Teonaht

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

Teonaht, [ˈteɪoʊnɑːθ], 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.

Plurality

Plural nouns are expressed in a number of ways. The most common is to add an -n or -en to the end of the word:

ytanney, ytanneyn, "foot, feet"

fanttear, fanttearn, "dance, dances" pyttela, pyttelan, "color, colors" paneht, pannehten, "force, forces" (here the word undergoes a change in stress)

imuif, imuivn, "gift, gifts" (here the -en has been modified, and the "f" voiced)

The other most common plural is the addition of the plural prefix ni- or mim-:

htindro, nihhtindro ("song, songs")

flehta, nifflehta ("fire, fires") hsavves, mimhsaves ("grass, grasses"--note here the shift in emphasis back to the initial syllable, now mim-)

selivy, niselivy ("concept, concepts")

The last example shows no change in stress in the root word because the rules have not been violated (i.e., a four syllable word is stressed on the second syllable); therefore, the prefix form of the plural is most often applied to three-syllable words with initial (normal) stress. Nonetheless, there are plenty of two syllable words that take the plural prefix, changing their stress, and many cases in which such words show either form: betõn ("boys"), and nibbetõ ("boys"). Occasionally you get a pleonasm: nibbetõn ("boys"), but this is rare. Typographically, definite articles are almost never bonded to nouns with plural prefixes, but stand alone:

li nihhtindro, "the songs"

Occasionally:

lini htindro, "the songs"

The indefinite article suffix is never added to plural nouns, the preferred form being the adjective mimim(pronoun mim + partitive genitive õm): "some of," from which the plural prefix is of course formed:

mimim nihhtindro"some (of) songs"

This is oftened abbreviated to mimi before non-collective ni- plurals: mimi nihhtindro, and to mi before mim- plurals: mi mimshaves, "some grasses." Typographically, this is sometimes rendered mimmim hsaves, "some grasses." The numbers followed suit, and when used adjectivally ("four spoons") they were assumed to carry the same plural force that mimmim does: so nouns aren't made plural after numbers:

tibrom pronep "two (of) fork[s]" ...although you will occasionally see tibro nippronep, "two forks"

Gender

Teonaht once exhibited a morphology of gender, but that has been effaced by time. Nouns and articles do not reflect gender by themselves, whereas pronouns do. Animals, however, have a whole range of gendered categories expressed in an adjective that follows the noun; these vary according to the type of animal but are far from being consistent. Click here if you want to see that brief list of male and female beasts.

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"]

Object and Oblique Object

The object receives the action of either the agent or the experiencer. It can be either a transitive object (TO) as in 1) below; or an oblique object (OO--requiring a preposition), as in 2) below. It can be the object complement (OC) in a copula structure, as in 3):

1. Il kohsa (TO) ry (A) refod.

The dog (TO) I (A) choose.

"I choose the dog".

2. Kyam (TO) euil zef (OO) le betõ (A) vergo.

A book (TO) to the man (OO) the boy (A) gives.

"The boy gives a book to the man".

3. Hdand (OC) li zef (E).

A doctor (OC) the man (E) [is].

"The man is a doctor".

Genitive

The genitive is the only regular type of noun (outside the Nenddeylyt nouns, to express case with an affix--either a suffix or a prefix, depending on context and preference:

idbbetõ kyam

"A boy's book" –or:

dibbetõ kyam

"A boy's book" –or:

kyam betõid

"book of a boy"

Rules for possession will be discussed at greater length below.

Vocative

The vocative is expressed in Teonaht by an initial mutation. In direct address, the initial letters of Teonaht nouns will "aspirate" or "fricatize":

• Vowels will acquire an "h": Ha Hahtttely!"
• Stops will become fricatives:
  • p becomes "hp" or "f": Ha Hpetr! ("Peter"), and pronounced "fetr."
  • b becomes "hb" or "v": Ha Hbarin, ha Varin! ("Barin").
  • t become "ht": Ha htamolin! ("My children").
  • d becomes "hd": Ha Hdavyd ("David").
  • k become "hk": Ha Hkahtryn ("Katherine").
  • g becomes "hg": Ha hgwenhda ("little girl"--note how in these two the second syllable mutates as well from Katryn to Hkahtryn and gwenda to hgwenhda).
  • Nasals are "aspirated":
    • m becomes "hm": Ha hmeo! ("sir")
    • n becomes "hn"
    • ng becomes "hng"
  • As are the glides:
    • w becomes "hw":
    • l becomes "hl":
    • u becomes "hu":
    • r becomes "hr":
  • Fricatives become affricates:
    • f becomes "pf"
    • v becomes "bv"
    • ht becomes "tht"
    • hd becomes "dhd"
    • s becomes "ts"
    • z becomes "dz"
    • hs becomes "ths" or "c"
    • j becomes "dj"
    • h becomes silent
    • hk becomes "khk" (which ends up sounding a little bit like "cr" in Fr. je crains
    • hg becomes "ghg" (ditto: a little like "gr" in Fr. grand
  • Affricates lose their affricating element, as do the aspirated nasals their aspiration:
    • ts becomes "s"
    • dz becomes "z"
    • c becomes "hs"
    • dj becomes "j"
    • hm becomes "m"
    • hn becomes "n"
    • hng becomes "ng"

This rule is worth knowing because it is used in other rare instances of Teonaht mutation (which arise when certain words appear out of their customary word order: for instance, when a predicate noun or adjective follows the copula where it should precede--lynna vandivar, "she is a dancer" (fandivar). See the page on Syntax for more information.

Articles

The article in Teonaht, once a marker for gender, now solely marks case, and, by its positioning, definiteness or indefiniteness. The true indefinite is without marking: generalized singulars (tah uaflas, a bird will fly), the predicate in a copula construction (hdand li zef, a doctor the man is). The marked indefinite uses a special article developed from the word for "one," and means "a certain" or a "single" one which has not yet risen to the status of definiteness.

DEFINITE:
le	Agentive (formerly nominative masculine)
li	Experiential (formerly nominative feminine)
il	Accusative and Oblique
ilid/ild	Genitive

INDEFINITE:
uõa	Agentive
uõ(n)	Experiential
uol	Accusative and Oblique

Agentive uõ(n) has a nasal ending before words beginning with a vowel. Sometimes the particle in the object case is suffixed:

harod-uõl uõa kohsa bettaiel

"a rabbit a dog caught."

("a dog caught a rabbit")

Ordinarily there is no plural form for the article, except in the case of the Nenddeylyt nouns (listed below), where you have les, lez, lis, liz and ils/ilzwhich merely pick up the initial plural tag on the noun--hence this is more of a spelling convention than a morphology. Sometimes, however, these are analogized for Teonaht nouns as well (especially nouns starting with vowels), and you get a pleonasm (see the section below on Nenddeylyt plurals):

liz/ilz ytanneyn, "the feet"

(plural marking at the end of both words: -z, and -n)

There is no genitive case for the indefinite article, the genitive affix usually attaching to the front of the indefinite noun (see "Possession" below).

uõ hohza vlar,

"a wind (indef.S) loud."

[i.e., "a loud wind"]

Hohz-uõl ryttepron,

"a wind (indef.O) I feel."

Or:

Hohza ryttepron,

"I feel wind."

But:

neome hohzid ryttepron,

"a breath of wind I feel."

A note about the indefinite article; Teonaht prefers to leave the indefinite noun unmarked, especially if you are speaking of things as general and as unspecified as wind, time, air, sky, and so forth. The indefinite article has more limited application in Teonaht than it does in English, being used mainly to specify "a certain one" of general things that does not yet enjoy specification. So here's the general rule for marked indefinite nouns: these are individual persons or objects, to be distinguished from a collective or mass entity, that show up on the scene for the first time before they have been singled out from the rest of their type:

Ar il verinyn elry atwa;

"To the park (def.OO) did I walk;"

uol zef, lindrel-lo kohs--uol, elry ke

"A (certain) man (indef.O), led he a dog (indef.O), did I see."

("I walked to the park; I saw a man walking a dog.")

Pom il zef elry jane, uo il kohsa ry sõvuin.

"With the man (def.OO) did I talk, and the dog (def.O) I pet[ted]."

The indefinite indicates a certain man of many. The definite shows that there is now a specified man and his dog. One could just as easily say, and without ambiguity, zef elry ke, "I saw a man." But the advantage of the indefinite article is that, like the definite article, it expresses agentive/experiential information about the noun it modifies. So it is more common for it to appear when the noun is the subject, obviously: Uõa zef elry harimar mante, "a man came here"; Uõ kohsa ai winyfdarem elai lis, "a dog, its feeding it got" ("a dog was fed").

The unmarked indefinite noun can also signify a collective:

Te uafla

"A bird flies"; but also: "birds fly."

To disambiguate these two, Teonaht will often use the habitual or consuetudinal ending:

Te uaflom.

"A bird/birds will fly."

But the marked indefinite also helps clarify the difference between the collective and the singular concept. Take the phrase that was chosen for the CONLANG t-shirt: "invent a language." As in English, T's kalalya can refer to a specific language or language in general, language in the abstract. "Invent language" is not the same as "invent A language." So we have uol kalalya hadhaf, which commands one to make a specific language instead of to speak or to create poetry. "Make war," "make love," these are similar phrases in English that do not specify a single war or a single love.

An old form of the indefinite article suffixes -il, -ili, -ilz and -iliz onto nouns (see the "Tower of Babel" passage), but is only used in very formal speech. See more about this in the section on "Verbs."

The Teonaht article precedes the noun, and is often prefixed to it and treated as one word. Hence, the double letters signify a change in stress, as though the unit were a new word. The same is true of the prefixed personal pronoun y/ry in ryttepron, below:

blar lihhohza; ilhhohza ryttepron.

"loud the wind; the wind I feel."

Likewise, the oblique object articles will often bond with the preposition: aril, "to the"; celuõl, "in a"; euil "to the" (this last needs the glide "u" to bond e and il).

Possession

The Teonaht noun shows a variety of ways of expressing possession, as we have seen already with the "genitive" above. The most common way is to suffix -id to the noun:

betõid, "boy's"

tohda betõid, "cat of a boy", "a boy's cat"

Another way is to prefix d-, di- or id- to the noun:

dytanney, "of a foot," "foot's"

dippaneht, "of force"

Still another way is to suffix -id to the article:

mabbamba ilid betõ, "the boy's ball"

ilid flehta, "of the fire"

A rule of thumb is that the possessed object generally precedes the possessor, and where there are exceptions, convention requires that d-, di-, and -id- not be placed between the two words to avoid a construction like betõid mabbamba, which could be taken for betõ idmabbamba, "the ball's boy." The Teonaht would say, however, that this makes little difference in the close relationship of possessor and possessed--and violate this prescription all the time. If the NP is head initial, then that in itself reduces ambiguity, although you will also find dotma paneht, "the demon's strength." This, actually, seems to be the older tradition, back when Teonaht, a good OV language, was more "head final" in structure, and its adjectives preceded its nouns. In short, Teonaht is fairly flexible about word order.

How do these work with other prefixes? With plural prefixes, the possessive suffix is used if there is no article: wydo niselivyd, "[the] truth of concepts." Otherwise: paneht ilid niselivy, "[the] strength of the concepts."

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