Teutla

Teutla
Teutla
Pronunciation	['teu.tla]
Created by	Nicolás Campi
Setting	Earth-like planet
Native speakers	Unknown (2009)
Language family	Cramarian Proto-Cramarian Teutla
Writing system	Latin

Teutla is a Cramarian language with a faintly mixed Nahuatl/Mayan touch. It was later to be superseded by another language Coalen, with a very similar motif and inspiration but different grammar and phonetics.

Phonology

Teutla notably preserves the alveolar/retroflex distinction for the sibilant, adding a palatal also.

Consonants

	Bilabial	Dental/Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Retroflex	Labio-Velar	Glottal
Stop	p	t	t͡ʃ ⟨ch⟩	k	tʂ ⟨tx⟩
Fricative							h
Sibilant		s	ʃ ⟨sh⟩		ʂ ⟨x⟩
Nasal	m	n
Liquid		l r
Approximant						w ⟨hu⟩

Vowels

Five vowels are distinguished with their long and short versions.

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i, iː ⟨i, ī⟩		u, uː ⟨u, ū⟩
Mid	e, eː ⟨e, ē⟩		o, oː ⟨o, ō⟩
Open		a, aː ⟨a, ā⟩

Morphosyntax

Nouns

Nouns only mark for ergative, absolutive (lack of marking and citation form) and construct. Appart from these, Teutla uses a number of postpositional suffixes to convey most other senses that could be covered by cases in other agglutinative languages. More important than case marking is the plural, which depends on the noun class and can also cover names other than plain plural, such as collective or "completive" and a "multative" (many instances of one same thing).

		she "man"	chak "ash"	hop "foot"
Singular	Absolutive	she	chak	hop
	Ergative	sheum	chakum	hopum
	Construct	shei	chaki	hopi
Plural	Absolutive	shetla	chakneh	hopneh
	Ergative	shetlum	chaknum	hopnum
	Construct	shetli	chakni	hopni
Plural coll. "all of"	Absolutive	shetash	chaktash	hoptash
	Ergative	shetashum	chaktashum	hoptashum
	Construct	shetashi	chaktashi	hoptashi
Plural mult. "many of"	Absolutive	shenech	chaknech	hopnech
	Ergative	shenechum	chaknechum	hopnechum
	Construct	shenechi	chaknechi	hopnechi

Plurals

Some plurals include a semantic distinction and can only be used with nouns of a class.

Plural	Form	IPA
inanimate abstract	-tu	[tu]
inanimate concrete	-neh	[neʰ]
animate	-tla	[tɬa]

Some plurals can be used with either.

Plural	Form	IPA	Meaning
collective	-tash	[taʂ]	All X
multative	-nech	[net͡ʃ]	A lot of X

Example texts

• shetash huakkan. Chaknech ihopneh īshnen. "All men are big. A lot of ashes cover his feet".
• sheum yohōatush ham tutān. "the man gave my brother a flower".