Language Profile: Towwu Pũ Saho

Name: Towwu Pũ Saho
Alternative Names: The Language of the Mountain Peoples, Toúījāb Vīggo Kmurīt
Family: Isolate. Some (TbKt) linguists feel that it is a distant relative of TbKt and therefore an isolate branch of the Western Plains family. Others have tried to link them to the Kntic languages or even the hypothetical Gulf family, but the evidence is mostly typological in nature. Some also hypothesize that there are relatives living in the rainshadow desert, however this area is mostly unexplored and uninhabited.
Location: In the mountains and plateaus north of the Kikxotian plains. Basically, their villages start popping up as the hills start appearing. Many of them living alongside the cliffs, or even have villages built into the cliffs (think Dogon or Pueblo peoples sort of thing).
History: As far as anyone is aware, they have always lived in their area. They might once have been more spread out before being absorbed by the Kikxotians in the lowlands, however people are pretty sure that the coasts were once inhabited relatives of the Kntic languages, not of Towwu Pũ Saho
Writing System: Not a written language, they use TbKt for writing purposes
Typological information:

• Word order: SOV (but based on animacy and definiteness as well)
• Alignment: Direct-Inverse (strangely enough)
• Morphological: Analytic

Notable Features:

•  Many many (TAM) particles
• Well, sort of. They are particles that mark TAM but they also have many other functions depending on the POS they precede or follow
• Nasal harmony
• Contentive POS (not that I knew this word or classification when I started the language)
• Strong analytic tendencies (but allows compounding and some derivation)
• Direct-inverse alignment and definiteness of arguments marked with a portmanteau particle
• Detailed animacy hierarchy
• Complicated deixis/demonstrative system
• Visible vs invisible
• Proximal vs Medial vs Distal
• Above vs same level vs below

Some morphological markings:

• It's isolating so they are more of particle markings!
• Verbs
• Aspect (preposition)
• Modality (preposition)
•  Causative (reduplication)
• Nouns

Origins: Late 2016 after I decided to start conlanging again. A lot of the initial work was done in a hotel room in Cairo after being stranded there an extra day due to flight stuff
History: I wanted to do something new and had never done an analytic language before and I wanted to try my hand at a real Austronesian-alligned language. I don't remember if I had an idea for this language before the hotel room, but that's definitely where I started sketching it out. I honestly can't say what influenced it most. Obviously I was looking at Guarani for nasal harmony (I didn't know about Gê languages until later) and in world building I was definitely thinking of the Dogon. I know (at least) some Dogon languages are isolating, but I don't think that was an influence on this language, because I couldn't find any good information on them. I was reading a lot about austronesian alignment too. The direct inverse system came from me reanalyzing my attempt at an Austronesian alignment when I realized that what I had didn't really work as an austronesian system but with a couple tweaks it was (mostly like) direct-inverse.

Status: In-development. I work on it fairly often, since it is different than a lot of my other languages. Plus it just looks weird, which is great for showing to other people
What I'm doing with it and why: Sitting on it mostly :p . One day I'll figure out more uses for it.
CALS link:
Other Notes: I love getting people to say what languages it reminds them of. I once posted a story of it on facebook and got some good results.

9/2/17- Probably enough for now. One day I'll get a CALS page and other stuff on it