Jarang

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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
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
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 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