Scellan/Sketchbook
Scellan/Sketchbook is a southern Talmic language descended from Thensarian. More so than other Talmic languages, it has been influenced heavily by Classical Netagin and Clofabic languages in vocabulary and grammar. The phonology is inspired by Ashkenazi Hebrew and Portuguese.
Historical phonology
- p t c > b d g (like Spanish)
- -φ- vanishes
- b d g often lenites to v z Ø
- str > sr
- Stress shift: non-initial stressed vowels are marked with acute accent
- 1: cêƞ /kɛ̃/
- 2: têxôr‚ têx /tes/
- 3: nâge
- 4: lov
- 5: orv
- 6: cuv
- 7: xol
- 8: zic
- 9: ad
- 10: gar
- 11: vem
- 12: clut
- nis = not
- ax = and (Clofabic)
Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m /m/ | n /n~l/ | n [ŋ] | ||||
| Plosive | voiceless | p /p/ | t /t/ | ŧ /t͡ʃ/ | c /k/ | (ȝ /ʔ/)1 | |
| voiced | b /b/ | d /d/ | g /g/ | ||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f /f/ | x, ss /s/ | s /ʃ/ | ch /x/ | ||
| voiced | v /v/ | z /z/ | l, ħ /ʁ~h/ | ||||
| Approximant | r /r/ | j /j/ | |||||
- 1 Silent in everyday speech.
In addition, the letter h is used as a silent letter.
Vowels
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Vowel reduction
Vowels are reduced in unstressed syllables.
| Phoneme | Reduced |
|---|---|
| /i/ | [ɪ] |
| /u/ | [ʊ] |
| /e/ | [ɪ] |
| /ø/ | [ʏ] |
| /a/ | [ə] |
| /ɔ/ | [ə] |
| /ɐ̃/, /œ̃/ | [ə̃] |
| /ɛ̃/ | [ɪ̃] |
Stress
Stress is marked with an acute accent.
Orthography
Scellan/Sketchbook orthography is fairly conservative compared to its pronunciation.
Morphology
Nouns
The masculine, feminine and neuter genders in Thensarian collapsed to common and neuter genders.
The definite article is eƞ.
A common noun:
| mâro 'tree' | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Singulative | Plurative | ||
| Absolute | mâro | mâriƞ | |
| Construct | mâroz | mấrous | |
A neuter noun:
| stus 'fire' | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Singulative | Plurative | ||
| Absolute | stus | stur | |
| Construct | stuz | stuus | |
Common: mâro, mâriƞ = trees
Neuter: tiƞs, tiƞr = hand
Neuter: stus, stur = fire
Neuter: teŧys, teŧyr = child
Adjectives
Verbs
Bênôcian verbs are significantly simpler than Thensarian verbs, though the multiple infinitives of Thensarian have servived.
Ablaut patterns for strong verbs
Present indicative
| Person | tôssaƞ "I invoke" (a-stem) |
torenis "I bloom, flourish" (e-stem) |
eliƞ "I love" (i-stem/C-stem) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1SG | tôssaƞ | toreƞ | eliƞ |
| 2SG | tôssar | torer | elir |
| 3SG | tôssa | tore | el |
| 1PL | tôssáƞs | toréƞs | elíƞs |
| 2PL | tôssác | toréc | elíc |
| 3PL | tôssa | tore | el |
Past indicative
| Person | tôssaƞ "I invoke" (a-stem) |
torenis "I bloom, flourish" (e-stem) |
eliƞ "I love" (i-stem/C-stem) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1SG | tôssaniƞ | toreniƞ | eliniƞ |
| 2SG | tôssai | torei | elii |
| 3SG | tôssaso | toreso | eliso |
| 1PL | tôssáƞr | toréƞr | elíƞr |
| 2PL | tôssacer | torecer | elicer |
| 3PL | tôssaso | toreso | eliso |
Present subjunctive
| Person | tôssaƞ "I invoke" (a-stem) |
torenis "I bloom, flourish" (e-stem) |
eliƞ "I love" (i-stem/C-stem) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1SG | tôssaje | toreje | elije |
| 2SG | tôssare | torere | elire |
| 3SG | tôssajor | torejor | elijor |
| 1PL | tôssánte | torénte | elínte |
| 2PL | tôssace | torece | elice |
| 3PL | tôssajor | torejor | elijor |
Past subjunctive
| Person | tôssaƞ "I invoke" (a-stem) |
torenis "I bloom, flourish" (e-stem) |
eliƞ "I love" (i-stem/C-stem) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1SG | tốssazoƞ | tórezoƞ | elizoƞ |
| 2SG | tốssazor | tórezor | elizor |
| 3SG | tôssaz | torez | eliz |
| 1PL | tôssazóƞs | torezóƞs | elizóƞs |
| 2PL | tôssazóc | torezóc | elizóc |
| 3PL | tôssaz | torez | eliz |
Future
The future tense is ergative; it is derived from Thensarian lē + present participle (cf. German, where zu + active participle is the gerundive).
- Li harai haη de tarsuz.
- He will go to school.
- Li cassis eη glexanos tri nâ.
- I will eat the potato.
| Future participle of cassiη 'eat' | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Singulative | Plurative | ||
| Common | li cassi | li cassiƞ | |
| Neuter | li cassis | li cassir | |
| Construct | li cassiz | li cassius | |
Infinitives
An infinitive: tôssas (used with modal verbs)
- Jozaη êstijas sâma. = "I want to feel good."
Another infinitive: tôssâgos (used in nominalized clauses)
- Carsajes tôssâgos. = "It is exhausting to cast spells./Invocation is exhausting."
Another one: tôssav (used with prepositions such as gil and de)
- drếvijor ham gil cássiviz ham = "He avoided eating it."
Derivational morphology
| From... | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Noun | Verb | Adjective or Determiner |
Adverb | ||
| To... | Noun | -veη, -veniη (agentive) | -veη, -veniη (agentive) | ||
| Verb | |||||
| Adjective or Determiner |
|||||
| Adverb | - | ||||
Syntax
Bênôcian syntax is VSO.