Turisan languages

The Turisan languages are a family of languages in Dróstsiśtsi. Most languages in the family are characterized by somewhat simple phonologies with variants of a five or six vowel system and relatively analytic grammar.

Members

The family has three undisputed members: Tōnisūkasi, Turis, and Kośtsiśtsi. All three use either the logographic Kośtsiźda script or a syllabic variation of it. They are all also spoken in or near the Ruxese-Rubicon region in eastern Dróstsiśtsi.

Tōnisūkasi

Tōnisūkasi is spoken in southeastern Dróstsiśtsi, but has become a minority language there due to the influence of languages like Taqồpaq, Latin, and Tosï. It is in what is sometimes called the "southern branch" of the Turisan family.

Turis

Turis is spoken roughly in Sunflower Island. With Kośtsiśtsi, it forms the "northern branch".

	labial	alveolar	palatal	dorsal
nasal	m	n	ni [ɲ]	g [ŋ]
stop	p (b)	t (d)	ci [tʃ], di [dʒ]	c [k], (g)
fricative	f, (v)	s, (z)	si [ʃ], (zi)
lateral		l	li [ʎ]
approximant	u [w]	r	i [j]

Obstruents are voiceless in initial position and voiced in medial position; in final position voicing is phonemic and indicates various grammatical markings, although is not written. The nominative case and non-past tenses are voiceless while the oblique case and past tense have voiced final obstruents. For sonorants there is no alternation. Notably, the t [t] and ci [tʃ] sounds merge and display unique conditions in final position; the nominative is -[tʃ], the oblique case and past tense are -[d], the future tense is [t], and the present is [Ø].

	front	central	back
closed	i	y	u
open	e	a	o

Vowels are written the same as IPA.

Words typically have a disyllabic CV(C)CVC structure, resulting from apocope of proto-Turisan final vowels still reflected in South Turisan. Affixes are non-existent; plurals are indicated via reduplication, and almost all of the affixes of Kośtsiśtsi correspond to separate helper words in Turis.

Kośtsiśtsi

main article: Kośtsiśtsi

This is the most prominent Turisan language in Dróstsiśtsi and contributed the country's name. However, it is also the most divergent, abandoning the simple phonology and analytic grammar of its relatives and developing a complex phonology and polysynthetic grammar by extensive vowel dropping, cluster reduction, and grammaticalization of helper words.

Proto-Turisan

This is the hypothetical ancestor of the Turisan languages.

Phonology

		Labial	Alveolar	Dorsal
Nasal		m	n
Plosive	Voiceless	p	t	k
	Voiced	b	d	g
Fricative	Voiceless	f	s	x
	Voiced	v	z	ɣ
Approximant			l
Trill			r

	front	back
closed	i i:	u u:
mid	e e:	o o:
open	a a:

The ten vowel model is based on Tōnisūkasi, with the six vowels of Turis and Kośtsiśtsi reflecting a shift in proto-North-Turisan.

North Turisan vowel shift
Proto-Turisan	Proto-North-Turisan
a	a
a:	ɔ
e	a
e:	e
i	e
i:	i
o	ɔ
o:	o
u	o
u:	u

External Relations

Taqồpaq

Taqồpaq is spoken near the area of the Turisan languages. Despite having a similar analytic grammar, its lexicon shows few cognates not known to be recent loans. Its phonology is also much larger than that of Turisan languages; proponents of a connection have proposed this to be due to cluster reduction as it became monosyllabic, a process attested in Kośtsiśtsi. However, taking this into account does not produce many possible cognates. The grammar also shows features like noun classifiers not found in Turisan languages.

Tosï

Tosï is a language in southern Dróstsiśtsi, near Tōnisūkasi. Historically it was the primary language of the CMCic Federation, and had significant contact with Amuj-Shudrowan languages and Pisco-Imerchali Languages.

Its grammar is somewhat analytic, but with a few affixes, similar to Turisan languages; however, Tosï has grammatical gender, not found in any Turisan languages, but found in both the Amuj-Shudrowan and Pisco-Imerchali families. It has a relatively simple phonology, and stress typically falls on the middle syllable. There are some possible lexical cognates in the lexical field, as well as many of the affixes having possible cognates in other Turisan languages. However, it is typically not included as a Turisan language, as the relation is still speculative.