OT2.0

An eclectic language created from texts from the Teach Yourself language books, originally produced by the English Universities Press, latterly by Hodder and Stoughton.

The guiding principle was to take foreign language words from the contents pages of each grammar and use them as the basis of an imaginary language. Also used were irregularities affecting verbs and nouns, etc., and descriptions of courtesy language (notably, Japanese, Samoan and Modern Persian).

The language creator is Andrew Smith.

Details of the language speakers and culture are speculative as yet. My working name for the language is Shennian. Shente is the word for 'people, race, gentiles,' and the adjective shenni is derived from that as an ethnonym. The native name of the language is shennya and 'to talk Shennian' is bāhant shennyon, literally talk-language Shennian-thing.'

Clues about the Shennian culture emerge from their vocabulary. Their language has a respect-based hierarchy. Their religious tradition has a sky-father god, Yeuh. They are sabbatarians with ascetic religious leaders - monks, hermits and mendicants. They use words for technology with which we are familiar. Their history includes a period of expansion. Currently they are eclipsed by a global super-culture whom they call the Yimbi.

Shennian Lexicon

Pronunciation

Consonants:

	labial	dental	alveolar	postalveolar	palatal	velar	glottal
unvoicedstops	p	t				k
voiced stops	b	d				g
affricates				tʃ
unvoiced fricatives	f		s	ʃ
voiced fricatives	v						h
nasals	m	n				ŋ
lateral			l
approximant			ɹ
semivowels	w				j

Vowels:

OT2.0 has the vowels /i ɛ a ʉ ɔ ɑ/.

Orthography:

In the latin alphabet:

a b ch d e f g h i k l m n ng o p r s sh t u v w y

In the Kiriva, the Shennian alphabet:

a b g d e dy ā ty y k l m n s o p ch r sh t y

The Kiriva, the writing, is a Semitic-based script, not yet adapted into an available font. Some letters are written with pointing to mark a sound change.

The long vowels U, Ō and I are written as abjads either written with pointing over a previous consonant or over a short-A.

The short-A is called Aliv.

NG is written as Gim marked with a nasal.

H is written as a superscript letter called half-Āta. It is inserted between Āta and Tyeta in dictionary practice but not listed in the sequence of the alphabet.

The Kiriva has two writing styles. Cursive script is the default script. Square script is used for names and proper nouns. Shennian writing style alternates between both forms. Not knowing where to change into square script appears clumsy and uneducated, over-using square script feels like reading official, formal language.

There Is

Ten āyet, it is, there is a..., there are, that is, which takes a direct object. This may be singular or plural, so ten āyet means 'there is' or 'there are'. It is a common and useful expression, used in making statements, not when an object is pointed out. It is also used in interrogative sentences when it translates 'is there', 'are there'.

Belyet-ten monog a westwi ni kedan rata? Are there many shops on this street?

Belyet-ten maragan pa keten? Is there a market around here?

Ten āyet kudnan maragan ni keye, there is no market in this village.

'There was, there were' is normally Ten we dunide, literally 'there happened'. In 'there will be', ten āyet becomes ten we dunyet, literally 'there will happen'.

Ten we dunide byestan ku Yoanu, There was a party at Yoanah’s house.

Ten we duniden beint ore pena byesta, There were twenty people at the party.

Sok ten we dunyet branion, Tomorrow there will be a meeting.

Ten we dunyet monog e lyudi pena branion, There will be many people at the meeting.

The third person moves to the head of the sentence and has existential force to mean ‘there is, there are’.

Iet udnon puron ni tye bene, there is a city in the mountains.

A belyet payon nisha keten? Is there any blessing beyond this?

Iet keten, this is, this is true, this is so.

The third person ending -(e)t is silent in spoken Shennian.

Ten in ten āyet is considered the secondary subject and the real subject is the noun or pronoun that comes after the verb:

Ten we dunide Yoanah, it was Yoanah

Ten we dunide Olka, it was Olka

Ten we dunide no'rāmban, it was only the beginning

Ten we duniden sestrega yeyi, they were her sisters

Hisal

Hisal means ‘to arise, to come into existence:

Ya histen-lā pena keten payade tolke, and on this point there are stanzas

Ishipena ōga hist samōn, from anger arises delusion