Tlu
Tlu is an ancient Mustlup language inspired by my oldest draft of Proto-Talmic.
Phonology
Consonants
/m n ɳ ɲ ŋ p t tɬ ʈ c k q ʔ b d dɮ ɖ ɟ g f s̠ ɬ x h z̠ ɮ ʋ l ɭ j/ ⟨m n ṇ ñ ŋ p t ƛ ṭ ť k q ʔ b d λ ḍ ď g f s σ ch h z ʒ v l ḷ j⟩
Vowels
/i iː u uː ə əː a aː ai au ei ou ie uo/ ⟨i ī u ū ə ə̄ a ā ai au ei ou ie uo⟩
Orthography
Prosody
Stress
Stress falls on the first heavy (CV̄, CVV or CVC) syllable, if it is not the final syllable. If no syllables are long, the first syllable is stressed.
Intonation
Phonotactics
Morphophonology
Morphology
Pronouns
- 1sg, 2sg, 3sg, 1pl, 2pl, 3pl: sƛī, ŋə̄, līb, zad, chau, ləlīb
Nouns
Nouns are reduplicated for plural, and take possessive prefixes. They do not decline for case, unlike adjectives and determiners. When nouns are preceded by a determiner or an adjective, they (even if plural) do not take a plural form.
- mich sud sə·tāňi
- DEF-ACC man 3SG-house
- the man's house
Adjectives
Adjectives precede nouns and inflect for gender, number and case. Demonstratives and determiners also inflect as adjectives.
| zviṭəʔ 'big' (masculine) | ||
|---|---|---|
| State | Singular | Plural |
| Nominative | zviṭəʔ | zviṭuo |
| Oblique | zviṭuch | zviṭəŋ |
| zviṭəʔ 'big' (feminine) | ||
|---|---|---|
| State | Singular | Plural |
| Nominative | zviṭə̄ | zviṭə̄f |
| Oblique | zviṭə̄ʔ | zviṭə̄st |
Verbs
Numerals
Base-12.
- 1: seiďu /ˈseiɟu/
- 2: bli /bli/
- 3: sqā /sqaː/
- 4: māvuo /ˈmaːʋuo/
- 5: paiku /ˈpaiku/
- 6: ə̄ƛich /ˈəːtɬix/
- 7: zətə̄ /ˈzətəː/
- 8: baŋud /ˈbaŋud/
- 9: ďavuň /ˈɟaʋuɲ/
- 10: fqāchṭī /ˈfqaːxʈiː/
- 11: bə̄zie /ˈbəːzie/
- 12: zie /zie/