Kunarek

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Kunarek
kunarek łegu
Pronunciation: [kuˈnaˌʁɛk ˈɬɛgu]
Spoken in: North America, Eurasia
Region: Russia, Alaska, Canada
Total speakers: >100,000 (native)
Ranking: <200
Language family: language isolate
Writing system: Latin alphabet, Cyrillic alphabet
Official status
Official language in: Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Kamchatka Krai (regional language)
Regulated by: unregulated
Language codes
ISO 639-1 kx
ISO 639-2 kun
SIL kun
See also: LanguageLists of languages


General information

The Kunarek language (natively: kunarek łegu, pronounced [kuˈnaˌʁɛk ˈɬɛgu]) is an indigenous language spoken in Eastern Russia, Alaska and Western Canada. Kunarek is typologically synthetic - between a fusional and a agglutinative language - and has a synonymous ethnic group. There are approximately 500,000 Kunarek people of which around 70%, (~350,000) of this ethnic group speak Kunarek as their first language. It is a recognised regional language in both Chukotka and Kamchatka.

Phonology and orthography

Consonants

Kunarek has a rather small consonant inventory comprising of nineteen phonemes. The only phonemes that occur in voiced-voiceless pairs are plosives.

Bilabial Labio-dental Alveolar Post-alveolar Palatal Velar Uvular Glottal
Nasal m n ŋ
Plosive p b t d k g
Fricative f s ʃ x ʁ h
Lateral fric. ɬ
Approximant l j w

Unlike in English, plosives are never aspirated. Note also that when h is word final it is realised as [x].

Vowels

Kunarek has a simple vowel system. There are five vowels, three front and two back.

Front Central Back
Close i u
Close-mid o
Open-mid ɛ
Open a

These vowels are never reduced.

There are sixteen diphthongs in Kunarek. Ten of these are rising and six of these are falling. All vowels can produce rising diphthongs however close vowels cannot produce falling diphthongs.

Rising ja ji jo ju
wa wi wo wu
Falling aj ɛj oj
aw ɛw ow

Alphabet

Since, prior to this, the mapping of phonemes to letters has not been explicitly stated a complete alphabet is provided below:

Letter A a B b D d E e F f G g
IPA /a/ /b/ /d/ /ɛ/ /f/ /g/
Name a be de e ef ge
Letter Ġ ġ H h Ḣ ḣ I i K k L l
IPA /ŋ/ /h/ /x/ /i/ /k/ /l/
Name he ḣe i ke el
Letter Ł ł M m N n O o P p R r
IPA /ɬ/ /m/ /n/ /o/ /p/ /ʁ/
Name em en o pe re
Letter S s Ṡ ṡ T t U u W w Y y
IPA /s/ /ʃ/ /t/ /u/ /w/ /j/
Name es eṡ te u we ye

This Romanised alphabet is employed throughout this article simply for ease of use and understanding. Kunarek's native abugida script is given in an appendix to this document.

The names of letters are indeclinable. However, if for clarity, or simply for preference, declensions are needed then the letter is preceded by the word wef, [wɛf], ("letter [of the alphabet]" or "symbol") which is a normal noun and declines as such.

Phonotactics

Possible syllable structures are V, CV, VC, CCV, CVC, VCC, CCVC, CVCC and CCVCC where V is any monophthong or diphthong and C is any consonant.

Neither falling diphthongs nor close vowels may be followed by an approximant.

When word internal, two vowels must be separated by a consonant; this may include an approximant that may otherwise form part of a diphthong. For example naya ("flood") is analysed as containing a monophthong followed by a rising diphthong and hence is syllabified as na.ya, [ˈna.ja], rather than nay.a, [ˈnaj.a].

In the syllable onset and coda only certain consonant clusters may occur. These consonant clusters are given below with their realisations in IPA.

Onset
D d K k L l M m N n P p R r T t W w Y y
B b bl bj
D d dw dj
F f fl fj
G g gl gw gj
K k kl kw kj
P p pl pj
S s sk sl sm sn sp st sw
Ṡ ṡ ʃk ʃl ʃm ʃn ʃp ʃʁ ʃt ʃw
T t tw tj
Coda
B b D d F f G g K k P p S s Ṡ ṡ T t
B b bz
D d dz
G g gz
K k ks kt
L l lk ls
M m ɱf mp mz mt
N n nd ŋg ŋk nz nt
P p ps
R r ʁb ʁd ʁf ʁg ʁk ʁp ʁs ʁʃ ʁt
S s sk sp st
Ṡ ṡ ʃk ʃp ʃt
T t ts

Note that these tables include the allophones of the consonants /m/, /n/, /s/ and /ʃ/.

Note also that tt and dd can only occur medially and are not realised as geminates, that is [tː] and [dː], but instead as the lateral affricates [tɬ] and [dɮ] respectively. These are in fact rare consonants cluster but they do, for example, occur in the words gadda [ˈgadɮa] ("gale") and ettu [ˈɛtɬu] ("father").

On syllable boundaries consonants may mutate. For example, łs [ɬ.s] becomes [ʃ]. This can be seen in the word weṡak ("hunting knife") which is made up of the roots weł ("hunt") and sak ("cut").

Case system