Itrurian language (leguha itrura)

Orthography

The orthography is nearly identical to English, save for the consonants listed below:

-          A = /a/ (“are”) before consonants, /ə/ (“under”) at end of syllables or words

-          C = /k/ always

-          Cj = /t͡ʃ/ (“chin”)

-          E = /ɪ/ (“bit”)

-          É = /e/ (“able”)

-          H = /j/ (“yolk”)

-          I = /i/ (“eat”)

-          J = /ʒ/ (“treasure”)

-          O = /ɔ/ (“or”)

-          Ó = /oʊ/ (“own”)

-          R = tapped “r” (as in Spanish) normally, trilled “r” in consonant clusters (e.g. dréh /drej/, “three”)

-          U = /u/ (“room”)

Cardinal numbers

-          1: ón, ona (f)

-          2: doh

-          3: dréh

-          4: cojar

-          5: cjan

-          6: séh

-          7: sa

-          8: ort

-          9: nant

-          10: décj

Declension of masculine and feminine nouns

Masculine nouns end in a consonant and take the following forms:

-          Nominative singular = -Ø

-          Nom. plural = -i

-          Gen. singular = -é

-          Gen. plural = -am (pronounced /əm/)

Feminine nouns end in “a” or (in a few cases) “i” and take the following forms:

-          Nom. singular = -a/-i

-          Nom. plural = -é/-ó

-          Gen. singular = -é/-ó

-          Gen. plural = -am (pronounced /əm/)

Given names take “-e” when being addressed in the singular, a survival of the vocative.

Prepositions

Nearly all prepositions take the nominative, but to form “to”, the preposition “on” (“sar”) goes with the genitive – e.g. “sar Rebécé” (to Rebecca) against “sar Rebéca” (on/over Rebecca). When the meaning can be accurately judged by context “sar” can be omitted. The preposition “da”, meaning “from”, is meant to take the nominative but some speakers use the genitive for this instead.

Adjectives

Adjectives have two forms – those ending in –é in the nominative (“verjé”, green) and those ending in “-n” (“prin”, first):

“-n”-ending	Masc	Fem	Plu
Nominative	Prin	Prina	Prini
Genitive	Priné	Priné	Prinem
“–é”-ending	Masc	Fem	Plu
Nominative	Verjé	Verja	Verji
Genitive	Verje	Verjé	Verjam

Adverbs end in “-eme” for both types.

Verbs

This language shuns verbs, using wherever it can adjectives and adverbs to replace them, however, some structures which are unavoidable all follow the same pattern.

(e.g. instead of “I go”, “I am in passage”)

Infinitive = -ra

Hó	-a
Tos	-es
Se/Sa/Sé	-o
Nó	-um
Vó	-at
Sent	-an

For the past tense, the infinitive is replaced with “-raré” and is inflected like an adjective, making a participle out of the verb.

For the future tense, the ending “-t” is added to the infinitive and the present endings after that. Conditionals follow the same patterns as their respective cases, but with “-ha” added on the end.

The verb “to be” is negated in the present tense, and pronouns can be removed from present verbs if the meaning can be understood.

-          Rocjé – red
 Selé - light blue
Mercjé - dark blue

-          Désin – second

-          Tersin – third

-          Cojarin – fourth

-          Inul – island (masc)

-          Cauta – cat

-          Caunéha – dog

-          Friét – brother

-          Soréta – sister

-          Nava – ship
Navelur - sailor (Naveli in feminine)

-          Bucara – mouth

-          Acuv – water
Arpa - tree

-          Sau – on

-          Septri – north

-          Merti – south

-          Oréti – east

-          Ocjéti - west

Taklobak language

The language of the fictional Taklobak people, an isolated group living in the upper part of the Yablonovy Range, just east of Lake Baikal in Siberia. Their language is irregular compared to those of its neighbours, and a full grammatical study was not done until the 1930s. There are only around 8,000 extant speakers, scattered loosely around the region often among Russian, Buryat and Yakut-speaking communities

Orthography

А а	/a/	Й й	/j/	Т т	/t/
Б б	/b/	К к	/k/	Тт тт	/θ/
В в	/v/	Л л	/l/	У у	/u/
Г г	/g/	М м	/m/	Ф ф	/f/
Д д	/d/	Н н	/n/	Х х	/x/
Е е	/ε/	О о	/o/	Ц ц	/t͡s/
Ё ё	/jo/	П п	/p/	Ш ш	/ʃ/
З з	/z/	Р р	/r/	Ю ю	/ju/
И и	/i/	С с	/s/	Я я	/ja/

Noun cases

There are four noun cases in Taklobak, each of which appears in the singular, plural and collective forms:

-          Nominative: The dictionary form, used for the subject and direct object. It should be noted that Taklobak is SOV, so the subject and direct object are usually right next to each other.

-          Perlative: refers to the prepositions “through”, “to”, “across”, “over” and others

-          Adessive: refers to the prepositions “in”, “at”, “on”, and sometimes “of”

-          Instrumental: “with”, “by way of”, “under”, “next to”

For nouns there are three levels of plurality - singular, common plural and the collective plural, meaning "all" of that noun.

Although there are rarely prepositions, there are some short adjectives that further detail locatives (of course, these are rarely used)

There is no specific equivalent to the verb “of”, however, equivalent prepositions and more often adjectives can be used (for example, “in the sky over Berlin” is styled as “sky.per Berlin.adj”). Adjectival forms of given names and places usually end in “-так” or “-ттак”.

Some nouns such as names, when used in direct address, are ended in "-ац", or "-ец"/"-иц" depending on original ending. These are only used in the singular form however.

“-е” ending declension

Example = Онге (cat)

	Sing	Plu	Coll
Nom	онге	онгу	онг
Per	онга	онгау	онгатт
Ade	онгун	онгул	онги
Ins	онгет	онген	онгеш

Note that the ending “-йе” does not occur in any Taklobak word.

Consonant ending declension

Example = дет (mountain)

	Sing	Plu	Coll
Nom	дет	дето	дете
Per	дету	детай	детад
Ade	дета	детой	детак
Ins	дети	детей	детеш

“-и/й” ending declension

Some nouns also end in either “й” (after a vowel) or “и”. An example of this would be “ошай” (village):

	Sing	Plu	Coll
Nom	ошай	ошау	оша
Per	ошаё*	ошаёт*	ошате
Ade	ошайн	ошаюл*	ошайе*
Ins	ошайт	ошайк	ошайш

For those ending in “-и”, such as “кути” (“salmon”), the endings with asterisks are changed:

-           Perlative singular: -о

-          Perlative plural: - от

-          Adessive plural: -ул

-          Adessive collective: -е

Adjective declensions

Adjectives end in either “-ак” or “-як” in the nominative singular – they are not inflected for class of noun but plurality and case:

	Sing	Plu	Coll
Nom	-ак/- як	-ан/-ян	-ан/-ян
Per	-а/-я	-ау/-яу	-ат/-ят
Ade	-о/-ё	-ол/-ёл	-и/-й*
Ins	-е/-йе	-ен/-йен	-ен/-йен

It should be noted that the adjective always must follow the noun.

Adverbs end in “-ой” (or “-ёй” with “–як”) but are very rare due to extensive verb compounding.

*After vowels only

Compounded nouns

Like verbs, nouns are subject to extensive compounding to the degree of including large locative phrases, such as “the cat on the wall”, “татонге”. 

-          In Taklobak, the Lena River is known as the Northern Snake River

-          Taklobak.ins.sing, river.nom “Lena” north.snake.river.nom call.3rd.plu

-          Таклобе, саше “Лйена” Есралосаше ротана

Here, “Есралосаше” is a compound of “ешак” (north), “ралзе” (snake) and of course “саше” (river).

Possessive pronouns & sentence order

The possessive with an object noun uses the indeclinable article “та” before the noun, to show a possessive that corresponds with the object conjugation on the verb at the end of the sentence.

For subject nouns, the following adjectives are used, declined for plurality:

-          Плак = my, our

-          Ияк = your

-          Мак = his, her, its, their

Numerals 1-10

·         1 - Атяк

·         2 - Куяк

·         3 - Лисак

·         4 - Расак

·         5 - Ттутак

·         6 - Маяк

·         7 - Потак

·         8 - Пиртак

·         9 - Маситак

·         10 – Сюяк

Basic verb conjugation

Infinitives all end in “-нг”, e.g. “котанг”, “to think”, which is removed to form the following ending depending on the subject:

	I	You	He/she
Singular	-п	-м	-з*
Paucal (“few”)	-ла	-ра	-шти
Plural (“many”)	-ба	-т	-на
Collective (“all”)	-пи	-ми	-к

*In the 3rd-person singular, if referring to an inanimate subject, or one that is unknown, the ending “-аце” is used.

To form other tenses:

-          Future: “-тт” follows the conjugated ending – for those that end in a consonant, the previous vowel then followed by “-тт” is used instead.

-          Past imperfect: “-у” follows, replacing the vowel if it ends in one (those that end in “-i” take the ending “-o”)

-          Past perfect: “-“е” follows, replacing the vowel if it ends in one (thosethat end in “-и” take the ending “-ар”)

-          Conditional: “-ши” follows

Interrogative and participle forms

With interrogatives, certain endings are added to the verb after the subject conjugation:

-          “Who/what … about?” = “-аце”

-          “Where ….?” = “-ли”

-          “When …?” = “-лай”

-          “How … ?” = “-шеси”

-          “Do/did/will …? = “-ец”

The participle removes the infinitive ending and replaces it with “-йнак”, e.g. “котайнак”, “thinking”.

Compounds and objects

Object pronouns can be compounded into the verb, by putting a noun ending, in the same fashion as the subject ending, before the actual subject ending. If the object ending ends in a consonant, the last vowel in the world is repeated after it. For example:

-          “кота-п-ап” = I think about myself

-          “кота-ба-к” = They think about us

The only exception is for when the subject ending after the object is the 3rd person paucal, in which case the subject ending becomes “-ш”

In a similar way, modal verbs can be added, for example “котаханг” = “to be able to think”, and even more complex objects can be integrated into the verb, for example “оякотанг” = “to think of something new”. 

As a result, these words can easily encompass full sentences, for example “A few of us put the cat on the table”, “онкулторахтала” (“онк-у-лто-рах-тала”, “cat-to-put-table-we few”)

Common words

-          Green = хенак

-          Blue = озунак

-          Yellow = ттняк

-          Red = сабтак

-          Blood = сабиш

-          Bear = русук

-          Tiger = хашонг

-          Mother = мал

-          Father = рал

-          Sister = малитт

-          Brother = ралитт

-          Sun = тушкте

-          Moon = оломкте

-          Day = кёт

-          Night = онкёт

-          Dog = ярт

-          Tree = неци

-          Earth, soil = каз

-          Riverboat, canoe = шемац

-          To catch, to take = нанг

-          To give = ненанг

-          To be = анг (when the predicate is in the present form and both the subject and direct object are independent nouns, this can be omitted)

-          To eat = лунг