Tũka

Tũka
Tuica
i tũka
Pronunciation	[i̯ ˈtuj.ka]
Created by	Jukethatbox
Date	2024
Language family	A priori Artistic language Tũka

Tũka(/tuːkə/; Tũka: [ˈtuj.ka]), also called Tuica, is an a priori artlang that follows the design principle of "simple sounds, complex grammar". In principle, the language is heavily influenced by Toki Pona, though the orthography is inspired by Polynesian languages and Portuguese.

Phonology

Orthography

Tũka orthography is heavily inspired by Portuguese and the Polynesian languages. Almost all consonants in Tũka are identical to their IPA symbols, except for /ɲ/, which is written ⟨nh⟩, like in Portuguese.

Tilde letters

Like in Portuguese, Tũka has tilde letters(letters with a squiggly line on top, like ⟨Ãã⟩), though their pronunciation is different. In Portuguese(and the IPA), tilde letters represent nasalised vowels, but in Tũka they represent vowels followed by a voiced palatal approximant(/-j/), although ⟨Ĩĩ⟩ represents a vowel preceded by a voiced palatal approximant.

When a voiced alveolar nasal consonant(/n/) is followed by a ⟨ĩ⟩, the diphthong(triphthong?) is written ⟨nhi⟩.

Consonants

	Bilabial	Alveolar	Velar	Palatal	Glottal
Plosive	p	t	k
Nasal	m	n		ɲ
Fricative					h
(Lateral) Approximant		l		j

Vowels

	Short		Long
	Front	Back	Front	Back
Close	i	u	iː	uː
Open	a		aː

Prosody

Stress

Tũka uses a prototonic stress pattern.

Phonotactics

Tũka uses what I call Juke's law, which I have used in other languages, like in Kutic and Proto-Tassinean. Essentially, two phonemes of the same consonant category(e.g. plosive, fricative, etc.) can not be directly adjacent to each other, e.g. /tka/ would not be possible, as both /t/ and /k/ are plosives.

Morphology

Colours

English	Tũka
red	mlilã
blue	lupa
yellow	akla
orange
purple	pitum
green	ukaku

"Orange-yellow/saffron"

Unlike in English, where orange and yellow are considered separate colours, in Tũka, they are considered two shades of the same colour, akla, which often gets translated as "orange-yellow" or "saffron". A comparable naturalistic equivalent would be the distinction between goluboy and siniy in Russian, which Russian speakers consider entirely separate colours, about as distinct as an English speakers distinguish blue and green. To an English speaker, goluboy and siniy would be considered two shades of the same colour, blue.

In the same vein, while English speakers consider yellow and orange to be completely separate colours, Tũka speakers consider them two shades of one colour: akla, which most Tũka speakers consider to be attributable to the hex code #faa805.

Syntax

Modes

Tũka has two "modes": the agglutinative and isolating mode.

Isolating

The isolating mode is the most commonly used mode in Tũka. It is a mode where information such as grammatical number, noun case and/or verb tense are represented by independent particles, like i or ũ. By default, most of the information on here(excluding the section on the agglutinative mode) is in isolating mode, including the section on constituent order and grammatical number, as well as noun case and verb tense.

Agglutinative

The agglutinative mode is when instead of noun case and verb tense being inferred through preceding particles, such as i or lu, verb tense and noun case are inferred via suffixes to the verb or noun in question. This is less used than the isolating mode, but it can still be used and is often used to characterise a polite way of talking. Thus, it is often called the equivalent of a "polite register" in Tũka.

Agglutinative nouns and verbs mostly put (what would be) the particle in the isolating mode after the word as a suffix, e.g. in isolating: i lã(I) becomes lãi or simply lã. Additionally, though the normal constituent order does not change from SOV, the constituent order in imperative sentences, which is VSO in isolating mode, becomes SVO in agglutinative mode instead.

The agglutinative mode also includes more noun cases: the dative, genitive and locative.

Agglutinative suffixes for genitive, dative & locative

		Case
		Genitive	Dative	Locative
Number	Singular	-il	-yã	-ĩtu
	Dual	-inh	-kaho	-kīn
	Plural	-iln	-ũan	-pã

Gender

Tũka has five grammatical genders: masculine-feminine-neuter for people, and animate-inanimate for non-human things, though animate-inanimate is usually used to denote if something is alive or dead respectively. If a noun has a masculine, feminine or neuter gender, then it is assumed to be a live human. If the human is dead, in an attempt to not dehumanise the dead person, the word tlapi(basically meaning "unfortunately dead") is used. The word tlapi is ungendered, so its inflection does not change regardless of who is being talked about.

Inflection-wise, grammatical gender only affects adjectives. Particles, nouns or agglutinative case suffixes do not change form based on grammatical gender.

Animacy

For non-human things with no clear gender(yes, including animals, grammatical gender in Tũka does not necessarily correspond with sex), the genders inanimate or animate are used. Although inanimate and animate technically only mean things that do or do not move naturally, animacy in Tũka is mostly used to refer to alive or dead things, with the animacy of the adjective sometimes semantically affecting the word, e.g. lumũ tāt(lit. inanimate leaf) means "autumn leaf", as autumn leaves are usually categorised by their yellow-orange colour that signifies death.

Number

Unlike in English, where only sgular and plural declensions exist, Tũka uses three declensions: singular, dual and plural, in this case "plural" meaning three or more of an item, and all words have to be distinguished by a number particle, such as i tũka("Tũka language"), lit. sg.nom, though i is only in nominative. In accusative, u is used and in absolutive ī is used.

Tũka grammatical number particles

		Number
		Singular	Dual	Plural
Case
	Nominative	i	ĩ	nhi
	Accusative	u	ũ	nu
	Absolutive	ī	ã	lu

Examples

I lã ī tũka en sikuĩ.

sg.nom 1.sg sg.abs Tũka pres speak-1.sg.

I speak (the) Tũka (language).

Constituent order

Tũka uses an SOV constituent order in most sentences, though the verb comes first(VSO) in imperative sentences, as well as the imperative particle, im, which goes after the verb.

Noun-adjective order

Tũka puts the adjective after the noun, an aspect of the language borrowed from Toki Pona.