Thensarian

Revision as of 22:28, 5 May 2023 by IlL (talk | contribs) (→‎Vowels)

Thensarian (thensaraquhanquhus/-milacus, Thengkha: Thengsornkhwong) is a classical Ramanuric language and one of two superstrate languages of Thengkha. It is inspired by Latin, Sanskrit, Ancient Greek, and High Valyrian.

Lots of reduplication, especially in verbs

Should sound whimsical or English magic spell-like

  • quē '2'
  • quacumquasit = however
  • Xanasvācā = a name
  • Xatrēpus = a name
  • Bandaeum (Theng. Phonthai) = the capital of the Thensarian empire
  • haothispēllum = sorcery (from haothim 'ritual' + pēllum 'fruit; output, implementation, work')
  • spůbispēllum = facetiousness (spůbis 'mirth' + pēllum)
  • hůbispůbium = magic spell
  • baxaphus (<- gweķsobhos): borrowing
  • rhaxū 'love'
  • asynsymůs 'hate'
  • Kambarys a nobility-only name, meaning 'memorialized'
  • gladys 'god'

Rhaxuvē/-xū hīn asynsymave/-mů ēlir quaquhanix 'We are speaking of love and hate'

-ao for adverbs

Phonology

Consonants

  • qu quh /kʷ kʷʰ/
  • g c/k ch /g k kʰ/
  • d t th n /d̪ t̪ t̪ʰ n/
  • b p ph m /b p pʰ m/
  • j r rh l v s h /j r r̊ l w s̠ h/
  • x = /ks̠/

Vowels

Like Sanskrit: a ā i y u ū ē ů ae ao ṛ ṝ  /ə aː i iː u üː eː uː ae ao/

Morphology

IE clone; I'm not gonna work too hard on making Thensarian grammar original, as the purpose of Thensarian is just to be a loan source for Thengkha.

Todo: research PIE ablaut

Nouns

Usually, the nominative singular case markers are -s masc, -ā/-ī/-ū/-ȳ fem, -m neuter, -r/-ů collective

Verbs

  • Infinitive -lum: -alum, -ālum, -īlum, -ūlum, -ȳlum
  • Personal endings: 1sg -r, 2sg -s, 3sg -m, 1pl -x, 2pl -phus, 3pl -phiam

Verb stems mainly use reduplication and Sanskrit-style ablaut to mark tense.

Reduplication sandbox

(Grassmann's law operates on reduplicants.)

Inflectional

  • Ca- reduplicant for the progressive aspect
quhanix 'we speak'; quaquhanix 'we are speaking'
  • CaboC- reduplicant for the perfect aspect

Derivational

  • quhan-alum = to speak -> quhan<quh>us = speech?