Tersamian [TRSM]
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Registered by
[Deactivated User] on 28 December 2023
Language type
A priori
Place & SpeakersTersamian is spoken by a population of around 100,000,000 in Tersamian Empire.
Species
Human/humanoid
About Tersamian
: l g̣b̳̍ṛs . eḷ ṃp̳̍j̣s : g̣d̍ḷx ṃi̍f̲q bx cd̳̍xq ḍp̍x̣ l :
Tersamian (mṇq̍x n̲s̲̍ṛxbx̣pm) is the national language of the Tersamian Empire, and is used as a lingua franca for citizens of the empire despite its linguistic and ethnic diversity. This page documents the prestige dialect spoken in the eastern sectors of the capital, Ŕandzémi in the Ä́ltojowan region.
Its phonology is chiefly inspired by English (vowels) and Russian (consonants). The stress system in Middle Tersamian has given way to a pitch accent system with 5 tone contours. Long vowels caused neighbouring consonants to "soften", resulting in the voiceless sonorants like /n̥/ in the IPA chart while vowel length became non-phonemic.
Tersamian is written with the new Tersamian script[name pending] with forms resembling Latin letters. This new script was developed from the old Tersamian script, which is inspired by the Burmese abugida, 800 years before present. Due to a need to maintain mutual intelligibility between dialects, Tersamian words are spelled like how they would have pronounced in Middle Tersamian, resulting in a non-phonemic orthography.
The grammar is your typical head-initial, V2 deal with occasional topic-prominence sprinkled into it. There are 10 genders (word classes) in Middle Tersamian, but only 7 of them influence word inflections now.
This language is being actively worked on in a Google Excel spreadsheet and that spreadsheet serves as the definitive documentation for Tersamian. The ConWorkShop page simply presents what I have bothered to upload here and may be outdated.
: l g̣b̳̍ṛs . eḷ ṃp̳̍j̣s : g̣d̍ḷx ṃi̍f̲q bx cd̳̍xq ḍp̍x̣ l :
/èo̯ m̥çɯ́r̥ɑ̂ | òe̯r̥ l̥çɯ́ʍɑ̂ | mjūrʊ̂m l̥ɑ́e̯vɔ̂ jɪ̀m ɕým̥ɐ̂ rjěɲ èo̯/
Tersamian (mṇq̍x n̲s̲̍ṛxbx̣pm) is the national language of the Tersamian Empire, and is used as a lingua franca for citizens of the empire despite its linguistic and ethnic diversity. This page documents the prestige dialect spoken in the eastern sectors of the capital, Ŕandzémi in the Ä́ltojowan region.
Its phonology is chiefly inspired by English (vowels) and Russian (consonants). The stress system in Middle Tersamian has given way to a pitch accent system with 5 tone contours. Long vowels caused neighbouring consonants to "soften", resulting in the voiceless sonorants like /n̥/ in the IPA chart while vowel length became non-phonemic.
Tersamian is written with the new Tersamian script[name pending] with forms resembling Latin letters. This new script was developed from the old Tersamian script, which is inspired by the Burmese abugida, 800 years before present. Due to a need to maintain mutual intelligibility between dialects, Tersamian words are spelled like how they would have pronounced in Middle Tersamian, resulting in a non-phonemic orthography.
The grammar is your typical head-initial, V2 deal with occasional topic-prominence sprinkled into it. There are 10 genders (word classes) in Middle Tersamian, but only 7 of them influence word inflections now.
This language is being actively worked on in a Google Excel spreadsheet and that spreadsheet serves as the definitive documentation for Tersamian. The ConWorkShop page simply presents what I have bothered to upload here and may be outdated.
Phonology
| Consonants | Bilabial | Labio- dental | Dental | Alveolar | Alveolo- palatal | Palatal | Labio- velar | Velar | Glottal | |||||||||
| Nasal | m̥ | m | n̥ | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||||||||||||
| Plosive | p | b | t | c | ɟ | k | g | (ʔ) | ||||||||||
| Fricative | f | v | θ | ð | s | z | ɕ | ʑ | ç | h | ɦ | |||||||
| Affricate | t͡s | d͡z | t͡ɕ | d͡ʑ | ||||||||||||||
| Lateral approximant | l̥ | l | ||||||||||||||||
| Approximant | j | ʍ | w | |||||||||||||||
| Trill | r̥ | r | ||||||||||||||||
| Vowels | Front | Near- front | Central | Near- back | Back | |||||
| Close | i | y | ɨ | ʉ | ɯ | u | ||||
| Near-close | ɪ ɪ̃ | ʏ ʏ̃ | ʊ | |||||||
| Close-mid | e | ø: ø̃: | ɵ | o o: õ: õ | ||||||
| Mid | ə ə̃ | |||||||||
| Open-mid | ɛ ɛ̃ | ʌ | ɔ ɔ̃ | |||||||
| Near-open | æ | ɐ | ||||||||
| Open | a | ɑ ɑ̃ | ||||||||
| Polyphthongs | ɑẽ̯ ɑe̯ | oẽ̯ oe̯ | æɯ̯̃ æɯ̯ | ɑũ̯ ɑu̯ | eõ̯ eo̯ | æĩ̯ æi̯ |
Syllable StructureModern Standard Tersamian has a CGVC syllable structure, simplified from the CCCVCCC in Middle Tersamian. G can be any of these consonants: /r,r̥,j,ç/. Ideally, the two consonants in the onset should have the same voicing.
Stress informationProsody manifests itself through a simple pitch-accent system similar to Japanese. "Stressed" syllables generally have a higher tone (e.g. /ó/), which may spread into the next syllable in the same word as a falling tone (e.g. /ô/). Stressed vowels with no subsequent syllables in the same word carry a rising tone (e.g. /ǒ/). If the stressed vowel has an unwritten syllable in the same word, the stressed vowel carries a middle tone /ō/, and the unwritten syllable has a falling tone. Unwritten syllables emerged as a result of the syllable structure being simplified over time and vowels were inserted between consonant clusters to break them up. Unstressed vowels have a low tone /ò/.
Browse the dictionary for examples.
Browse the dictionary for examples.
Orthography
Below is the orthography for Tersamian. This includes all graphemes as defined in the language's phonology settings - excluding the non-distinct graphemes/polygraphs.
 TersamianOrthography [edit] | ||||||||
| n t /θ/, /t/ | c s /s/ | o c /t͡s/ | z n /n̥/, /n/ | r h /ɦ/, /h/ | v p /p/ | s a /a/ | t c' /t͡ɕ/ | x m /m/, /m̥/ |
| m j /j/ | f f /f/ | w p' // | g ŋ /ŋ/ | q o /ɔ/ | b i /i/ | e oe /oe̯/ | p e /ɛ/ | k k' // |
| l eo /eo̯/ | d u /u/ | h k /k/ | a ḱ // | j h' //, /ç/ | y ' /ʔ/1 | i ae /ɑe̯/ | u au /ɑu̯/ | |
| ✔ Shown in correct order [change] | ||||||||
- loan words only
Additional NotesThe glyphs in the orthography table list all of the letters in the new Tersamian script. Tersamian also has diacritics, but when combined with the letters in the table, they do not form new letters.
