Thalingian language

The Thalingian language is a pluricentric language spoken by the porpoise people of Thalingia on eastern coast of the Soaqia continent. Thalingian is a member of the Cixo-Talingic branch of the Cixo-Noxorean language family. Like other Cixo-Talingic languages, Thalingian has retained many features of Proto-Cixo-Noxorean, making it a relatively conservative language compared to its other Cixo-Noxorean descendants.

Thalingian exists as a dialect continuum stretching from the western tip of the Tomaqania Peninsula to the river valleys of the Pipiranis Range. While there is no standard form of Thalingian, the generally accepted prestige variety of the language is Aq (or Central Thalingian), the largest urban settlement and de facto commercial and cultural capital of the Thalingian region.

This article will focus exclusively on the Aq dialect.

Phonology

The Aq dialect of Thalingian features a three-way contrast in plosives (tenuis, aspirated and ejective). Other dialects like Þqłóth (Peninsular Thalingian) have pharyngealised stops in place of ejectives, while Qrôwph (Chrouphis River Thalingian) has voiced plosives in place of tenuis ones. Otherwise, consonantal variation is minimal between dialects. The alveolar tap /ɾ/ is not phonemic in Thalingian, but regularly occurs in loanwords spoken by learned speakers, while the palatal nasal /ɲ/ is an allophone of /n/.

Thalingian structure is CCCSVVSCC, where S is sonorant. Thalingian permits large consonant clusters. Semivowels /m n ŋ/ and only a maximum of two vowels or one diphthong may occupy the syllable nuclei.

Tones in Thalingian are phonemic, providing both grammatical and prosodic function to arguments. Tone sandhi and metathesis are also integral parts of Thalingian morphology, allowing for a diverse set of often irregular verbal inflection.

Consonant

		Bilabial	Dental	Alveolar	Palato-alveolar	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal/Semivowel		m	n		(ɲ)	ŋ ~ ɴ
Plosive	Tenuis	p	t		t͡ɕ ~ t͡ʃ	k	q	ʔ
	Aspirated	pʰ	tʰ		t͡ɕʰ ~ t͡ʃʰ	kʰ	qʰ
	Ejective	p’	t’		t͡ɕ’ ~ t͡ʃ’	k’	q’
Sonorant	Fricative		θ	s		x	χ ~ ʁ
	Lateral fricative		ɬ
	Approximant		l		ʎ	w
Tap			(ɾ)

Vowels

	Front		Central		Back
	Short	Long	Short	Long	Short	Long
Close	i	iː	ɨ	ɨː	u	uː
Close-mid	e	eː	ə	əː	ɔ	ɔː
Open-mid	æ	æː	ə	əː	ɔ	ɔː
Open	a	aː

Tones

Tone		IPA			Orthographic
Tone		Central Thalingian (Aq)	*Peninsular Thalingian (Þqłóth)*	*Chrouphis River Thalingian (Qrôwph)*	Orthographic
1	High	◌˥	◌˥	◌˥	â
2	High Rising	◌˩˥	◌˧˩˥	◌˦˥˦	á
3	Low	◌˩	◌˧˩	◌˥˩	ǎ
4	Low Falling	◌˥˩	◌˩˧˩	◌˧˨˦	à
5	Turbulent	◌̰	◌̃	◌̰	ã
6	Glottalised	ˀ◌	˥ˀ◌˧	ˀ◌	'a
7	Flat	◌	◌˩	◌	a