Tiôtj

Tiôtj (pronounced [tjo:tʃ]) is an artificial language that user Llyn created few months ago (and he's still creating and improving it). He was inspired by another artificial language that supposed a different evolution of Anglo-Saxon, so he tried to imagine "his own" evolution of Old English. In this evolution Latin influence was scarce at all, while one can appreciate a little Scandinavian influence in the writing system and some borrowings.

The term "tiôtj" comes from Old English "þéodisc", that is an adjective that means "of our people".

Classification
Tiôtj is a Germanic language that is strongly linked to Modern English. This is due to the fact that both English (naturally) and Tiôtj (artificially and a posteriori) descend from Old English.

While English has undergone a strong Latin influence, the same influence on Tiôtj has been very very weak. It can be appreciated the influence of Scandinavian languages on the writing system and just the influence of a language as Welsh in the use of the letter  to represent the long vowel [u:].

Alphabet
Tiôtj alphabet uses letters from Latin alphabet and contains 26 characters:

Diphthongs, digraphs and trigraphs
Tiôtj has got also twenty-one diphthongs, that is clusters of two vowels pronounced with a single emission of air. These diphthongs are:

All these diphthongs can have a short or a long vowel in combination with [ɪ] or [ʊ], except for the diphthong .

Tiôtj has got two digraphs too: , that is pronounced as [ʃ], and , that is pronounced as [tʃ]. Also a trigraph exists: that is pronounced [ʃ] (so  and have got the same pronounciation).

Even if in the alphabet scheme  and  have not been considered as distinct letters, in dictionaries they are used as out-and-out letters.

The question of the dj digraph
In some dialectal pronounciations when the letters  and  come together, they are pronounced [dʒ] just as they were a digraph and the voiced counterpart of . Although this way of pronouncing is considered incorrect, the pronounciation [dʒo:r] for [djo:r] to say 'djôr" (animal) is becoming commoner and commoner.

The accent
The position of the accent in this language is quite regular, because the stress falls on the root and thus there are few rules to observe:

1) In substantives (and in adjectives and adverbs) the stress falls on the first syllable, even if they are compound nouns formed by prefix + noun/adjective, ex.: lêrstôf (school) is read ['le:rsto:f], though it is formed by lêr- (prefix) + stôf (= place);

2) In verbs the stress falls on the first syllable, but if they are compund verbs formed by prefix + noun, the stress falls on the root, that is after the prefix, ex.: yvatjan (to wake up) is read [i:'vatʃan], though it is formed by y- (prefix) + vatjan (= to wake).

Nouns, gender and number
Tiôtj language has got only two genders: common gender (or uter gender) and neuter gender. The previously masculine and feminine words have merged into the uter gender, whereas neuter words have remained neuter, even if in some cases there has been a gender switch.

Nouns can be both singular (denoting just one object) and plural (denoting more than one object). The formation of plural is not always so simple, because there are four ways to form it:

1) Some uter nouns take -es suffix, the  in this suffix is generally not pronounced;

2) some uter nouns take -(e)n suffix;

3) some uter nouns take no suffix, some of these undergo a root vowel change too;

4) neuter nouns take no suffix, that is singular and plural forms are identical.

Generally uter nouns ending in -ing or consonant have the first kind of plural, whereas uter nouns ending in -e have the second kind of plural. Some monosyllabic uter nouns ending in consonant experiment a root vowel modification, but they are just few. Endly some uter words have got two kinds of plural: a regular one (in -es or -en) and an irregular one (with no ending at all or/and a root vowel change).