Toraya is an isolate with many borrowings from sino-tibetan languages as well as semitic languages. It’s written with adopted Chinese characters (abandoning completely the concept of phonetic elements) and supplicated with simplified Arabic script (with no diacritics). Traditionally it’s written top to bottom (in columns from right to left – it’s worth noting that the Arabic parts are tilted horizontally, it originated from Persian influence), but here I will use simple right-left orientation. As for the name:
鼎 tora ‘Ceremonial’ – While the word itself is native, the hanzi chosen for it represents sacrificial tripod from Chinese culture. The character was adopted to express concepts associated initially with sacrifices, later on with all kinds of rituals.
澩 ya ‘River’ – This word is native as well, but the character shows how distinct from Chinese is character creation in Toraya. While the bottom radical represents water, top radical was just borrowed from “學” (with components: mortar, join and roof) which switched meaning from ‘to learn (by oneself)’ (as opposed to “斅” ‘to learn from a teacher’) to ‘school’, the top composition was later reused with the meaning of ‘place, location’, hence ‘the place of water’, i.e. river.
文 qoa ‘Language’
It all makes up the full name of 文澩鼎 Toraya qoa ‘Language of the Ceremonial River’.
Phonology:
/i/ ى /u/ و
/e/ ع /o/ ء
/a/ ا
/m/ مـ؍ /n/ ں /ŋ/ ح
/p/ ࢻ /t/ ط /k/ ڪ /q/ ٯ
/b/ ٮ /d/ ص
/h/ ه
/w/ و /j/ ى
/r/ ر
/ɬ/ ل
As you can see, Arabic letters have lost their dot markings, but they were chosen so that there's not much ambiguity between symbols. Some of the letters can still be mistaken for others, especially in the beginning of a phonetic part of the word and in the middle, but educated reader shouldn't have a problem with those.
Numbers:
- 0 零 Hipiro (from Arabic صفر ṣifr)
- 1 一 Oa
- 2 二 Coi
- 3 三 Abo
- 4 亖 Tunda
- 5 兰 Haio
- 6 六 Tene
- 7 七 Onu
- 8 八 Dum
- 9 九 Tangoi
- 10 十 Aia
- 20 卄 Coi te aia
- 30 卅 Abo te aia
- 40 卌 Tunda te aia
- 50 卋 Haio te aia
- 100 百 Qambi
- 1.000 韆 Cien (from Chinese 千 qiān)
- 10.000 萬 Uan (from Chinese 万 wàn)
Characters:
There are couple things different in how Toraya uses Chinese characters from how Chinese do it. First of all the stroke order is different, because the script is written differently (traditionally: top to bottom, modernly: right to left). It tends to start at the right-top corner of a character and go to the left-bottom; exceptions are characters like 道 or 兒, which last stroke is still from left to right (because in top-bottom direction it would then easily connect with the next character or Arabic part going diagonally top-right to bottom-left). There are also couple of ways that characters are used in Toraya:
- 字老 Habau di ‘Old characters’ – This is group of characters that were simply borrowed from Chinese without much changes to express concepts already existing in Toraya.
- 心 Abelarai - ‘Heart, feeling’
- 女 Iqo - ‘Woman’
- 好 Hobi - ‘Good, proper’
- 命 Qorara - ‘Life, live’
- 火 Mecalo - ‘Fire, hot, warm, friendly’
- 日 Toa - ‘Sun, day’
- 小 Onocu - ‘Small, tiny’
- 無 Hi, heada, mo - ‘No, not, without’
- 木 Tetequa - ‘Tree, wood’
- 母 Ahi - ‘Mother’
- 父 Hatau - ‘Father’
- 目 Yato - ‘Eye, vision, perspective’
- 身 Tahoata - ‘Body, flesh’
- 裏 Qoahabi - ‘House, room, space’
- 靣 Aroa - ‘Face, front’
- 龜 Contaboi - ‘Turtle’
- 互 Mahimo - ‘Eachother, mutual’
- 山 Tobo - ‘Mountain’
- 雨 Omo - ‘Rain’
- 字詞هاى變厶ط澩鼎 - Toraya te tiricadahai honbaia di - Torayan creative characters - This is probably the biggest group of characters, containing the ones with reused radicals for creation of purely ideographic characters with no phonetic background from Chinese.
- هاى忐 Obihai ‘Happy, joyful’ - Radicals are pretty clear, "up" and "mind, heart"
- هاى忑 Corohai ‘Sad, depressed’ - Likewise, radicals say "down" and "mind, heart"
- 雫 Hongai ‘Rain’ - "Rain" and "down"
- 霏 Roradam ‘Draught’ - "Rain" and "no, not"
- هاى譕 Torangahai ‘To say nonsense’ - "Words" and "nothing"
- 𪼓 Qali ‘King, ruler’ - "King" and "country"
- 𪵨 Hacamara ‘Blood’ - "Private" and "water"
- طورا怂 Honatura ‘Love’ - Two "people" on the top and "mind, heart" on the bottom.
- 崬 Tama ‘Home, house’ - The origin of this character is a little obscure, it depicts "mountain" on the top and "east" on the bottom.
- 孬 Aqali ‘Bad, not good’ - The upper part means "no", and the bottom part is an already existing Chinese characters meaning "good", depicting "woman" and "child".
- 字詞هاى唸新ط澩鼎 - Toraya te combonihai honbaia di[/i] - Torayan innovative characters - This group consists of characters that have no history in Chinese tradition, but were introduced based on other characters or just made anew.
- 𨈐 Hintoba ‘Death’ - Comes from 身 "life" with removed inside.
- 𠁼 Daia ‘Drop’ - It's pretty much graphical.
- 𤖎 Ancabuta ‘Spider’ - It shows a picture of a spider; also it comes from Arabic عنكبوت ʿankabūt.
- 𪓔 Ongotoraba ‘Scorpion’ - The form stems from the character 龜 "turtle", but it's more or less clear depiction of a scorpion with a tail and two pliers.
- 𧥛 Raio ‘Question’ - It comes from 言 "words, to speak", but with an opening on the bottom meaning that the words are incomplete (not answered).
- 𩡧 Yamalo ‘Camel’ - It's variation of 馬 "horse", also it's an Arabic loanwoard from جمل jamal.
- 冎 Oliho ‘Inside’ - It is most likely connected to 骨 "bone" with removed "body" on the bottom.
- 自厶 Cabai ‘Self, oneself’ - The 厶 "private" has been extracted as a selfstanding character reused in different contexts. As a radical it's also much more common than in Chinese.
- 襾 Qondo ‘Temple’ - It shows a building with a sharp roof and a line depicting "sky" like in 天 "sky".
- A couple of different particles [𪜊个𫇥𢖩𡗔𠠲𠤎𠀁𫝄𧰨𠬠刁] that I'll describe later.
- 字詞叚ط國中هاى音詞 - Yucorabihai Caeqo te caru honbaia di - Phonetical Chinese borrowings characters - These are characters that were barrowed along with their original pronunciation from Chinese.
- هاى麗美 Merihai ‘Beautiful, pretty’ (from Chinese 美丽 měilì)
- 馬 Maa ‘Horse’ (from Chinese 马 mǎ)
- 本 Pen ‘Root’ (from Chinese 本 běn)
- 冃 Qe ‘Month’ (from Chinese 月 yuè)
- 大 Ta ‘Big, large, huge’ (from Chinese 大 dà)
- 中 Cae ‘Middle, centre’ (from Chinese 中 zhōng)
- 犬 Cun ‘Dog’ (from Chinese 犬 quǎn)
- 字詞ط部兰 - Haio te honbaia di - Five-part characters - There’s also one not-so-common pattern to create characters based simply on multiplying them five times and putting into two distinct characters. The idea for it came apparently from the Chinese “森林” meaning ‘forest’, where there actually are five trees. Toraya people apparently liked this idea and reused it for couple of different words:
- 林森 Hona ‘Forest, woods’ (radical: wood, tree)
- 从众 Qangai ‘People, nation’ (radical: person)
- 炎焱 Terao ‘Fire, conflagration (radical: fire)
- 吕品 Ngohori ‘Storage, storehause’ (radical: box)
- 㕕厽 Humatatai ‘Close friends’ (radical: private)
- 孖孨 Eri ‘Children’ (radical: child)
- 夶𡘙 Holaran ‘Size’ (radical: big)
- 誩譶 Tenatea ‘Story, tale’ (radical: word)
- 騳驫 Oromata ‘Many horses, harras’ (radical: horse)
Although there’s a bunch of these, triple radical characters are quite rare, while quadriple radical characters never happen in Toraya.
Pronouns:
Toraya actually has a very rich system of pronouns.
俺 Ohi ‘I’ - Common pronoun
仏 Oro ‘I’ - Polite form
伳 Aheodi ‘We’- Common pronoun
么 Oqim ‘We’ - Polite form, contextually can be understood as exclusive first person plural.
厸 Toraqata ‘We both’ - First person dual
箇 Idio ‘Self (m.)’ - Used either as equivalent of ‘self, one’ or in official situations reffering to 1sg.
婟 Idionai ‘Self (f.)’
其 No ‘It (m./n.)’ - Refers to objects, animals, abstract ideas.
娸 Non ‘It (f.)’ - Refers to female animals.
倳 Abo ‘It’ - Refers only to objects, most likely small things that can be held in hand.
仾 Tama ‘You’ - Both singular and plural, Toraya doesn't distinguish it.
忥 Taihi ‘You’ - Said between mothers and children, father and sons, brothers and sisters (in all combinations), romantically engaged with/wife and husband.
侮 Coaman ‘Everyone’ - Depending on context it can be 1pl. inclusive or 2pl.
偽 Ino ‘He’
媯 Renai ‘She’
倗 Alade ‘He/she’ - Refers to absent good friends
兒 Conoi ‘He’ - Refers to young boys
婗 Cononai ‘She’ - Refers to young girls
佬 Madai ‘He’ - Refers to older men
姥 Madanai ‘She’ - Refers to older women
Grammar:
Grammar of Toraya is moderately complex, although noticeably different from any language that it came in contact with. It might be analyzed as SOV or SVO, but the important thing is that auxilary verbs come before strict [SO] part and the rest of the verbs come at the end of the sentence. It's a rather agglutinantive language, although it barrowed some analytical features from Chinese as well as even simple alternations from Arabic. Like Chinese it is a topic-prominent language (meaning that it emphasizes topic as a main information source rather than describe subject as “what the sentence is about”), but surprisingly topic more often than not finds itself at the end of a clause. For example:
𪜊冊其هاى ىاع意㴱هئراى、
/horai qondoahai yae, no cobai da/
{very interestingADJ is, this book PART}
‘It's a very interesting book!’, literally ‘Very interesting is, this book!’
Toraya also relies heavy on particles indicating all kinds of different moods, tenses and other grammatical features, one of which could already be seen in the last example.
𪜊 da - Emphatic particle, probably most used among all the others.
𪜊ںاىٯا曰說ىء速、
Oluio hinunaiqa da.
{fastADV sayIMP PART}
‘Say it, quickly!’
个 o - Another emphatic particle, but not as strong as the previous one, might be added to a sentence either to make it more energetic or to soften the tone of a request.
个翵肀其俺ىالى抓㧱、
Tocamo yali ohi no qutaqai o.
{take for 1sg this quill give PART}
‘Give me this pen.’
𫇥 a - It is basically a question particle, although might also be used as a connector between two sentences.
𫇥ڪاى承事之هوا侮ڪاى道認、
Moatacai coaman huatora hidicai a?
{know everyone what-thing do PART}
‘Does everyone know what to do?’
𢖩 - iyo - This one expresses affection or concern.
𢖩ىاع無事之هاى大、ىاى𤵂必無、
{imperativeNEG worry, bigADJ thing not is PART}
Qana habinai, tahai tora mo yae iyo.
‘Don't worry, it's not a big deal.’
𡗔 ha - This particle expresses very strong, positive emotion, most likely joy.
𡗔ىاى贏اىاࢽ鬭乖其忥筴要هاى靠را源緣俺、
Ohi tonocobara todohai taihi no maocabaian tohanai ha.
{1sg originalADV sure about-to youEMPH this competition win PART}
I was sure you would win this competition!