Classical Taot language

Classical Taot (lawa ) is a Taot language spoken in the central valleys, cols and mountainsides of the Koolpallal by the Classical Taot people. It is the direct ancestor of all modern Neo-Taot languages.

Writing systems
Classical Taot has been written down using a variety of systems during the ages, all of them based on the Koolpallalian hieroglyphs, a set of hieroglyphs first developed by an unknown culture of the central Koolpallal, further expanded by the various peoples inhabiting the region.

The most prominent system is by far the Taot abjad, consisting of 12 characters used to represent the consonants and long vowels of the language. It is the ancestor of a wide variety of different scripts throughout Noco.

Consonants

 * {| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

! colspan=2| ! Labial ! Dental/ Alveolar ! Dorsal ! Glottal ! rowspan=2 | Nasal ! short ! long ! rowspan=2 | Stop ! plain ! aspirated ! colspan=2 |Affricate ! colspan=2 | Fricative ! rowspan=2 | Approximant ! short ! long ! colspan=2 | Tap ! colspan=2 | Trill
 * + Consonant phonemes of Classical Taot
 * || n ⟨n⟩ || ||
 * || nː ⟨nn⟩ || ||
 * p ⟨p⟩ || t ⟨t⟩ || k ⟨k⟩ ||
 * pʰ ⟨ph⟩ || tʰ ⟨th⟩ || kʰ ⟨kh⟩ ||
 * || t͡s ⟨z⟩ || ||
 * || s ⟨s⟩ || || h ⟨h⟩
 * w ⟨w⟩ || l ⟨l⟩ || j ⟨y⟩ ||
 * || lː ⟨ll⟩ || ||
 * || ɾ ⟨r⟩ || ||
 * || rː ⟨rr⟩ || ||
 * }


 * [m, n̪, ŋ] are allophones of /n/ before the respective stops.
 * /t, tʰ, t͡s, l, lː, ɾ, rː/ are dental [t̪, t̪ʰ, t̪͡s̪, l̪, l̪ː, ɾ̪, r̪ː].
 * /s/ is retracted alveolar [s̠].

Vowels

 * {| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

! rowspan="2" | ! colspan="2" | Short ! colspan="2" | Long ! Front ! Back ! Front ! Back ! Close ! Open
 * + Vowel phonemes of Classical Taot
 * e ⟨e⟩
 * o ⟨o⟩
 * iː ⟨ee⟩
 * uː ⟨oo⟩
 * colspan=2 | a ⟨a⟩
 * colspan=2 | aː ⟨aa⟩
 * }
 * }

Any given word can only contain one single long vowel, every other vowel will always be short.

Phonotactics
Syllables in Classical Taot have the maximal structure of (C)V(C).


 * Any consonant may start a syllable, but only /t, k, s, t͡s, n, l, ɾ, j, w/ can end it.
 * /t͡s/ can only appear before the consonants /p, k, n, l, j, w/.
 * /nː, lː, rː/ can only appear between vowels.

Stress
A long vowel or a diphthong is always stressed. If there is none, the penultimate syllable will carry the stress. If there are both a long vowel and a diphthong, the long vowel is stressed. If there are two or more diphthongs, the last one is stressed.

Grammar
Classical Taot has a mostly isolating grammar, lacking any kind of inflection. Compound words are rather uncommon.

Morphology
Classical Taot employs zero derivation extensively in order to turn nouns into verbs, verbs into nouns or participles, adjectives into adverbs, etc. For example:


 * yot — eye, to see, sight, seen
 * nakhot — loom, to weave, woven
 * aastas — vulva, vagina, birth, to give birth, born, to be born

Nouns
Nouns in Classical Taot do not distinguish gender and do not decline for case or number

Case is expressed by means of various postpositions The most common ones are: noa ('to': allative, dative, benefactive), ool ('(because) of/from': genitive, causative, ablative) and sak ('in': locative, inessive).

Number generally is not indicated, though the plural may occasionally be expressed with the particle za ('many, much, very, more').

Adjectives
Adjectives always follow nouns and are all invariable. There are three comparison degrees: comparative, superlative and excessive. The comparative is expressed with the particle za; the superlative, by reduplicating the adjective; and the excessive, by reduplicating it and adding the particle za. For example:


 * han — big
 * han za — bigger
 * han han — the biggest
 * han han za — too big

Verbs
Verbs do not conjugate, instead, several particles and pronouns are used to express tense, aspect, mood, person and number.

Voice
Classical Taot has three main voices: active, passive and causative.

The active and the passive voices are indistinguishable in form, so rala can mean both 'to kill' and 'to be killed'. The difference lies in the fact that the passive voice always has an agent complement, marked by the postposition lon, e.g.


 * Pho rala atweet. — I kill the bird.
 * Atweet rala pho lon. — The bird is killed by me.

If one wishes not to include the agent (as in 'The bird was killed. (it is unknown who did it)'), one may use the third person pronoun, for example:


 * Atweet rala anna lon. — The bird is killed (by them).

The causative voice is expressed with the auxiliary verb okzay (lit. 'hand, to do, to make'), e.g.


 * Pho yot allaal. — I see the mountains.
 * Pho okzay yot allaal ne noa. — I show you the mountains.

In a few cases, the auxiliary verb has been entirely incorporated to the verb as the prefix oz- or os-, for example:


 * erree 'to lie' ← *irrii
 * osree 'to lay' ← *ukVssaj irrii


 * zookna 'to know' ← *assu-ukVna
 * ozna 'to teach' ← *ukVssaj ukVna


 * pewpo 'to walk, to go' ← *piw-pu
 * ozpew 'to lead' ← *ukVssaj piw

Syntax
The word order is strictly subject–verb–object (SVO).


 * Nouns and pronouns are followed by adjectives, then determiners, then numerals and then postpositions.
 * Adverbs precede verbs or stand between two of them in periphrases.
 * Relative pronouns are placed after relative clauses if they are nominal or adjectival, but before if they are adverbial.

Vocabulary
The vast majority of Classical Taot words are of Proto-Taot origin, be they directly inherited or borrowed from another Taot language. A few words have, nonetheless, been borrowed from neighbouring languages (mainly Proto-Läptälm, Ancient Fãngra and Xhí') and an unknown substrate common to various Koolpallalian languages, for example tapho ('silver'), cognate with Proto-Läptälm *tkup and Ancient Fãngra takop; zozo ('venomous plant'), related to Ancient Fãngra sonso ('poison') and son ('illness'); kanak (a kind of tree), cognate with Proto-Läptälm *kmak, etc.

Numbers
Classical Taot has a base-5 (quinary) counting system:
 * hok 1
 * eeske 2
 * eeza 3
 * waat 4
 * kezka 5

Numbers 6–9 are formed by combining the above with the particle to ('and', used only with numbers):


 * kezka to hok 6
 * kezka to/t’ eeske 7
 * kezka to/t’ eeza 8
 * kezka to waat 9

Bigger numbers are formed by counting smaller numbers and combining these counts:
 * kezk(a/’) eeske 10 (two fives)
 * kezk(a/’) eeske to hok 11 (two fives and one)

...
 * kezk(a/’) eeza 15 (three fives)
 * kezka waat 20 (four fives)
 * kezka kezka 25 (five fives)
 * kezka kezka to hok 26 (five fives and one)

...
 * kezka kezka to kezka kezka to kezka kezka to kezka kezka 100

Reaching numbers this big is rather uncommon, people tend to stick to smaller numbers and simply use 'za' when counting becomes too tedious. To count a noun, a numeral is simply placed after it, for example naphe kezka t’ eeza 'eight cows'.