Tson

Tson (English: /soʊn, soʊm/; Tson: /t͡som/), sometimes called Tsonchadian, is a well attested dead language with about 17,000 second-language speakers, mainly in Russia. (Not really.)

History
The Tson language may have been in existence for 7,000 years or more, though some estimates place the formation of the Tson language to as recent as 3600 B.C, making it about 5,600 years old at least. It was spoken in parts of the Pontic-Caspian steppe, until the Tson people gradually migrated eastward into and past the Kazakh steppe. Eventually, they ended up near lake Baikal, where the Tson State, sometimes called Tsonchadia, was formed circa 1087 A.D., following the diffusion of paper to the area in the 10th century.

A person by the name of Motashteno is credited as having invented the Tson script. It is unclear as to whether the script derives from another script like Greek or Latin, since it was an alphabet that was visually and functionally unlike the writing systems of China and the Islamic world, and it was physically distant from the Hellenic and Roman spheres of influence. The letters of the script were in no particular order, and the order they are in today is derived from the order of the Russian alphabet.

During this time, the Tson language was influenced by the neighboring Mongol, Tatar, Mairu, and Rabostan peoples. It was especially influenced by the latter two when the Tson State was conquered by the Mairu-Rabostan Confederation in 1153. The Tson State fully broke apart from the confederation and became free again in 1198, only for it to be permanently wiped from existence by the Mongol Empire in 1206.

While the Tson spoken language disappeared over multiple centuries, the existing records of the Tson language were extensive enough to revive the language and form a modern variety. Many texts had Tson side-by-side with another language like Mongolian, allowing much of the Tson language to be translated. The modern variety of Tson has major Russian influence because, for the most part, Russian words were used to fill in the gaps of the attested Tson language.

IRL History
I created Tson to complement a project I had for school. My goal then was to make a realistic-enough language to go with my fake country. However, my goal has since changed to making a working language I can speak, which is why this conlang is listed as either an artlang or a personal language.

Classification and Dialects
While it is speculated to have derived from Proto-Indo-European, the relationship between Tson and PIE is unclear; Proto-Tson could simply have been largely influenced by PIE or vice versa.

Some Tson texts that have been recovered provide the basic phonology of the language, such as the pronunciation of each letter and the digraph that forms the /i/ sound. However, very little is known about the dialects that existed back then. There are a few clues as to how the Tson language spoken in Wosepar differs from Tson spoken anywhere else, since a letter for a /ŋ/ phoneme was used in some texts referring to the dialect. The pronunciation of modern Tson is based mostly on a slightly formal form of Tson spoken by the people who wrote the texts, and it is thought that this pronunciation is closest to that of Tson people in Menech, which was the Tson State's largest city.

Phonology
Below is the phonology of Tson spoken today. The dialect from Wosepar is not included because of how little information about it exists.

Phonotactics
The syllable structures of Tson are (C1)(C2)V(C) and (N)V(C), where C is a consonant, N is a nasal consonant, and V is a vowel.


 * C1 can be any consonant phoneme including t͡s but excluding /w/, /ɾ/, and /l/.
 * C2 is restricted to /w/, /ɾ/, or /l/ if C1 is a plosive, not present, or a fricative other than /s/, /ʃ/, or /θ/. If C1 is /s/ or /ʃ/, C2 can be any of the three, /χ/, or /θ/, while if C1 is /θ/, C2 can be any of the three or /χ/.

Diphthongs are not allowed in Tson. Two vowels that are side-by-side are pronounced in separate syllables. For example, the word for pig, ао / ao is pronounced /ˈa.o/.

Stress usually falls on the penultimate (second to last) syllable of a word, but there are two vowels capable of diverting the stress to a different syllable. The vowel ⟨á⟩ / ⟨á⟩ diverts primary stress to the syllable it is on, which can be either the third-to-last syllable or the last syllable. The letter is not found in the penultimate syllable because indicating stress where it already would be is redundant. Also, the vowel ⟨ә⟩ / ⟨æ⟩ always receives some amount of stress, and when it is in the last syllable and not the second-to-last syllable, it diverts primary stress to the ultimate syllable. For example, миәр / miær is pronounced /miˈæɾ/, while хәтәр / chætær is pronounced /ˈχæˌtæɾ/. The letter cannot divert stress to anywhere before the penultimate syllable.

Writing System
Tson is written using Tson script (most common), Cyrillic script, or Latin script. The language uses 22 letters in its Cyrillic script alphabet, 22 letters in its Latin script alphabet, and 22 letters in its Tson script alphabet. Each letter of the Cyrillic script alphabet correlates to a letter in the Tson script alphabet. ⟨ch⟩, ⟨ng⟩, ⟨sh⟩, ⟨th⟩, ⟨ts⟩, and ⟨zh⟩ are considered separate letters in the Latin script alphabet, and each correlate to a character of the Tson script alphabet, while ⟨i⟩ or Cyrillic ⟨и⟩ correlates to a letter of the Tson script alphabet made of two characters. The Tson script alphabet is unicase.

Tson Cyrillic Script
The table below shows the Cyrillic script alphabet for the Tson Language.

Tson Latin Script
The table below shows the Latin script alphabet for the Tson Language.


 * In the word final position, н / n is pronounced /m/, even if the next word begins in an alveolar consonant. However, in fast speech, it can be pronounced as [n] if the next word begins in an alveolar consonant and [n̪] if the next word begins in ҫ / th.
 * The letter Ң ң / Ng ng is a direct equivalent to the Tson letter making the same sound, and the Tson letter was only used in transcribing the dialect spoken in Wosepar during the existence of the Tson state, which still distinguished all word final nasals and had the /ŋ/ sound word finally in some circumstances.

Tson Script Alphabet
To the right is the Tson script alphabet, which reads left to right and then top to bottom. The order of the letters was not established until modern times, and it is related to the order of the Russian alphabet and the Tson Cyrillic script alphabet. The Cyrillic and Latin script alphabets are depicted above the Tson script alphabet, and the phonemes are depicted below the alphabet.

Punctuation
The punctuation of Tson is also shown on the right, and it consists of a stop, a question mark, an emphasization mark, separators, and quotation marks. There is no distinction between a long pause like from a period and a short pause like from a comma, though the distinction is sometimes made in the Cyrillic or Latin scripts. An emphasization mark is used for exclamations, interjections, and any sentence that is said with intensity, so even a whisper can use this mark if it is said intensely. Generally, it is transliterated into either a period or exclamation point in Tson Cyrillic and Tson Latin scripts. Separators can enclose a section of a sentence and are often used in free variation with quotation marks, but one separator can stand by itself, meaning it encloses all of the sentence before or after it. Quotation marks require a beginning mark and an end mark, and they are most often used for quoting multiple sentences at a time. Often, the vertical placement of separators and quotation marks varies between different people.

Numerals
There are 20 numerals used in Tson plus one symbol that represents 5 to the power of 15. The number system is base 5, and there are different numerals and words for numbers in the first five places. For example, 125 (1000 in base 5) is оҫ / oth, while 5 (10 in base 5) is written with a separate numeral, ир / ir. Powers of 5 from 55 to 59 are written with the same twenty numerals with a symbol, пев / pew, added after. Powers of 5 from 510 to 514 are written with the 20 numerals with a symbol, хри / chri, added after, while 515 has its own symbol, called маже / mazhe.

The Tson people believed that there were exactly 30,517,578,125 (515) things in the universe at any time. This likely came from a misconception about their number system or simply a guess. It is possible that their number system extended past 515 at some point and that everything after 515 was removed because it would never be useful. However, it is also possible that the Tson people believed the statement because of the limitations that already existed in their number system.

Pronouns

 * (N) is the nasal consonant that corresponds to the beginning of the next word, and, if the word is in isolation, (N) is н or n. If the next word begins in anything except for м / m or п / p, (N) is н / n. If it begins in м / m or п / p, (N) is м / m. Keep in mind that word final н / n is pronounced /m/, so the difference between м / m and н / n in that position is purely visual.
 * The first person plural едо / edo and its other forms must include three or more people including the person or people being talked to.
 * The first person plural ео / eo and its other forms can only include two people, which are the speaker and the person being talked to.

Nouns
Nouns can be one of two numbers, which are singular and plural. If a noun begins in a consonant, its plural form contains an extra е- / e- at the beginning. For example, "хон" / "chon", meaning "person", becomes "ехон" / "echon" when plural. If a noun begins in a vowel, ен- / en- is added to the beginning to make it plural. For example, "ао" / "ao", meaning "pig", becomes "енао" / "enao" when plural.

Verbs
There are only three ways (as of yet) to conjugate a verb. Two ways involve tense, while one involves changing the mood so as to suggest something.


 * In order to communicate that someone should do something in the future or should have done something, the suffix -иди / -idi should be added to the verb, and an adverb such as летор / letor (late, etymologically unrelated) or әтор / ætor (early) should be added to the verb. For example, if you want to say that you bought goods, you would say this: "Ро тенденове етепро." / "Ro tendenowe etepro." However, if you want to say you should have bought goods, you would say this: "Ро әтор тендеиди етепро." / "Ro ætor tendeidi etepro."

Syntax
The Tson language follows a SVO word order. Because of very little inflection, the word order is rather strict, and the subject usually cannot be left out. Sentences do, however, change to an OSV word order if they are interrogative. If the object and subject are difficult to distinguish in an interrogative sentence, a closing separator is sometimes used after the object with no space. There are no articles in Tson.

Tson uses two different types of conjunctions: short and long. A long conjunction is used to connect two clauses that have different subjects, verbs, or prepositions. Examples of sentences that would be translated to have long conjunctions are:


 * "I eat fish and eat at a restaurant." (The preposition changes.)
 * "I walk to a road and point to a road." (The verb changes.) Each of the two parts of the sentences is considered a separate clause.

A short conjunction connects two parts of the same clause, and the clause contains multiple subjects or objects. Some examples of sentences that would use a short conjunction are: "I eat an apple and a banana." "The person and I go to a shop." The second part of the first sentence can be thought of as having the same implied subject, verb, and preposition as the first part, and the first part of the second sentence can be thought of as having the same verb, preposition, and object as the second part. Each sentence is considered to have one clause.


 * An additional example is: "Ро ом монехе махаерезиходом паа хон си." / "Ro om moneche machaerezichodom paa chon si." / "I go to a restaurant and the person does too." The word си / si is added at the end to make the word хон / chon a subject, and паа / paa indicates that it is a subject of the same sentence. The sentence in Tson is still one clause.

In this language's equivalent of the dative case, the verb и / i and the preposition ере / ere become important. Below are translations of these sentences and explanations of them: "I give you a ball." "I give a ball to you."


 * "Ро ом мәцо ән паав ере и шел." / "Ro om mætso æn paaw ere i shel." The sentence can be better understood when extended like this: "Ро ом мәцо ән паав ро мәцо шел." / "Ro om mætso æn paaw ro mætso shel." Translated word for word, it means: "I to give you and I give (a) ball." Because the subject is the same, the word ро / ro can be taken out of the second part of the sentence. Because the verb (and adverbs, because there are none) are the same, и / i can replace мәцо / mætso in the second part of the sentence. The sentence then becomes: "Ро ом мәцо ән паав и шел." However, the second part of the sentence implies that the person is giving to the ball and not giving the ball. (Furthermore, the sentence is better stated with a short conjunction because the subject, verb, and preposition are the same.) To clear the preposition "to", ере / ere is added before и / i.
 * "Ро мәцо шел паав ом и ән." / "Ro mætso shel paaw om i æn." This is a more common and slightly shorter way to format such a sentence in Tson. The word и / i replicates the verb мәцо / mætso, and a preposition, ом / om, is added before и / i to change the meaning from "... and give you." to ".. and give to you."

Prepositions are always placed before a verb. For example, to say you go to a restaurant, you would say this: "Ро ом монехе махаерезиходом." / "Ro om moneche machaerezichodom." The preposition, ом / om, goes before the verb, монехе / moneche. Prepositions cannot exist in Tson if there is no verb to go before, and a preposition can never go before anything but a verb.

Example Texts
The following is the lord's prayer (as I know it) in Tson Cyrillic and Tson Latin scripts, as well as the English translation.

"(Nope. Not until I can understand the thing below this lol)"

"Edon otshe, ræ om em ei, (hallowed) em ræn chonom, ræn (kingdom) she siær, ræn (will (n.)) she thæw otidá, om i (earth) tsaaw si om em ei. Ræ om she mætso (this day) paaw ere i ero (daily bread). Paaw ræ she (forgive) erom paaw lee i eron (trespasses), tsaaw ero (forgive) (those) esi sa (trespass) erom. Paaw ræ she (lead) erom paaw in om i (temptation), diaw ræ she (deliver) erom paaw lee i mol. (Rest of the stuff I'll do later)"

"Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen."

Nouns
Words that were originally nouns are listed here. These words, in their original form, can also be used as verbs or adjectives, and since they can be used as verbs, they can also be used as adverbs.