Th’uȟw’aas’oor

Th’uȟwaas’oor
ϴ’ūxȟw’ās’ōr X̱ātł
Pronunciation[[Help:IPA|θ’uχʷ’aːs’oːr ʜat͡ɬ]]
Created byMacy Sinrich
Date2020
SettingSirius
EthnicityPw’aach’a
Native speakers4 thousand (7th sun)
Default
  • Th’uȟwaas’oor
Early form
Proto

Old Classical Modern

Dialect
Northern (Kxaʀsa) Western (Mainland, Erpsxi)

Th’uȟw’aas’oor (ϴ’uȟʷ’ās’ōr X̱ātł, [θ’uχw’aːs’or ʜaːt͡ɬ] or ϴ’uȟʷ’ās’ōr [θ’uχʷ’aːs’or]) is the language of the Pw’aach’a, the indigenous inhabitants of the fictional moon Sirius. Th’uȟw’aas’oor is a constructed language created by Macy Sinrich, a 17 year old in Cherry Hill, New Jersey

Writing System

Th’uȟw’aas’oor uses the Latin script with small modifications that include the three diacritics (ˉ, ̠ ,ˇ) placed adjacent to certain letters. An apostrophe (ʼ) is used to mark ejectives consonants, (e.g. ƙʼ, čʼ). And Labialized consonants are marked with modifier letter small W (w)

Alphabet

Th’uȟw’aas’oor's writing system uses the Latin alphabet and consists of 39 letters. The following table gives their upper-case forms, along with IPA values for each letter's sound:

Latin А а Ā ā E e Ē ē O o Ō ō I i Ī ī
IPA [a] [aː] [e] [eː] [o] [oː] [i] [iː]
J j K k Ƙ ƙ L l U u Ū ū P p F f
IPA [j] [k] [k’] [l] [u] [uː] [p] [f]
Latin Q q G̱ g̱ R r S s T t ϴ θ Š š Ś ś
IPA values [q] [ʡ] [r] [s] [t] [θ] [ʃ] [ɕ]
Latin Č č Ć ć C c K̯ k̯ H h X x Ḵ k̠ W w
IPA [t͡ʃ] [t͡ɕ] [t͡s] [c] [h] [x] [ç] [w]
Latin 7 ƛ Ḥ ḥ Ł ł Ʀ ʀ Ȟ ȟ X̱ x̱
IPA [ʔ] [t͡ɬ] [ħ] [ɬ] [ʀ] [χ] [ʜ]

Phonology

Th’uȟw’aas’oor has a large phonemic inventory, with 69 consonants and 10 vowels.

Consonants

Labial Dental Alveolar Palatal Alveolo-
palatal
Velar Uvular Pharyngeal/
Epiglottal
Glottal
plain lab plain lab. plain lab. pal. plain lab.
Stop plain p t tʷ dʷ c k q ʡ ʔ
ejective pʷʼ tʷʼ kʷʼ kʲʼ qʷʼ ʡʼ
Affricate plain t̪͡θ ts t͡ʃ t͡ɕ k͡x q͡χ
ejective t̪͡θʼ tsʼ t͡ʃʼ t͡ɕʼ k͡xʼ q͡χʼ
Fricative plain f θ s ʃ ɕ x χ χʷ ħ h
ejective θʼ ʃʼ ɕʼ xʷʼ xʲʼ χʼ χʷʼ
Approximant w l j
Trill plain r ʀ ʜ
ejective r̥’
Lateral Affricate plain t͡ɬ
ejective t͡ɬ’
Lateral Fricative plain ɬ ɬʷ
ejective ɬ’

Vowels

Front Back
plain long plain long
Close i u
Mid e o
Open a

Dialectical Variety

In phonology, the most prominent distinguishing element of Peninsular Th’uȟw’aas’oor, except for the southernmost ones, is the Palatalization and Labialization of the vowels /i/ and /u/. The vowel, /i/ is palatalized and pronounced [j] and /u/ is labialized and pronounced like [w].

Prosody

Th’uȟw’aas’oor contains many "harmonic clusters" involving two consonants of a similar type (plain or ejective) which are pronounced with only a single release; e.g. the name of the western dialect of Erpsxi (of the sea’), Tskłta (life), and Ḥalq’cƙw’a (water). Clusters in Th’uȟwaas’oor containing four, five or six consonants are not unusual—for instance, the words for /pθkt͡s’eli/ (hard), and /ostxrt͡sapʃq’a/ ("to behave”)

Grammar

Th’uȟw’aas’oor is a synthetic, fusional language in the terminology of linguistic typology. Traditionally, it is an inflected language. Words include an objective semantic element and markers specifying the grammatical use of the word.

The grammatical function changes by modifying the markers: the word is "inflected" to express different grammatical functions, but the semantic element usually does not change. Inflection uses affixing and infixing. Affixing is prefixing and suffixing. The inflections express gender, number, and case in adjectives, nouns, and pronouns, a process called declension. Markers are also attached to fixed stems of verbs, to denote person, number, tense, voice, mood, and aspect.

Nouns

A regular noun belongs to one of five main declensions. There are 5 declensions which are distinguished by the genitive singular class of the noun. There are seven noun cases, which also apply to adjectives and pronouns and mark a noun's syntactic role in the sentence using inflections. Thus, the word order is:

  1. Nominative – used when the noun is the subject or a predicate nominative.
  2. Accusative — used when the noun is the direct object of the subject.
  3. Dative – used when the noun is the indirect object of the sentence.
  4. Ablative – used when the noun demonstrates separation or movement from a source, cause, agent or instrument.
  5. Genitive – used when the noun is the possessor of or connected with an object
  6. Vocative – used when the noun is used in a direct address.
  7. Locative- used when the noun indicates a location.
  8. Instrumental — used when the noun is the instrument or means by or with which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action.

Pronouns

Personal pronouns may be classified by person, number, gender, and case. It has three grammatical persons (first, second, and third) and two numbers (singular and plural). In the third person singular, there are gender forms for male, female, neuter, epicene. Personal pronouns have two cases, subject, and object. Subjective and Objective pronouns are used as the subject and object forms of the verb, respectively.

Person Number/Gender Subject Object Dependent possessive (determiner) Independent possessive Reflexive
First Singular I me my mine myself
Plural We us our ours ourselves
Second Singular you your yours yourself
Plural yourselves
Third Masculine he him his himself
Feminine she her hers herself
Neuter It its - itself
Epicene/Plural They them their theirs themself / themselves

In addition to the personal pronouns shown in the above table, it also has other pronoun types, including demonstrative, relative, indefinite, and interrogative pronouns, as listed in the following table.

Demonstrative Relative Indefinite Interrogative
this who one who
these what something / nothing what
that which someone / anyone / no one which
those that somebody / nobody

Adjectives

There are 3 types of regular adjectives: first, second, and third. They are so-called because their forms are similar or identical to first and second.

Tense

There are three general tenses (present, imperfect, and future) and three moods (indicative, subjunctive, conditional, and imperative) as well as the infinitive, participle, and gerund forms. It also has three principle parts (first, second, and third). It also has two numbers (singular and plural), and two voices (active and passive):

  1. The first principal part is the singular first-person, present active form.
  2. The second principal part is the present active infinitive.
  3. The third principal part is the first-person singular, perfect active indicative.

Th’uȟw’aas’oor is an SOV language. There are three major levels or gradation of honorific, low, medium, and high

  1. Low honorific is used by elder speakers to address a younger individual, especially of that of a child.
  2. Medium honorific is used by individuals to denote someone of the same social status or age
  3. High honorific is frequently used by younger speakers to denote respect for an elder.

Literacy

For a person to be considered litterate, they must translate and read this poem perfectly.

Kū 7u čxʷū pu ȟuku kʷujłukʷ,
ȟuc’ hi siwk’ ȟsu ƛu łūxʷ.
Pʷ’ūkʷi xʷtaksā sujc’ 7xʷū kʷūx ȟi,
xtu7 piw šīkʷī qak lapxʷa qi.
ƛaj hā ja 7ū qu kʷ’ū xc’iw kaj,
ƛūt lī šīsq cajčukʷ xīj taj.
Ksaj kīƛiwč kx’u xuj k’ī q’iw,
čū kʷ’aw ptujt’aw c’ī xlū čujc p’iw.
Kʷ’uj ław čaw xʷūj kši 7aw ƛap cikʷ,
Łułqujp q’i hu kiw t’uha ȟiƛ łu płiqʷ.
7ī kʷ’i p’aw t’iwƛ kʷaj jā q’ī,
łi wā xʷław xʷajt p’ā ƛ’ī kū p’ī.
K’a pī c’ī sƛiw ki xʷcajk t’īȟtā p’aj,
kʷ’a kawkʷ ƛu qaqā qiqiw 7ūȟ łit’aj.
7xʷap’ȟas qū ƛ’u kʷ’ū q’iw,
waj sp’uj k̯aj xʷā t’iw.