Tendraads

=Phonology=

Consonants
Tendraads distinguishes 17 consonants, although many sounds have several different variants. It is notable for its lack of many basic european sounds.

Voiced Plosives
The voiced plosives /b/, /d/ and /g/ are not traditionally counted as native Tendraads phonemes. However, they each have slightly different situations in regards to their place in Tendraads phonology.

The phoneme /b/ is found in several common loanwords, for example autobus "bus" and banaana "banana". Although it is not traditionally a native sound, it is almost always pronounced as it should be /b/. Some recent words derived from foreign words containing /b/ include banaa "yellow". See the section: Loan Letters for more information on the use of the letter 'b'.

The consonant /d/ has a slightly better, more established situation than either /b/ or /g/. It is a regular, weak version of the phoneme /t/ intervocalically, and as such it is commonly encountered in native words between vowels. It is also seen in loan words in positions other than between vowels in several loan words, for example Dänmaak "Denmark".

In contrast, /g/ is never encountered in Tendraads, although the letter 'g' is sometimes encountered (see section: Letter G). Foreign words that contain 'g' are replaced with 'k', for example goal! is changed to kol!.

Labial Fricatives
The two common labio-dental fricatives /f/ and /v/, which are commonly encountered in the vast majority of european languages are almost unheard of in Tendraads. As with the voiced plosives mentioned above, they are occasionally encountered in loanwords, where they normally represent their original pronunciation, Fraans "France", velor "velar".

'Weak' D
Although the sound /d/ is commonly regarded as a weak variant of /t/, there is the native sound /ð/ which is regarded as an even weaker 'd'. It descends from the historical phoneme /θ/, which later became [h] word-initially and [ð] between vowels. It is represented by the digraph dh.

=Orthography=

Alphabet
The most basic, 'pure' Tendraads alphabet contains the following 25 letters:

A Ä Ç D E G H I J K L M N O Ô Ö P R S Ş T U Û Ü Z

The letters with diacritics are treated as letters of their own, collated seperately from their parent letters. The letters 'd' and 'g' are also counted, as, despite not representing particularly native phonemes, 'd' is found in several native words and 'g' has several occurances.

There is also another 'extended' alphabet which is used due to the large number of loanwords containing letters which represent phonemes not native to Tendraads. The extended alphabet contains 34 letters.

A Ä B C Ç D E F G H I J K L M N O Ô Ö P Q R S Ş T U Û Ü V W X Y Z

Additional Letters
There are several additional letters employed to represent native Tendraads sounds. These include the letters with umlaut ä, ö and ü, the letters with cedilla ç and ş and the two letters with circumflex ô and û. These letters are treated as seperate letters, rather than letters with diacritics.

Loan Letters
There are numerous letters in Tendraads which are only ever encountered in loanwords, and as such they are not included in the basic Tendraads alphabet (although they are included in the 'extended').
 * B - the letter 'b' is encountered solely in loanwords, for example banaana and bromium, where it represents /b/, as there is no way in the traditional Tendraads alphabet to represent this sound.
 * C - the use of 'c' is encountered only in foreign place names and proper names. This is because loanwords that contain any of the regular 'c' sounds /k/, /s/ or /ts/, the 'c' can be replaced with the native Tendraads letters k, s and ţ respectively. For example karbon "carbon", the "c" is replaced by "k", whereas "b" is not replaced, as there is no native Tendraads way of representing this sound.
 * D - 'd' can theoretically be placed in this list, as it is only seen as a result of the weakening of 't' between vowels. However, it is nowadays considered a native Tendraads letters as 'd' is commonly encountered in native Tendraads words. It is also commonly encountered in the Digraph 'dh', further backing up its status as a native Tendraads letter.
 * F, V - 'f' and 'v' are only ever seen in foreign words, for example Frans "France" and velor "velar". As there is no native Tendraads way of representing the sound /f/ and /v/ that they usually represent, the letters 'f' and 'v' are used to represent these sounds.
 * Q, W, X and Y - these letters are seldom ever encountered in Tendraads, as their usual values can be represented by usual Tendraads letters. For example quasar is now spelt kuasar, xylophone is spelt zilöfön.

Letter G
The letter 'g' is one of the most unpredictable letters of Tendraads. It is encountered in native Tendraads words, however the pronunciation is sporadic and is a remnant of the historical phoneme /x/ which has since been lost. Although the vast majority of it's original locations in Tendraads words have been removed, it is restored in a few common native words - as in teget, where it represents [j], and tollg where it is silent. It is also seen in the Digraph 'ng'. As a result, it is nowadays usually considered to be a native letter.

In foreign words, the letter 'g' is replaced by 'k' (or 'z'), as the phoneme /g/ is particularly troublesome to pronounce for Tendraads speakers. For example goal! becomes kol!, general becomes zeneräl.

Digraphs
There are just two digraphs which have regular usage in Tendraads:
 * DH - represents the voiced dental fricative (as in English that). It is only ever encountered between vowels.
 * NG - represents the velar nasal (as in English sing). It is not found word initially, but is a common sound found word-finally.

=Basic Grammar=

Number
Tendraads nouns come in three numbers: Singular and Plural. The singular of a noun is unmarked, whereas the plural is marked by the suffix -k if the word ends in any vowel, -ek if the word contains in a front vowels, and -ok if the word contains back vowels. The suffix for the plural is placed before any other suffix. For example koponta "school" > kopontak "schools" > kopontakun "the schools". (See Also: Articles).

Articles
Articles are added in the form of a suffix to the end of the noun. They are the suffix with the second priority, second only to the plural/singular suffix, placed before Case suffixes and on a par with possessive suffixes.

As with any suffix added to Tendraads nouns, they come in seperate forms for back/Auto Vowels and for front/Södükeesü Vowels.

Auto Vowels

Södükeesü Vowels

Posessive Suffixes
Rather than using a genitive case to indicate possession by personal pronouns, posessive suffixes are added. As usual, different forms are used for words containing Auto Vowels, and others for words containing Södükeesü Vowels.

Cases
Tendraads has a rich system of noun cases, of which the vast majority are types of Locative cases, indicating different types of location. Each case has two different case suffixes, one for Auto Vowels and one for Södükeesü Vowels, depending on the vowel structure of the noun itself.

Emphasis
To emphasise the noun case suffix, the additional "suffix" -ist or ''-ust' is added. So for example nusuntoço ust  means "with the house" or "even with the house".

Negation
To negate a Tendraads noun case, the preposition magn (pronounced identically to English "mine") is placed before the declined nouns. So for example magn nusunsoor means "not far away from the house", magn nesinires means "not infront of the house".

Order of Noun Declension Suffixes
In Tendraads, there is a specific order which noun declension suffixes have to be added to their noun. The order is noun > number > article / posessive suffix > case suffix > emphasis suffix.

For example:

Verbs
Tendraads verbs are highly regular, although the systems of conjugation can be quite elongated and long-winded. There are also for some words different distinctions between stressed and unstressed, emphasis and intonation.

Tense
There are three tenses is Tendraads, and the suffix added to the verb to indicate tense is the first one to be added (as with Tendraads nouns, there is a specific order in which suffixes are added to verbs). The present tense is unmarked, whereas the future and past are marked.

Aspect
There are also four aspects in Tendraads verbs, and each one requires a suffix. The Aspect suffix is the second one to be added to the end of the verb. The following table shows the aspect suffix system, using the verb oorôtt "loved".

Mood
There is also a rich system of grammatical mood. Each grammatical mood is added in the form of a suffix, and is the third suffix to be added to the end of the verb.

The following table shows the mood suffix system, using the verb oor "to love". The subject-object suffix -taask is added to change the meaning to "I love you". Because of this, the Mood clitics may appear to be an infix.

Subject-Object Suffixes
A notable feature of Tendraads is that if the subject or subject & object of a verb are personal pronouns.

Verbs where both the Subject and Object are Personal Pronouns
For example oor "love" can become oorronaask "they love you", urôdoonk "kill" can become urôdoonkôttzaaş "we killed him".

Voice
Tendraads actively employs the active and passive case on a regular basis. The active voice is undistinguished, whereas the passive voice is notified by the addition of the preposition ügn (pronounced [yn]). For example tserebeett urûmaun açakratun "the woman asked the shopkeeper", is transformed into "the shopkeeper was asked by the woman" by adding the preposition ügn to the front of verb tserebeett which means "ask". The result being ügn tserebeett urûmaun açakratun.

Adjectives
Adjectives in Tendraads follow the noun they are describing, as in French but unlike English. The degrees of intensity and comparitive forms are indicated by the suffixes seen below in the table.

For example, the adjective adhum "nice" becomes adhumussur "least nice", adhumudur "less nice", adhumonor "nicer" and adhumokor "nicest".

There is also a method of comparing adjectives, using the preposition odh. For example nusat adhumudur odh nusamam "my house is not as nice as yours". nusat "my house" adhumudur "not as nice" odh "as/than" nusamam "your house".

Verb Subject Object
The basic Tendraads word order for verbs is Verb-Subject-Object, unlike most languages of Europe, but the same as some of the far western Celtic languages. For verbs that require both a subject and an object, the word order is the Verb first, followed by the subject taking the ergative case, and finally the object of the verb taking the necessary case (usually the accusative). For example "The woman ate the apples" is written zangorônt urûmaun mepekekinir literally "ate the woman the apples".

Noun Adjective
Nouns are written before adjectives, for example şuştumun semst "the soft cushion", where şuştumun "the cushion" comes before semst "soft".