Tapetihan language

Tapetihan
Tapétiqān
Pronunciation	[taˌpetiˈxa:n]
Native to	Nordhurlant
Region	Eastern Vestrim
Ethnicity	Tapetihans
Native speakers	822,820 (2016)
Language family	Transopalic Elagomouquian Eastern Elagomouquian Tapetihan
Dialects	Coastal Tapetihan Continental Tapetihan
Writing system	Tapetihan alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-1	tp
ISO 639-2	tpt
ISO 639-3	tpt

The Tapetihan language, henceforth Tapétiqān, is a language spoken primarily in the Confederacy of Nordhurlant-Èlnumikmaki. In 2016, it was the most common language in Nordhurlant, being spoken by 822,820 people, which is 80.1% of the population of Nordhurlant. The language recently gained official status in Nordhurlant with the Twilight Revolution, despite being the language taught in schools and used at home for centuries. It is assumed that the language is related to surrounding north-eastern Vestric languages, however no studies have been conducted.

The language is generally grouped into two dialects (continental and coastal), however due to the lack of a regulating body, plenty of variations occur. It is assumed though, that these are still one language, and the amount of mutual intelligibility is estimated to range from 95% to 99%. The main divisive feature between the two dialects is the difference in vocabulary pertaining to nature, owing to the differences in flora and fauna between the two areas.

The language is used enough every day in Nordhurlant that standardisation is not necessary. In school, children are taught the most local dialect, which is normally intelligible by all other dialects. The Nordhurlandic monarchy established the use of Tapétiqān in school and at home in the Popular Language Decree of 1989, to reduce the militancy of the Tapetihan population. In December 2018, the language's status was elevated to an official language with the change in government following the Twilight Revolution.

History

It is thought that the first Tapétiqān speakers first arrived in Vestrim around 5000 BCE, when the present native Nordhurlanders arrived. Due to a lack of a writing system, nothing is known about earlier forms of Tapétiqān, however multiple legends survive to this day, most of them having to do with religion, or Kelūnapo. It is not known how fast the Tapétiqān language has changed since the arrival of Asurans, so it is not possible to estimate the rate of change in the past and reconstruct an earlier form. Some oral legends that have since been transcribed include:

• « Kasātkiūl néāsnikekkāl » - the Tapétiqān story of creation. Lit: The shining fire-mother

• « Tepékwān aqtḗkunset » - A Tapétiqān prophecy of doom involving the moon crashing into Earth. Lit: The world and the moon

Dialects

The two main dialects, continental and coastal, are not very different at all. In fact, the major difference is that coastal Tapétiqān voices all consonants between sonorants (includes vowels), while continental does not. There is no real boundary between the two dialects; the naming convention simply demonstrates rough areas. There are always some speakers who do or do not voice their consonants between sonorants no matter where you are in Nordhurlant. Furthermore, the two dialects differ in the pronunciation of the phoneme q, /x/, before vowels. While in continental Tapétiqān it is always pronounced as /x/, coastal Tapétiqān speakers may realize it as /x/ everywhere, /k/ before back vowels such as /a/, /o/ and /u/, and something near /h/ before front vowels such as /ɛ/, /e/ and /i/. The two dialects also differ in some vocabulary. Coastal Tapétiqān contains far more Nordhic loanwords due to the higher amount of Nordhic influence, whereas continental Tapétiqān is almost loanword-free. Another point of difference is vocabulary pertaining to the natural world, owing to the distinction between two different ecozones with different flora and fauna.

Phonology

Consonants

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Velar
Plosive	Plain	p	t	k
	Labialized			kʷ
Affricate			t͡ʃ
Fricative	Plain		s	x
	Labialized			xʷ
Approximant		w	l
Nasal		m	n

All consonants have a voiced allophone for speakers of the coastal dialect when in between two sonorants (includes vowels).

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i iː		u uː
Close-mid	e e:		o o:
Mid	ɛ ɛ:	ə
Low		a a:

Phonotactics

Tapétiqān does not allow consonant clusters anywhere except between syllable boundaries. A consonant may be doubled anywhere in a word to show etymology or grammatical significance, however doubled consonants are pronounced identical to their single counterparts. Vowels can be either long or short, and the quality of the vowel is rarely lost except for in very quick speech. To avoid consonant clusters in foreign borrow words such as place names, either a dummy schwa is placed between them or one consonant (usually the first) is deleted. If the word begins with a consonant cluster, a schwa will be placed before the first one to ensure that the cluster falls on a syllable boundary. An example of this is the Tapétiqān word for "people" èlnu, pronounced /ˌəl.nu/, where the initial -ln- falls on a syllable break.

Grammar

Tapétiqān is a highly polysynthetic language. Entire sentences can take the form of single words made up of separate morphemes. Nouns take suffixes for possession, obviation and size, and prefixes for number and conjunctions. While verbs take suffixes for tense, obviation, person, negation and also prefixes for preverbs that act like particles or modal verbs. Adjectives and adverbs can be placed anywhere in a clause that only contains one noun, and can either come before or after a noun or verb in a clause that has both a subject and an object.

Sentence Structure and Obviation

In Tapétiqān, sentences can be composed of a subject, a direct object and an indirect object. One person (either the subject or one of the objects) must be marked as obviative, while all others are proximate. The accompanying verb performed by the obviative marked person takes the marker -āl- to show what person is performing the action (or what part of the verb is being performed by the person). Because of this, Tapétiqān has free word order, so normally the word that has the most emphasis put on it goes first, be it a noun, adjective or verb. Persons in a sentence, however, may be composed of two nouns, provided they are collective and act together as one single noun, as in jīmel aqmitīsel (the man and the tree, both in obviative). Obviative-marked persons are referred to as anti-topical, meaning they are the least important part of the argument. All other persons are proximate and therefore unmarked. Most times, the subject is proximate. However, if the speaker wishes to emphasize the object, the object may become proximate and the subject obviative. This is referred to as an inverse argument. Inverse arguments can only occur in third person clauses, and it takes the appropriate infix within the verb (theme sign) to mark this.

Verb and noun suffix and prefix orders appear as such:

• Verbs: PREVERB-(NEGATION)-STEM-VERB FINAL-(APPLICATIVE)-(THEME SIGN)-NEGATION-INNER PERSON-PAST-OUTER PERSON-OBVIATION
• Nouns: CONJUNCTION-NUMERAL/NUMBER-ROOT-SIZE-OBVIATION-POSSESSION

If more than one object is involved, a new sentence is created with determiners to link it to the previous sentence and new subjects and objects are created then obviated. Tapétiqān has two determiners, ula and ala. Ula refers to things close to the speaker, while ala refers to things further away. These are roughly equivalent to the English words "this/these" and "that/those". Determiners must come immediately before the noun.

Nouns

As mentioned above, nouns take suffixes for possession, obviation and size, and prefixes for number and conjunctions. Nouns are divided into two classes: animate and inanimate. These both take different verb endings and number prefixes. Animate nouns include people, animals, plants, celestial bodies and spirits. Inanimate nouns include constructed objects such as tables and chairs, and rocks and soil. Number prefixes have several different classes. There is a simple singular or plural system, however if a specific numeral is required, the type of object in question will have different prefixes.

Numerals

Below is a table featuring the numeral "five", nān. Note that animate nouns also take the animate infix -sijik-.

Prefix	Modifier	Gloss
nānsi-	-si-	five general animate things
nānkel-	-kel-	five general inanimate things
nānmiksi-	-mik-si-	five groups of animate things
nānmij-	-nemij-	five groups of inanimate things
nānoqsi-	-oq-si-	five cylindrical animate things
nānā-	-ā-	five cylindrical inanimate things
nānanqasi-	-anqa-si-	five flat animate things
nānanqe-	-anqe-	five flat inanimate things
nānaskesi-	-aske-si-	five spherical animate things
nānapse-	-apse-	five spherical inanimate things

Number

Below is a table of the simple singular-plural distinction. Note that animate plural nouns beginning with w- take a different prefix.

	Animate	Inanimate
Singular	si-	N/A
Plural	kaq- (kōq-)	al-

Conjunctions such as "and" and "with" are attached to the front of the noun, in front of the numeral. In Tapétiqān, several common prepositions include aq- (and) alatoq- (with) etek- (at).

Possession

Possession in Tapétiqān includes alienability, the possibility that in the future that thing may no longer belong to the person in question. To identify the person to whom the object belongs, the pronoun is attached after the suffix. Alienable nouns are ones whose possession may be transferred between people, such as house or umbrella, while inalienable nouns are ones that will always belong to the person in question, like sister or brother.

Pronoun	Alienable	Inalienable	Suffix	Gloss
nīn (1ps)	aj		-ajīn	my alienable smth.
nīn (1ps)		kēw	-kēwīn	my inalienable smth.
kīl (2ps)	aj		-ajkī	your alienable smth.
kīl (2ps)		kēw	-kēwkī	your inalienable smth.
nḗm (3ps)	aj		-ajém	his/her/its alienable smth.
nḗm (3ps)		kēw	-kēwém	his/her/its inalienable smth.
ninen (1pp-inc.)	aj		-ajnini	our collective alienable smth.
ninen (1pp-inc.		kēw	-kēwnini	our collective inalienable smth.
kinu (1pp-exc.)	aj		-ajkinu	our but not your alienable smth.
kinu (1pp-exc.)		kēw	-kēwkinu	our but not your inalienable smth.
kilew (2pp)	aj		-ajqiw	your alienable smth.
kilew (2pp)		kēw	-kēwqiw	your inalienable smth.
nḗmow (3pp)	aj		-ajnèmow	their/its alienable smth.
nḗmow (3pp)		kēw	-kēwnèmow	their/its inalienable smth.

Here is a table of Tapétiqān personal pronouns.

Person	Singular	Plural
First (inclusive)	nīn	ninen
First (exclusive)		kinu
Second	kīl	kilew
Third	nḗm	nḗmow

Size

Tapétiqān nouns can also optionally augmentative or diminutive, making bigger or smaller versions of them. Occasionally, a word with a diminutive or augmentative suffix can also mean a different word, such was where jīklew means sheep, jīklewjij means lamb. Conversely, kāquj means crow, but kāqujkaj means raven.

Aug/Dim	Suffix
Augmentative	-kaj
Diminutive	-jij

An example of a word using all of these prefixes and suffixes using the word mūj (dog) would be alatoqnēwsimūjjijelajīn, pronounced /ala.tox.nɛ:w.siˈmu:t͡ʃ.it͡ʃ.ɛl.at͡ʃˌi:n/, meaning "with my four little dogs (obviative)".

Verbs

Verbs in Tapétiqān are modified for verb finals, an optional applicative suffix, theme, negation, person, tense and obviation and can have qualifying preverbs as prefixes. All modifiers are always suffixes. They can either be transitive or intransitive. Transitive verbs' suffixes have the object upon which they are acted built in.

Verb Finals and Application

Verb finals mark the type of verb that is being conjugated. Verb finals are linked to transitivity. In Tapétiqān, there are six types of verbs, inanimate intransitive (II), animate intransitive (AI), animate intransitive with object (AI+O), transitive animate (TA), transitive inanimate (TI) and ditransitive (TA+O). Verb finals are the first suffix attached to the verb stem. There are four kinds of verb finals:

Verb Type	II (default)	AI	TA	TI
Suffix	-at(m)	-al	-ak(m)	-as

The consonants in brackets are only used if the following suffix begins in a vowel

This system works in conjunction with the applicative suffix to form two other types of verbs, ones with third actors in a clause. The applicative suffix -u- adds a goal person argument to the verb. When combined with the verb final -al- for AI verbs, the class AI+O verbs arise. When combined with the suffix -ak(m)- for TA verbs, the ditransitive (TA+O) verbs are created.

Theme Sign

Theme signs appear only in TA (transitive animate) verbs. They describe components of either the object alone or both the subject and object, in relation to the direct-inverse system. They can modify only the subject and the structurally highest object (not always the direct object; inner person argument), however this object must always be animate. Below are the different kinds of theme signs that can be found.

Theme Sign	1ps Direct	2ps Direct	3ps Direct	1pp.inc Direct	1pp.exc Direct	2pp Direct	3pp Direct
Suffix	-i-	-e-	-a-	-u-	-we-	-é-	-o-

Theme Sign	1ps Inverse	2ps Inverse	3ps Inverse	1pp.inc Inverse	1pp.exc Inverse	2pp Inverse	3pp Inverse
Suffix	-ti-	-te-	-ta-	-lu-	-le-	-lé-	-lo-

Another special theme sign, -si- is reserved for reflexive arguments.

Person, Tense, Negation and Obviation

Person arguments in a Tapetihan verb are divided into two groups, inner and outer, where the inner person is more important. Note that only transitive verbs can take more than one person. Normally, in a verb where there are two persons, the theme sign is sufficient to replace one of the persons (normally the object) and leave only an inner person suffix. The suffixes for inner and outer persons are the same, however they differ in their placement inside the verb. Inner arguments are near the end of the verb, just before tense arguments, and outer person arguments are contained at the end, just before the optional obviation marker.

Person Argument	1ps	2ps	3ps	1pp.inc	1pp.exc	2pp	3pp
Suffix	-i-	-le-	-(è)t-	-ne-	-me-	-ek-	-ik-

Tapétiqān verbs take a suffix only for past tense, where evidentiality is important. If the subject saw the action happen directly, it takes the suffix -(è)li-, whereas if the subject heard it from somewhere else or did not witness it happen, the verb takes the suffix -(è)pn-. Verbs that begin with a consonant then a vowel (i.e. ke-, se-, etc.) undergo a form of ablaut when in the past. The vowel is removed from after the initial consonant and is replaced with an 'è' at the beginning of the verb stem. The obviation marker in verbs (for the outer person) is -al-, while for inner persons and subjects it is marked by the tense sign. Negation of a verb can be performed by the immediate prefix -mu-, and the suffix -w-, or -u- before or after consonants. Occasionally, the long vowel in a verb may be shortened to accompany negation. Preverbs are an important part of the verb. They function mostly as modal verbs, changing the verb. These include nāk-, "begin", which can be used on its own in the sense 'It begins', but when used as a preverb means 'It begins to ____' and kaqa-, "end" which has the same use. A special case is the preverb kesipuak-, "want". When used as a preverb, it makes the stem verb occur in the future, implying that the future is always uncertain and the subject only wishes it to happen. Again, the order of prefixes and suffixes on verbs is as such:

• PREVERB-(NEGATION)-STEM-VERB FINAL-(APPLICATIVE)-(THEME SIGN)-NEGATION-INNER PERSON-PAST-OUTER PERSON-OBVIATION

An example of all the prefixes and suffixes used would be nākmuèknèmuakmuiwètèpnikal, pronounced /ˌna:k.mu.ək.nə.mu.ak.ˈmui.wə.təp.ni.kal/, "[I] (obivative) was told that they (proximate) hadn't begun to fix it for me (obviative)".

Writing system

Tapétiqān did not have a writing system before the arrival of Asurans. The current system is a modified Nordhic alphabet. It makes use only of the consonants j, k, l, m, n, p, q, s, t, w; and the vowels a, e, i, o, u. Several letters have been added to the Tapétiqān alphabet to represent sounds not in Nordhic. These include é, è, and all long vowels ā, ḗ, ē, ī, ō, ū.

Letter	Phoneme
A a	/a/
Ā ā	/a/
P p	/p/
K k	/k/
E e	/ɛ/
Ē ē	/ɛ:/
È è	/ə/
J j	/t͡ʃ/
I i	/i/
Ī ī	/i:/
L l	/l/
É é	/e/
Ḗ ḗ	/e:/
M m	/m/
N n	/n/
O o	/o/
Ō ō	/o:/
Q q	/x/
S s	/s/
T t	/t/
U u	/u/
Ū ū	/u:/
W w	/w/

In addition, the combinations qw and kw represent the sounds /xʷ/ and /kʷ/ respectively. Spaces are used before and after punctuation marks such as exclamation marks (!), question marks (?) and parentheses (()), but not periods (.), commas (,) and apostrophes ('). In addition, quotation marks are written « and ». They also use the double-spacing rule.

Sample

A translation of The King and the God into Tapétiqān.

English: Once there was a king. He was childless. The king wanted a son. He asked his priest: "May a son be born to me!" The priest said to the king: "Pray to the god Werunos." The king approached the god Werunos to pray now to the god. "Hear me, father Werunos!" The god Werunos came down from heaven. "What do you want?" "I want a son." "Let this be so," said the bright god Werunos. The king's lady bore a son.

Tapétiqān: Saqamall kīsaqeialètèpèn, mukekunnakmawèpnètal mijuājij. Kesipuakmapnètal kwīs. Pāliasajjēknḗm etamakakmapnèt : « Kwīsel etūjeluksāmuikakmapnial ! » Pāliasel ānutmutakmapnètal saqamal : « Āsutmataklepnèt mikmuessu - welunōs. » Saqamall welunōs metoqiakmapnèt nikāsutmatakmapnèt. « Welunōs tatāt jikseknéwāl ! » Mikmuessul - welunōsel keptāsiasètèpnèt musikīk. « Koqweikesipuaslepèn ? » « Kwīs kesipuakmepnèt. » « Ula etal nestusītasapnèt. » Kesaset mikmuessul welunōsel ānutmutaltèpn. Saqamaselajjēknḗm jeluksāmuiakmapnèt kwīs.