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- > -v- while initial φ vanishes
• b d often lenites to v z
• Stress shift

• 1: cêƞ /kɛ̃/
• 2: têθôr /tɪˈsøl/
• nis = not
• -ācos > -âgos /ˈ-ɔgəʃ/ (verbal noun; ~ Bhadhagha -ach, Roshterian -iac?)
• Verbs: -ƞ, -r, -0, -s, -ƞs, -sc, -đ

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal		m /m/	n /n/		n [ŋ]
Plosive	voiceless	p /p/	t /t/	ŧ /t͡ʃ/	c /k/		(ȝ /ʔ/)1
	voiced	b /b/	d /d/	đ /d͡ʒ/	g /g/
Fricative	voiceless	f /f/	θ, ss /s/	s /ʃ/	ch /x/
	voiced	v /v/	δ, z /z/			l, ħ /ʁ~h/
Approximant			r /r~l/	j /j/

¹ Silent in everyday speech.

Vowels

Scellan/Sketchbook vowels (oral)

	Front		Central	Back
	unrounded	rounded
Close	i /i/	y /y/		u /u/
Near-close	[ɪ]	[ʏ]	[ə]
Mid	e, ê /e/	ô /ø/		â, o /o/
Open		[ɞ]	a /a/

Scellan/Sketchbook vowels (nasal)

	Front		Central	Back
	unrounded	rounded
Close
Near-close	iƞ, yƞ /ɪ̃/			uƞ /ʊ̃/
Mid	êƞ /ɛ̃/	ôƞ /œ̃/	[ə̃]	âƞ, oƞ /ɔ̃/
Open			aƞ, eƞ /ɐ̃/

Vowel reduction

Vowels are reduced in unstressed syllables.

Phoneme	Reduced
/i/	[ɪ]
/y/	[ʏ]
/u/	[ʊ]
/e/	[ɪ]
/ø/	[ʏ]
/a/	[ə]
/ɔ/	[ə]
/ɐ̃/, /œ̃/	[ə̃]

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.

A common noun:

mâro 'tree'
	Singulative	Plurative
Absolute	mâro	mâriη
Construct	mâroz	mấrous

A neuter noun:

stus 'fire'
	Singulative	Plurative
Absolute	stus	stur
Construct	stuz	stuus

Common: mâro, mâriη = trees

Neuter: tiηs, tiηr = hand

Neuter: stus, stur = fire

Neuter: teŧys, teŧyr = child

Construct: sg. -z, pl. -vos

Verbs

A Bênocian verb in the present tense:

tôssa- "pray" (From Thensarian tussa-) Singular: tôssaη /'tøsə̃/ "I pray" tôssar /'tøsəl/ "you pray" tôssa /'tøsə/ "X prays" (no pro-drop) tôssáηs /tʏ'sɐ̃ʃ/ "we pray" tôssás /tʏ'sɐʃ/ "you folks pray"

Syntax

Bênôcian syntax is VSO.