Lesson #1: view article

Tiian, you need to first understand how it is written. In these early lessons, I will introduce a few characters at a time in order to avoid simply expecting you memorize an intimidating chart. Know that Tiian is written with a syllabary, which (unless you study Japanese or Cherokee) is probably not a type of writing system you are very familiar with. The next paragraph exists purely to explain syllabaries; feel free to skip it! After some orthography, we'll start going over some basic grammar and vocabulary so that you can begin understanding and speaking Tiian.

[top]New Orthography

In a syllabary, it is the syllables that are represented, rather than the individual phonemes. If this were applied to the English sentence "I think you're an asshole," it would be written with a symbol to represent each of these blocks: /aɪ/ /θɪŋk/ /jɔɹ/ /ən/ /æs/ /hoʊl/. Obviously, this would not be an efficient system for a language like English, with its immense number of syllables; however, for languages with a simpler syllable structure, it can be an effective method. Syllabaries tend to express a maximum of (C)V, and have few if any exceptions. Thus, they work best with languages with syllable structures that are very restricted, preferably CV maximum. Tiian falls into this pattern.

Tiian's syllable structure is (C)V(V), thus making it so that the charts following need only represent CV. The vowels run from left to right; the initial consonants are marked down the side of the chart.

In this first lesson, you will learn the syllables for the simple vowels (without consonants), and just enough others to make a simple phrase.

	a	i	u	e	o
~	ア	イ	ウ	エ	オ
-	ァ	ィ	ゥ	ェ	ォ

The ~ line is the full vowels, those that represent the nucleus of a syllable and have no attached consonant. The - line is half vowels; their shapes are identical to those of the full vowels, and they are merely smaller. Half vowels are used to mark vowel lengthening and the endings of dipthongs. When using CWS to type from Latin characters to Tiian, the rule it uses is very simple: any vowel which comes directly after another vowel is marked as being a half vowel. To avoid this, use a seperator (grave, on the same key as tilde:` ). Remember these five shapes.

Now, we have five more lines for this first lesson.

	a	i	u	e	o
t	タ	チ	ツ	テ	ト
k	カ	キ	ク	ケ	コ
f	バ	ビ	ブ	ベ	ボ
s	サ	シ	ス	セ	ソ
r	ラ	リ	ル	レ	ロ

These are the t, k, f, s, and r lines. In each case, each syllable is made up for the consonant from which line it is in, and the vowel for its column. The t, k, f, and s lines all correspond with their IPA values; the r line has a value of /ɾ/. The realization [r] is relatively common among non-native speakers.

I am going to present one additional syllable without presenting the rest of its line, as it is somewhat indispensable: the syllable マ, or ma. Below it will become clear why it is near-impossible to make sentences without this syllable.

[top]Grammar

Sound out the following phrase (note that there are no spaces or punctuation in Tiian writing, and it goes in the same direction as the Latin alphabet):

チィリコセィシバテ

When you think you are pronouncing it correctly, open up the section below for more information about it.

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Now, you may note a couple things about the phrase.

Firstly, the translation has a subject that would be the word "I" but the gloss doesn't have anything that would serve as a subject. This is because in Tiian, pronouns can be omitted entirely. This is not like Spanish or Latin, where subject pronouns can be omitted as they are marked on the verb, but like Japanese. When a pronoun is omitted, it is left entirely to context. Note that this applies to all pronouns in any grammatical position, not merely the subject of a verb.

Secondly, the order of the sentence. The object (which carries an accusative particle シ, more on those below) comes before the verb, as in Latin or Japanese. This is because the basic order in Tiian is subject-object-verb. You will get more practice with this soon.

Thirdly, note that each noun is marked for case. How case works is outlined in many places, and thus here I will not attempt to reinvent the wheel. Case is marked by nominal particles; in the phrase above, the syllables コ and シ. There are quite a few of these, but the first four are discussed in vocabulary.

Penultimately, examine the structure used in place of the English verb "speak-" "make the tongue of (people)." This is used for all languages. Generally, foreign proper nouns are taken as loanwords and adapted to fit Tiian phonological structures. This includes proper nouns from Earth (which would be nonexistent in actual Tiian, but hey- creative liberties). Thus, if you were going to say "I speak English," it would be "(I) make (the) tongue of (the) English people." inokolisiri-ko sei-si fa te.

Finally, note the very last syllable, which is its own word and not marked as having a clear English meaning. This is a verbal particle, and all sentences in normal conversation have these particles, which come at the very end of a phrase. The two most basic verbal particles are in the vocabulary below.

[top]Vocabulary

NOT YET DONE
Note that these are presented in the appropriate Tiian order, paralleling our alphabetical orders. Each line has its place, with pure vowels first; within each line, the sequence is "a - i - u - e - o" (which happens to be the same as in Japanese). The vocab should contain only syllables that have already been learned.
To self: add i, o; `a, `e, `o; ki, ku; fi, fu, fe; so; ru, re

Tiian	English
アコ	but
ウケ	and
エ	vocative nominal particle
チィ	culture which speaks Tiian
ツロ	yes¹
テ	yeah¹
カテ	happy
カト	be happy
カロィ	love²
コ	genitive nominal particle
コラタィ	woman
コラテ	feminine
コラト	be a woman
マ	nominative verbal particle
バ	make
ボラ	my parent
サゥ	friend³
サゥラ	friend³
シ	accusative nominal particle
スラタィ	man
スラテ	masculine
スラト	be a man
セィ	tongue
リ	"culture" suffix
ロィ	know

¹Technically, the distinction is that ツロ is honorific and テ is not, but for most purposes the distinction can be considered one of formality. These words are used both as verbal particles for affirmative sentences and as affirmative responses to polar questions (analogous to the English "yes," French "oui," Spanish "sí," etc).
²This can be used to describe the love of a friend. Different terms would be used to describe the love of a family member or the love of a romantic partner.
³サゥラ is more formal than サゥ.

[top]More Grammar

Yes, I know, you thought you were done. The earlier stuff is an important and good introduction to the ordinary Tiian sentence, but before you move on to the translations, you need to understand a couple of things which differ from English. Specifically, I'd like to talk about predicate nominals and predicative adjectives. In English, these are extremely similar to each other: a predicate nominal is a sentence like "I am a student" or "they are giants," and predicative adjectives are sentences like "I am smart" and "they are giant." You can probably see the distinctions and similarities: In one, the object is a noun, and in the other the object is an adjective; both types of sentences have that nice, convenient verb "to be" inserted.

Predicate nominals in Tiian are probably understand than predicative adjectives, so I'll start with the easier one. The subject takes the マ particle, the object takes the シ particle, you do not include a verb and end the phrase with a verbal particle. Thus, "I am a student" would literally be "I-マ student-シ yes." Again, pronouns are optional, so it could even be just "student-シ yes."

Predicative adjectives, however, are significantly different. Not difficult, just different. They are they verbs you see above like "be happy" and "be a woman" (which is nominal in English, but adjectival in Tiian). The subject takes a マ particle; the verb acts as a verb (which happens to have an adjectival meaning); and then the verbal particle. Most of these adjectives are "to" (pronounced like "toe) verbs, which have special properties we will go into later, but you can already see the beginning of it from the vocab: the verbal form ends in ト, an adjectival form ends in テ, and a nominal form ends in タィ. Thus, "I am smart" would be "I-マ be.smart yes" or simply "be.smart yes."

[top]Translations

NOT YET DONE
Translate the Tiian phrases into English, and vice versa. Answers are in the hidden section.

English - Tiian:
Use the formal in sentences 1 through 5; use the informal in sentences 6 through 10.
1. And (I) am happy
2. My parent's friend speaks Tiian
3. (I) love (you), friend
4. (he) is a man
5. My father (masculine parent) is happy
6. (the) woman speaks Tiian
7. (the) woman is (a) friend
8. My parent knows (my) happy friend
9. (my) friend knows my mother
10. But (I) am a woman

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	a	i	u	e	o
t	タ	チ	ツ	テ	ト
k	カ	キ	ク	ケ	コ
f	バ	ビ	ブ	ベ	ボ
s	サ	シ	ス	セ	ソ
r	ラ	リ	ル	レ	ロ

	a	i	u	e	o
t	タ	チ	ツ	テ	ト
k	カ	キ	ク	ケ	コ
f	バ	ビ	ブ	ベ	ボ
s	サ	シ	ス	セ	ソ
r	ラ	リ	ル	レ	ロ

	a	i	u	e	o
t	タ	チ	ツ	テ	ト
k	カ	キ	ク	ケ	コ
f	バ	ビ	ブ	ベ	ボ
s	サ	シ	ス	セ	ソ
r	ラ	リ	ル	レ	ロ