Tulucari language

Tulucari is a group of languages spoken natively by peoples of the Tulucari Valley, most prominently by the parrot people of the region. Tulucari is treated as a single language by its speakers, though it is divided into several mutually unintelligible dialects, with Standard Tulucari being the prestige dialect originating from the Hiatlam Kingdom. Tulucari is spoken by over 12 million speakers natively, in addition to 2 million L2 speakers across the Tulucari diaspora. Tulucari is a minority language in Kataam and Zankag.

Unlike neighbouring Islo-Chamic languages, Tulucari is an agglutinative, dependent marking, and strongly suffixing language. Tulucari languages practice avoidance speech, which effects grammar, inflectional morphology, animacy, honorifics, pronouns and personal names depending on a speaker's relationship with their addressee.

About 70% of Tulucari vocabulary is Islo-Chamic in origin, a vast majority of them coming from influential languages like Kalamese and Ohóch. Native words are primarily found in everyday objects, local concepts and core vocabulary.

Phonology

The phonology of Tulucari varies greatly by dialect. The inventory provided below is that of Standard Tulucari.

Phonetic erosion in the last three centuries saw the disappearance pharyngealised consonants for [o], and the introduction of [e], making Tulucari a five-vowel system in contrast to the three-vowel system found in neighbouring languages.

Consonants

Tulucari consonants share some areal commonalities with its neighbouring languages, the most prominent example being the three-way distinction in articulation, manifesting itself as lenis (tani), fortis (tshati) and glottalised (ipati) as with Islo-Chamic grammatical tradition. A crucial difference from neighbouring language families is Standard Tulucari's three-way distinction in its nasals consonants, but adapts the third articulation (the ipati class consonants) for its native prenasalised consonants.

Tulucari languages feature strong symmetry in its consonant inventory in its nasals and plosives.

Standard Tulucari does not distinguish [ɹ] and [l].

Standard Tulucari		Bilabial*	Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyngeal	Glottal
Nasal	lenis (tani)	m	n	ɳ	ɲ	ŋ	ɴ
	fortis (tshati)	m̊	n̊	ɳ̊	ɲ̊	ŋ̊	ɴ̊
	pre-nasal. (ipati)	ᵐb	ⁿd	ᶯɖ	ᶮɟ	ᵑɡ	ᶰɢ
Stop	lenis (tani)	b	d	ɖ	ɟ	ɡ	ɢ		ʔ
	fortis (tshati)	pʰ	tʰ	ʈʰ	cʰ	kʰ	qʰ		ʔʰ
	glotttalised (ipati)	pˀ	tˀ	ʈˀ	cˀ	kˀ	qˀ
Affricate	lenis (tani)		t͡s	ʈ͡ʂ
	fortis (tshati)		t͡sʰ	ʈ͡ʂʰ
	glotttalised (ipati)		t͡sˀ	ʈ͡ʂˀ
Fricative	sibilant		s	ʂ	ç	x	(χ)	ħ	h
Fricative	liquids		ɹ ~ l	ɻ ~ ɭ	j	ɰ ~ w		ʕ
Rhotic			ɾ	ɽ
*As avians do not have lips (but beaks), bilabial consonants are not produced bilabially, but are articulated by the syrinx.

Kalamese loans

Pharyngealised consonants are not phonemic in Standard Tulucari, even though a significant number of loans in Tulucari are of Kalamese origin. Kalamese words may have their pharyngealised consonants pronounced by speakers who know Kalamese, otherwise they are not pharyngealised, or separated by a subtle schwa [ə].

	Kalamese	Standard Tulucari
lenis (tani)	pˤ-	pʰ-, pə-
fortis (tshati)	bˤ-	ᵐb-
pre-nasal. (ipati)	ˀpˤ	pˀ

Vowels

All dialects of Tulucari feature five simple vowels. There are no native diphthongs or triphthongs, but are generally pronounced in educated and learned speech in . Vowel clusters are always separated by a hiatus or glottal stop in some dialects.

	Front	Back
Close	i	u
Mid	e ~ (ə)	o
Open	a

Phonotactics

Tulucari phonotactics across all dialects are analysed as C(F/R)V(F/R)C. Kalamese loanwords which often have far larger consonant consonant clusters, are pronounced by breaking up the onset clusters with a weak schwa, or in some dialects, have initial consonants dropped entirely.

Pronunciation taboos

The tani and tshati consonants are interpreted by the Tulucari people as extensions of avoidance speech between extended family members and persons of authority.

When addressing a familiar person (a direct family member, or friend), no changes in register occurs:

Tulucari-gwa-ŋqi

Tulucari-GEN-2.SG

waitshaŋ~a

document~PL

en-t'aḷuy-uḷ-pha-ñjya-sa.

DEF-good-NEG-3.SG-DIR.EV-PROX

Your Tulucari documents are not in order.

However, if the addressee is an in-law, tani consonants are substituted for ipati ones.