Tallfellow - Introduction and Greetings

Embrom, etaro! ("Hello, everyone!") The following series of lessons is meant to be a pedagogical introduction to the Tallfellow language. I have more experience with language learning materials than I do with grammars, and besides, I create languages with the intention of using them more than analyzing them - so I think a Tallfellow course is a more comfortable and effective way for me to explain all the aspects of Tallfellow that aren't really recorded anywhere online.

Pronunciation

	Labial	Alveolar	Retroflex	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m (m)	n (n)
Plosive	b (b) ᵐb (mb) pʰ (p)	d (d) ⁿd (nd) tʰ (t)		g (g) ᵑg (ng)
Fricative	f (f)	s (s)			h (h)
Approximant		ɫ (l)	ɻ (r)	w (w)

	Front	Back
Close	i ~ ɪ (i)
Close-mid		oʊ ~ əʊ (o)
Open-mid	ɛ (e)	ʌ (u)
Open		ɑ (a)

Tallfellow has no sounds that aren't found in (American) English, and the way it is written out in the Roman alphabet is quite similar to what English does as well. In many cases, one can guess a word's pronunciation based on American English and be correct. However, for those used to English, there are a number of pitfalls:

• All sounds written are always pronounced. (Well, if you want to get technical, they can get slurred a bit, especially when consonants ride up against each other - but not in slow or careful speech.) English often has "silent" letters, such as the -gh at the end of "high", etc. Tallfellow doesn't do this. This can be particularly confusing with final -e, which is pronounced EH (/ɛ/) just as it is in any other situation. One may be tempted to pronounced móme "meal, situation" as something like "moam", but in fact it is MOAM-EH (/'moʊ.mɛ/).

• Sounds are not pronounced differently depending on whether they're stressed or not. This can be particularly difficult with A (/ɑ/) and U (/ʌ/). U is always an UH sound, as in "fun", and it sounds quite similar to the unstressed A in words like "Roman". But U appears just as often in stressed syllables; A is similar to A in "father", and it often appears with its normal pronunciation in unstressed syllables. In a word like túmbatar "quickly", these sounds are in what feels like exactly the wrong places; the U is stressed, and the As are all unstressed! I find túmbatar one of the most difficult Tallfellow words to pronounce for this reason.

• Tallfellow T (/tʰ/) and P (/pʰ/) are always aspirated - pronounced with a strong puff of air, like the T and P at the beginning of "tin" and "pin" in English. This includes when they occur in the middle of a word, as in súti "sleep" and sípur "silly".

For a more complete/technical description of the sounds of Tallfellow, see the table above and the main Tallfellow page. See also the WIP companion course on Memrise, which has sound files of me pronouncing the language.

Stress

The stress of a word in Tallfellow is unpredictable and must be memorized. Most often, it occurs on the first syllable, but this is only a general tendency.

When introducing new Tallfellow words, I'll always use an acute accent mark (á) to indicate which syllable is stressed. These marks have an equivalent in the Tallfellow script, but they're only used when necessary to avoid ambiguity, so in actual Tallfellow text I won't include them. They are always used for nouns in the ablative and allative cases (as it's the only way to distinguish those cases from each other), and for foreign names and words for which the stress would be unknown to Tallfellow speakers.

Sometimes, accents are explicitly written for other words only distinguishable by stress, such as éngim "sip (noun), point" and engím "laughter, laughing". But even these usually aren't bothered with as the context tends to make it clear which is intended.

Greetings

Below are some basic greetings you might use to address a Tallfellow speaker.

I find it frustrating when greetings are presented without any attempt to explain their origin, especially since such an explanation often makes them easier to remember. For that reason, I'll explain where each phrase comes from in the section following this one.

• embróm "hello"

• hengwóndehar "welcome"

• randwóndehar "welcome back"

• owambwóndehar "good morning" (said to someone who has just woken up; the time of day isn't relevant)

• ár de rémendi wóndehar "nice to meet you"

• so wan ornó "please"

• wonderó "thank you" or "I'm sorry (that I did that)"

• wondéro "you're welcome" or "it's okay" (used in response to wonderó)

• sildóhar "I'm sorry (to hear that)"

• glán "yes"

• wúr "no"

• dérmetar "indeed, definitely"

• momróndle "congratulations"

• ho máwu róndle "have a nice day, have a good time"

• ho súti rópar "sleep well, good night"

• éber ho fángore "farewell" (may be shortened to "ho fángore", which is more casual)

Greetings In Depth

Embrom

The details of embróm's origin are uncertain, but it almost certainly came from the words émb "you (sg.)" and róm "good". Despite this, you do not use *renróm or anything similar when saying hello to more than one person.

Hengwondehar

The next three expressions all involve some verb plus the adverb wóndehar. Literally "heartfully", wondehar indicates that the speaker is grateful for whatever is being described in the sentence.

Hengwóndehar is a shortened version of sentences such as ren rum hengi wondehar, "I'm grateful that you've come". Héngi is a common verb equivalent to English "come" in most cases.

When welcoming someone to a specific place, one puts the place into the locative case, not the allative as you might expect: Hengwondehar sawerumb lang! "Welcome to (lit. at) our village!" The reason is that strangers being welcomed to a place are, in Tallfellow culture, nearly always people passing by on their traditional moweber journey (or traveling for other reasons). When used with a verb of motion, the locative indicates the place one is passing through. So the original phrase was something like Ren de hengi wondehar sawerumb lang! "I'm grateful that you're coming through our village!" One doesn't use hengwóndehar with people one expects to stick around - or, at least, didn't originally, but the expression has fossilized and can now be used even with people who live in the same place as you, especially among folk who live in large cities like Babandelglib or Howeró.

Randwondehar

Randwóndehar is of much the same origin as hengwondehar, except that it is used with people you have already welcomed before; it's derived from randó "return". Like hengwondehar, the locative case should be used when welcoming someone to a place.

Owambwondehar

The last -wondehar expression is based on the verb owámb "awaken". The literal meaning of owambwóndehar is something like "Glad to see you're awake!" and it is generally used when seeing someone awake for the first time in a day. There's no need for this to occur in the morning, although it often does. Indeed, in traditional hobind culture, certain elders will act as a "timekeeper" (lófwehand) and sleep during the day, staying up all night to watch for late-night threats, observe the stars, and perform mystic rituals to bless and protect the village. One might just as well say owambwondehar to a timekeeper waking up at nightfall.

Ar de remendi wondehar

Yet another wondehar-based expression, this one's still a complete sentence. Ár de rémendi wóndehar means "I'm grateful that we are meeting"; ár is "we, us", de is the particle for the progressive aspect; rémendi means "meet"; and wóndehar expresses the speaker's gratitude as described above.

So wan orno

An expression for "please", so wan ornó is literally "will (you) help?". Note that this expression most often occurs as a phrase on its own, rather than part of a larger expression. Asking someone to "please" do something commonly takes the form of a question so emb wan X? "will you X?" structured similarly to this phrase, and an explicit word for "please" isn't needed at all. Ultimately "please" has little semantic content of its own and mostly indicates formality and politeness, neither of which hobind culture cares for very much; they'd much prefer an honest, emotional entreaty to a canned expression. For that reason, it's recommended not to overuse this phrase.

Wonderó

Wonderó is simply the word wónde "heart, soul" put into the allative case; it literally means "to the heart". But the way it's used in practice, it indicates that the speaker intends to be intimately honest and straightforward with the listener. This reflects an important hobind value called belmónim, which means speaking to your friends, loved ones, and allies honestly, openly, and directly, never deceiving them or hiding difficult feelings that will only cause problems later on. Even the elders of a village expect to be spoken to this way; in fact, it's especially inappropriate to be evasive or tell "white lies" with an elder, and it will almost certainly get them annoyed with you!

I've glossed this word as "thank you" or "I'm sorry", and indeed, it's most often used in those contexts - to express that you're touched and feel close to another person for what they did for you in the former case, or that you really, honestly want to do better next time in the latter case. But hopefully the above description makes it clear that it's far from a direct translation, and that wonderó is used in many situations besides these, as well as having quite different implications from the English version.

Note also that apologizing the way it's understood by Western and other societies isn't valued in hobind culture, and in such situations wonderó is far more likely to accompany some description of one's intentions or how one will improve in the future, rather than occurring by itself. In the non-hierarchical culture where Tallfellow is spoken, there's simply no need for apologies, which imply some higher-ranking group or entity that you'd like to judge you kindly.

Wondéro

The ablative case form of wónde “heart”, it literally means “from the heart” and is a standard response to wonderó, indicating acceptance of whatever the other person was saying when they said wonderó. For that reason, it can mean things like “you're welcome”, “that's okay”, or “I hear you”; it can also be used by itself to indicate acceptance of someone else's feelings, meaning something like “go on, I'm listening” or “yeah, that's fair”.

Sildohar

This is derived from sildó “sad”, with the -har suffix added to it to turn it into an adverb describing the way an action is done.

While Tallfellow culture discourages apologizing for things you did, ehobind often express that they feel bad about the misfortunes of others, usually by saying sildohar. While it can be translated as “I'm sorry,” it's important to note that it is not used to apologize for things you did wrong; that's like saying “I'm sorry to hear that” in response to misfortunes you brought about yourself.

Instead, use sildohar to express regret for misfortunes you weren't involved in, and avoid apologizing for things that were your fault; rather, describe how you'll make the situation better or won't do it again, and avoid stock phrases.

Glan

This word literally means “correct” and can be used as an adjective meaning that, as well as being used similarly to “yes” in English. It is often paired with dermetar “truly” for emphasis.

Wur

This word means both “no” and “not”. When used to mean “not”, it goes at the very end of a sentence; see Tenses, Questions, and Negatives for more details.

Dermetar

Derived from dérmend “true” and the -har suffix for adverbs. Commonly used as a stand-alone expression, or alongside glan, as in Glan, dermetar.

Momrondle

Derived from móme “meal” and róndle “delicious”. It's an abbreviation of some phrase like Momewer umbur rondle! “This meal is delicious!” Tallfellow uses meals as metaphors for periods of time or experiences, so that a pleasant experience is a delicious meal. You thus congratulate someone by saying that the meal associated with whatever they did is delicious, i.e. today is a good day because they were successful.

Ho mawu rondle

Again, Tallfellow's food metaphors are at play here. máwu means to eat, but metaphorically also to spend time or have an experience, because meals are periods of time and the experiences that happen in those periods. As stated above, róndle means “delicious”, and in Tallfellow all adjectives can be used as nouns; rondle by itself means something like “a delicious one”. And ho is used to indicate a command or exhortation, as in “Sit down!” or “Let's eat!” in English (Tallfellow doesn't really distinguish between the two).

So, putting that together, ho mawu rondle means “Eat a delicious one!”, referring to an experience, period of time, day, etc. Thus, it can be translated as “Have a good day!” or “Have a good time!” or similar.

Ho suti ropar

As stated above, ho is used for commands and exhortations and súti means “sleep”. rópar “well” comes from róm “good” and the ever-present -har suffix. So the literal meaning of ho suti ropar is “sleep well!”

If you aren't used to how Tallfellow's aspirated consonants can occur in the middle of a word, learning ho suti ropar is a decent way to practice it, as the expression contains both of the aspirated stops in Tallfellow (t and p), and both are in the middle of a word rather than at the beginning as they would be in English.

Eber ho fangore

In this expression, éber is the word for “road” and fángore means “continue", so remembering that ho is used for commands and exhortations, this can be translated as “let the road continue”. Traditionally, this was used only when meeting travelers or traveling oneself, as traditional hobind communities are quite close knit; there was little cause to wish anyone from your own town goodbye when they lived in the house next door. Thus, the reference to a road, although there is also metaphorical significance to traveling the road of life.

It should be noted that, in its full form, eber ho fangore suggests that you don't expect to see the other person again, or at least not any time soon, similarly to French adieu. So it's not appropriate if you're going to see someone again tomorrow. In that case, you may shorten the phrase to the more casual ho fangore, although this is a more recent and nontraditional expression. Or, use one of the other expressions above such as ho suti ropar (if appropriate) or ho mawu rondle, etc.

(Return to the main Tallfellow page, or to the list of lessons; or, try the Memrise course associated with these lessons.)