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 as yet unknown.

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 ɪ e ɛ a ʉ ʊ ɔ ɑ/. i, e, ʉ are always long and are written with a circumflex. a can be long or short and is written with an accent. ɔ is considered as a long ɑ and also written with an accent.

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

The 'original' conscript for OT2.0 is as yet unknown.

to be

The present tense of 'to be' is as follows:

me mi	I am	meme en	we are
te si	you (sg) are	tete ti	you (pl) are
ta ti	he is	ga en (ti)	they are

The pronouns for 'she' and 'it' are da and ten respectively. If the subject is a plural noun, the verb form is ti rather than en.

In older literature the forms of the verb for 'we are' and 'they are' are emo and eno. These forms are not used in the spoken language.

The past tense of 'to be' is

me oira	I was	meme oiren	we were
te oirasi	you (sg) were	tete oirate	you (pl) were
ta oirat	he was	ga oiren (oirat)	they were

The past tense of 'to be' translates both 'I have been' and 'I was' It can also acts as an auxiliary.

The negative verb marker is a clitic. After a consonant it is shim, after a vowel him.

me ve tehim

I was not

meme ve enshim

we were not

As an independent word shim means 'nothing'.

The future tense of 'to be' is

me ve bude	I will be	meme ve budun	we will be
te ve budesi	you (sg) will be	tete ve budete	you (pl) will be
ta ve bud	he will be	ga ve budun (bud)	they will be

Ve is described as a non-present participle that is placed between the subject and a past or future verb. It is not used with oira, but it is used with bude