Askathal Language

Askathal (/ɘǀt͡ʃʼːʜɔːɺ/) is a highland language associated with the cold upland interior and distinguished by a compact but strongly marked phonological profile and a tightly structured grammar. It displays a predominantly (C)(C)V(C) syllable structure with regular penultimate stress, and has a mid-heavy vowel system /e ø ɘ ɵ ɤ o ɛ ɔ/ with phonemic length. Its consonant system is centred on the dental click /ǀ/, the nasal dental click /ŋ͡ǀ/, the voiceless epiglottal fricative /ʜ/, and the alveolar lateral flap /ɺ/, while ejective consonants /tʼ kʼ qʼ t͡sʼ t͡ʃʼ t͡ɬʼ/ are restricted to positions immediately adjacent to /ǀ/. Morphosyntactically, Askathal is mildly agglutinative and predominantly suffixing and cliticising, with head-final clause structure, postpositions, singulative and collective number marking rather than a simple plural opposition, ecological classifier contrasts in deixis, proximate-obviative third-person reference, and a TAM system organised around aspectual clitics.