From ConPlanet
| Qitsari | ||
|---|---|---|
| Qitsári | ||
| Pronunciation | [ʔi't͡saːri] | |
| Spoken in |  Atoskherakh
| |
| Total speakers | ~ 3,500,000 | |
| Language family | language isolate
| |
| Writing system | Shukr (or Latin transcription) | |
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1 | None | |
| ISO 639-2 | – | |
| ISO 639-3 | – | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | ||
Qitsári is the official language of Atoskherakh. It is a unifying factor of Atoskherakh identity. Strictly speaking, the language died out over 1,500 years ago, but it remains the language of religion, politics, administration, the upper classes and commerce. It is taught in all schools from the first grade on, children learn to write Qitsári before they learn to write their first language. The language situation is similar to the one of the Arab World or the German part of Switzerland: most of the Atoskherakh population is diglossic, many are bilingual.
Contents |
Geographic distribution
Spoken mainly in Atoskherakh.
Dialects
There are certain pronounciation differences, depending on the first languages of the speaker.
History
Phonology
| front | central | back | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| unrounded | rounded | ||||
| short | long | short | short | long | |
| close | i | i: | ɨ | u | u: |
| close-mid | e: | o: | |||
| mid | ə | ||||
| open-mid | ɛ | ɔ | |||
| open | a | a: | |||
| Bilabial | Labio-Velar | Labiodental | Dental | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | p b | t d | ʈ ɖ | k g | ʔ | |||
| Nasal | m | n | ɳ | ŋ | ||||
| Trill | r | |||||||
| Fricative | f / v * | s / z * | ʂ / ʐ * | x / ɣ * | ||||
| Approximant | w | j | ||||||
| Lateral approximant | l | |||||||
[*] The voiced and unvoiced fricatives are allophones: voiced fricatives appear between vowels or before and after voiced consonants. In all other positions, fricatives are unvoiced.
Writing system
The native writing system of Qitsári, which got also modified to some extent to write the younger, still spoken languages of Atoskherakh, is an Abjad. It consists of 21 consonant letters. Long vowels are written by adding modifications to the letters for [ʔ], [j] and [w]. Short vowels are usually not written, unless in children's books and learning material for beginners. Consonant clusters are written by ligatures, similarly like it is done in the Devanagari script.
Grammar
Qitsári is a non-concatenative inflecting language, not unlike Hebrew and Arabic. The predominant word order is SOV. It is an ergative language. Most phrases are head-final.
Vocabulary
The vocabulary of the Qitsári spoken today is a mixture of mainly classical Qitsári words; vocabulary necessary to live in a modern world is either built by derivation or taken from neighbouring languages, seldomly a word from a modern Atoshkerakh language is accepted.
