Tseer

Tseezh/Lexicon
Swadesh list for Tseezh

This article describes Classical Tseezh. See Tseezh/Modern for Modern Tseezh.

Tseer
Created by	IlL
Setting	Verse:Tricin
Language family	Lakovic Ashanic Tseer

Tseezh (chezh; dowød Tseezh /dowøt tʃẽr̝/ Modern: /dowət tʃẽʃ/; Skellan: brits Txelzj) is a Lakovic language spoken in Talma. It is inspired mainly by Hmong and Somali, with touches of Burmese, Vietnamese and Satem IE languages like Polish.

Tseezh was a prominent classical language of Talma, second to Windermere; it left a significant influence on Windermere and Skellan.

Todo

• Needs some vowel shifts
• i ü u e o a ì ǜ ù è ò à → i ø u e o a ii øø uu ee oo aa
• p > f
• final -g disappears
• /w l/ > v w /v w/
• ś, g > kh /x/
• s- > θ > t /t/
• -s > -j
• š-, y- > x-
• c, ć > tx, ts
• t- > r /T/
• r > zh /r/

Disappearing preinitial vowels > tone?

Numbers: don, oozhad, txiv, khaag, omøøtx, dag, abood, xev, wooj, rab, tajaav, tzhøg

ranam = ice

tawsuug = example

nasal vowels merge with nonnasal vowels before m/n/ng/l?

Final -ng disappears leaving nasalization (as in Skellan)

Phonology

Consonants

m n ng /ŋ/

t r /ʈ/ k ' /ʔ/

b d g

f x /s~z/ kh /x/ h

tx /ts/ ts /tʃ/

v dh /ð/ (dh only occurs syllable finally)

w zh /r̝~ʒ/ j /j/

/x/ is [ʂ] in some dialects

b d g = [p t k] word-finally.

Vowels

a e i o u ø /a e i o u ɵ/

aa ee ii oo uu øø /ã ẽ ĩ õ ũ ɵ̃/

/ɵ/ will be transcribed as /ø/ for convenience.

Morphology

Tseezh grammar and morphology are rather conservative, for example it has retained the Proto-Lakovic reduplicated plural, pluractionality and gender in verbs and the grammatical function of Proto-Lakovic applicatives or triggers.

Pronouns

	I	thou (m.)	thou (f.)	he	she	we (exc.)	we (inc.)	you (pl.)	they (an.)
Nominative	zhii	khen	kheex	in	iix	txam	baa	mod	wadub

'you' and 'they': from honorific expressions?

Todo: correlatives table

this, that = ti, fi

here, there = mit, mif

Nouns

Each noun has an intrinsic gender, either masculine or feminine. Feminine is marked with -x (pronounced [s] after /t k f x/, [əs] after /s ʃ ts tʃ/ and [z] otherwise).

• 'ativ = son-in-law; 'ativx = daughter-in-law
• bakhoo = uncle; bakhoox = aunt
• 'araaj = lion; 'araajx = lioness

Plurals are formed by reduplication.

• 'araaj 'lion' > 'aar'araaj 'lions'
• moog 'feather' > momoog 'feathers'

TODO: plural reduplication rules

Verbs

Verb template

TAM-pluractionality-feminine-voice-ROOT?

Agreement

Feminine subject: va-

Voice

Passive: haa- (~ Windermere ha-)

Verbal number

Pluractionality is used when a verb is done multiple times or done to multiple objects.

Pluractionality: e-, ee- or eFe- (cf. Windermere enFă- frequentative)

TAM

Aspects/Tenses:

• Perfective aspect: unmarked
  • Intensive: ro- with past meaning, ~ Wdm. thu-
• Imperfective aspect: we-?
• Progressive: oL-, oo- (~ Wdm. ăL-, Modern oL- with non-past meaning)
• Jussive: af- (~ Wdm. hef-; Modern Tseezh uses xa- for imperative)

Derivation

• xi- = adjectivizer
  • xiwakoo = free, wakoo originally meant 'human'