Introducing Sadian
Context, phoneme inventory and promissory notes

April Füller
Department of Linguistics, University of Moose Jaw^*

1. Introduction

This paper is intended as the first of a series on the Sadian language. Desdashpvk <Десдашпвк> [d̠ə.ˈsad.ʃpvk] (the endonym for the language) is spoken by a community of about 350 people in three valleys of the central Caucasus.¹ It is apparently a linguistic isolate, although Spume (2012) proposes a link to the Mongolic family. All speakers of Sadian speak at least two other languages; Georgian is the most popular second language for Sadophones, and is viewed as “easy to learn.”

1.1. Typological characteristics

Sadian has achieved a certain amount² of notoriety among linguists for its extremely rich consonant and vowel inventory, complex interactions of lexical tone and stress, highly synthetic morphosyntax, OSV word order, unparalleled use of suppletion, and intricate lexico-semantic word choice paradigms: in fact, it has proven something of an embarrassment,³ as it is an apparent exception to the assumption that no language is intrinsically “more difficult” than another (Hamhand 2001). The speakers of Sadian are aware of this, and our consultant, Ms. Slkhtvchyes, has remarked that her compatriots take great pride in being the speakers of a language that almost no one else can learn. (She explained the universality of multilingualism among Sadian speakers by observing, “If you can learn Sadian, you can learn anything.”)

1.2. Status of the language

Despite the small number of speakers of Sadian, it cannot be characterized as endangered, as it is being acquired by almost all children of current speakers. This situation may be due to the fact that, as Mittenloop (1985) points out in Hunting the Mountain Octopus, his brilliant anthropological study of Sadian culture, virtually all Sadian speakers are members of the Brethren of Righteousness, an extremely dour sect of Calvinism, whose adherents feel that learning this excruciatingly complex language is a form of suffering that purifies the soul.⁴ Nevertheless, efforts by outsiders to learn Sadian tend to meet with reactions from native speakers ranging from scorn to incredulity. Foreign accents, in particular, receive hearty ridicule, an attitude that is particularly puzzling when compared with the commonly met opinion among Sadians that “there is no correct way to pronounce Sadian.”⁵

2. Phoneme inventory

Sadian’s large and complex inventory of phonemes has attracted the attention of numerous researchers.⁶

2.1. Consonants

Sadian has an inventory of 104 consonant phonemes (Table 1).

The aspirated plosives and affricates are generally pronounced with strong aspiration; in fact, Sadian children with loose teeth are traditionally told to repeat tongue-twisters replete with aspiration, to encourage the teeth to come out. The ejectives, on the other hand, are often articulated so lightly in initial or medial position as to resemble geminates; this may be confusing, as geminated consonants do exist in this language. Minimal pairs that often cause confusion include the following:

1. 1. /kœp’ʌ/ ‘why not’
   2. /kœppʌ/ ‘never’
2. 1. /kxɪmʼxʍuːn̥ŋ/ ‘she (over there) wants to be able to dance’
   2. /kxɪmmxʍuːn̥ŋ/ ‘half a butter knife’
3. 1. /ʔɑʔhætʼi/ ‘dinner theatre’
   2. /ʔɑʔhæti/ ‘ulcer on a puppy’
   3. /ʔɑʔhætti/ ‘trucker’s tan’

The dental, alveolar and retroflex stops are all laminally pronounced. In the case of the dental stops, this may be one reason many older Sadians have sharply protruding front teeth; however, it is difficult to separate cause from effect. The voiceless nasals, especially /m̥/, are pronounced with little or no pre-aspiration, and are often entirely inaudible without the aid of powerful amplifiers. (For this reason, we urge the serious student of Sadian to invest in high-quality stereo equipment before commencing field work. It is true that it is a non-trivial expense for many researchers; however, as the Sadian words for ‘morning’ and ‘afternoon’ consist solely of voiceless nasals, failing to equip properly may well result in missing all your appointments.)

Other allophony in Sadian depends largely upon phonetic space, and gaps in the phoneme inventory tend to be competently filled—yea, packed—with allophones of nearby phonemes jostling for room. Thus the sound [d̪], while non-existent as a Sadian phoneme, is one of the allophones of /t̪/, as well as of /t̪ʼ/, /d/, /t/ and /tʼ/.

2.2 Vowels and other nuclei

Table 2 illustrates the segments that can act as syllabic nuclei.

Sadian is remarkable for its large number of syllabic consonants. It has been postulated (by Turnpiker, 1997) that these segments arose historically from syncope of post-fricative schwa before a series of now-vanished voiced post-glottals.⁷ Asked for her opinion on the origin of the syllabic consonants, Ms. Slkhtvchyes replied “[ɡɣːd̪dzʼvm]” (‘it happened just because’).

There are seventeen Sadian monophthongs. Most of these exhibit a three-way length distinction (V/Vˑ/Vː). Swelton (1993) opines that this feature is a borrowing from Estonian, explaining the geographical distance involved by positing a borrowing date subsequent to the invention of television.⁸ This length distinction is, however, not present for the high tense vowels, which show a two-way distinction (V/Vˑ), with the exception of /y/, which shares with /ə/ the lack of any length distinction whatsoever.

The Sadian diphthongs are all falling, so much so that the second element is often auditorily imperceptible, so that they can sometimes be mistaken for monophthongs. This has given rise to tonogenesis; younger speakers especially tend to pronounce the diphthongs as monophthongs with a salient low tone. Those who might express a hope for this tendency to be exceptionless are obviously even more Pollyannish than Swelton. Indeed, the diphthong /œʉ/, when monophthongized, is generally realized as [a] with a salient high-falling tone, while /oj/ is realized as [oj], to be sure, but with a salient high-rising tone.⁹

The two triphthongs in the inventory are, according to Turnpiker (1997), modern reflexes of historical diphthongs that underwent a regular breaking process in word-final environments. This analysis is plausible but boring. For another view we can turn once again to Swelton (1993), who assumes a massive wave of Anglophone Australian immigrants in the late nineteenth century. The present researcher prefers the more conservative approach of ridiculing both Turnpiker and Swelton without suggesting any alternatives.¹⁰

Sadian vowels have no nasality distinction either phonemically or as a result of assimilatory processes.¹¹ Returning reluctantly to the syllabic non-vowels, we find that they are all fricatives.¹² An interesting feature of these phonemes is that there is partial but not total overlap with the purely consonantal fricatives. The syllabics /β z ʐ χʷ/ do not appear in the consonant inventory; furthermore, /χʷ/ is the only labialized fricative in the language.¹³ They are generally pronounced with a high-rising tone; this tone, however, is in younger speakers apparently subject to complex interactions with the diphthong tones. At least one of these interactions, by which the high-rising tone on the syllabics becomes a mid-rising tone when it adjoins the high-falling tone of the monophthongized /œʉ/, is characterized by many older Sadophones as “Satan’s pronunciation” <нноюст ннам> [n̪̊œs̠t n̪̊ʔʰɑm]. The other interactions are still imperfectly understood.

3. Future research

I intend to publish an overview of Sadian phonotactics as soon as my hard drive comes back from the recovery shop.¹⁴

References

	Uncountable Things You Didn’t Know You Didn’t Know—Madalena Cruz-Ferreira
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