Tomish English
Tomish English is the official language of Tomathon. It is a dialect of English. Tomish English is very similar to Standard English, and the main differences occur in written Tomish English.
Regional dialects within Tomish English vary, and there is no "standard" Tomish English. One dialect of Tomish English varies as much from another as it does from Standard English. To complicate matters further, Laird Tom often speaks in British English. However, the dialect most often considered to be "official" is that used in the capital, New London.
Some of the differences from Standard English which seem to exist in most dialects are:
- As in languages such as Spanish, Tomish English uses inverted exclaimation or question marks before exclamatory and interrogative clauses. For example: ¡Tomish English is fantastic!
- The word its, as in belonging to it, is written its'
- Compound words are non-existent, but may exist with a hyphen in. For example, blackboard is black-board. A few accepted compounds such as today still exist, however.
- Verbs that are created in standard English, especially American English, by turning a noun into a verb (such as editor) are not used in Tomish English. Instead, the title for the job is often created by adding worker after the name of the job they do. For example an editor would be an edit-worker in Tomish.
Regional words are plentiful, with a great number being recognised in most of Tomathon. Many of these are simply standard English words backwards, where they mean the opposite of what the standard word means.
- Hsimot (pronounced Hismot), Tomish backwards, slang (and slightly offensive term) for a foreigner.
- Drial, Laird backwards, slang for the underclass, or someone who is poor, or uncultured, or with bad manners, etc.
- Dab, bad backwards, and a slang term of approval for something. For example, you may say that one of Laird Tom's new policies is "absolutely dab", meaning that you very much approve of it.
