Tschintierst language
Tschintierst (Tschörnsirsch, pronounced [tɕøɐ̯nziɐ̯ɕ]) is a Tschintieric language mainly spoken in the Gintem Confederation. It is an official language in every Gintem country, as well as their overseas colonies. Traditionally Tschintierst is considered to be a single language within it's own branch of Tschintieric, however there are many Tschintieric "dialects" spoken throughout the Gintem Confederation. Tschintierst is also similar to Vrishtic, Soderic, and Rirscheic; which are part of the Hithinic languages. Tschintierst is the most widely spoken Tschintieric language.
Classification
Standard Tschintierst
History
Geographical distribution
Dialects
Phonology
Tschintierst has 18 distinct consonant phonemes and 18 distinct vowel phonemes, and the vowel phonemes can be grouped as pairs of short and long vowels.
Consonants
Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | m | n | |||
Stop | voiceless | p | t | k | |
voiced | b | d | ɡ | ||
Fricative | voiceless | f | s | ɕ | x |
voiced | v | z | |||
Affricate | t͡s | t͡ɕ | |||
Approximant | j | ||||
Rhotic | r |
Notes:
- /r/ has a variety of realizations depending on the dialect, and is not limited to being an alveolar trill.
Vowels
Front | Back | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Close | short | i | y | ɯ | u |
long | i: | y: | ɯ: | u: | |
Mid | short | e | ø | o | |
long | e: | ø: | o: | ||
Open | short | a | ɑ | ||
long | a: | ɑ: |
Tschintierst exhibits a system of strict front-back vowel harmony, a common feature among the Tschintieric languages, and unique among the Yasgan language family. Words and subsequent affixes can only contain matching front and back vowels, e.g. Tschösöneess “barrel” which is fully front and Konschupooss “concrete” which is fully back. Tschintierst even exhibits this feature in loanwords, such as Techejöws “machine” from Dhimze tkheovs “device,” which is exceedingly rare cross-linguistically.
Orthography
Tschintierst is written using the Dhimze script, though with several notable differences from most other languages writing in it. The script is an alphasyllabary that makes use of 18 consonant letters, 9 vowel markers, as well as a syllable delimiter. Natively known as the av-bech Awbetsch, the script has a long literary tradition within Tschintiessteiss, the Gintem Confederation, and the surrounding Hithinic languages. This tradition has largely been separate from the literary traditions of Dhimrai and the Doccábhan Empire, sometimes to the extent that the variety of the Dhimze script used in Tschintierst-speaking nations is called the Tschintierst script.