Terzemian

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Introduction

Terzemian is a PIE conlang spoken in the area immediately to the west of the Caspian Sea, that is, the Eastern foothills of the Caucasus Mountains.

History

Proto-Terzemian shares all the features that are common between Indo-Iranian and Balto-Slavic, though Old Terzemian is strictly neither Indo-Iranian or Balto-Slavic.

Writing

Terzemian is written in a variety of scripts.

The oldest is known as Terzemian Mnemonic Signs, which is a defective syllabary that distinguishes 12 consonants (around half the number present in Old Terzemian), but all 4 vowels that were phonemic at the time. Mnemonic signs use a bi-quinary numeral system, with separate digits for 0 through 4, and a "plus 5" diacritic. This method can be used to count from 0 to 99 on two hands, with the number of fingers extended being 0 to 4, and the extension of the thumb standing for the "plus 5" marker.

After Mnemonic Signs, the Arabic script was adopted and adapted.

During the Soviet era, Cyrillic was required.

A Yanalif reform movement existed briefly, before the modern-day Latin alphabet was designed. For roughly 20 years starting in the late 1980s, there was also "Internet Terzemian", which is a romanization typeable on a standard US keyboard, and representable in 7-bit X3.4-1968 (aka US-ASCII or Plain ASCII).

Script Tables

Latin

Labial Interdental Alveolar Postalveolar Velar Glottal
Stops p b t d k g q
Nasals m n ň
Affricates c č
Fricatives f v ş z̧ s z š ž x ǧ h
Liquids w r l j
Trill ř

IPA

Labial Interdental Alveolar Postalveolar Velar Glottal
Stops p b t d k g ʔ
Nasals m n ŋ
Affricates ts
Fricatives f v θ ð s z ʃ ʒ x ɣ h
Liquids w ɹ l j
Trill r

ɑ ɑ̃ e ẽ i əʲ ɒ ø t u y əʷ ɯ