Teromay Durzga

Overview

=Setting= Teromay Durzga is a fictional language that used to be spoken in Australia in an ancient civilisation that left no traces. It has agglutinative grammar typical to real life Aboriginal Australian languages, but vocabulary-wise is quite different. It is transcribed using a system reminiscent of Polish, but not identical. The language was designed one night by South Australian student Christian Meredith (the author)

=Basical Grammar=

Writing system
The alphabet is as follows:
 * A - fAther
 * Ä - mAt
 * B - Ball
 * C - King, baCK (always a K sound)
 * CZ - CHurn, CHurCH
 * D - DeaD
 * E - ElEphant
 * F - Finger, enouGH
 * G - GulaG
 * H - High, Hill
 * I - Igloo, mEEt (EE when stressed)
 * L - Lemon (never the Dark L)
 * M - Mat, caMera
 * N - Not, caN
 * O - yACHt (not an American O)
 * P - PimPle
 * Q - Same as Mandarin Pinyin (T + a 'sh' sound with the tip of the tongue touching the lower teeth, similar to 'ch' in English)
 * R - Rabbit, wRong (can be like in English or rolled)
 * S - Sing, Song, caSSette
 * SZ - Sugar, SHam
 * T - TenT
 * U - iglOO
 * V - Vent
 * X - Same as Mandarin Pinyin (a 'sh' sound with the tip of the tongue touching the lower teeth)
 * Y - Yacht
 * Z - Zebra
 * RZ - je suis (french 'j' sound, Russian 'zh' sound).

Double Letters
This was originally for double length consonants, but it can be ignored

Tone
In the spoken language, there are 3 tones that determine the type of word in question:
 * 1. Rising tone /Kamaj Sen/ (like going 'huh?' in English, 2nd tone in Mandarin) determines ADJECTIVES and ADVERBS.
 * 2. Dragging tone /Szaszkaj Sen/ (like going 'uh huh' in English, 3rd tone in Mandarin, also like the Swedish pitch accent) determines NOUNS
 * 3. Falling tone /Foj Sen/ (like a stern 'No.' in English, 4th tone in Mandarin) determines VERBS and CONJUNCTIONS

Particles and other words have no set tone, and therefore may be swayed by surrounding words. However, the main pattern of stress will almost be wavy in appearance. The declensions that apply to nouns tend to break up the flow in most cases though. What is suggested is that the speaker doesn't perform a gradual shift in tone during the world, but instead breaks up the syllables in the word and pronounces them with clearly seperate tones that together make up the whole tone for that word. For example: A single syllable word would have the tone drag through normally, as breaking the syllable would sound irregular.
 * miczamilla would be divided like so:
 * mi (straight high tone)
 * cza (straight medium tone)
 * mi (straight low tone)
 * lla (straight high tone)

Stress
Stress is meant to be even, however in the absence of tones the stress pattern is as follows:
 * 1. Last syllable for ADJECTIVES and ADVERBS
 * 2. Penultimate (second to last) syllable for NOUNS
 * 3. First syllable for VERBS and CONJUCTIONS

Whether one uses tones or stress is up to the speaker

Nouns
Nouns in Teromay will always decline, there are no exceptions. When declining, a noun will receive a number of endings which add on each other. For example:
 * Micza = Friend
 * Miczamilla = At (the) friend
 * Miczaberz = Without (the) friend

Basically, instead of putting 'to' or 'at' or 'with' or 'beside' etc in front of the word, it is place BEHIND the word and 'glued' on. In this way, it's like saying 'I'm going me-of house-to' instead of 'I'm going to my house'.

Declension System

 * -tom = into
 * -micz = in
 * -mut = out


 * -tu = to
 * -milla = at
 * -mut = from


 * -mu = accusative ending (direct object)
 * -moff = genitive ending (of, 's)


 * -con = with
 * -berz = without, sans, spare
 * -moc = beside (like 'at' and 'outside' etc)

Example of Declension

 * miczatom
 * miczamicz
 * miczamut
 * miczatu
 * miczamilla
 * miczamut
 * miczamu
 * miczamoff
 * miczacon
 * miczaberz
 * miczamoc

The above declension system may seem complicated, but similar systems like Finnish are quite easy to master.

Plurals
To make a plural, add 'mosz' directly to the stem.
 * miczamosz = friends
 * miczamoszmilla = At friends

Verb Conjugation
The verb endings are as such:
 * Infinitive: -etz (pronounced 'ets')
 * Past tense: -yo
 * Present: -äu
 * Future: -ait

Example of Verb Conjugation

 * Hazetz = to be
 * hazyo = was/were etc
 * hazäu = is/am/etc
 * hazait = will be

Adjectives
All adjectives can be either added to the beginning of a noun (in which case they are pronounced as part of the noun) or pronounced as a separate word before hand. When coming as a separate word, 'y' is added to the end of the adjective.

Adverbs
All adverbs end with -fom, and generally come before verbs.

=Dictionary= This is still a work in progress. VERBS ETC
 * micza - friend
 * da - big
 * moha - land
 * sufca - sand
 * Damohamilla - Australia (At the Great Sand Land)
 * Äustralia - Australia (using modern naming system)
 * seczco - water
 * sufcaseczmoco = beach ('seczmoco' is an abbreviation of 'seczco' + 'mok')
 * men - I
 * ten - You
 * len - He/She/It
 * mosz - We
 * tosz - Yez
 * losz - They
 * doma - this
 * moda - that
 * hazetz - to be
 * iczetz - to go
 * szovetz - to like, enjoy
 * Kalla - hello!
 * mye - yes
 * nof - no
 * tyo - and

=Example text= ...
 * Kalla! Men hazäu Nico. Men dafom szoväu iczetz menmoff miiczamoszcon menmoff Damohamillatu.
 * TRANSLATION: Hello! I am Nick. I really like to go with my friends to Australia.