Laytal (Látal or Létal)
Spoken in:	Star City and Dotjxraomm
Total speakers:	Approximately 7 billion First Speakers
Genetic classification:	Creole Atlantic South High Létal Low Látal
Official status
Official language of:	1 country
Regulated by:	Te Kotjnnó Látal (The House of Laytal)
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	le
ISO 639-2:	let

Laytal is an Atlantic-South language spoken in Star City and Dotjxraomm. The two native spellings Látal and Létal are often used to distinguish the two dialects used in the aforementioned locations.

There is political pressure in Dotjxraomm for Middle Laytal to be considered a language in light of Orthographical and Grammatical reforms in Látal.

The name "Létal" is though to have arrived through a contracted corruption of the Old Létal "kletj-tlan" ("among people") -> klɛtʃtɬɑ -> lɛtɬɑ -> létal - roughly meaning shared language.

Colloquially, the language is known as Rotj-Gaju, a translation of the Hâgú phrase Sââ-gú (Red Voice) used by the ancient inhabitants of the islands to describe the Romans (due to their red dye). The archaic name Hellenic Lip (Old Létal: Labiso Grekam) originated from a misunderstanding when explorers believed Je akúptojó (I don't understand) to be Greek.

From the late-18th Century onwards, the South languages came into increasing contact with the Japanese and Slavic languages amongst many others. The vocabulary differs substantially from the solidly Germanic and Romance one of Old Létal.

Old Forms

Arxe Ardemesénn

Orthography, Phonology and Grammar

Tatlasiragaki, Aodiótjalab tó Domsiñtak

Old Laytal

Arxelétal

Old Laytal is resident in the Atlantic group whereas the later languages are branches of this.

Vowels
A	E	O	U	Form
ä/aa [ɑ]	e [ɛ]	o [ɒ]	u [ʌ]	Base
a [e]	i [ɪ]	ó [o]	ú [ə]	Secondary
ã [ã]	ë/ee [i]	õ [õ]	ö/oo [u]	Tertiary

The semi-organised vowel system reflects the wide influences from which the Laytal languages draw.

There were around 40 Consonants and the Latin alphabet was adapted with various diacritics and digraphs in an ad hoc manner. /ŋ/ was written as 'ng' as in English, but attempts at one-to-one correspondence resulted in 'n' (and /n/ became 'nn'). A similair system did not arise for palatalization, where instead a 'ý' (the diacritic distinguishing it from a consonantal 'y') was suffixed to the intended letter (as ɲ being 'nn' which would have clashed).

Mini-Swadesh List

The       lý
I         je / ye
you (s)   vaa

Middle Laytal

Létal

Middle Laytal drastically reformed the vowel setup. ɛ, ɪ and ʌ merged into ə and õ was dropped. 'a' changed to 'é', 'ë' to 'i' and 'oo' to 'u'. The same Dimension table is used as in the Late-Modern language.

An attempted reform for palatalisation in 1895 resulted in a dictionary being published with initial 'y's being changed to 'h' (rather than 'ý's). As the /h/ sound still existed at the time, it was presumed a sound change had occured. Though the erroneous spellings were corrected, initial 'y's are subsequently pronounced as /h/.

The most famous piece of literature in Star City was written in Middle Laytal. It is a poem called Raztrati Dri Altidpoli (Battle of Evermore) which was published in 1885.

Changes

Palatalising '-h', taken from Portuguese, was finally introduced in 1896.
'dq' was introduced to distinguish the 'th's (tq) used in English loanwords.
Initial 'd's frequently become Voiced retroflex plosive /ɖ/ when followed by a consonant.

Mini-Swadesh List

The       teh
I         ye
you (s)   ta

Modern Laytal

Látal Fragukatj

The language regulatory body approved the full Noun-Case system in 1931 which split the langage between the forms spoken in Dotjxraomm (Middle) and Star City (Modern) - the High and Low classifications are named after the respective geographical locations. Originally, the noun cases and spelling differences were the only differences between the two. However, Létal has interacted significantly with the Q-Celtic derived language Lacaidh which has led to greater seperation.

Mini-Swadesh List

The       te (n)
I         yó
you (s)   ðao

Current Language

Létal

Late-Middle (JaLétal) has been significantly influenced by the now extinct Celtic-Atlantic language Lacaidh.

Vowels
A	E	I	O	U	Flavour
a [ɑ]		i [ɪ]	o [ɒ]		Greenwhich
é [e]	e [ə]	í [i]	ó [o]	u [u]	Arthurian
â [ɑɹ]	ê [ɝ]	î [ɛɹ]	ô [ɒɹ]	û [ʊɹ]	UnRamachandran

To be Finished

Tenses

Where 'X' is the initial consonant:

Past = Xý(í)... X^h
Present = Xc(í)... X^s
Future = Xw(í)... X^w

to travel - tokcó
travelled = týokcó
travelling = tcokcó
will travel = twokcó

To be Finished

Grammatical Prepositions

Case	Example	Translation
Locative
Inessive	vr kotj	inside (a/the) house
Illative	vr a kotj	into (a/the) house
Elative	ekc kotj	out of (a/the) house
Adessive 1	pan kotj	on (a/the) house
Allative	pann a kotj	onto (a/the) house
Ablative	of dri kotj	off of (a/the) house
Other
Essive	koma kotj	as (a/the) house
Comitative	avek kotj	with (a/the) house(s)
Abessive	évek kotj	without (a/the) house
Terminative	a kotj	up to (a/the) house
Instructive	ud vãodahtj	by telephone
Prolative	dhabatc kotj	through (a/the) house
Excessive	ekc kotj a drev	from house to home
Distributive	afé kotj	per house
Causal	aya kotj	for (a/the) house(s)
Causal-emotive	vata drug	because of anger

Látal

Late-Modern (Látal JaFragukatj) has largely concerned itself with the elimination of orthographical anomolies.

/ɛ/ has re-emerged in the past half-century as a variant of /ə/. Thus, 'e' is now /ɛ/ and the former value of /ə/ is now 'é'. This forced The House to introduce 'á' for the displaced 'é' (/e/). /õ/ has also reappeared recently with no commotion along with the new 'vq' (see Phonology below).

Due to the semi-frequent tendency for multiple 'n's to appear together (which had previously led to the plural genetive becoming 'mó'), The House replaced the Latin transcription 'nn' with the Spanish 'ñ' (except for grammatical affixes) - largely because 'ñ' indicated two n's in the Latin rootword (eg: annum > año)

After studies showed literacy would improve with all-noun capitalisation, Te Kotjnnó Látal agreed and promptly implemented it.

Phonology

Aodiótjalab

Vowels
A	E	I	O	U	Dimension
a [ɑ]	e [ɛ]		o [ɒ]		First
á [e]	é [ə]	i [i]	ó [o]	u [u]	Second
ã [ã]			õ [õ]		Third

The Alphabet
A	V	B	K	G	D	T	Ch	J	E	Kh	I
alba [ɑ]	votjá [v]	páte [p]	kamao [k]	gamao [g]	daoleþ [d]	taoleþ [t]	tjeta [tʃ]	jamu [dʒ]	ema [ɛ]	xok [x]	ima [i]
álba [e]	fotjá [f]	báte [b]	kcamão [ks]	gcamão [gz]	dcaoleþ [dz]	tsaoleþ [ts]			éma [ə]	kqok [qx]
ãlba [ã]	vqotjá ¹

The Alphabet (Continued)
Y	L	M	N	O	R	S	Sh	Th	Tl	U	W
yi [j]	lamba [l]	mwá [m]	ñoñ [n]	omikra [ɒ]	ró [r]	samal [s]	sqomol [ʃ]	þita [θ]	tláta [tɬ]	umikra [u]	walaþ [w]
			noñ [ŋ]	ómikra [o]	xró [ʁ]	zamal [z]	zqomol [ʒ]	ðita [ð]	pleta [pɬ]		whilaþ [ʍ]
				õmikra [õ]

¹ Voiced Labiodental Fricative articulated with the upper lips and the lower teeth.

First row letters indicate the base form in the native alphabetic script.
The only diphthongs are "ao" [ɑʊ] and "ão" [ãʊ].
Suffixing "h" to the desired phoneme palatalises.

Numbers

Rivrénn

0 ziró
1 koz
2 kepl
3 trah
4 tetra
5 þinkó
6 égcé
7 zita
8 okt
9 nófem
10 desimal
11 onzañ

12 dézañ
13 trahdesi...
16 xekcidekc...
20 kepsa
21 kepasakoz...
30 trasi
40 tetrasi
50 þigasi
60 étjasi
70 zikasi
80 ojasi
90 nóvasi

No numbers above 99 (nor below 0) exist as these can be manufactured through SI based orders of magnitude.

Yota 10²⁴
Hepa 10²¹
Jika 10¹⁸
Pémti 10¹⁵
Tira 10¹²
Giga 10⁰⁹
Miga 10⁰⁶
Xila 10⁰³
Ektom 10⁰²

Sañti 10^-02
Milá 10^-03
Mikró 10^-06
Dvar 10^-09
Pitjé 10^-12
Femta 10^-15
Atta 10^-18
Zéfda 10^-21
Oxdi 10^-24

For example, 125 = 1.25 Ektom.

Ordinals are formed by suffixing -pla to the intended number.

Orthography

Tatlasiragaki

Scripts

To Be Finished

Capitalisation

All nouns are capitalised.

Punctuation

Punctuation follows the Spanish model. Most notable are the inverted question and exclamation marks which precede exclamatory and interrogative sentences:

Help!   What?
¡Yão!   ¿Ká?

Grammar

DomSiñtak

Whereas vocabulary is primarily derived from Indo-European languages, the Noun cases in particular derive from the Finno-Ugric languages.

The order in which affixes are applied is the order in which those affixes appear below, though the first affix may be out of order if it is applied for emphasis. The affix order also excludes plural agents, ax.énn, and any plurals, where -énn is always final.

Pronouns

Personal Pronouns and Conjugations

I = Yó, Yuþ = I am
We = Ñami, Ñaþ = We are
You = ðao (singular), ðaþ = You are
You = Ti (plural), Tiþ = You are
He = Nhés, Nhéþz = He is
She = Nhév, Nhéþf = She is
It = Nhu, Nhuþ = It is
They = þés, þéþ = They are
One = Uñ, Uñþ = One is

Demonstrative & Interrogative Pronouns

To Be Written

Inflexion

Skitão

In the following:

-(C) indicates that the final consonant is repeated if the word ends with a vowel
-(V) indicates that the final vowel is repeated if the word ends with a consonant
(v), where "v" is a vowel, indicates that the vowel is dropped if the word ends with any vowel except "é"

Article

There is no indefinite article or zero article and grammatical gender is found only in articles.

Definite (Neuter) = Te
Definite (Masculine) = Tev
Definite (Feminine) = Tef
Partitive = Ró

Noun

Nouns have no forms unlike adjectives, verbs and adverbs; though proper nouns are preceeded by wa. If one wishes to preserve the spelling and sound of a foreign word in Romanised text, one can prefix it with Ser-.

Plurality = -(C)énn
Negation = á-
Agent = (Verb)-(C)ax (Masc), -(C)av (Fem), -(C)aj (Neut)
Tool = (Verb)-(C)ahtj
State = -(V)st
Result of a Verb = -(C)ão

Noun Cases

Case	Affix	Example	Translation
Grammatical
Nominative	-	kotj	house
Genitive	-nnó (s)/-mó (pl)	kotjnnó	of (a/the) house
Dative	-inn	kotjinn	house
Accusative	-m	kotjom	house
Locative
Inessive	itra-	prakotj	inside (a/the) house
Illative	-éza	ezakotj	into (a/the) house
Elative	ekc-	ekcekotj	out of (a/the) house
Adessive 1	nha-	nhakotj	on (a/the) house
Adessive 2	nhe-	nhekotj	alongside (a/the) house
Adessive 3	nho-	nhokotj	near (a/the) house
Allative	li-	likotj	onto (a/the) house
Ablative	lo-	lokotj	off of (a/the) house
Other
Essive	sim-	simkotj	as (a/the) house
Comitative	vek-	vekotj	with (a/the) house(s)
Abessive	is-	iskotj	without (a/the) house
Terminative	noh-	nohkotj	up to (a/the) house
Instructive	vah-	vahzvãodahtj	by telephone
Prolative	tca-	tcakotj	through (a/the) house
Excessive	-nnt	kotjonnt nohdrev	from house to home
Distributive	-plann	kotjplann	per house
Distributive-temporal	-plat	solplat	per day
Causal	zig-	zigikotj	for (a/the) house(s)
Causal-emotive	zik-	zikdrug	because of anger
Benefactive	pok-	pokjinnenn	for the benefit of mankind
Translative	-vqi	ditlofafénnvqi...	considering the factors...

Adjective

Base Adjective = -(a)tj
Comparative Adjective = -(a)tji
Superlative Adjective = -(a)tju

To Be Finished

Verb

Verb form = -(C)ó
- A root word ending in -a/ão becomes -a/ãó, but the pronunciation does not change

Person

The first through third are used when pronouns are dropped. The fifth person may be used to elaborate when describing the weather.

First person = -(C)éxþ
Second person = -(C)ezd
Third person = -(C)éð
Fourth person = -(C)u
Fifth person = -(C)etc

When one flies...
Kum tubuóu...
Kum tubu-ó-u...
When fly.verb.4thp

Aspect

Capacity (can) = d(i)-
Permissive (may) = pl(e)-
Willingness (will) = dh(a)-
Futurity (shall) = zl(i)-
Habitual (every day) = -(V)sk

You can run...
ðao dilopépó...
ðao di-lopé-pó...
You.si can.run.verb

Tenses

Present = r(a)-
Past = p(e)-
Future = s(e)-

Moods

Imperative (command) = -(V)dhó
Conditional (would) = -(C)vi
Hypothetical (could) = -(V)jil

If I could fly...
Maz yó mosójil...
Maz yó mos-ó-jil...
If I fly.verb.hypo

Evidentiality

Sensory
- Direct experience = unmarked
- Sensory observation = -ãra
Quotative
- Inference = -ága
- Hearsay = -ron

John supposedly eats penguins
Joñ mañsquénném redóron
Joñ mañsqu-énn-ém red-ó-ron
Subj penguin.pl.obj present.verb.rumour

Adverb

Base Adverb = -(a)tf
Comparative Adverb = -(a)tfi
Superlative Adverb = -(a)tfu

Word Order

Zqlaobnnó Dadcu

All sentences, including questions, are written in the SOV order with adjectives following the noun.

The man destroyed the blue house
Tev añdros kotj kuraþaotj pepasñdáló
Te-v añdros kotj kuraþao-tj pe-pasñdál-ó
The.masc man house blue.adj past.destroyed.verb

As an SOV language, additonal phrases conform to Time-Manner-Place order.

Tomorrow, I will be the first person to travel to Paris by aeroplane for the benefit of my health.
Tef jinn kozplatj sohvasol vahluxtbaluinn yónnó pokÑázqesem setõkcóexþ nohParis
Te-f jinn koz-pla-tj sohva-sol vah-luxtbalu-inn yónnó pok-Ñázqes-em se-tõkc-ó-exþ noh-Paris
The.fem person one.ord.adj next.day instruc.aeroplane.indirobj I.genetive benefac.health.dirobj
fut.travel.verb.1p termin.Paris

Common Phrases

Steñzazénn Sóvalatj

Laytal: - Látal -
Hello: - Kahsó -
Goodbye: - Yét jatfi -
Please: - ¿Éreó yó? -
Thank you: - Yanko -
Sorry: - Izqvitro -
That one: Ate -
How much?: - ¿Pragc? - /pragz/
Yes: - Ahi -
No: - Nhi -
I don't understand: - Yó ákuptohó -
Where's the bathroom?: - ¿Doñdá iþ gutjxraom? -
Happy birthday - ¡Bheñu baþsol! -
How are you? - ¿ðaonnóst? -
Generic toast: - ¡Tcalu! - /tsalu/
Do you speak English?: - ¿ðao vókordó Anglaser? -

Idioms

When I hear the word "choice", I reach for my crossbow
Kum kikuóéxþ te zqlãob "alips", liatarióéxþ yónnó yagisaja-ahtj
kum kikuoəxθ tɛ ʒlãʊb ɑlips liɑtɑrioəxθ jono
jɒgisɑdʒɑ ɑɪtʃ

You have the arch (You have [power, knowledge, etc])
ðao/Ti déñé te brisk
ðɑʊ/ti dənə tɛ brisk

You are a kalashnikov (You speak powerfully)
ðao iþ wa Kalasqñikova
ðɑʊ iθ wɑ kɑlɑ&#643nikɒvɑ

Swadesh List

To Be Written

External Links

To Be Written

Laytal

Contents

Old Forms

Orthography, Phonology and Grammar

Old Laytal

Middle Laytal

Modern Laytal

Current Language

Létal

Tenses

Grammatical Prepositions

Látal

Phonology

Numbers

Orthography

Scripts

Capitalisation

Punctuation

Grammar

Pronouns

Personal Pronouns and Conjugations

Demonstrative & Interrogative Pronouns

Inflexion

Article

Noun

Noun Cases

Adjective

Verb

Person

Aspect

Tenses

Moods

Evidentiality

Adverb

Word Order

Common Phrases

Idioms

Swadesh List

External Links

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