Verse:Mwail/Classical Thean

• dhat muː h1ə-gwhaː h2ay 'I am your father'
• mu: kwel (or sou mu: kwel) 'you are eating'
• təple:ns h3aː (bher) h1lar (teacher AUX.REL.3SG (LOC) breathe) 'the teacher that is breathing'

Textual witnesses

Early Old Thean (perceived as a poetic register during the Late OTh period)

• The Tale of the Alchemist (the alchemist travels the world in search of ingredients for his elixir of life)
• An Odyssey analogue

Late Old Thean (basis of Literary Thean)

• The Code of Lady Naa¹³-Xay¹¹ (<- Tentative ModThean reading)

Early Old Thean should actually use quantitative meter but the way they write it in Old Thean logographs should make them Late Old Thean speakers assume Early Old Thean poetry was rhymed prose

Late Old Thean Phonology

Simple initials

• /m n l r/ m n l r
• /t tɕ ts̠ k kʷ/ t tz ts k kw
• /dʰ dʑʰ dz̠ʰ gʰ gʷʰ/ dh dzh dsh gh gwh
• /tʼ tɕʼ ts̠ʼ kʼ kʷʼ/ d dz ds g gw
• /ɕ s̠ x xʷ ʔ/ z s h2 h3 h1
• /j w/ y w

Nuclei

/i e a o u iː eː aː oː uː ai au ei eu oi ou/

Finals

/-m -n -l -r -j -w -mʔ -nʔ -lʔ -rʔ -jʔ -wʔ -ʔ -p -t -k -kʷ, -s, -Cs/

The Early Old Thean auxiliary

The Early Old Thean clause-initial auxiliary was inflected for subject agreement, tense, mood, and independent vs. dependent clauses in a system about as complex as Colloquial Welsh. In subordinate clauses, the auxiliary often cliticized to the subordinating conjunction used.

The auxiliary had a zero form for the 2nd person present independent. (Cf. Welsh zero for 2sg present)

• Present tense affirmative: 1sg soi, 2sg sou (or zero), 3sg laː, 1pl.ex, sol, 2pl son, 3pl lar
• Present tense interrogative, negative: bhə-gwhai, bhə-gwhau, bhə-gwhaː, bhə-gwhal, bhə-gwhan, bhə-gwhar
• Present tense relative: h3iː, h2uː, h3aː, h2ol, h2on, h2or
• Focused: h1ə-gwhaː
  • (dhat muː h1ə-gwhaː h2ay 'I am your father')
• Past tense affirmative: dzhei, dzheu, dzheː, dzhel, dzhen, dzher
• Past tense interrogative, negative: h1ə-dzhei, h1ə-dzheu, h1ə-dzheː, h1ə-dzhel, h1ə-dzhen, h1ə-dzher
• Future tense affirmative: h1ai, h1au, h1aː, h1al, h1an, h1ar
• Future tense interrogative, negative: h1ə-dhai, h1ə-dhau, h1ə-dhaː, h1ə-dhal, h1ə-dhan, h1ə-dhar
• Conditional/subjunctive: dhoi, dhou, dhoː, dhol, dhon, dhor

Syntax

The Proto-Trans-Sarnathian word order was T1 S T2 V O. In Old Thean, T2 becomes cliticized or lost. In Early Old Thean, T1 is the only word that inflects in a sentence.

In later OTh, T1 becomes an invariable tense or discourse particle