Teonaht

Teonaht
Created by	Sally Caves
Date	1962
Setting	Fantasy setting of the Teonim
Language family	Default artistic language Teonaht
Sources	draws on Indo-European languages: Romance, Germanic and Celtic
Language codes
ISO 639-3	none
Glottolog	none

Teonaht is a constructed language that has been developed since 1962 by science fiction writer and University of Rochester English professor Sarah Higley, under the pseudonym of Sally Caves. It is spoken in the fantasy setting of the Teonim, a race of polydactyl humans who have a cultural history of worshipping catlike deities.

Teonaht uses the object–subject–verb (OSV) word order, which is rare in natural languages. An interesting feature of Teonaht is that the end of the sentence is the place of greatest emphasis, as what is mentioned last is uppermost in the mind. The language has a "Law of Detachment" whereby suffixes can be moved to the beginnings of words for emphasis and even attach onto other words such as pronouns.

Teonaht is a highly elaborated language, and considered one of the finest examples of an artistic language. It is often cited as an example of the genre in articles on the world of Internet-hosted amateur conlanging.

Inspiration

The seed for Teonaht was planted when Caves received her first kitten at the age of five. The gift soon inspired her to imagine a race of winged cats which she called "the Feleonim". She began to create the Teonaht language for these cats at the age of nine, while she was beginning to learn Spanish. She was delighted to learn that adjectives follow nouns in Spanish, unlike in English, and made this the first rule of grammar in her language. Caves was further inspired when she read about Tolkien and his "secret vice" in her teens. The language developed further as Caves grew to adulthood and learned more languages. In the late 1980s she subjected her language to much clinical grammatical analysis, and developed such features as the "Law of Detachment" and the use of the zero-copula. The Teonim developed into their present human form, but maintained their feline deities.

Caves continued to keep her language a secret as she grew up, even after she began writing science fiction and teaching. In the 1990s, however, with the advent of the Internet, she hosted a webpage on the language and joined the CONLANG message group. The language took off there and has year by year held the interest of online conlangers and conlang aficionados.

Aside from Spanish, Teonaht has been influenced by the other languages Caves has studied—French, German, Old English, Old Norse, Old French, Latin, Middle Welsh, and Old Irish.

Phonology

Orthography

The Teonaht alphabet consists of thirty-five characters and digraphs classified according to vowels and diphthongs, stops, fricatives, affricates, nasals, liquids, and glides. Following is a table of letters; the roman equivalent is in the center of the table in boldface. The boldface words at the far left of the table are not merely illustrations, but the actual names of the letters, recited by schoolchildren. There are two ways to write Teonaht: one way, impossible to represent here except by a scanned image, is the script used by many conservative Teonim; the other way is the romanized alphabet (a cite of controversy among its people) because it is convenient for emailing, webbing, and printing.

Consonants

	Bilabial	Labiodental	Dental	Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Stop	p b			t d		c dj [t͡ʃ d͡z]	k g		' [ʔ]
Fricative		f v	ht hd [θ ð]	s z		hs j [ʃ ʒ]	h [x]	hk hg [χ ʁ]
Affricate			ts dz [t͡s d͡z]
Nasal	hm m [m̥ m]			hn n [n̥ n]			ng [ŋ]
Approximant	w			r [ɹ]1		u [j]
Liquid				l	lr [ɻ]
Lateral Fricative				hl [ɬ]
Trill				hr [r̥]

Notes

1. After "k" it is uvularized.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	y [i] i [ɪ]		õ [u]
Mid	e [e~ɛ]	[ə]	û [ʌ]
Open			a [ɑ]
Diphthongs	ai [aɪ] o [oʊ]

Diphthongs are common in Teonaht; two of them are incorporated into the alphabet as you seen above (ai and o).

Stress

Stress in Teonaht has nothing to do with the length of the vowel, but rather the pitch of the syllable, which is slightly raised, and the extra plosive quality of the consonant that heads it (hence the use of double letters seemed natural to them). Teonaht has some rigid rules about "normal" stress of multi-syllable words. The normal stress for two and three syllable words is on the first syllable:

OR-wem, NY-ka-nel

Abnormal stress is indicated with a doubling of the initial consonant in the syllable, or the dominant vowel in a juxtaposition of vowels. Ultimate and penultimate stress, then, are considered abnormal, so the vast number of words that have this stress pattern must be written this way:

pyttela; myeebi, Tinnalt

Exceptions are when the digraphs "ht," "hd," "hs," and "hz" end a syllable that comes before another one beginning with "t," "d," "s," and "z": Lehttel /'lETtEl/ ("fiery") is not stressed on the second syllable-- but Ahttteyly /aT'teili/ (a woman's name) is. Note the triple "t." The first "t" belongs to the "ht" digraph ending the first syllable, and the second two signal the abnormal stress on the penultimate syllable. Brihhtil /brI'TIl/ ("fog") is how you spell a word where the stressed syllable begins with "ht"--you double the "h," not the "t."

Generally four syllable words are stressed on the second: estelvema; five on the third: Erahenahil; six on the first and fourth: tatilynakõse. This rule is more academic than descriptive of actual Teonaht stress patterns, and seems to have been an imposed grammatical convention.

Morphology

Nouns

As in English, Teonaht nouns exhibit a variety of forms and functions. There is the proper noun, which is a name, and which takes initial mutation in direct address: Sendl, Ha Hsendl, "O Sendl!"; there is the vast majority of concrete nouns that refer to persons, animals, places, things; there is the verbal noun, such as derem, "acting," "doing": fyl derem tso dihs, "your acting we want," i.e., "we want you to do something," and which will be covered in the section on "Verbs"; likewise, there are the verbal nominalizations which turn the verbal noun into a specific instance of the action: derem, "acting," "to act"--deuo, "deed"; enyverem, "eating," "to eat"--ennyvo, "meal." there are the abstract nouns (firkol, "generosity")and collective nouns (deygrin, "butter") that are uncountable, and also the nominalizations made from adjectives: uanta, "sad," uantale, "sadness"; hejvant, "absent," hejvando, "absence."

Except for the genitive and the vocative, nouns exhibit "case" in Teonaht primarily through their articles. Only a scant few show accusative case in the form of an ending or a mutation, such as in the Nenddeylyt nouns listed below; so inflection will not be a problem for the learner of Teonaht. The learner of Teonaht will not be plagued by the fabulous array of cases exhibited, say, by the Finnish. In fact, case is blindingly simple.

Cases

Teonaht is what I am calling an "Accusative Language" with a "split nominative." There are four major cases for nouns: Subject or nominative (Nom.), Object and Oblique Object (O), Possessive or genitive (Gen.), and Vocative (Voc.). The subject or nominative case, however, has two categories-- "agentive" (A) and "experiential" (E).

Split nominative

Agentive

The agent performs the action of most transitive verbs and certain intransitive verbs, but its primary use is to express volitional action on the part of the subject:

Il mabbamba (O) le betõ (A) htesa.

"The ball (O) the boy (A) chases."

Experiential

The experiencer (E) performs the action of non-volitional (often intransitive) verbs and the copulative:

Li betõ (E) tabllysan

"The boy (E) weeps."

Tamol (O) li betõ

"A child (O) the boy (E) [is]."

The Experiential case expresses a state in which the subject is an experiencer, rather than an active agent, in the deed being performed. This often makes use of verbs we would consider transitive, like "hear," "see," "perceive." These actions don't involve quite the same voluntary action that "look," "listen," "touch" do, and Teonaht makes a distinction between subjects that make decisions and subjects that don't. The experiential nominative is also used with the predicate adjective or passive:

Uanta li betõ.

"Sad the boy (E) [is]."

Lõ nrinarem li betõ lis.

"His finding the boy gets" [i.e., "the boy is found"]

Syntax

Word order

Teonaht, as I said above, is OV in its typology, but adjectives tend to follow the noun, rather than precede, if one pays attention to those old rules. It is not true that the verbs are given short shrift by being made to occupy terminal position: terminal position is strong in Teonaht, and hence we have the development of the "verbal adjective":

blar li hozha,

"loud the wind [is]."

li hohza blar,

"the loud wind."

li hohza vlaren

"the wind louds"

More about this in the section on "Verbs".

Example texts

Lis Teuim ilid Teonim (Gods of the Teonim) Teuimast Ninnarnok. VEKWIMYST Li teuimast revbom hadha, li voluast, li teuimast volwenle uehharihs. Aibba rin uehar õn ebra: cel yllefõtin ilid Vekwimyst omly ban mantely e volwenle ev norrena. Uehar revbom lorraitma pom karyts, fandiwyf, mendohtar, ofikya, rindam õn ebra lisuarly rittadma ev Vekwimyst. Uopuast revbom venlindra la plevvysta lyddey, send revbom uen la lindra ev bade uo venuodale, dam Vekwimyst lindra, le teuimast ninnarnok. La eldrimedin: Tesa, Yllefmo, Fõm hlehtt, Plebua.

The goddess of forms: VEKWIMYST. The creating goddess, the crone, the goddess of womanly old age. A woman is said to be in the embrace of Vekwimyst when she reaches old age with dignity. A woman who pursues a life of charity, artistry, learning, and professional work is said to have been painted by Vekwimyst. A queen who leads her people well and allows experience and good judgment to guide her is led by Vekwimyst, the Goddess of Forms. Her angels are City, Harbor, Hearth, and Word.

---

Tyzwyan Nivvroky lavvor Aibban esy uen: Mim mohs imddegrim. Mim minika inhsara dmelassryka Mim eskamohs imfetlin meneht tritib. Mim minika imhhsakra. Mim minika imkkõmin. Frem vroky mohsa. Frem vrokylaz mohsa. Mim minika mimmahstaf ilika. Aibba esy dey: Ta nirrilbet il nivvroky, nivvrokylaz-jo esy cyka. Cel deygrin aibban esy o myeht kwecy. Il mim imelassryka esy plosa uo il noyril, kõmin, mennhtin, mimmahstaf; uo il mim minikam memwa, uo esy hterme mahom, uo il rekod esy hered. Poto euil nikkably esy vergo kwe tembro uan nivvrokylaz myeht.

Tart Coin Carrots These you will take: A large some of butter. A small some of lemon juice. A medium some of mint leaves, shredded. A small some of salt. A small some of cumin. Four large carrots. Four large parsnips. A small some of yellow raisins. This you will do: Into coins the carrots, and the parsnips you will cut. In melted butter these you will gently cook. The some of lemon juice you will add and the salt, cumin, mint, and raisins, and a smallsome of water, And taste again and you will cover the pot. Deliver to the table when soft the parsnips.

External links

• NPR interview with Sally Caves
• Sally Caves's Teonaht page