Thropoi Phonology

The phonology of Thropoi is pretty standard, with one or two exceptions.

Consonants


p b t d th k
p b t d θ~ð k

f v w s z sh zh

f v w~ʋ s z ʃ ʒ

m n l r j
m n* l r** j

* <n> is /ŋ/ before k
** <r> is /ɹ/ when not followed by a vowel

Vowels


a á o ó i í
ɐ a ɔ o ɪ i

u ú ü e é ë
u y ʏ ɛ e *

The last vowel is the most interesting. It is generally not pronounced. You could consider it a mix between a glottal stop and a /ə/. For instance, "darëthi" ('my') is pronounced [dɐɹθɪ], [dɐɹəθɪ] or [dɐrəθɪ]. The combination "të ... të" would be [tə ... tə] in most cases.

When a vowel is followed or preceded by an ë, the ë is omitted. E.g. 'mano'+'ëth' > "manoth" ('I have'). When there is a word break in between, the ë remains visually, but is not pronounced. For instance, "atë átallëth" ('and I eat') would be [ɐ:ta:tɐlθ].

Alternatively, you could write the <ë> as <'>. For instance "at' átallëth" or even "at' átall'th".

Thropoi

Thropoi is the (temporary?) name for my new 'artlang' (artistic language). It is derived from the first word that sprang to mind when coming up with this lang, which was "thropos". It means 'bull', though I'm not quite sure what effects that has on the meaning of 'Thropoi'.

Anyhow, let's look at a couple of sentences I assembled:

Anthonos sín darëthi prádo. Tas mano vesem mannin akot shánide. Tasta të tamen të rapu etet nají Frankarërne, jatem ain rutarevt.

It's supposed to mean the following:

Anthony is my friend. He has a great house near the sea. His mother and father went to France, but have not returned.

 Let's disect that, shall we?

• Anthonos - "Anthony" [name, masc. nom. sg., o-base] from Anthonos
• sín - "is" [verb, 3rd sg. act., present simple, indi.] from sín
• darëthi - "my" [pronoun, general possessive sg., consonant-base] from dar
• prádo - "friend" [n., general predicative sg., o-base] from prádo
• tas - "he" [pn., masc. nom. sg., a-base] from tas
• mano - "have" [v., 3rd sg. act., present simple, indi.] from mano
• vesem - "house" [n., neuter acc. sg., c.-base] from ves
• mannin - "big" [adjective, neut. acc. sg., o-base] from manno
• akot - "near" [preposition]
• shánide - "sea" [n., neut. locative sg., o-base] from sháno
• tasta - "his" [pn., masc. poss. sg., a-base] from tas
• të - "and" [conjunction] (always appears in pairs or groups)
• tamen - "mother" [n., fem. nom. sg., e-base] from tamen
• të - "and" [conjunction]
• rapu - "father" [n., masc. nom. sg, u-base] from rapu
• etet - "went" [v., 3rd pl. monovalent, past simple, indi.] from eta
• nají - "to" [preposition]
• Frankarërne - "France" [nm., neut. lative sg., c.-base] from Frankar
• jatem - "but" [conjunction]
• ain - "not" [adverb]
• rutarevt - "have returned" [v., 3rd pl. mon., present perfect] from rutaro

Phew, that's quite a list.

As you might have noticed, Thropoi has a lot of different conjugations: there are 4 genders, 13 cases, 4 numbers and 5 bases (leaving you with 1040 noun-conjugations), 3 tenses, 3 aspects, 4 voices, 8 persons and 8 moods (resulting in 2304 verb-conjugations, although some are impossible).

This is of course on purpose. The aim of this particular lang is purely art; I want to have a language that one can only interpret and produce with a dictionary at hand. Where my other langs are often quite simple, this is a language that is ridiculously complex, just for the sake of it.