Jarang

Jarang
Period	c. 0 YP
Spoken in	SW Peilaš
Total speakers	~150000
Writing system	unknown
Classification	Team B languages
Typology
Basic word order	SVO
Morphology	fusional
Alignment	unknown
Credits
Created by	User:Nort

Jarang (/dʒə̃rə̃/) is a language of the highlands of southwestern Peilaš.

Phonology

Labial	Dental	Palatal	Velar	Labiovelar	Glottal	Labioglottal
p b	t d	tʃ dʒ <č j>	k g	kʷ gʷ	ʔ	ʔʷ
ɸ <f>	s	ʃ <š>	x	xʷ
m	n	ɲ <ñ>	ŋ	ŋʷ
	ɾ <r>	j <y>		w

Front	Center	Back	F. diph.	B. diph.
i ĩ	ɨ̆ ɨ̃̆	u ũ	ie ĩẽ <ie ĩe>	uo ũõ <uo ũo>
e ẽ	ə̆ ə̃̆	o õ	ei ẽĩ <ei ẽi>	ou õũ <ou õu>
	a ã

Nonlow central vowels are short; all other vowels are long.

Stress is contrastive, but only in words that contain nonreduced vowels; if a word only contains reduced vowels, stress is initial. When stress occurs on a vowel that is neither initial (in words that only contain reduced vowels) nor the first unreduced vowel in a word, it will be marked with an underline, e.g. n̩gə̠sõbə̃ /n̩ˈgə̆sõbə̃̆/. /ɨ̆/ is never stressed.

Other phonetic diphthongs may occur, but are somewhat longer. Hiatus may also occur, but it rarely if ever involves /a/.

Nasalization is not contrastive before nasals.

A nasal /n̩/ may occur word-initially before non-glottal stops or /r w/. The sequences /n̩r n̩w/ are realized [ndr ɱv].

Word-final consonants other than the glottal stop and the semivowels may take an [ɨ̆] release; since oral [ɨ̆] never occurs word-finally, this is noncontrastive.

Vowels

In fact, there is arguably only one vowel in Jarang: the schwa. [ɨ̆] never appears word-initially and varies freely with null word-finally, so it may be considered epenthetic. The low vowel [a] is formed by coalescence of two schwas, and the high vowels [i u] are simply /y w/ between consonants, i.e. -ɨyɨ- -ɨwɨ-. The mid vowels [e o] are, of course, /əyə əwə/, and the diphthongs are formed by semivowels flanked by either schwa or a consonant: for example, [n̩gə̠xʷũõbə] 'six hundred' < /n̩gə́xʷɨ̃-wə̃bə/.

This analysis requires the introduction of a placeless coda nasal /ɴ/, which may not occur adjacent to itself and may be unified with the word-initial syllabic nasal. Word-final [ɨ̃], which varies with a weakly articulated [ɨɴ̆] and with a syllabic nasal homorganic to a preceding stop, is in this analysis also /ɴ/, articulated on the preceding epenthetic vowel. The nasalizing effect of this /ɴ/ spreads through semivowels, so there is no contrast between /əɴwəɴ/ and /əwəɴ/. (Consider 'six hundred' again: /ɴgə́xʷɴ-wəɴbə/ becomes /ɴgə́xʷwəɴbə/.)

As a result, the phonotactic construct of the syllable is also unnecessary for Jarang: the one permissible phonotactic structure is a segment other than /ɴ/ or a word boundary, optionally followed by /ɴ/. In practice, however, arbitrarily long strings of schwas do not occur.

Pronouns

Personal pronouns

Jarang distinguishes between singular and plural, between first-person exclusive and inclusive, and between third-person human and nonhuman.

	1SG	2SG	3HUM.SG	3NON.SG	1EXCL	1INCL	2PL	3HUM.PL	3NON.PL
DIR	noxʷ	rɨxʷ	maxʷ	wɨmɨ̃kʷ	wõkoxʷ	rə̃gʷoxʷ	worə̃gaʔʷ	wõjəʔʷ	womɨ̃kʷ
SUB	nərow	yərow	mərow	wɨmɨ̃	wõkʷ	rə̃gaxʷ	worə̃gə	wõjə	womɨ̃
ESS	norõ	yerõ	marõ	wɨmɨ̃rə̃	wawə̃kʷɨ̃	rə̃gaxʷɨ̃	worə̃gə̃	wõjə̃	womɨ̃rə̃
LAT	norow	yerow	marow	wɨmɨ̃ro	wawə̃kʷo	rə̃gaxʷo	worə̃gəw	wõjəw	womɨ̃ro
ASSOC	nə̃roxʷ	yə̃roxʷ	mə̃roxʷ	wɨmɨnoxʷ	wawənoxʷ	rə̃gə̃roxʷ	worə̃gə̃roxʷ	wõjəroxʷ	wõmɨnoxʷ

Nouns

Cases

There are five cases in Jarang: the subjective (or nominative), direct (or accusative), essive, lative, and associative. However, no noun distinguishes all five: only human nouns take the associative, and only inanimates have a subjective distinct from the direct.

The essive and lative are used with postpositions of location or motion in the obvious way; in addition, certain verbs take essive objects, and the essive may be used for position or manner, as well as with the copula for predicative adjectives:

• Wə̃kə̃rə̃, yew mə̠rĩ wawõ!
  fisherman.ESS, fish.DIR 3SG-have-S large_size.ESS
  As a fisherman, that fish looks big!

The stem classes of Jarang are sigmatic, sanic, rhotacious, yodiferous, digammoid, alphose, omegatronic, and iotadelic; or, in other words, the s, š, r, y, w, a, o, and i classes. These are defined by the endings of their essive and lative stems: all classes but the alphose, omegatronic, and iotadelic have an oblique stem upon which these cases are built. In the rhotacious class, this affix is /-̃rə-/; in all other oblique-stem classes, it is built from the named consonant and schwa. So, for example, the oblique formative of the sigmatic class is /-sə-/; and the oblique formative of the digammoid class is /-wə-/, and so on. The forms of all five cases may be predicted entirely, except for the mutations of the direct class, from the stem class.

In the alphose, omegatronic, and iotadelic, the endings are instead as follows:

	a	o	i
DIR	-ə/0	-ə/0	-ə/0
SUB	-ĩ	-ĩ	-ĩ
ESS	-ə̃	-ɨ̃/-ə̃	-ɨ̃
LAT	-aw	-o/-ow/-aw/-iw	-iw
ASSOC	-awə	-awə/-oo/-iyuo	-iyuo

The orthography is not ideal in the case of the associative stems; the underlying forms are /-əəwə/, /-əwəwə/, and /-ɨyɨwə/ (/-ywə/) respectively. The subjective ending never takes stress. The omegatronic class is not well maintained, and tends to merge into the alphose or the iotadelic depending on dialect; when it is maintained, the only reliably distinct affix is the lative, which is -o or -ow.

Numerals

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
faʔ	xʷõ	sã	fãrə	xʷɨmãrə	n̩gəxʷɨ̃	n̩gʷɨ̃	n̩gəsə̃	orə̃kʷɨ̃j	sãrə
	20	30	40	50	60	70	80	90	100
	xʷə̃də̃	sə̃də̃	fãrərə̃	xʷɨmãrərə̃	n̩gəxʷɨ̃də̃	n̩gʷɨ̃də̃	n̩gəsə̃də̃	wə̃bə̃də̃j	wə̃bə̃
	200	300	400	500	600	700	800	900	1000
	xʷõõbə̃	sãwə̃bə̃	fãrõbə̃	xʷɨmãrõbə̃	n̩gə̠xʷũobə	n̩gʷõbə̃	n̩gə̠sõbə̃	orə̃kʷɨ̃jõbə̃	sãrõbə̃

Some dialects have a regularized orə̃kʷɨ̃jɨdə̃ for 'ninety'.

Higher basic numerals are expressed with compounds of a numeral and wə̃bə̃. A thousand is ten hundred; ten thousand is a hundred hundred; a hundred thousand is yãwũobə̃ro. If a number is neither final nor a multiplier, it takes the suffix -gə.

For example:

• 23: xʷə̃də̃gə sa
• 42: fãrərə̃gə xʷõ
• 69: n̩gəxʷɨ̃də̃gə orə̃kʷɨ̃j
• 420: fãrõbə̃gə xʷə̃də̃
• 2020: xʷõ sãrõbə̃gə xʷə̃də̃
• 123456: (faʔ) yãwũobə̃ro xʷə̃də̃ sã wə̃bə̃gə fãrõbə̃gə xʷɨmãrərə̃gə n̩gəxʷɨ̃

Lexicon

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Pa9e9oZfEAI-VMooRWnL1ESpsFMrJQBUAlWLu7E5tsQ/edit?usp=sharing