Tamnafai

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Shemtov
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Tamnafai

Post by Shemtov »

Tamnafai is the language of the Contitutional Kingdom of Tamna, located on IRL Jeju island. When the some Chinese Armies rebelled against the Yuan Dynasty, some of its Chinese-speaking soldiers, sensing defeat, fled to Tamna, where they became the bodyguards of the king. However, after the death of the king, they staged a coup, and established a Chinese Monarchy on the Island, with Middle Chinese as the court language. However, as the language evolved, it mixed with Jeju, taking many loanwords (also from Old Korean), and with a Sinitic base, became the sole aglutanating Sinitic language. After WWII, they set up a Constitutial Monarchy, allied with the West. They adopted a Latin Alphabet. A population does speak it in the PRC, but they are switching to Mandarin- descendants of an unsuccessful Communist Revolution.

Phonology:
/p pʰ b t tʰ d ts tsʰ t͡ɕ t͡ɕʰ d͡ʑ k kʰ g/ p p' b t t' c c' ch ch' j k k' g/
/f v s z ɕ ʑ h/ <f v s z sh zh h>
/m n ɲ~ŋ/ <m n ny~ng
/l/ <l>
/j w/ <y w>

/i ɨ u/ <i ï u>
/e ə o/ <e ë o>
/a/ <a>



Phonotactics:
(C)V(C) Syllables can end with only /m n ŋ p t k/
Example words:
Nyën "Person"
It "1"
Nyë "2"
Pëk "Country"
Many children make up, or begin to make up, imaginary languages. I have been at it since I could write.
-JRR Tolkien
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Shemtov
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Re: Tamnafai

Post by Shemtov »

The cases, shown with Nyën:
Nominative: Nyën
Accusative: Nyënship
Dative: Nyënshipkip
Locative-Lative: Nyënzï
Ablative: Nyënlï
Comatative: Nyënfa
Note that after stop-endings, the accusative has an allomorph:
Pëk "Country"
Acc: Pëkkip

Also note that nominatives can be marked as topical by the ending ïn/wun. The use between nominative and topical is like that in Korean and Japanese:
Nyënïn "As for a person"
Many children make up, or begin to make up, imaginary languages. I have been at it since I could write.
-JRR Tolkien
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Re: Tamnafai

Post by WeepingElf »

This looks very interesting - an agglutinating Sinitic language! I don't know how realistic this is, but certainly, this can be great fun!
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Shemtov
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Re: Tamnafai

Post by Shemtov »

WeepingElf wrote: 21 Nov 2018 19:34 This looks very interesting - an agglutinating Sinitic language! I don't know how realistic this is, but certainly, this can be great fun!
Certainly, I've taken some creative liberties- the language should be based on LMC, but I'm using EMC as my base.
Many children make up, or begin to make up, imaginary languages. I have been at it since I could write.
-JRR Tolkien
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Shemtov
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Re: Tamnafai

Post by Shemtov »

I'm returning to this language, because I'm determined to make a diachronic project that I stick with.
Pronouns:
1P: Nya
2P:Nyim
3P: Kï

All of these can be pluralized with Mï in the nominative, but are ambiguous to number in other cases.

Verbs:
Verbs occur with four Tense-aspects. We will take the verb Nyingmïng "to know"
as an example:
Non-Past: Nyingmïng
Present progressive: Nyingmïngdïk
Past: Nyingmïngba
Past perfective: Nyingmïnglë

Examples:
Nyamï kïship nyingmïng
"We know him/her/them"

Nyamï kïship nyingmïngba
"We knew him/her/them"
Many children make up, or begin to make up, imaginary languages. I have been at it since I could write.
-JRR Tolkien
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