Czisilian language

Czisilian
zom çisnak
Pronunciation	[zom ˈt͡ɕɪs.nak̚]
Native to	Czisilia
Ethnicity	Czisil people
Native speakers	X
Language family	Milevic Southern Milevic Czisilian
Early form	Old High Czisilian
Writing system	Milevic alphabet
Official status
Official language in	Czisilia

Czisilian (çissom [ˈt͡ɕɪs.som], zom çisnak [zom ˈt͡ɕɪs.nak̚]) is a Southern Milevic language spoken in Czisilia. It descended from Old High Czisilian, which was the official language of the Milevic Empire. Its closest relative is Lhidian.

History

Old High Czisilian

Main article: Old High Czisilian language

Phonology

Consonants

Consonant phonemes in Czisilian

		Labial	Alveolar/ Dental	Alveolo- palatal	Palatal	Velar
Nasal		m	n
Stop	Plain	p • b	t • d		(c)	k
	Aspirated	pʰ	tʰ		(cʰ)	kʰ
Affricate	Plain		t͡s • d͡z	t͡ɕ
	Aspirated		t͡sʰ	t͡ɕʰ
Fricative		(f • v)	s • z	ɕ • ʑ	(ç)	x • ɣ
Approximant		w	l		j
Rhotic			ɾ

Consonants in Czisilian undergo some allophonic shifts:

• fortition – the labiovelar approximant /w/ becomes [v] before consonants (e.g. iwne [ʏ̜vne] "mountain-ERG"). Before voiceless consonants, this becomes a voiceless [f] (e.g. biwt [bʏ̜ft̚] "sentence").
• palatalisation – before the front vowel i, the velar consonants /k kʰ x/ become [c cʰ ç] respectively (e.g. kis [cɪs] "it", cokhis [t͡socʰɪs] "reign, power, sovereignty"). Due to Czisilian's sound changes from Old High Czisilian, the palatal fricative [ç] is more commonly found in loan words (e.g. hiëhiarë [çiɘçiɐɾɘ] "terror bird").

Vowels

Czisilian has 7 vowels, separated into 3 classes:

• 3 back vowels – /ʉ o ɑ/. The open vowel /ɑ/ is reduced to [ɐ] when unstressed.
• 3 front vowels – /ɪ e ɛ/.
• A neutral vowel – /ɘ/.

Morphology

Verbs

Czisilian verbs conjugate for 4 tenses:

• present tense – marked with -i (e.g. kholi "I run")
• past imperfective tense – marked with -mĕ (e.g. kholmĕ "I was running")
• past perfective tense – marked with -me (e.g. kholme "I ran")
• future tense – marked by reduplicating the final consonant (unless it is a stop or an affricate) and adding -ut (e.g. khollut "I will run")

Additionally, there are 4 modal markers:

• subjunctive – marked with -un, or -on after alveolar consonants (e.g. kholon)
• passive voice – marked with -thĕ (e.g. kholthĕ)
• antipassive voice – marked with -cu (e.g. kholcu)
• negation – marked with ye- (e.g. yekholi "I am not running")

Copula

The copula in Czisilian is an independent particle if no nominal object is present and suffixed to the object if there is one. It is also an independent word to express possession ('X has Y'), in which case the possessor is marked for dative/instrumental and the possessed is marked for transitive case (accusative if animate or semi-animate, absolutive if inanimate). Finally the copula has four forms, animate and inanimate, which agree with the animacy of the subject, and affirmative and negative forms.

Copula suffixes

	An.	Inan.
Affirmative	-wik	-wi
Negative	-nik	-ni

The independent forms of the copula are the same as the suffix forms, except the negative forms are ik for inanimate nouns and i for animate nouns.

Usage examples

English	Czisilian	Gloss
"I am"	Bal wik	bal-∅ wi-k 1S.NOM COP-AN
"It is a lake"	Kis uwi	kis-∅ ul-wi 3S.INAN lake-COP.INAN
"I have a gun"	Balmi khuçnat wik	bal-mi khuçnat-∅ wi-k 1S.INSTR gun-ABS COP-AN

Nouns

Czisilian exhibits a split-ergative alignment nicknamed Milevic alignment which is shared by all the Milevic languages. The split-ergative part depends on the noun's animacy, which has three degrees: Animate, Semi-animate, and Inanimate.

• Animate nouns follow a nominative-accusative alignment, with marked accusative.
• Inanimate nouns follow an ergative-absolutive alignment, with marked ergative. They also do not have distinct plural forms.
• Semi-animate nouns follow a nominative-accusative alignment, however it has unmarked accusative and nominative marked with the ergative ending.

This has caused some linguists to reanalyse the ergative and nominative cases as one transitive case, while the absolutive and accusative are unmarked and marked intransitive case respectively.

Czisilian nominal morphology is as follows:

Nominal suffixes

	Sg.	Pl.
Nominative/ Absolutive	unmarked	-(ĕ)m
Ergative	-ne	-(ĕ)mne
Accusative	-(w)iş	-(ĕ)wiş
Dative- Instrumental	-mi	-(ĕ)mmi
Genitive	-nak	-(ĕ)mnak
Locative	-li	-(ĕ)mli