Last update: 24 October 2005
The word "Liotan" doesn't actually mean anything, either in English or in the language itself. It first surfaced as the incorrect "Liotish" in my primary-school output in 1975 or so before assuming its current form. It means "to grow" in Old High German, and something lke "to wash" in Finnish, and has also been used as the name of an elf in this story, about which the less said the better.
To a much greater extent than Rachovian, Liotan existed in several registers, ranging from the terse and formal written language to the much looser spoken vernaculars. As with Latin, the spoken language exhibited many innovations and more dialectal variation compared to the more conservative written language, and was the ancestor of the contemporary Liotic languages.
The description below refers to the formal spoken register, the one used for public speeches, songs, poetry, and the like. All phonetic transcriptions use X-SAMPA.
When unlenited, the stops and nasals were pronounced much like their English equivalents when broad, and with a noticeable following /j/ when slender. Unlenited /f/, which in non-compound words occurred initially only, was like the English /f/ when slender, and bilabial, i.e. pronounced with both lips [p\], when broad. Unlenited /s/ was [s] as in English when broad and very like [S] when slender.
Lenited /p t/ were the same as unlenited /f s/ respectively; lenited /k/ was [x] when broad and [C] when slender. Lenited /b d g/ were the voiced variants of these, i.e. broad [B z G] and slender [v Z j\]. Lenited /f/ was silent; lenited /s/ was [h] when broad and [C] when slender. Lenited /m n/ were nasal fricatives, broad [B~ z~] and slender [v~ Z~]; /N/ developed after lenition became a productive process and thus never actually lenited. The nasal resonance of the lenited nasals often extended to the preceding vowel.
The liquids are the sounds which need most care for speakers of English. Lenited /l/ resembled its English counterparts, i.e. [l] as in "let" (sometimes [L] as in "lure") when slender and [L\] as in "all" when broad. Unlenited /l/ was [K], like Welsh LL when slender, and a velarised version of this [K_G], which sounds a bit like being strangled, when broad. Unlenited /r/ was strongly trilled, thus [r] when slender and close to [R\] when broad. It was more weakly trilled when lenited, and sometimes reduced to a tap [4] and [4_G].
The clusters /sp st sk/ are partial exceptions to all this; when initial, the /s/ was always broad [s] when unlenited and slender [S] when lenited.
The consonant-system of Liotan is summarised below, omitting /h/ and /j/.
| Labial | Dental | Velar | ||||
| Broad | Slender | Broad | Slender | Slender | Broad | |
| Voiceless stops | p | p_j | t | t_j | k_j | k |
| Voiced stops | b | b_j | d | d_j | g_j | g |
| Voiceless fricatives | p\ | f | s | S | C | x |
| Voiced fricatives | B | v | z | Z | j\ | G |
| Nasals | m | m_j | n | J\ | N_j | N |
| Nasal fricatives | B~ | v~ | z~ | j\~ | ||
| Unlenited liquids | K, r | K_G, R\ | ||||
| Lenited liquids | l, 4 | L\, 4_G | ||||
Short unstressed vowels were not always distinguished, and in speech they were often reduced to schwa /@/, a vowel of indeterminate value.
For orthographic purposes only, the vowel letters are grouped into broad A O U and slender E I. The qualities of consonants (broad vs slender) are then indicated by the adjacent vowels, thus in caill "dog" the C represents broad /k/ and LL slender /K/. A corollary of this is that the vowels on both sides of a consonant must both be of the same type, and thus many vowel letters (hereafter glides) are used purely to indicate the quality of the adjacent consonant. There are thus up to four ways of spelling each vowel sound, depending on the adjacent consonants, and it is necessary to know which vowel letters in a group are glides and which ones represent the actual vowel sound. I after any other vowel letters is (or should that be "am"?) always a glide.
A vowel letter with the acute accent always represents an original long vowel, and adjacent vowel letters are thus merely glides; thus ÉA is /e:/ followed by a broad consonant, and IÚI is /u:/ between slender consonants. Older /1:/, which did not occur after slender consonants, is transcribed AO; the diphthongs are transcribed IA UA. All three of these add an I before a slender consonant; AOI is thus /i:/, the reflex of /1:/ in this environment.
The short vowels are more complicated, since there are no acute accents to indicate the quality of the vowel. The table below shows the possibilities; the "env" column indicates the environment, with "b - b" meaning "when standing between two broad consonants", and "---" denotes a non-existent occurrence.
| Env | a | e | i | o | u | @ |
| b - b | A | --- | --- | O | U | A |
| b - s | AI | AE | --- | OI | UI | AI |
| s - b | EA | IO | EO | IU | EA, finally E | |
| s - s | --- | EI | I | EOI | IUI | I |
EA indicates older /æ/, reflecting the origin of this phoneme in a merger between /e/ and /ja/. In practice, the spelling AE is found in only a few words, the commonest being the pronoun dae "you", which was pronounced /de/ with broad /d/.
The spellings which indicate a preceding slender consonant are also used initially to indicate a preceding /j/: iomhóch "frightens" and eóch "new" were pronounced /jiv~ox/ and /jo:x/, by comparison with aoir "constant" and uit "strong", which where /i:4/ and /ut_j/.
The alternations were not restricted to long vowels: /i/ in fil "leaf" lowered to /e/ and later /æ/ in the collective plural fealarra. As stated above, older /1:/ was never subject to these alternations; the later alternation between its reflexes /e:/ and /i:/ was the result of a different process.
The principal stress in a word was always on the first syllable which was not a prefix. This stress was 1 for most words, but 2 for disyllabic function-words (i.e. prepositions, pronouns, and the like, as opposed to words with actual meaning). The placement of lesser stresses within a word was governed by the Liotan Stress Rule, which dictated that two adjacent syllables could not receive the same stress and a 2-stress could only be followed by a 3-stress.
Disyllabic words were thus stressed 13 or 23, trisyllables 123 (as in English pelican), and quadrisyllables usually 1323 (as in dromedary). Longer words, which were almost always compounds, were stressed according to the stresses of their individual elements.
The rhythm of the stresses played a large part in Liotan poetry and songs; the best-regarded poets were generally those who created unusual rhythmic effects by arranging disyllables and trisyllables in interesting patterns. To this end, in the recitation of poetry short vowels were lengthened in certain circumstances: a short vowel with a 1-stress was lengthened if it was followed by a 3-stress, and a short 2-stressed vowel was lengthened if it had 3-stresses on each side. In poetic terminology, this resulted in trochees and dactyls; in musical terminology, continuous triplets of which some were missing their middle beat.
Syncope, the loss of a medial short vowel, was common in spoken Liotan, and its effects are visible in the Liotic reflexes; for example, fenda or fanda "tree" (with different dialectal reflexes of the older /æ/) from feanhad. The 2-stressed vowel in a 123 foot was most prone to syncope; compare feanhad "tree" with the plural feanhdainh, syncopated from feanhadainh.
Lenition converted an initial unlenited consonant to its lenited counterpart; it can be seen in ce chaill "the dog", where the initial of caill was lenited by ce. It was triggered when the preceding word formerly ended in a vowel, and was of course another instance of the same phonetic process which created lenited consonants word-internally.
As metioned previously, initial /sp st sk/ were always broad when unlenited and became slender when lenited; thus sgur "fire", can-shgur "of the fire", where SHG represents /Sk_j/.
Eclipsis was triggered when the preceding word ended in a nasal consonant, and changed initial /p t k b d g f s/ to /b d g m n N v z/; /l r m n/ were not affected. It is indicated in transcription with the new sound before the old; thus ce gcaill "of the dogs" shows /k/ eclipsing to /g/. /v z/ resulting from eclipsis are spelled DHS BHF; the eclipsed forms of the initial clusters /sp st sk/ are thus transcribed DHSB DHSD DHSG, and were pronounced /zb zd zg/. Eclipsis prefixed /n/ to initial vowels, written n-: ca n-anha "of the stems".
Non-mutation was effectively the absence of mutation, and was triggered by an original preceding final /s/. It affected vowels only, prefixing /h/: ca h-anh "the stem".
Using T S F L N to stand for, respectively, a stop, /s/, a fricative, a liquid (/l/ or /r/), and a nasal, the permissible consonant clusters at the start of a word may be represented as ST STL FL. Medially, those ordinarily found were TL NL LT LN SN ST STL.