Tibëdëyel

Tibëdëyel is a conlang spoken in Tibëdë.

Phonology

Consonants

Letter	IPA symbol(s)
b	b
c	ts
d	d
dh	ð
f	f
g	ɡ
k	k
l	l
m	m
n	n
ŋ	ŋ
p	p
q	x
s	s
sh	ʃ
t	t
th	θ
v	v
y	j
z	z

Note: There is no 'r' is Tibëdëyel- 'l' takes its place. Note 2: 'ŋ' can only appear at the end of a syllable.

Vowels

Letter	IPA symbol(s)
e	ɛ
ë	i, iɪ
i	ɪ
o	ɒ
ö	ɔɪ

Note: a word cannot end with the letter 'o'.

Grammar

Case system

Tibëdëyel uses an ergative-absolutive case system, where the subject of an intransitive verb and the object of a transitive verb are the same, but the subject of a transitive verb is different. Cases are always marked by suffixes. Tibëdëyel recognises four cases: absolutive (no suffix), ergative (-'lelë'), genitive (-'yel'), and locative (-'vib').

Word order

The most commonly used word order is Subject Verb Object, but since cases are marked it is not very important. In fact, it is not uncommon to see Verb Subject Object and Subject Object Verb, though the latter is seen as somewhat archaic by speakers (like saying words like 'thee' and 'thou' in English).

Tense

Most present tense verbs have 'a' as the last vowel sound in the word. For the past tense, 'e' is normally the last vowel sound and for future tense it is usually 'o'. There are exceptions to all three of these, but these are how the tenses are normally distinguished. An example of such an exception is 'adlavë', meaning "to want"- in this case, the second to last vowel is changed for tense.

Syllable stress

The second syllable of a word is normally stressed (e.g. Ti-BË-dë-yel).

Plurals

Words do not inflect to indicate plurals. Instead, one expresses a plural by preceding the word with the number of things, or the word 'den' (meaning- "plural", "more than one").