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Kyrdan languages: Difference between revisions

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| region      = [[w:Vaalbara|Mu]] (Archaean Earth)
| region      = [[w:Vaalbara|Mu]] (Archaean Earth)
| protoname  = Proto-Kyrdan
| protoname  = Proto-Kyrdan
| familycolor = D86FFF
| familycolor =#ccccff
| family= One of the primary language families
| family= One of the primary language families
| child1      = Kirtumur
| child1      = [[Kirtumur]]
| child2      = Cirdamur
| child2      = Cirdamur
| child3      = Kērsalur
| child3      = Kērsalur
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! Sērsal
! Sērsal
! Cirdamur
! Cirdamur
! Kirtumur
! [[Kirtumur]]
! Kērsal
! Kērsal
! Ilusal
! Ilusal
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*The palatalisation of the phoneme *ķ goes further in the southwest, where it becomes /s/.
*The palatalisation of the phoneme *ķ goes further in the southwest, where it becomes /s/.
*Merging of tense affricates to /t͡s/ in the northwest vs. /t͡ʃ/ in the southwest. In Old Sērsal the merger did not occur.
*Merging of tense affricates to /t͡s/ in the northwest vs. /t͡ʃ/ in the southwest. In Old Sērsal the merger did not occur.
==Languages==
The two most widely spoken Kyrdan languages are Cirdamur (in the western region, called '''Kabālmu''')  and Kirtumur (spoken in the '''Umu''' region to the east of the Urugumis mountains - ''Urukum''). Approximately 50% of the population speak Cirdamur, which is the official language of Kabālmu and Pilmu, but the majority of the population also know it as a second language, or at least can understand it. Kirtumur is the second most spoken language (natively spoken by about 35% monolingually, but the number of both monolingual and bilingual speakers is higher - about 45%). It is the official language of Umu. The third language that has its own written standard is Kērsalur, which used to be spoken natively in the mountainous region of Tilkirik in the northeast of Umu and was a language of prestige before the continent split into three countries. It is still considered by a society to be the superior and the most "correct" language, closest to the original proto-language. Nowadays it is only learnt by the priests and higher nobility and is rarely spoken and thus all its speakers are bi- or trilingual.


[[Category:Language families]]
Other varieties are generally not considered to be separate languages and are not standardised. Though they still survive as primarily spoken languages, the use of them is restricted to day to day conversations between the native speakers. Almost all speakers of these dialects are bilingual and know at least one of the standard languages. The situation is much better in the east, where the locals generally speak in more or less pure Ilusal or Ruosal with each other and only introduce new loanwords if necessary, while in the south Sērsal mixed with Cirdamur and is now extinct, even though it was the only dialect that had any literary tradition. In '''Pilmu''' people predominantly speak Cirdamur with various degrees of Sērsal admixture, although there have been attepts to revive the language and standardise it.
 
A few languages left little to no written records and are extinct, among those '''Old Ķyrdum''' is the most well known thanks to several inscriptions and temple metal tablets. It is likely that Kērsalur slowly substituted Ķyrdum, becoming a new prestige variety and liturgical language. An evidence of this is the bilingual inscription from the temple of Entirŋum, which tells about the sermon, delivered in that temple by the Green Goddess with the Kērsalur words on top and a smaller text and a less precise translation in Ķyrdum (this is also the only bilingual text with Ķyrdum words). Other language, known from another Ķyrdum inscription the lake Aita, was called '''Qaǯašale''', but nothing is known about it apart from its name. The inscription also implied the existence of other languages in that area, but no names were mentioned in it.
 
==Writing systems==
The Kyrdan languages have kept the ancient logo-syllabic writing system, called ''Namķaudir'' (from Ķyrdum "that preserves words"), adapting it to their evolution. This writing system was in use for over a millenium and was kept almost completely unchanged until the regularisation of the Kērsalur spelling. The first inscriptions were purely ideographic, which makes them technically impossible to know in which language they were written, though some ideograms later became logograms in Namķaudir, so many of these ideograms can be recognised and read, even though their original pronunciation is unknown. This later script is a syllable-based logography (or a logo-syllabic system) in which symbols represent morphemes and individual syllables rather than whole words or even sentences. Thus many words are written with purely phonetic glyphs with only small common morphemes having their own separate logograms. Along with words written phonetically, a special set of symbols, called ''zēalak'' ("silent words") are used, which are not pronounced, but indicate proper names, placenames, natural phenomena, stars and planets, living beings (except humans). They have no direct counterpart in spoken language, but help to disambiguate interpretation. The exact number of symbols is unknown, since most of them are rarely used and can be found in religious text or old inscriptions. Kērsalur has the largest amount of syllabic symbols - 460, while Cirdamur and Kirtumur have less - 333 and 360 respectively. All three varieties have separate set of symbols: one for syllables of the form '''CV''' and one - of '''VC''' (where '''C''' is a consonant and '''V''' is a vowel).
==Vocabulary comparison==
The table below provides a vocabulary comparison that illustrates phonetic correspondences among different Kyrdan varieties:
{|class="wikitable" style="text-align: center; margin:10px;"
|-
! English
! Sērsal
! Cirdamur
! [[Kirtumur]]
! Kērsal
! Ilusal
! Ruosal
|-
! water
| ''yo''
| ''ya''
| ''wa''
| ''wa''
| ''wa''
| ''wa''
|-
! night
| ''ŋuš''
| ''ŋuš''
| ''ŋus''
| ''mus''
| ''mus''
| ''ŋus''
|-
! city
| ''ičal''
| ''ēdal''
| ''ektal''
| ''ektal''
| ''ittal''
| ''ettal''
|-
! sky
| ''sɛ̄n''
| ''sān''
| ''zōn''
| ''zān''
| ''hōn''
| ''zōn''
|-
! window
| ''nim''
| ''nim''
| ''nim''
| ''lim''
| ''lim''
| ''nim''
|-
! man
| ''baki''
| ''beki''
| ''pekhi''
| ''pekhi''
| ''pikki''
| ''pekhi''
|-
! small
| ''yɛ̄ča''
| ''yēci''
| ''yēri''
| ''yēši''
| ''yieri''
| ''yieri''
|-
! fog
| ''din''
| ''eddin''
| ''etten''
| ''etten''
| ''itin''
| ''ettin''
|-
! storm
| ''kōr''
| ''kir''
| ''khir''
| ''kwhēr''
| ''fuor''
| ''khuor''
|-
! column
| ''gōkabir''
| ''guggabir''
| ''kukkapir''
| ''kukkapir''
| ''kukkapir''
| ''kukkupir''
|-
! shore
| ''ališ''
| ''attiš''
| ''arris''
| ''aššis''
| ''arris''
| ''arris''
|-
! image
| ''nilen''
| ''nillin''
| ''nizzin''
| ''neššen''
| ''niššin''
| ''nezzen''
|-
|}
 
[[Category:Language families]]  [[Category:Kyrdan]]
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