Tabithuvian

Tabithuvian (shûntoja tabíthûkn) is one of the earliest attested languages in the Paleo-Nugasi language family. Its closest contemporaneous sister language is Domuthi, and it is a moderately distant cousin of Bachuthu.

Vowel
Tabithuvian does not have contrastive vowel length, although the near-closed vowels i and û occur only in unstressed syllables and are often considered as lax.

Nouns
Nouns are declined for case, number and definitiveness. There are basic markers for gender (-onh for male, -bal for female) but no gender-based grammatical agreement with other parts of speech.

Plurals
Tabithuvian has two types of plurals:


 * "Major" plural: -nhan, used for large quantities
 * "Minor" plural: -ith, used for small quantities

Either plural can be used with any number (other than 1) depending on context, i.e., whether the quantity is considered large or small. For example, consider the following two statements of age, both of which use the number 12 (mīshl vaykû). The minor plural is used to convey youth, while the major plural implies old age:


 * Shénem shóynûnhkī mīshl vaykû makath. (minor plural, haplologized)
 * The boy is twelve years old.


 * Shénem thódhakī mīshl vaykû makáthnhan. (major plural)
 * The dog is twelve years old.