Tak or nTaah Gil (literally 'The Language of Tak') is the official language of the Free States of Tak and is probably an isolate language, i.e. with no known or clear/proven relations to other languages. It is an ergative-absolutive language, which means that the subject of intransitive clauses is aligned with the object of transitive clauses and the subject of transitive clauses is set apart, instead of the more usual nominative-accusative systems, in which the subjects of both transitive and intransitive clauses are aligned and the object is set apart.
History[]
The earliest written traces of what looks like an ancestor of the Tak language can be found in a cave near the Caboteniasan east coast. Back then, Tak was written in some kind of runic alphabet; the cave text was transcribed as Po Bōōit me Zzot hivti rup. Its meaning is however not entirely clear; most people believe it says Paa Bɵɵt n Zoot ɣit ti lap in modern Tak, 'Bɵɵt and Zoot love for time' i.e. 'Bɵɵt and Zoot love (each other) forever', in other words: the first recorded Tak romance. Some scholars claim however that it should be 'Zot' instead of 'Zoot', which would suggest a homosexual relationship - and possibly the reason that the text was found in a cave; historical evidence suggest that the Tak didn't live in caves anymore at the time of the writing, so the lovers may have been hiding from society. A third group suggests that the text isn't Ancient Tak at all, but rather a sister language, which creates the possibility of additional interpretations.
The development of historical Tak literature initially centred mostly around descriptions of nature, remedies against illnesses and other afflictions. Although the Druids had (and still have) an oral tradition, with knowledge being passed on by practise and remembering, normal Tak wrote down a lot of it. Over the centuries, laws and (hi)stories were also increasingly written down, but there was a lot of variation in spelling, with some still using the aforementioned runic alphabet or variants thereof, whereas others started using the Liliance alphabet that was introduced through the Kencari/Bowdani rulers. Most original works are located in the library of Vit, a town in western Tak.
nTaah Gil manifested itself in its current form some 250 years ago, when the spelling, style, and expressions used in the prolific work of playwright and poetess Lan ob Brf (15BP - 48 AP) were accepted as standard; since then, only this one is accepted and e.g. job application letters with even one spelling mistake are simply thrown away and considered not to have existed at all. Pronunciation is dealt with less severely; although there is a linguistic academy that prescribes an officially prefered pronunciation, there are a lot of regional variants and some ƿɛBuut (States) even have their own official pronunciation rules (upon which is of course frowned by the linguistic academy).
Alphabet and pronunciation[]
The Tak alphabet consists of the following 30 letters, most of which conveniently represent one sound.
| A a | B b | D d | E e | Ɛ ɛ | Ə ə | F f | G g | Ɣ ɣ | H h | Ƕ ƕ | I i | J j | K k | L l |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| /a/ | /b/ | /d/ | /e/ | /ä/ | /ö/, /ə/ | /f/ | /g/ | /ɣ/ | /x/ | /xw/ | /i/ | /j/ | /k/ | /l/ |
| M m | N n | Ŋ ŋ | O o | Ɵ ɵ | P p | Q q | R r | S s | T t | U u | V v | Ƿ ƿ | Y y | Z z |
| /m/ | /n/ | /ŋ/ | /o/ | /œ/ | /p/ | /kw/ | /r/ | /s/ | /t/ | /u/ | /v/ | /w/ | /y/ | /z/ |
Vowels[]
There are nine vowels in nTaah Gil: A a /a/ (ah), E e /e/ (a in 'fake'), I i /i/ (e in 'me'), O o /o/ (o in 'so'), U u /u/ (oul in 'could'), Ɛ ɛ /ä/ (a in 'bat'), Ə ə, /ö/ & /ə/ (e in 'her' or 'the'), Y y /y/ (ü in German 'Bücher'), and Ɵ ɵ /œ/ (eui in French 'feuille' or ou in 'house' or 'out' in some northern English dialects).
There are no diphthongs. Each vowel can be lengthened (by means of a slightly longer pronunciation, and writing two vowel signs after each other) to create an additional nine vowel possibilities.
Semi-vowels[]
There are seven semi-vowels. These can be used as either vowels or consonants.
- L l /l/, M m /m/, N n /n/, Ŋ ŋ /ŋ/ (ng in 'long'), and R r /r/ can carry syllables without the need of additional vowels; they can also be lengthened like normal vowels.
- J j /j/ (y in 'year'), and Ƿ ƿ /w/ are also capable of carrying syllables, but they cannot be lengthened; in that case they change to i resp. u.
Consonants[]
Consonants can be divided in groups:
- the voiceless plosives K k /k/, P p /p/, T t /t/
- the voiced plosives G g /g/, B b /b/, D d /d/
- the voiceless fricatives H h /x/ (ch in 'loch'+t), F f /f/, S s /s/
- the voiced fricatives Ɣ ɣ /ɣ/ (ch in 'loch'+d), V v /v/, Z z /z/ (words cannot end in these consonants)
(The difference between guttural fricatives H and Ɣ is comparable with the dental fricatives that are both spelled as th in English: voiceless Þ (thin) and voiced Ð (this). Make the same difference in the back of your throat and you have H and Ɣ. +t and +d in the explanation above indicates that you have to pretend that ch is directly followed by t or d; normally these two sounds will modify the pronunciation of the preceding sounds in the right direction).
Additionally, there are the voiceless Q q /kw/ and Ƕ ƕ /xw/ (words cannot end in these consonants).
Note that q DOESN'T need a u to express the /kw/ sound. The word qŋ is pronounced as /kwŋ/
Country names in Tak[]
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