User:Firesong/Alethi language

Alethi is a language in the Vorin language family, whose speakers primarily inhabit Alethkar. The namesake of the language is Alethkar or Alethela, the country in which the language is spoken.

Alethi is the most spoken language in Alethkar.

Classification

Alethi is a Vorin language which evolved from an ancestral proto-language, which had an unknown urheimat, which was likely situated in eastern Roshar. As a Vorin language, it is related to Veden, Bav, Herdazian, Kharbranthian, and Natan.

Alethi is most closely related to Veden and Kharbaranthian, with Thaylen, Herdazian and Natan being more distantly related.

History

by Isaac Stewart

Early proto-Thaylo-Vorin script depicted written along the edge of the map, listing the names of the Silver Kingdoms

As a Vorin language, it ultimately descends from an ancestral language which evolved over time to become modern Alethi. This ancestral language itself likely has basis in an unnamed Ashynite language or set of languages spoken by the Ashynites that migrated to Roshar around 7000 Rosharan years, or 7700 standard years, before the True Desolation.

It historically made use of the Dawnchant script, adapted to fit with their own language. This led to gradual changes compounding over time, experiencing various transitionary stages, and eventually evolving into proto-Thaylo-Vorin radicals, which ultimately became modern Vorin glyphs.

At some point during the Silver Kingdoms era, the Alethi language went through a period known as classical Alethelan, this stage requires trained scribes to decipher.

The Women's script began to form more than 1800 years before the True Desolation, where it was known as the Alethi protoscript. This eventually became the modern Women's Script.

Over this period, the language itself underwent various changes, enough so that writings from around 1800 years before the True Desolation are considered highly difficult to understand by educated modern speakers; despite ultimately remaining mutually intelligible.

Phonological History of Alethi

Throughout its history, Alethi underwent various phonetic shifts, though the order in which these changes manifested is currently unknown. Below are featured a list of currently known phonological changes, listed in no particular order.

• The h character was historically a weakly-voiced postalveolar non-sibilant fricative, which later shifted backward to a velar fricative, beginning weakly-voiced and later becoming voiceless. As of 1175, it manifests as a voiceless glottal fricative, though it has shifted elsewhere in other accents and dialects.
• The l character was historically a voiced alveolar lateral fricative, which is still seen in some environments, but it primarily shifted to a voiced alveolar lateral approximant.
• The t/d/r/th/l group was historically alveolar, and s/z/n/sh/h were historically postalveolar. L, however, remained alveolar.
• The k/g/y/ch/j group used to have dual articulation, similar to a velarized postalveolar consonant. As of 1174, the articulation has separated, with some phonemes becoming velar and others becoming postalveolar.
• The voiced postalveolar affricate and voiced palatal approximant merged in certain dialects.
• A vowel shift occurred where /a/ shifted to /e/ in certain environments. This occurred some time after the Last Desolation,
• In Rathalas Alethi, various phonemes were nasalized, this change occurred prior to 1141.

Geographical distribution

Alethi is primarily spoken in Alethkar, though second language speakers exist all across Roshar.

Phonology

The phonetics and phonology of the Alethi language differ from one dialect or accent to another, typically without interfering with mutual communication between speakers.

Consonants

Alethi Consonant phonemes*

		Labial		Dental		Alveolar		Post-alveolar		Palatal		Velar		Glottal
		Voiced	Voiceless	Voiced	Voiceless	Voiced	Voiceless	Voiced	Voiceless	Voiced	Voiceless	Voiced	Voiceless	Voiced	Voiceless
Nasal
Plosive													K
Affricate								dʒ**
Fricative	Central												Kh		H
	Lateral					Lh***
Approximant	Central									J/Y
	Lateral					L

* As Alethi phonology is not fully known, this table contains only confirmed phonemes.
** Only in certain dialects, typically depicted as a J.
*** Only retained in certain environments, in most instances shifted to a voiced alveolar lateral approximant.

Alethi is known to possess geminated consonants in word-final environments.

Vowels

Alethi has at least five monothongs, transliterated as a, e, i, o, and u. And at least two dipthongs, as seen in Aesudan and Ialai. The exact phonemes depicted by these vowels are currently unknown.

Phonotactics

An Alethi syllable includes a syllable nucleus consisting of a vowel sound, with an optional onset or coda. As it is currently known, a syllable can begin with up to two consonants, and end with up to two. This gives a Alethi syllable the structure (CC)V(CC).

Stress appears to be put on the first syllable.

Grammar

Alethi Grammar is largely unknown.

Adjectives

Nouns appear to be able to act as adjectives without modification.

Interrogatives

Questions in the Women's script are indicated by ending a sentence with the interrogative particle "ha."

Noun Modification

Alethi primarily makes use of suffixes to modify words, most notably in names. However, compound words have the modifying word placed before the noun it modifies.

Numerals

The Alethi language does not appear to distinguish between ordinal and cardinal numerals, and numbers are situated before the noun that they modify.

Pronouns

Alethi pronouns are not marked for gender in the spoken form, with gendered pronouns only being used in the Women's formal script. It is unknown if pronouns are marked for case or number.

Vocabulary

The Alethi language has a tendency towards synecdoche, in particular pars pro toto, in which they tend to describe an entire group with the name of a member of that group, such as calling all birds chickens or all alcoholic beverages wine.^{[citation needed]}

Few words are known in their non-glyphic form; these include Mathana, a formal term for older sister, and Mashala, for a word for aunt.

They do not have words for leaders or leadership that are not intrinsically linked to eye-color, which can make discussion of non-Vorin cultures difficult.

Word-formation processes

Alethi has a tendency to compound lexemes together in order to form new words, leading to the language having a large quantity of compound lexemes. For example, Parshendi, a noun coined after the Alethi meeting with the Listeners in 1166, is made up of Parsh and Endi, translating to Parshmen who can think.^{[citation needed]} Which is written with the glyphs for parap, shenesh and idi.^{[citation needed]}

Numerals

Alethi is a base-10 language which makes use of positional notation. Numbers are constructed by using the full name of the first digit of a number, and then chaining suffixes for every other digit in the number. For example, the number "1173" is "Jesesabach", using Jes (1), -es (1), -ab (7), -ach (3). How the digit zero is handled in the spoken language is currently unclear.

There does not appear to be a grammatical distinction between ordinal and cardinal numerals.

Number	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Vorin Name	Jes	Nan	Chach	Vev	Palah	Shash	Betab	Kak	Tanat	Ishi
Suffix	-es	-an	-ach	-ev	-ah	-ash	-ab	-ak	-at	-ish

Orthography

Alethi is written in two primary writing systems, Glyphs and Women's script. Earlier texts made use of the Dawnchant writing system adapted to fit with early Alethi, which later evolved into proto-Thaylo-Vorin radicals, which evolved into modern Vorin glyphic orthography. The Women's script was made at an unknown time in the evolution of modern glyphs, taking on its modern form some time less than 1800 years before the True Desolation.

Glyphs

by Isaac Stewart

The first half of a letter and in-depth discussion of Alethi glyphs.

by Isaac Stewart

The second page of a letter discussing Alethi Glyphs.

For more information, see Glyphs.

Glyphs are a pseudo-logographic script primarily used among Alethi men. They are made up of various phonetic radicals descended from Dawnchant script, with the phonemes flipped or distorted to fit the shape of the glyph. Over time, glyphs change in shape and lose the phonetic information coded into them, leaving them as logographs. However, it is possible to still read the phonemes if one knows what one is looking for.

The creation of new glyphs makes use of these phonemes. It takes a trained calligrapher, with a deep knowledge of how how the glyph may be expressed without overly obscuring the meaning, in order to make new glyphs. Glyphs are made into bilaterally symmetric pictographs, so that they can be read by the illiterate, and ultimately act as a logography. For example, the glyph for zatalef is shaped like a zatalef, so that it can be understood even without reading the phonemic components.

Glyphs have simplified versions intended for small writing, and shorthand variants for quicker writing.

Phonemes

The Phonemes that make up Glyphs are separated into three main groups, Standard, Calligraphic, and Hybrid. These can each be distorted by the calligrapher to fit their vision for the glyph.

Several consonants cannot be represented with a singular phoneme, such as the voiceless velar fricative, and thus are depicted as digraphs.

Glyphpairs

Words can be made out of one glyph, or made of two glyphs known as glyphpairs; in rare circumstances, a word can be made up of three glyphs. When a word is expressed by a glyphpair, they are not read in a purely phonetic manner, for instance the glyphpair for kezeras is made up of the glyphs for kecheh and zeras. These are primarily used for names or compound words, and are slightly more common than singular glyphs.

Evolution

Glyphic evolution is separated into three primary phases, Old, Middle, and Modern. Each stage grows gradually more simplified over time. Modern glyphs have not undergone this simplification, and thus retain their complexity compared to older glyphs.

As they evolve, they lose the phonetic information coded into them, as people who do not understand the phonemes present in the glyph attempt to increase the ease of writing, leaving them as logographs.

Stormwarden Script

For more information, see Stormwarden script.

A form of written Alethi that makes use of Glyphs to create full sentences, bypassing the restriction on male literacy imposed by Vorin society.^{[citation needed]}

Women's Script

by Isaac Stewart

A ketek written by Jasnah Kholin.

For more information, see Women's script.

Women's script is an alphabetic script primarily used by women in Vorin nations, including Alethkar. It came into use over 1800 years before the True Desolation as the Alethi protoscript, before taking on its modern form.

There is a shorthand form of Women's script, which makes use of simplified versions of letters, and a tendency to shorten words or use replacements.

Groupings

The script is organized into five primary groups based upon historical area of articulation of various phonemes.

Grammar

Women's Script has various grammatical rules not found in the standard spoken language.

Pronouns are gendered in the written script, unlike in the spoken language.

Questions are indicated by ending a sentence with the interrogative particle "ha." It is not confirmed if this is unique to the written form, or if it is a standard part of the spoken language.

Numerals

Alethi numerals make use of a vertically oriented positional system, with digits oriented from the bottom to the top.

Numerals can be depicted in the traditional manner depicted in the table below, or could be heavily stylized to fit within a larger glyph.

In the past, Alethkar made use of a system of writing numerals that are referred to as archaic Alethi numerals.

	0		1		2		3		4		5		6		7		8		9
	10		11		12		13		14		15		16		17		18		19
	20		21		22		23		24		25		26		27		28		29
	80		127		1173

Dialects, accents and varieties

Due to the language's age and the large area it covers, Alethi has a large amount of regional dialects and varieties.

Within Akethkar, there is considerable variation along lines of social class and region alike, with some traits being considered distinctly darkeyed or lighteyed in nature, a major example being the palatal approximant-postalveolar affricate merger, which is considered a feature of lower-class Alethi.

Kholinar

The accent spoken by people in Kholinar is distinct and noticeable, enough to differentiate it from other Alethi peoples. Though its features are unknown.

Koron

An accent in central Alethkar near the Sunmaker Mountains.

Koron accents are described as possessing a slow drawl. They pronounce some vowels differently than standard Alethi.

Lighteyed Accents

Lighteyed accents are a group of accents spoken by the upper class, albeit not universally, they are typically marked by a merger between the voiced postalveolar affricate and voiced palatal approximant.

Rathalas Accent

Rathalas has a distinct dialect distinguished by a high quantity of nasalized phonemes compared to standard Alethi. It is spoken even amongst the lighteyed of the region. This accent is also known as a Rifter accent.

Rural Accents

Many darkeyes talk in an accent described as rural, which is considered indicative of their class. One feature of several of these accents is the lack of a merger between the voiced postalveolar affricate and voiced palatal approximant. Another feature that is considered distinctly rural is the clipping of words in a manner considered blunt to some speakers.

Northern Accent

A recognizable accent spoken in nothern Alethkar. This is the accent that Taln took on after his Return shortly before the True Desolation.

Unnamed Ancient Dialect

An unnamed dialect of Alethi spoken circa two-hundred years after the Recreance, around 1800 years prior to the True Desolation.^{[citation needed]} The written form is notable hard to understand to educated modern speakers, but is ultimately mutually intelligible with modern Alethi. It is unknown how intelligible it would be to individuals without the proper education, or how intelligible the spoken form would have been compared to the written form.

The features of this dialect and how it differs from modern standard Alethi is currently unknown. Due to this dialect making use of the protoscript, it is likely that it predates various changes in area of articulation that are not reflected in the modern Women's script.

Foreign Accents

Non-native Alethi speakers often pronounce words differently or make grammatical errors based on the speech rules and grammar of their native tongue. This can lead to distinct and innovative pronunciations of Alethi words.

Azish

The Azish accent is considered elevated and lofty to some Alethi speakers. It is also described as smooth.

Bav

The Bav accent puts further emphasis on certain sounds than other accents, and they talk at a slower rate.

Herdazian

The Herdazian accent is distinct and notable for being quick and often letting words flow together.

New Natanan

The New Natanan accent involves the lengthening of certain vowels in their speech.

Riran

The Riran accent involves the lengthening of certain vowels in their speech.

Thaylen

The Thaylen accent is distinguished by an underpronunciation of vowels, resulting in consonant clusters where they would not exist in other accents and dialects.

Tukari

The Tukari have a distinct accent when speaking Alethi. Though its features are unknown.

Unkalaki

The Unkalaki accent is distinct and noticeable to Alethi speakers, one speaker is described as pronouncing Kaladin as “kal-ah-deen,” instead of the standard Alethi “kal-a-din.” They put stress on different syllables than native speakers. And draw out various vowel sounds.

Heavier Unkalaki accents have a tendency to drop pronouns where the subject is implied or already known, or apply gendered pronouns to inanimate objects.

Veden

Veden accents are considered very similar to each other by the Alethi. They are also considered to sound exotic.

Trivia

• Alethi, along with the rest of the Vorin language family, is based on the Semitic language family, particularly Arabic, with some inspiration by Mediterranean languages and Chinese.

Notes

Footnotes

References

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