This public notice, posted in an Obtobian city around 40 years ago in Sheesanian time, is an example text of my newest language, Tą. The ancestor of modern Tą was an Obtobian language, but after Obtobai conquered the other countries of Thomorai, some rulers forced their non-Obtobian subjects to speak Tą, too. Today it is spoken all over Thomorai – albeit with many dialectal differences between countries! – and is the main language of all Thomoraii countries except Kafa Monica.

I am not planning to write a formal grammar of Tą anytime soon, or even type in my sketchy notes, but here are some technical details if you’re interested, e.g., please feel free to skip this bit! (If you’d like to see more details, you could leave a comment or contact me and I would be happy to write up some more for you.)  Tą has nineteen consonants, including a series of retroflex stops (and a retroflex R!) and three glottal fricatives (which you could call variations of H): a normal one, a pharyngeal one (similar to Arabic’s ح) and a very weird nasal-glottal-fricative thing that is sort of like H but done through the nose. Then there are five fairly boring vowels…but which each also have a pharyngealized version and an epiglottalized version, all contrasting, plus two diphthongs, for a total of 17 vowels. Yay.

Tą is quite isolating, but is moving more and more towards an agglutinative/fusional system, and indeed already has some complex morphology. There are few boundaries between nouns, adjectives and verbs. An old evidentiality system, which used to be mandatory, is still sticking around, but is falling more and more out of use (much to the chagrin of older Tą speakers). Plurality is complicated. Tą used to have no grammatical plurality. Now it has two grammatical paucal plurals, an associative one and a non-associative one, but otherwise you must use one of the many irregular non-paucal plural nouns, or make it obvious in context that the number is bigger than paucal, or use a number. Tą has seven noun cases: trigger, nominative, accusative, genitive, locative/adpositional, causal/benefactive, and instrumental. Tą is somewhat Austronesian in morphosyntactic alignment, with the main topic of the sentence being marked with the trigger case, and the verb marked with the role of the trigger. There are a gazillion pronouns, since there are proximate, obviate and further obviate pronouns, plus polite and pejorative forms, and irregular forms with certain cases…

In verbs, Tą has some bipersonal particles borrowed from Kafa Monican for concisely marking subject and object. The interesting thing is that since these particles were borrowed from Kafa Monican, they use a different pronominal system than Tą does. Fun times! So then you also have boring past, present and future tenses, but with each having anterior and posterior versions. There is pretty much no grammatical aspect, so there are various convoluted semantic ways that speakers accomplish the jobs usually done by aspect. “Adjectives” are basically just nouns in genitive case that modify other nouns. Finally, there is a bunch of derivational morphology, because I love derivational morphology. And I have a lot of words in my Tą dictionary, and I’m very proud of them since I have a lot of nice semantic differences from English, and they’re short (thanks to all those vowels!).

So, without further technical ado, here is the English translation of the notice in Tą, the Tą version, an interlinear and literal translation of the Tą, and the Tą version written in the lovely Tą alphabet (which I hope to post about soon). Note that the year given, 687, is in the old Thomoraii count of years – it’s equivalent to about 1460 in the standard reckoning of Sheesanian years.

English

NOTICE

It is generally known that stray seakitties have recently been causing trouble in our city. They have been stealing food, dirtying our water supplies, destroying our plants, making noise, &c. In order to remedy this problem, the Council deliberated on the second day of the full moon, and has arrived at this decision. All people in Nošbą must:

-Not feed, house, or care for any stray seakitties. You may, however, adopt stray seakitties, but you must register the adoption at the Family Office and promise to keep the seakitty for its whole life.

-Not leave food out in places that are easy for a seakitty to reach, such as a doorstep.

-Not release seakitties you own. If you have seakitties you cannot care for, bring them to the Nošbą NSSI on Astkyan Street.

-Try to catch any stray seakitties you come across and are able to catch. If you catch a seakitty, release it in the jungle, bring it to the Nošbą NSSI on Astkyan Street, or report it to the Peace Office.

-Report any foreigners bringing and releasing seakitties into the city at the Peace Office.

By Order of the Council of Nošbą
Second Day of the Full Moon, Fifth Month, 687

Tą

EǪȞETI

Riy ajôf e ǎjazdií ǎ ťěbh ǎ sildgǔ le tôbą âp îg yóna a nǐan ąk wenêb a. Ḣéšep e lézyǎ uh ubába tǫi, frǐjj ǔh ôêl îťǫ yóna ǫi, dâḣk ûh báḣi tǫi yóna ǫi, dúîe uh, Ê.Q., wêm fî. Tělě ě běh tǫi sildgǔ ǫi, Tělělą ǔh Ȟakfê iť šésildas or, tḣéhe běh tǐ jazdián uk. Wa yuw e tôh â wêm â Nošbą apǫ:

-Íqǒ ti ajôjôf a ǎjazdií ǎ léfile, whěb, réťa ek i. Něuleš ě wǒh ajôjôf ti ǎjazdií ǎ, fêkwê, ǫja en, šǒbeǐ wa fûťíši áno wǒh něuleš tǐ, íse óno núlǫri ti ajôf lą jǔrul iťǫ, Ťiêsi-Tôḣîȟ ap.

-Uáab ti bêu âp ajôf uḣ îjâw ąn wáblab ǫi káʔlǎ ek i, mîan, fǐhǒtaye ǎp.

-Ajôjôf ti wǒ ǎ rámwi ek i. Ajfôô e wǒ ǎ o ek, núlǫri e tḣe tǫi wǒ ǔḣ ašefgǔ ek, wa tḣéhe NSSI-Nošbą ap, Šwêaʔ-Ástkyan apǫ, šwǎʔ ěn.

-Ajôf ti yaḣór ek, ȟwu e ḣe tǫi ašf ek, êydą ê wǒh rǐʔa ąn. Wǒ ě ajôf ti ȟwu uk, wa ḣee zǫn ap rámwi en, íwi NSSI-Nošbą ap, Šwêaʔ-Ástkyan apǫ, šwǎʔ ěn, íwi š en Ťiêši-Sild a ťow.

-Íqô ti kinúa a šwǎʔ, rámwi a ajfôô tǫi tôbą apǫ Ťiêši-Sild ap š ek.

Sánsǫ iť Tělělą ǎ Nošbą a
Ȟakfê, Yakǎʔri Bǎyǔ ǎ, 687

Interlinear/Literal Translation

List of Abbreviations

1 – first person
2 – second person
3 – third person
acc – accusative
ben – benefactive
caus – causative
cls – clause
gen – genitive
imp – imperative
incl – inclusive
ins – instrumental
loc – locative
neg – negation
nom – nominative
pc – paucal
pej – pejorative
pl – plural
pres – present
pron – pronoun
pst – past
rc – relative clause
sg – singular
trg – trigger
verb – verbal focus

Thing that should be read

It is said many houseless seakitties have recently begun to work for the benefit of disorder in our city.

They a stealing of food, a causing of our water supplies to become dirty, a destruction of our edible plants, a making of noise, it continues, are at.

For the purpose of addressing this disorder, the Council used the 2nd day of the full moon to discuss how to solve the problem, they built this.

We order that all people who are in Nošbą:

Not feed, cover, care for any homeless seakitties.

You adopting homeless seakitties, however, is allowed, but you must register the adoption by you, promise to parent the seakitty for life, at the Family Office.

Not put food in places seakitties can touch lazily, for example, at a doorstep.

Don’t release your seakitties.

Seakitties exist that the parenting of them by you is impossible, we order that you bring them to the Nošbą NSSI, at Astkyan Street.

Pass by a seakitty, catching it is possible, try to do that.

You a seakitty caught, it in the jungle release, or to the Nošbą NSSI, at Astkyan Street, bring it, or report it to the Peace Office.

Any foreigner bringing, releasing seakitties at the city, at the Peace Office report.

Through the order of the Council of Nošbą

2nd day of the full moon, month of five, 687

Tą in Tą Script

 

(click for larger picture)