vedreki and approximately 40m speakers of Naxaqeen languages make up the total population of the Empire of Cheyaden. It is unrelated, but has extensive borrowings – particularly in the area of artistic and musical vocabulary - from the neighbouring Azdrai language of Vedreki. The calendar was also borrowed from the Vedreki (anyone interested in the calendar?). In turn I anticipate much legal, commercial and governmental vocabulary going the other way from Cheyadeneen to Vedreki. Cheyadeneen is related to the language of Korkeltese, spoken by the human population of the island of Korkelt in the Eastern Ocean, and more distantly from the language of the minority human population in the Tarkentian Empire – Tarnaqi. The standard version of the language described here is the language of the imperial capital, Cheyaden itself, although dialectal variation exists.
Phonology:
Note the retroflex stops, not found in English (but similar to those found in Hindi) and the lack of the uvular series found in Vedreki.
Note the voiced alveolar fricative and the lack of the voiced velar fricative in contradistinction to Vedreki
“r” is generally left unpronounced in word-final positions or just before other consonants. Standard Cheyadeneen is (in contradistinction to standard Vedreki) a non-rhotic dialect in that sense.
As with Vedreki, voice assimilation both progressive and regressive occurs eg a voiced obstruent (stop or fricative) is unvoiced prior to a following unvoiced obstruent. So for example “beg” (six) becomes bekko (sixth) on the addition of the ordinal affix -ko
Unvoiced initial stops are aspirated; elsewhere unaspirated (a rule shared with Vedreki).
“y” and “w” are sometimes included in the consonant table, but “w” is arguably an allophone of “u” and consonantal “y” an allophone of the vowel “y”.
Cheyadeneen is less tolerant of clusters than Vedreki and a number of examples of syncope occur. For example where two stops occur together followed by an approximant the middle stop is deleted. –kwe is the affix indicating “A person who does…” Soldier is therefore kat (war) plus -kwe. The “k” is lost to form katwe (soldier/warrior)
Cheyadeneen has a six vowel system – the main differences with Vedreki being the high back unrounded “y”, the more central location of the “a” and the more closed “mid” position of the “o” as well as the lack of front rounded vowels. There are four diphthongs which are “ei” as in “bait” (spelt “ey” before another vowel), “au” as in “cow”, “ai” as in “aisle” – again spelt “ay” before a vowel, “oe” as in “boy”.
Doubled or long vowels will be marked by a circumflex eg â, but are not common.
Under the influence of Vedreki we find that Cheyadeneen has become a syllable-timed language.
Phonotactics:
Generally each syllable should receive roughly equal stress, consistently with the syllable-timed nature of the language. The maximal syllable structure is (C)(C)V(C)(C)
Velk (fire) CVCC
Dha-hal (blue) CV-CVC
Ha-zak-che (emperor) CV-CVC-CV
Wekh-la (long) CVC-CV
Sten-e CV-V
Syllables will therefore split between consonants. The first syllable of the word will usually, but not always, be of C(C)V structure. We can set out the constraints as
(p, b, k, g, f, v,) (l, r) + V + (r, l) + (Stop)
(s) + (t) + V + (r, l) + (Stop)
C + V + C
C + V + + (r, l) + (Stop)
Cheyadeneen is spoken by the majority human population of the Empire of Cheyaden, some 233m people, who together with 167m Vedreki and approximately 40m speakers of Naxaqeen languages make up the total population of the Empire of Cheyaden. It is unrelated, but has extensive borrowings – particularly in the area of artistic and musical vocabulary - from the neighbouring Azdrai language of Vedreki. The calendar was also borrowed from the Vedreki (anyone interested in the calendar?). In turn I anticipate much legal, commercial and governmental vocabulary going the other way from Cheyadeneen to Vedreki. Cheyadeneen is related to the language of Korkeltese, spoken by the human population of the island of Korkelt in the Eastern Ocean, and more distantly from the language of the minority human population in the Tarkentian Empire – Tarnaqi. The standard version of the language described here is the language of the imperial capital, Cheyaden itself, although dialectal variation exists.
Phonology:
Consonants | bilabial | labio-dental | alveolar | velar | post-alv | retroflex | glottal |
stop | p,b | t,d | k,g | th,dh | |||
fricative | f,v | s,z | kh | sh | h | ||
affricate | ch, j | ||||||
approximant | w | r, l | |||||
nasal | m | n |
Note the retroflex stops, not found in English (but similar to those found in Hindi) and the lack of the uvular series found in Vedreki.
Note the voiced alveolar fricative and the lack of the voiced velar fricative in contradistinction to Vedreki
“r” is generally left unpronounced in word-final positions or just before other consonants. Standard Cheyadeneen is (in contradistinction to standard Vedreki) a non-rhotic dialect in that sense.
As with Vedreki, voice assimilation both progressive and regressive occurs eg a voiced obstruent (stop or fricative) is unvoiced prior to a following unvoiced obstruent. So for example “beg” (six) becomes bekko (sixth) on the addition of the ordinal affix -ko
Unvoiced initial stops are aspirated; elsewhere unaspirated (a rule shared with Vedreki).
“y” and “w” are sometimes included in the consonant table, but “w” is arguably an allophone of “u” and consonantal “y” an allophone of the vowel “y”.
Cheyadeneen is less tolerant of clusters than Vedreki and a number of examples of syncope occur. For example where two stops occur together followed by an approximant the middle stop is deleted. –kwe is the affix indicating “A person who does…” Soldier is therefore kat (war) plus -kwe. The “k” is lost to form katwe (soldier/warrior)
vowels | front unrounded | central unrounded | back unrounded | front rounded | back rounded |
high | i | y | u | ||
mid | e | o | |||
low | a |
Doubled or long vowels will be marked by a circumflex eg â, but are not common.
Under the influence of Vedreki we find that Cheyadeneen has become a syllable-timed language.
Phonotactics:
Generally each syllable should receive roughly equal stress, consistently with the syllable-timed nature of the language. The maximal syllable structure is (C)(C)V(C)(C)
Velk (fire) CVCC
Dha-hal (blue) CV-CVC
Ha-zak-che (emperor) CV-CVC-CV
Wekh-la (long) CVC-CV
Sten-e CV-V
Syllables will therefore split between consonants. The first syllable of the word will usually, but not always, be of C(C)V structure. We can set out the constraints as
(p, b, k, g, f, v,) (l, r) + V + (r, l) + (Stop)
(s) + (t) + V + (r, l) + (Stop)
C + V + C
C + V + + (r, l) + (Stop)