Oroshan language

Oroshan language
Kikŋaʔvəvi, kikŋaʔvəvi kəğači
Pronunciation	[kigŋaʔvəˈvi]
Native to	Oroshia
Ethnicity	Oroshan people
Native speakers	ca. 2,300,000 (2018)
Language family	Gujino-Bintani Gujin Coast Gujin Oroshan language
Early form	Proto-gujino-bintani
Official status
Official language in	Oroshia
Language codes
ISO 639-1	or
ISO 639-2	oro
ISO 639-3	oro

Oroshan (kikŋaʔvəvi, pronounced: [kigŋaʔvəˈvi]) is a Gujino-Bintani language spoken in the extreme northeast of Surucia, mostly contained in Oroshia, where nearly 2 million speakers reside. It is a Gujin language, genetically, within the wider Gujino-Bintani family. Specifically, it is a Coast Gujin language, along with the Yvlipkan language, who diverged from their common ancestor an estimated 1,500 years ago. It is still relatively close to languages such as Yvlipkan, and more distant to other Gujin languages, and even Bintan languages, as part of the wider family. It is considerably more conservative than its closest relative, Yvlipkan, which has innovated greatly phonologically and grammatically.

It is accepted that speakers of Gujino-Bintan languages migrated to their present location from the west, though there is some scant evidence that they instead moved in a northwards direction. Originally a nomadic culture of reindeer herders, the original Gujino-Bintan speakers have not left any written evidence of their language behind. Instead, it has been reconstructed with help from extant languages, many of which are threatened by extinction. The Oroshan language first began to be written under Jogin colonial rule, and the Jogin language exerted its influence on the Oroshan language, mainly through loanwords. Under colonial rule, the use of Oroshan was discouraged, and its use banned in schools, up until the early 1900s.

Oroshan is the primary official language in Oroshia, alongside Jogin, where it serves as a lingua franca, especially among the minority Namchogi population, whose language saw even greater stigma than the Oroshan language itself. Oroshan is also spoken to the west of Oroshia, and by a diaspora population of around 200,000.

Phonology

The phonology of Oroshan is very conservative compared to its sister language, Yvlipkan. Some dialects of Oroshan have made phonological developments not shown here, particularly the western dialects, which have had considerable superstrate influence from Jogin and Namchogi.

Consonants

Oroshan consonant phonemes

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal	m	n		ŋ
Plosive	p	t		k	q	ʔ
Fricative	v	s		ɣ
Affricate		ts	tʃ
Lateral		ɬ
Lateral affricate		tɬ
Approximant			j

The glottal stop does not behave like a regular plosive consonant in Oroshan. It does not follow phonotactic rules, and appears in clusters that would not normally be allowed, were it treated as a normal plosive. Instead, glottalization is though of as a 'quality' of a syllable, wherein the coda consonant (or coda consonant cluster) is glottalized, or not. Glottalization carries important grammatical meaning, and through reconstruction, it was determined that glottalization is the remnant of a glottal affix in an earlier stage of the Proto-Gujino-Bintani language. The Bintani languages still exhibit a productive glottal affix.

There are voiced allophones of the plosive series, which occur before a nasal or /j/ in the onset of the following syllable. Fricatives are frequently devoiced when glottalized in the coda. Western dialects have developed a marginal voiced plosive series under the influence of Namchogi.

Vowels

Oroshan is reputed to follow a 5-vowel system, a pattern which is quite common cross-linguistically. However, Oroshan contains no /e/ phoneme, instead having merged it with /ə/, which arose earlier from unstressed /a/. Vowel length is not contrastive, but stressed syllables have considerably longer vowel duration than unstressed syllables.

Oroshan vowel phonemes

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid		ə	ɔ
Open			a

/i/ and /u/ are lowered to /e/ and /o/, respectively, surrounding the uvular plosive /q/. This is also quite common cross-linguistically, but is only allophonic, and /e/ and /o/, while phonologically separate from their higher counterparts, do not constitute separate phonemes. In some eastern dialects, however, /q/ is beginning to merge with /k/ for some younger speakers (assumed to be born after 1980). For these speakers, the contrast is now phonemic after /k/. For example, in standard Oroshan, spoken in Sochvel, qit [qet] "to build", and kit [kit] "you (absolutive)" are phonemically /qit/ and /kit/ respectively. In younger, eastern speech, they are qit [ket] "to build", and kit [kit] "you (absolutive)", which phonemically must be /ket/ and /kit/, implying that they have become separate phonemes for these speakers.

Phonotactics

The maximum syllable structure in Oroshan is CVjNC, where C is any consonant, V any vowel, and N a nasal /m/, /n/, or /ŋ/. As stated above, glottalization is suprasegmental, and is not considered part of syllable structure, but rather a 'quality' of the syllable wherein the coda consonant or consonant cluster is glottalized. Affricates are considered to have a single consonant value, and are not considered to be clusters of a homorganic plosive and fricative pair. An example of maximum syllable structure is ğajnts /ɣajnts/, "its (inanimate)", with a final consonant cluster of j-n-ts. This syllable can be glottalized, in ğaʔjnts /ɣaʔjnts/, "its (inanimate plural)", which may be realized as [ɣa.ʔints] in two phonetic syllables, but is considered to be one phonemic syllable.

Stress

Stress in Oroshan is regular and predictable. Primary stress will invariably fall on the final syllable of polysyllabic words, unless the final syllable consists only of /ə/, when it will fall on the penultimate syllable. Secondary stress is more variable, and will generally fall on the second or third syllable in a word. Stressed syllables tend to be, on average, twice as long (in vowel length) as unstressed syllables. The strong stress pattern falling on the final syllable gives Oroshan a 'rhythmic' sound, as first described by Keian scholars in the 16th century. Stress has no grammatical bearing in Oroshan, unlike glottalization.