#tuuric

In Vougerå there are two registers of formality. The higher register, used to speak to anyone of a higher social standing, originated from a register used with the king only. The registers are used unidirectionaly, so when someone is spoken to in the higher register, they respond in the lower. As the king is the highest social standing he uses the lower register to everyone.

Ökiestans is the Tuuric language spoken in Kiujéçpdlasan, a region which lies at  the most northern reaches of the Naumes Territory of the Memoicha country. The language is referred to with the name Ökiestlans in the Naumes language, and natively with mutiple names such as Jekjijiez̃tānas, Sweruss and Zosas. The name Jekjijez̃tānans is cognate the placeme Kiujéçpdlasan, indeed it is derived from it. The placename is originally form the Naumes language which was then borrowed into Ökiestans as Kjijez̃tān, as later areal feature was a sound change between both Naumes and Ökiestans which inserted an epenthetic [ɵ] at the begining of words beginning in clusters which gave Ökjejez͂tān. The Ökiestans attached the animate ending -as onto the placename (placenames can be made animate to derive language names) to create ökjejez͂tanas. The word ökjejez͂tanas was then borrowed into Naumes where it became the word for Ökiestans in the Naumes language. The placename and language name then changed to Jekjijez̃tān and jekjijez̃tānas respectively. The name Sweruss is the oldest native term for the language. It comes from the older form swerōss which itself is from the Old Tuura tuuruoþṡi which was the dative form of tuura, the native term for the Old Tuura language (a cognate can be found in the language name Tjȁr which also comes from the word tuura). However the name sweruss is now mostly reserved to poetic use. The name Zosas is also from a placename. This time it is from the placename Zos, which is from Middle Naumes Ēzos which means “small mountain next to a large mountain” (compare Modern Naumes eeos “hillock”). Among academics the name Ökiestans is the most used.

The speakers of Ökiestans, albeit dwelling in a Sumric country, are ethnically and culturally Tuuric, originally comming from the mouth of the Giegawowi Sea much further to the north. The population arrived to their current location during the 42nd Century in the year 4100AN. During this period there was a religous cleansing happening in the area where followers of the Ssålt cult sought to drive away followers of other cults. When a comet landed which seemingly came from the planet named after Ssålt and is said to be made from his body, his followerers wanted to drive away “heathens” to appease him. At first the other populations refused to move and battles ensued but the Ssåti followers proved victorious. So the surviving non-Ssåti followers fled south unti they came to the sparse and emtpy Odihvsohô region, there they made canoes and travelled south along the Cuyluti River until they came to the mouth of the Hlabɫo Sea, from there they hugged the coast and rowed south where the encountered the sea lake Jûgḿ. The rowed further south into Jûgḿ and upstream along the many small rivers that flowed into it to reach Kiujéçpdasan. There they settled into villages and there they came into heavy contact with the Naumes culture and language. Over the next millenia their Sweruss language became heavily influenced by Middle Naumes, and later on Modern Naumes. Such so that their language became signigantly different from the language of those who remained in the north whose language became Swarât.

The original refugees were speakers of a southern dialect of Swerōss, a Tuuric language spoken around the shores of the Giewgawowi. As such Ökiestans is closely related to Modern Swarât and the other Tuuric languages, and more distantly to the Sumric languages such as Naumes, all stemming from Proto-Sumric.

In Proto-Sumric there was the word *spḿf- “to predict”. In Old Tuura it became the verb sbo͂fti “to predict”. In Old Tuura, its inflected form coud be inserted at the end of a clause to show that the subject believes that the verb (inflected for the future tense) will happen, often the clause will subordinated e.g: 

nam donåṡṡyd jåguovüüssuod, sbo͂ffåṡ

king make-3S.ANIM-FUT book-ACC.INAN=SUB, predict-3S

“That the king will write a book, he predicts”

sulṡmmyd samwasåssuod, sbo͂fṡm

see-1S-FUT moth-ACC.INAN=SUB, predict-1S

“That I will see a moth, I predict”

By Late Old Tuura the verb “predict” had become more of a discourse particle. It no longer agreed with the subject of the clause and now only inflected for the 1st person. e.g: 

nam donåṡṡyd jåguovüüssuod, sbo͂fṡm

king make-3S.ANIM-FUT book-ACC.INAN=SUB, predict-1S

“That the king will write a book, I predict”

sulṡmmyd samwasåssuod, sbo͂fṡm

see-1S-FUT moth-ACC.INAN=SUB, predict-1S

“That I will see a moth, I predict”

In Soura, Old Tuura’s daughter, the discourse particle had become the deontic modal particle sbom to express that it is important for the verb to be carried out, or to insinuate expectations. The verb need not be in the future tense, now it will usually appear in the present but it can be used with other tenses with the deontic, neither does the verb phrase need to be subordinated anymore. 

nam jagvovnoås sbom

king book-make-3S DEO

“the king should write a book”

lusm mavaså sbom

see-1S moth-ACC.INAN DEO

“I should see a moth”

In Vougerå, Soura’s daughter, the deontic modal particle had become the epistemic suffix -sbu which attaches to verbs to insinutate that the verb must be carried out. 

lissbu måvåso

see-1S-EPIS moth-ACC.INAN

“I must/have to see a moth

It also became an imperative in the “royal” register when speaking to the king. The “royal imperative” is formed with subject being refered to in the third person (the indirectness is seen as more polite). It is considered rude to use the usual imperative (discussed here) with the king. 

nå jågvuvnuosbu 

king book-make-3S-EPIS

“write a book”  (addressed to the king)

The imperative in Vougerå is quite different from that of the other Tuuric languages. While Tjȁr has -ji, -ci, -ī, -či and Miõrra has -ggje, -že, -je, -jaì both from Old Tuura -je and in turn Proto-Sumric -ję (compare Old Sumrë -je). Vougerå has the imperative prefix smou- which attaches to the supine form of the verb unlike any of it’s relatives. The reason is due to grammaticalisation in Soyra (the mother of Vougerå and daughter of Old Tuura). 

Soyra in general was pretty innovative, shedding many of it’s Old Tuura feathers and gaining new ones, such as a total pronoun reform and a wave of grammaticalisation bringing many new derivational morphemes into the language. The Old Tuura imperative -je was dropped and was replaced by a construction meaning “you allow there to be X-ing” where the supine form of the verb was used alongside an existential construction. For example “soothe!” was dar rotys må emti kvjes (you allow-2S it.INAN be-INF SUP-soothe) “you allow there to be soothing”. The verb “to be” was optionally dropped giving the more common construction dar rotys må kvjes. If the imperative had a subject and another verb such as “let the frog hop” then the construction would be “you allow there to be hopping from the frog” where the object would have the postposition jån “from” e.g dar rotys må kmarågg lamg jån “let the frog hop” (you allow-2S it.INAN SUP-hop DEF/frog from). Eventually the verb rotys “you allow” (second person present of the verb rosi “to allow”) became cliticised as s- onto må (third person singular inanimate pronoun) which was itself cliticised onto the supine verb giving småkvjes “soothe!” (compare with the infinitve vjessi “to soothe”)

However since these clitics were still identifyable as contractions of rotys “you allow” and må (3S inanimate pronoun) because the uncontracted forms were still attested. It wasn’t until Late Soyra that små- could be anaysed as a new imperative prefix. This is because of a major pronoun reform where older pronouns were dropped and new pronouns were derived from verbs meaning “to be self”, for example the pronouns dar and må fell out of speech as the second person singular and third person singular inanimate pronouns and were replaced by ječjyhså (literally meaning “you who are yourself) and jemåråsådå (literally meaning “I’ve never heard of a functioning pronoun”…just kidding it means “that which is itself”). Then verb inflections were eroded by sound changes which left the s- from rotys (-ys being the second person singular present suffix) also as being unanalysable. With these reanalysations the construction was no longer identifyable as “you allow there to be X-ing” and so the construction “you allow there to beX-ing from Y” when the imperative verb had an object no longer made any sense. So a sentence like “let the frog hop” was then structured as småkrot kmarågg lamg jån (IMP-allow SUP-hop DEF/frog from) or “allow hopping from the frog”. Notice that in this case the imperative suffix attaches to the very same verb from which it was (partially) derived from!

This rendered the clitic cluster små- unanalysable as as contracted pronouns for those pronouns no longer existed, and so it is then reasonable to analyse it instead as an imperative prefix which attaches to supine verbs. Then sound changes from Vougerå caused the prefix to become smou- ([ɑ] had been raised by Ungeish Raising, the presence of [u] being due to the sound change where [o] broke into [o̯u] before velars which was triggered by the supine prefix k- which always occures after the imperative suffix). If I derive further daughters from Vouregå then I may analyse the g- (a consonant shift caused [k] to become [g])as part of the prefix resulting in smoug- if I switch the supine verb with an infinite one which would leave the g- to attach to the prefix before it. 

Vougerå had some more fun with grammaticalisation in imperatives when it derived new imperative prefixes which mean “to allow” and “to make, to cause” such as “let the frog hop” or “make the frog hop”. These derive from the Soyra imperatives småkrot “allow!” and småkiss “cause!,  make!”. In Vougerå these became smougrut and smougess. These two words then became the prefixes grut-  and gess- which attached to verbs. Since a later sound change in Vougerå deleted word final consonants the supine verbs from which the prefixes derive from became gru and ge (as supine forms of rusi and esi). As the final consonants in the prefixes were preserved it’s reasonable to analyse them as prefixes. More grammaticalisation occured when the postposition jån “from” (now jo) attached itself to the object of the imperative verb, causing it to become a suffix for objects of imperative clauses. As such I name it the imperative accusative.  The prefixes attach to infintive verbs instead of the supine. So “let the frop hop” is now gessmarrogse lajo (CAUS.IMP-hop-INF frog-ACC)

An example of the imperative in Proto-Sumric, the Tuuric languages, Hajec and Old Sumrë

“Make the frog eat the mushroom”

Proto-Sumric: Tar istję bəlmkə́ njak atyókəw   ( you cause-IMP DEF/frog-ACC.ANIM eat DEF/mushroom-ACC.INAN

Hajec: Tar ist bilmké njak atiokō (you cause DEF/frog eat DEF/mushroom)

Old Sumrë: Tar ñacisče bálmcü aduócû (you eat-CAUS-IMP DEF/frog-ACC.DEER DEF/mushroom)

Old Tuura: Dar ihhtje bålmkå njakti adyogüü (you cause-IMP frog-ACC.ANIM eat-INF DEF/mushroom-ACC.INAN)

Tjȁr: Dra uči bòlmkò jnaktu aduòg (you cause-IMP frog-ACC eat-INF mushroom-ACC)

Miõrra: Tar išče pežkmaì oñakči ačoaaìkuà (you cause-IMP DEF/frog-AC.ANIM eat-INF DEF/mushroon-ACC-INAN)