Dahtashé language

Bay Area: [nəttəˈʂeɔ], [nətˈtʂeɔ]

**Dahtashé** /ˈdaːtəˌʃeɪ/ (*Dahtashjeo*, *tháhta aDagqdashjeo* or *tháhta aDagquzamboo*) is a Ta-Rai language spoken by the Tagdashé people in the nation of Shefýddhaqhui. It is part of the Taquu branch of the Ta-Rai languages.

The language comprises 2 major dialect groupings - Eastern Dahtashé and Western Dahtashé, as well as a literary register known as Classical Dahtashé (a modernised version of the common literary standard of Middle Dahtashé), used in formal circumstances or when communicating across dialects. There are 2 main prestige dialects - Northwest (part of Western) and Bay Area / Foaw-Cyihto (part of Eastern), this article will focus on these two dialects.

Dahtashé is a head-initial fusional language, with VSO word order.

## Phonology

The Classical language generally distinguishes more consonants and vowels than any modern dialect, with all modern forms having undergone mergers, in some cases merging a significant part of their inventories. When speaking in the Classical register, speakers may try to adopt a more conservative consonant inventory, but vowels are usually simply pronounced as they would be in their native dialect - e.g. *Dahtashé* /dəhtəˈʂæə/ may pronounced [dəhtəˈʂeɔ] by Bay Area speakers, compared to the usual [nəttəˈʂeɔ].

### Vowels

Classical Dahtashé inheirts the Taquu system of 9 stressed vowels, each with both length and nasalisation distinction, although many nasal vowels have merged and many of the long vowels have broken into diphthongs. Some of these vowels also have somewhat divergent allophones when in contact with a palatal consonant (including /j/, which has disappeared in many modern varieties). There are also 4 unstressed vowels, distinguishing nasalisation.

Modern Dahtashé variants have undergone significant changes to the vowel inventory, but for the most part, these changes are predictable from the Classical Dahtashé vowel given a particular environment. Western dialects have all lost length distinctions but maintain palatalisation distinction, Northwest has also lost nasal vowels. Eastern dialects have all lost palatalisation distinctions, but maintain nasalisation, Bay Area has also lost length distinction.

#### Classical

Stressed Oral Vowels
 Mid
 Open

Stressed Nasal Vowels
 Mid
 Open

Unstressed Vowels
 Mid

#### Northwest

The NW dialect has 8 stressed and 3 unstressed vowels as well as 4 stressed and 2 unstressed palatalised vowels (these palatalised vowels can be analysed as sequences of /j/ + vowel).

Stressed Vowels
 Close-mid
 Open

Unstressed Vowels
 Open

#### Bay Area

The Bay Area dialect has 13 stressed vowels: 10 oral and 3 nasal, as well as 8 stressed diphthongs and 4 unstressed vowels: 2 oral and 2 nasal.

Stressed Vowels
 Close-mid
 Open

Diphthongs
 Close-mid
 Open-mid

Unstressed Vowels
 Nasal

### Consonants

Compared to vowels, the change in consonants from Classical to Modern Dahtashé varieties has been much tamer. Classical Dahtashé distinguishes 34 consonant phonemes, however modern varieties distinguish at most 25.

#### Classical

The following table gives the full inventory of Classical Dahtashé, with reflexes in modern Northwestern and Bay Area dialects given beside them (in that order). No modern variety contains distinct voiced plosives anymore, otherwise all other distinctions appear in at least one dialect.

#### Northwestern

The Northwestern dialect has 20 consonant phonemes - including /j/ in this analysis. The retroflex and palatal series only contain 1 phoneme each (the approximant), however these may combine with other phonemes to produce allophones which are considered to be distinct sounds. These allophones are listed in brackets.

Voiced variants of all unvoiced consonants appear allophonically in the Northwestern dialect, but these aren't considered to be separate phones.

The Northwestern dialect shares a number of mergers with other Western dialects, namely:

* Classical voiced plosives merge into unvoiced plosives
* Classical palatal consonants merge with with velar consonants, except nasal /ɲ/ which merges into /n/ instead. Many of these end up as palatal consonants anyway, as these palatal consonants often caused the following vowel to palatalise (/cæ/ > /kjɛ/ [cɛ]), however this is not always the case (/co/ > /ky/ [ky]); in addition, some consonants which were velar in Classical are palatalised due to vowel developments (/kæə/ > /kjɛ/ [cɛ])
* Classical retroflex /ʂ/ is merged with /s/ (in Southwestern dialects, the result of the merger is a retracted/apical [s̺])
* /ɻ/ in contact with another alveolar consonant turns it into a geminated retroflex consonant

There are also a number of mergers specific to Northwest, or to a Northwest and another Western dialect.

* Velar fricatives are merged into /h/ - shared with Peninsular dialect but not Midwestern
* Syllable-final /ɻ/ (when not in contact with an alveolar consonant) lengthens a preceding short vowel, otherwise is elided; this is a feature shared only with the distant Bay Area dialect which developed first in Foawian aristocracy.
* Classical /ʋ/ merges into /v/
* Classical /r̥/ merges into /ɾ/
* The full merger of palatalised alveolar and velar consonants into palatals is unique to Northwest, Southwest dialects still distinguish palatalised alveolars vs velars.

Note that /j/ can only appear in tandem with the 4 vowels listed above as "palatalised vowels" - /ji/, /jy/, /jɛ/ and /jœ/.

#### Bay Area

The Bay Area dialect contains 21 consonant phonemes.

The Bay Area dialect shares a number of mergers with other Eastern dialects:

* Classical voiced plosives merged with nasals
* Classical uvular consonants merged with velars
* Classical retroflex approximant /ɻ/ fricated into /ʐ/

In addition, the Bay Area dialect groups together with Central Desert (Häftefoo) to form the Eastern Desert dialect subgroup, sharing the following features in regards to consonants:

* Rhotics /r̥/ and /ɾ/ merged to retroflex sibilants /ʂ/ and /ʐ/
* Dental fricatives /θ/ and /ð/ merge into labiovelars /f/ and /ʋ/

## Nouns

Nouns are formally classified into 3 classes (Human, Animate, Inanimate), which determines certain grammatical rules in the Classical language, but in modern language the classes are no longer distinguished grammatically.  There are a number of roots which are classified into each class (e.g. Human has dhe- 'person', ta- 'group' and tav- 'spirit'); these roots determine the inflection pattern of the noun.  Inanimate nouns have no root.

Nouns inflect for case and number/definiteness using prefixes; many of these prefixes code for a combination of case and number/definiteness.

#### Cases

* **NOM**: Nominative case: used for the subject of an active or intransitive verb; usually unmarked.  Commonly also used for the object (i.e. the Accusative prefix is dropped) in modern language.
* **ACC**: Accusative case: used for the object of an active verb or the subject of a passive verb, deriving from the Proto-Ta-Rai passive verb suffix being reanalysed as a case prefix.  Use for active verbs is uncommon in modern language, however the case is still always used for passive verbs.
* **OBL**: Oblique case: takes many prepositions; by itself used as a genitive case.  From a merger of Proto-Ta-Rai Genitive, Dative and Instrumental cases
* **DAT**: Dative case, deriving from Proto-Ta-Rai Causative case

* **ABL**: Ablative case, deriving from PTR Ablative case

#### Number and Definiteness

* **INDEF**: Indefinite: used for any number when indefinite.  Usually unmarked
* **SDEF:** Singular Definite: marking a single specific referent, deriving from the Proto-Ta-Rai singular number.  Sense of definiteness developed due to optional number marking.
* **DDEF**: Dual Definite: only used in very formal language and only in the Classical form.  Marks exactly two specific referents.
* **PDEF:** Plural Definite: marks multiple specific referents (>2 when Dual is an option, >1 normally).  Human and Animate nouns mark using class-prefix reduplication as in PTR; Inanimate nouns use the PTR Paucal number prefix.

* **NEG**: Negative: used for the absence of any of the referent.

#### Inflection Example

The following table presents an example of inflection on 3 nouns of different classes: *dhesöin* (hunter, Hu, root *dhe-*), *ñevvoo* (fish, An, root *ñev-*), *quzjeo* (desert, In).  Pronunciations are given in Classical Dahtashé and may be quite different from modern realisations.

The Ablative prefix is regularly formed from ng- /ŋ/ + Oblique (arsöin > ngarsöin, a'anggquzjeo > nga'anggquzjeo).

ñevvoo /ɲɪʋˈʋoː/
quzjeo /qʏˈzæə/
çiiññevvoo
çiinggquzjeo
êewwoo /ɐ̃i.ɪʋˈ-/
agqzjeo /əɢˈ-/
jêevvoo /ˌĩː.ɪʋˈ-/
 SDEF
zjêevvoo /zĩː.ɪʋˈ-/
zjeqzjeo /zʲɪɢˈ-/
çiiññevvoo
çiinggquzjeo
azjêevvoo
azjeqzjeo
jizjêevvoo
 DDEF
twêevvoo
twagqzjeo
çiindwêevvoo
çiindwagqzjeo
adwêevvoo
adwagqzjeo
jidwêevvoo
 PDEF
ñêevvoo /ɲɐ̃i.ɪʋˈʋoː/
anggquzjeo /əŋɢʏˈzæə/
çiiññêevvoo
çẽẽanggquzjeo /ˌçĩː.ə-/
aññevvoo /əɲɲɪʋˈ-/
a'anggquzjeo /əə-/
jiññevvoo
 NEG
jiññevvoo /ˌiɪɲɲɪˈ-/
jingquzjeo /ˌiɪŋɢʏˈ-/
çẽẽjiññevvoo
çẽẽjingquzjeo
ejiññevvoo
ejinggquzjeo
jijiññevvoo
jijinggquzjeo

## Verbs

Verbs inflect for mood in Classical Dahtashé, however these mood suffixes are moved to a separate particle in modern Dahtashé.  Modalities are also marked on particles, and aspects are marked as suffixes of these particles (with a dummy particle used in case there would be none).  Verbs are not marked for tense, these can be specified with temporal adverbs if necessary.  Verbs are also not marked for voice; the passive voice is formed with noun case instead.

The only verb inflections in modern Dahtashé are the gerund and participles.