Tinxirean

From Langmaker

Conlang	Tinzirean
Author	Ah Puch -- formerly known as Accard
Year Began	2003
Language Type	fictional language
Lexicon Size	About 2000 words at the moment.
Etymologies	No
Grammar	Yes; but it is out of date
Sample Texts	Yes; though not on the internet
Primer	No

Tinzirean is the main language of Tinzir. It is supposed to be a language of culture, warfare, religion, and decadence in general: heavy-sounding, like a hammer falling on an anvil, and slightly long-winded.

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Language sources

Tinzirean bears some semblance to native American languages, but I have been inspired by various tongues from all over the world. The syntax borrows the ergativity from Dyirbal and Georgian and the split-S tendencies from, among others, Pomo, Acehnese, Guaraní and Georgian yet again. The animacy was probably subconsciously influenced by Sumerian and what little I know about Navajo grammar. Clause chaining comes from Kusunda, an isolate (once?) spoken in Nepal -- but the phenomenon apparently exist in a lot of neighbouring languages -- and the treatment of subclauses has been to a certain extent inspired by Yukaraké, another isolate, this time spoken in Bolivia.

The verbs are complex and my sources of inspiration include Yukaraké for the applicatives, Sumerian for the person marking, Chukchi and Hopi, Tamil, Yukaghir and a host of Meso- and South American languages. The nouns draw primarily from Nahuatl and Finnish, although some things are borrowed from what I know about South American native languages, such as Hixkaryana.

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Design principles

It's a heavily agglutinative that in some respects attempts to emulate various South American indigenous tongues. Verbs belong to four categories; one of those requires split-S marking rather than ergative/accusative marking, whereas the rest of the language is split-ergative. The usage of incorporation and application is widespread.

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