Names and Introductions

 Just copying a reddit post here to preserve it. I really need to do better about differentiating the dialects, though I guess these prompts didn't really give much room to showcase some of the more unique features.

For Toúījāb Kīkxot:

Ustū ūíick Kōzurīkkab ūmpa ūwiny līúan íāpī. Ustū pmīfuzō ocāk nphuvatū īn rxību. Ūtiúj toúījāb kīkxot

[ʊstu: ʔu:jɪts ko:tʃʊri:kǝ vu:mpǝ u:ɹɪn li:wǝn jɑ:fi: ʊstu:p mi:ħʊtʃ ōtsɑ:k ŋəp'ʊʕǝθu: wi:n rǝʃi:vʊ u:θi:dz dɔwi:dzɑ:b ki:kʃɔt]

Ustū ūíick     Kōzur-īkkab ūmpa   ūwiny     līúan  íāpī. Ustū pmīfu  -zō ocāk   nphuva-tū   īn  rxību.  Ūtiúj toúīj   -āb  kīkxo-t
1S.N have_name bird -shine and.SS have_year twenty four. 1S.N spearer-M  and.DS caste -1S.N DEF hunter. speak language-CMP god  -CMP.

"My name is Kōzurīkkab and I am 24. I am a spearman of the hunter clan. I speak Toúījāb Kīkxot"

Key thing that isn't clear from the translation is that being a spearman in the hunter clan is very low status (relative to other hunters and to other soldiers) because it's technically working out of caste. I used neutral pronouns here.

This is a fun little prompt, I might do more when I get home tonight (in other languages and in dialects).

e:

The above was the standard dialect, but let's meet someone from the coast [the next few are close enough grammatically that I'm not going to gloss unless asked].

Stū ūíezk Xōwokpot ūmp ūwen līúan rāv. Baberm xīpltū qal lōbop dagnatmā. Īw ūpegd ges xīpltū úethl nphavmā. Ūteúj túījāb kīkxat

[stu: ʔu:jɛtʃ kʃo:ɹɔkpɔt u:m pu:ɹɛn li:wǝn ra:ʕ bǝbɛrm ʃi:pl̩tu: ɢǝl lo:bop dǝgnǝtma: i: ɹu:pɛgd gɛs ʃi:pl̩tu: wɛtˤɫ nǝpˤǝʕma: u:tɛwdʒ dwi:dʒa:b ki:kʃǝt]

"My name is Xōwokpot and I am 35 years old. I help my husband in his shop. We are rich but my husband complains about his clan. I (we) speak Toúījāb Kīkxot"

---

Up near the mountains, we meet a young boy.

Yån uíeck Win umpa uwen xayu. Wawibuth kobuk gundåy dichhåhån. Saxo monak lepha usapåpúågad ages lepha usapåkúobuk. Yån utejetúåúijåb kikxåt tíåúijåb viggå kmurutxíub

[hɑn ujets kɹin umpǝ uɹen ʃǝhu ɹǝɹivut' kovu gundɑh dits'ɑʔɑn sǝʃo monǝk lep'ǝ usǝfɑpwɑɣǝ ðǝɣes lep'ǝ usǝfɑkwovuk hɑn uθedzetwɑwidzɑb kikʃɑ tjɑwidzɑb ʕigɑ kŋurutɕub]

"My name is Win and I am 11 years old. I watch sheep with my brothers. We don't have much money but we have lots of sheep. I speak Toúījāb Kīkxot and I speak the Mountain People's language (Toúījāb Vīggo Kmūrit) too"

Asking him to say the same thing but in Toúījāb Vīggo Kmūrit/ Towwu pũ saho

Rĩ ãnã hã pũ yiko. Hã pũ rãnã sahu. Hã võ hã pũ viukka e xa’u mõ feode ũppõ. Saho pũ paga issẽ age saho pũ xa’u reinõ. Hã go towisa kiso võ towwu pũ saho bilau towwu

[ɾĩ ʔɑ̃nɑ̃ hɑ̃ pũ jiko hɑ̃ pũ ɾɑ̃nɑ̃ sɑhu hɑ̃ xʷõ hɑ̃ pũ xʷiuk:ɑ ʔe xɑʔu mõ ɸeode ʔũp:õ sɑho pũ pɑgɑ ʔis:ẽ ʔɑge sɑho pũ xɑʔu ɾeinõ hɑ̃ go towisɑ kiso xʷõ tow:u pũ sɑho bilaw tow:u]

Rĩ  ãnã hã pũ  yiko. Hã pũ  rãnã sahu. Hã võ  hã pũ  viukka        e      xa’u  mõ  feode ũppõ. 
Win COP 1S GEN name. 1S GEN year 11.   1S and 1S GEN older_brother D.R/NR sheep HAB BENE  watch.
Saho pũ  paga  issẽ  age saho pũ  xa’u  reinõ. Hã go    towisa  kiso   võ  towwu pũ saho bilau towwu
1P   GEN money small but 1P   GEN sheep big.   1S D.R/R Toúījāb Kīkxot and Towwu pũ saho can   speak

"Rin is my name. My years are eleven. My brothers and I watch over sheep. We don't have much money but we have a lot of sheep. I can speak Toúījāb Kīkxot and Towwu pũ saho."

---

An old man sits on the docks in the Central Islands

Yān ūíesk Osīlīkī ages rīnkoān íeska yān Māyíūs. Ūren kas līúan teya. Sbīmuzō yān, uynasū sbīmuzō pīhmoān. Īn rōsus olsúīg makāyntah umkahū, osūmah sub. Tūtīs toúīsāb kīksot gundāy nesap ages ūserl ūtīs toúīsāb sbīmut het toúīs pīhmotān

[hä:n u:jesk ɔsi:li:ki: ǝges ri:nkɔä:n jeskǝ hä:n mä:hju:s u:ren kas li:wǝn tehǝ sbi:mʉco: yä:n ʉhnǝsu:s bi:mʉco: pi:ʔmɔä:n i:n ro:sʉs ɔlswi:g mǝkä:hn̩tǝʔ ʉmkǝʔu: ɔsu:mǝʔ sʉb Tu:ti:s tɔwi:sä:b ki:ksɔt gʉndä:h nesǝp ǝges u:ser lu:ti:s tɔwi:sä:b sbi:mʉt het tɔwi:s pi:ʔmɔtä:n]

Yān  ūíesk     Osīl  -ī  -kī  ages rīnko -ān íeska yān Māyíūs. Ūren       kas līúan  teya.   Sbīmu -zō  yān, uynasū  sbīmu -zō  pīhmo -ān.
1S.N have_name gather-BEN-God but  friend-1S call  1S thinker. have_years two twenty twelve. fisher-man 1S,  equally fisher-man father-1S.
Īn  rōsus ol<s>úīg   makāyntah umkahū, osūmah    sub. T~  ūtīs  toúīs   -āb  kīkso-t   gundāy nesap     ages ūserl ūtīs  toúīs   -āb  sbīmu -t   het toúīs    pīhmo -t  -ān
DEF frog  <DEF>treat locals    evilly, believers too. HAB~speak language-CMP god  -CMP with   travelers but  like  speak language-CMP fisher-CMP REL language father-CMP-1S

"My name is Osīlīkī but my friends call me Māyíūs. I am 52 years old. I am a fisherman, like my father. The soldiers don't treat locals well, even believers. I speak Toúījāb Kīkxot with travelers, but prefer to speak Toúījāb Sbīmut, which is my native language."

And now in his native tongue, Knǝnʔtǝǝʔ

Mã plɛ̃g Osiiliikii dǝd nköm mã splɛ̃g Mäyũs. Mã lɨlããp kǝs liiwǝn tehǝ lrããp. Mã mǝmusäyäw, mǝmusäyäw tdɔ̈b mã. Hrëëy jɛt hǝhcɨ̃t mkäntǝǝʔ, kikiiso ʔǝk. Mã kntəəʔ knənʔtəəʔ kiiso thiʔ mäwãy, dǝd mã mwɔɔt knənʔtəəʔ kbǝ tdɔ̈b

[ma̰plɛ̰ŋ̥ osi:li:ki: ɗǝd̥̚ n̩ko̤m̥ ma̰splɛ̰ŋ̥ ma̤jṵs ma̰lɨla̰ˀa̰p̚ kǝs li:wǝn̥ tehǝ l̩ɾa̰ˀa̰p̚ ma̰mǝmusa̤ja̤w ma̰mǝmusa̤ja̤w tɗɔ̤b̥̚ ma̰ʔ hɾe̤:j ɲɛt̚ hǝhcɨ̰t̚ m̩ka̤ntǝ:ʔ kiki:so ʔǝk̚ ma̰kn̩tǝ:ʔ knǝnʔtǝ:ʔ ki:so tʰiʔ ma̤wa̰y ɗǝd̥̚ ma̰mwɔ:t̚ knǝnʔtǝ:ʔ kɓǝ tɗɔ̤b̥̚]

Mã=plɛ̃g      Osiiliikii dǝd nköm   mã=s-   plɛ̃g      Mä-yũs.   Mã=lɨ- lããp     kǝs_liiwǝn_tehǝ l<r>ããp.
1S=have_name Osiiliikii but friend 1S=CAUS-have_name AG-think. 1S=PRG-grow_old fifty_two       <INST>year.
Mã=m- <mw> <ä> <y>   säw,  <mw> msäyäw tdɔ̈b   mã. Hrëëy jɛt hǝ~hcɨ̃t    m-<ä>kntǝǝʔ,  ki~ kiiso ʔǝk.
1S=AG-<RFL><AG><CAPT>fish, <RFL>fisher father 1S. Frog  NEG PL~respect AG-<AG>speak, DIM~Kikxo too.
Mã=kntəəʔ <nʔ> kntəəʔ kiiso thiʔ mä-wãy, dǝd mã mwɔɔt knənʔtəəʔ kbǝ tdɔ̈b
1S=speak  <NOM>speak  Kikxo for  AG-go,  but 1S like  language  GEN father

"My name is Osiiliikii, but my friends call me Mäyũs. I am 52 years old. I am a fisherman, like my father. The frogs don't respect us Mkäntǝǝʔ, even followers of Kīkxo. I speak Toúījāb Kīkxot with foreigners, but I like my father's tongue."

 

Direct-Inverse constructions in Towwu pũ saho

Towwu pũ saho has a fairly interesting syntactical system. It acts much like a direct inverse language, though the information is carried in a particle between the nouns, rather than on the verb.

To understand how this works, you first need to understand its word order. Tps is an SOV language, but there is little necessary relation between subject and agent. Rather, the subject position is ordinarily held by the topic (when the topic is the agent or patient), which in turn is generally the most definite (technically the difference is referring vs non-referring expressions but it's been a while since I've worked on this so I need to brush up on the difference again) or proximate argument. Then there's an animacy hierarchy which determines word order absent an unusual topic or differences in definiteness. The most animate argument comes first followed by less animate arguments. The hierarchy is as follows:

Animacy table from most to least animate
1st person	2nd person	3rd person	4th person	Human	Animal/ Moving Force	Inanimate (natural objects)	Inanimate (Artificial)	Abstract

After the word order is properly established, one of eight particles is chosen. This clarifies the semantic roles and the definiteness (since there are no articles) of the main arguments. A direct particle is used when the more animate (regardless of position in the sentence) argument is the agent and the inverse when the less animate argument is the agent. When the arguments have the same animacy, if the subject position is held by the agent, use the direct and use the inverse when the patient holds that position. The table below shows the role particles.

Grammatical relations in transitive sentences
“Voice”		Direct		Inverse
Agent		Referential	Non-referring	Referential	Non-referring
Patient	Referring	go	mã	i	lu
	Non-referring	e	bo	sa	nẽ

This is probably best shown with a series of examples. The following words are ebe "man", ho'o "hat", caupe "to put on, to wear", tẽmẽ "to see", ũcẽ "woman", uxxale "snake".

Ebe go ho'o caupe "The man puts on the hat". Here both arguments are definite, so the most animate goes first and a direct marker is used.

Ebe e ho'o caupe "The man puts on a hat". Still very straightforward

Ho'o mã ebe caupe "A man puts on the hat". Since the less animate argument is definite while the more animate argument is not, the less animate argument is moved to the beginning of the sentence. It still uses a direct marker though because the agent is the more animate argument. A more natural translation might be "The hat was put on by a man". If you want to make "a man" the topic (for some reason) you could say Rĩ ebe mã ho'o caupe or just Ebe mã ho'o caupe.

Ebe bo ho'o caupe "A man wears a hat". Not a very illuminating sentence, but it works. Since they have the same definiteness regular animacy rules apply.

Now for the inverses.

Ebe i uxxale tẽmẽ "The snake sees the man". Same definiteness, so the more animate argument comes first. But the agent is the less animate argument, so we use the inverse.

Ebe lu uxxale tẽmẽ "A snake sees the man". A very strange sentence that would be more likely translated "The man is seen by the snake". However, this does fall the normal rules for animacy

Uxxale sa ebe tẽmẽ "The snake sees a man". Note that while the agent is in the subject spot, you still use the inverse.

Ebe nẽ uxxale tẽmẽ "A snake sees a man". Pretty straightforward.

When the arguments are on the same level:

Ebe go ũcẽ tẽmẽ "The man sees the woman"

Ũcẽ go ebe tẽmẽ "The woman sees the man"

Ebe i ũcẽ tẽmẽ "The man is seen by the woman" or "The man, the woman sees him"

Ũcẽ i ebe tẽmẽ "The woman is seen by the man" or "The woman, the man sees her"

These are all kind of weird examples, many seeming quite unnatural. So now I'll give one example for each (not necessarily related to each other) with TAM markers and other particles to make the sentences work better.

Hã go ba ngĩ tẽmẽ "I just saw him"

Igea mã uxxale ku ngõnã "A snake ate the egg"

Ba e igea ijji ĩxũ "She might like eggs"

Uxxale bo igea ngĩ ngõnã "Snakes like eggs"

Hã i onã fu fũxã tẽmẽ? "Have you ever seen me before?"

Sei ebe lu uxxale ãxõũ ngõnã ella "(As you know, I wish) a snake would eat that man over there" This sentence has a lot going on. Sei is a distal, visible determiner. Ãxõũ marks the sentence as a desire of the speaker (even though the speaker is never mentioned in the sentence). Ella at the end of a sentence marks the entire sentence as something that should be obvious to the discourse participants.

Hau, uxxale sa be'oi uwẽ vasi ngõnã "Agreed, the snake could be a man-killer" lit. "Agreed, the snake could frequently eat people"

Ebe nẽ uxxale ijji ã ngõnã "A snake could be eating a man"

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

Some sentences of the Be'oi

Just to shake things up a bit here's some samples of the mountain people's language. I'm calling them the Be'oi, from their word for mankind or people. Technically they call themselves Be'oi kau Qqoi "The people on the cliffside" but no one calls that because it's long. I've been going through a swadesh list to fill out their vocabulary, which already makes me remember how much I hate creating a lexicon. That's why TbKt gets so much attention. The vocabulary practically writes itself thanks to its derivational system. I'm just providing sentences and translations, you, my dear readers, get to try to figure the structure of the language (though some of the translations are way loose).

Cirre'i e happia ijji u'e ngõnã- The bird could be eating a flower.

Hã sa uxxale fu fũxã ikkanã?- Have I ever been squeezed by a snake?

Hã sa uxxale ri fũxã ikkanã- Once a snake squeezed me.

Hã e ssevĩ litto rusu- I was going to go fishing.

Hã e ibollo u'e hufe rrixa- I was digging for worms.

Hã ãnã iyea õrẽĩ mĩ'ãũ mẽmẽ posai- I was tired and unfortunately fell asleep.

Uxxale rajji- A snake arrived.

Hã i hhi uwẽ gebba-  Maybe it smelled me.

Hã i hhi voa ngõnã- It tried to eat me.

U''ai go hã pũ ngãvõ ã ẽrõĩ- The chieftain heard us fighting.

Ba go hhi icõ ẽmẽtõ- After some time, he killed it.

Uxxale ku mẽwĩẽ; hã e hhi mẽmẽ obie- The snake died but I started to fear snakes.

yeah, I haven't made any conjunctions.  Or figured out story telling.  And a bunch of other things. I don't know if I used the right aspects and moods. But I got something out.  Enjoy!

(I think I'm gonna post this story without translation on facebook for the lulz).