Thalutian

Use and origins
Thalutian [tʰəlyːʃən] (Thalúk [tʰɑluːk], Thalúkstéro [tʰɑluːkstɛrɔ]) was a Northern Thalic language that was spoken on the continent of Arka until approximately 250 years after the first Veremese settlers arrived from Éreth. The exact origins of the language are not well documented however archaeological excavations in the North of the Arkanian continent suggest that it developed in that region. It also appears that Thalutian, including various dialects, served as the lingua franca of trade, politics and religion during the pre-Veremese period.

Exctinction and continuation
Due to severe cultural oppression and prohibition of the use of Thalutian, it became exctinct in a relatively brief time. However, a dialect of the language (Lower Thalutian (Kári Thalúk)) did survive but was used mainly in underground organisations. Once the Veremese Regime had collapsed and the Kingdom of Likari was established, it became an official language and its use soon began to spread around the continent and is now recognised as an official language in 3 countries.

General Information
Thalutian follows a Subject-Object-Verb typological system and is highly agglutinative (in terms of both prefixes and affixes). The language has five genders; four of which make use of determiners represented by suffixes and decline according to case, number and gender while the other makes use of free-standing definite and indefinite articles which never declines.

Consonants
Thalutian has 24 consonants which are divided into two groups: 22 pulmonic consonants and 2 co-articulated consonants.

Pulmonic Consonants
The consonants of the Thalutian alphabet are bracketed below those of the IPA in the following table.

Vowels
Thalutian has 10 monophthongs and 4 diphthongs.

Monophthongs
The Thalutian monophthongs are classified according to vowel backness and roundedness which is used in vowel harmony. Notes:


 * 1) Thalutian has separate letters for the long vowels /i:/ and /u:/ (í and ú respectively) and are thus indicated in the table below; they are not, however, considered separate vowels. The long vowels /æ:/, /ɛː/, /œː/, /ɔː/ and /yː/ are represented by doubled letters (ää, éé, öö, oo and yy) with the exception of the sounds /ə/ and /ɑ/ as /ə/ does not have a long equivalent and /ɑː/ does not exist. For the latter, /aː/ (written as á) is used instead.
 * 2) The Thalutian letter á does not represent /ɑː/ but rather it represents the sounds /aː/ and thus is considered to be a separate vowel entirely.

Diphthongs
Thalutian has a total of 6 diphthongs which are, like the vowels, divided into two classes of backness.

Vowel Harmony
Thalutian follows a pattern of vowel harmony and this is dependent on both the backness and the roundedness of a vowel. All vowels of a word must agree according to vowel harmony except in foreign loanwords or in other compound words. The vowels i, e, and é are considered neutral vowels in Thalutian and therefore may be used with any other vowel. If a word contains only these 3 letters, the vowel used in accordance is é.

Due to the fact that there are five different vowel classes in Thalutian (front rounded, back rounded, neutral, front unrounded and back unrounded), there are five degrees of vowel harmony that apply to Thalutian words*:
 * If the word is comprised of:
 * 1) front rounded vowels (ö/y), y is used to create vowel harmony
 * 2) front unrounded vowels (ä), ä is used to create vowel harmony
 * 3) back rounded vowels (o/u), u is used to create vowel harmony
 * 4) back unrounded vowels (a/á), a is used to create vowel harmony
 * 5) neutral vowels (i/e/é), é is used to create vowel harmony


 * Vowels only harmonise according to backness in verb conjugations and therefore make use of only ä and a.

Examples (vowel harmony is marked in bold)
 * Murúk - man (undefined, masculine, back rounded) > Murúkutt - the man (definite, masculine, nominative singular)
 * Nain - woman (undefined, feminine, back unrounded) > Tanain - the woman (definite, feminine, nominative singular)
 * Jölit - wedding (undefined, feminine, front rounded) > Tyjölit - the wedding (definite, feminine, nominative)
 * Käräl - snake (undefined, masculine, front unrounded) > Kärälätt - the snake (definite, masculine, nominative)

Alphabet
The Thalutian Alphabet is as followsː

I, M, N, Y, P, B, T, D, U, F, V, Ð, S, Ş, Ŝ, E, É, Ğ, K, G, X, H, Z, C, O, Ö, J, R, A, Ä, L, Ł, Í, Ú, Á

With the IPA equivalent:

i, m, n, y, p, b, t, d, u, f, v, θ, s, ʃ, ʒ, ə, ɛ, ç, k, g, x, h, ts, ʧ, ɔ, œ, j, r/ʀ, ɑ, æ, l,  ɭ, iː, uː, aː

Phonotactics
Thalutian has the following phonotactological rules:
 * 1) Complex onsets and complex codas are restricted to a maximum of two consonants [CCV]/[VCC].
 * 2) Complex onsets and complex codas may not contain affricates.
 * 3) Fricatives (with the exception of /s/) may not be followed by nasals in neither complex onsets nor complex codas.
 * 4) The consonant of a coda is always unvoiced except for nasals, trills and lateral approximants.
 * 5) The final consonant of a coda is always unvoiced except for nasals, trills and lateral approximants.
 * 6) No glides may exist in a coda.
 * 7) The nucleus may only be comprised of a vowel/diphthong [CVC].
 * 8) Both closed and open syllables are permitted [VC]/[CV].
 * 9) The consonant /r/ may not be used in the second position of a complex onset. Instead, /ʀ/ must be used.

Based on the above, the smallest syllable may be [CV] or [VC] and the longest may be [CCVCC]

Syntax
Thalutian follows a SOV structure in both its main and subordinate clauses.

Example:

Joon béllém yli murku sködlät. John kicked the ball over the wall.
 * Subject: Joon (John)
 * Object: béllém (the ball)
 * Verb: sködlät (kicked)

Verbs
Thalutian verbs are conjugated according to voice, mood, person, number, tense and aspect. Due to Thalutian’s high level of agglutination, there exist only two irregular verbs in the entire language. As with the rest of Thalutian, verbal suffixes are subject to vowel harmony but only according to backness; roundedness does not affect vowel harmony in these instances.



Conjugation classes
 Thalutian verbs are divided into 3 different classes which are determined by the infinitive ending:


 * 1) Verbs that end in double consonants (except -ff and -rr)
 * 2) Verbs that end in -rr or -ff
 * 3) Verbs that end in one or more vowels.

Conjugation possibilities
The table below illustrates the possible verb forms in terms of aspect, tense, mood and voice:

Tenses
There are a total of 7 tenses in Thalutian and they are divided into two groups: simple and compound tenses. Simple tenses require no auxiliary verbs while compound tenses do.

Simple tenses
The simple tenses are comprised of the present, the preterite, the imperfect and the future.

Construction
Verbs are constructed using 3 affixes: For example, the verb app (to have) conjugated according to 3rd person singular in the imperfect tense is constructed as follows: Thus, apalat (he/she/it was having)



Conjugations
The tables below illustrate the conjugations of all 3 types of verbs in each of the 4 simple tenses. The verb in the infinitive is given in italics in the upper left hand cell.

First conjugation

Second conjugation

Third conjugation

Compound tenses
The compound tenses are comprised of the perfect, the pluperfect and the future perfect.

Construction
Compound tenses are constructed with use of the conjugated auxiliary verb app (to have) and the relavant past participle (all 3 compound tenses in Thalutian are perfect tenses) aparat apax (he/she/it has had)



Conjugations
The tables below illustrate the conjugations of all 3 types of verbs in each of the 3 compound tenses, including the auxiliary. The verb in the infinitive is given in italics in the upper left hand cell.

First conjugation The past participle is removed and -ax/-äk is added*.


 * Infinitives that end on unvoiced plosives (-pp, -kk or –tt) undergo the following changes:

The plosives are removed and replaced by a single voiced counterpart (-b, -g, and –t). Thereafter, the past participle suffix (-ax/-äk) is added.

Examples:


 * 1) app - apax
 * 2) morékk - morégax
 * 3) gett - gedäk

<p class="MsoNormal">Second conjugation
 * The past participle is formed by using the verb stem (köv-) and adding ax/äk.

Third conjugation
 * The past participle is formed by using the verb stem (ténac-) and adding ax/äk.

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