Meric language

Tipsprek (Tipsprek: 𐍄𐌹𐍀𐍃𐍀𐍂𐌴𐌺, IPA : [ˈtɪpsprɛk]) is a West Teutonic language originating in southern Tiperyn on the Goidelia subcontinent. Its earliest form, Old Tipsprek, developed from western Artemian Teutonic languages in the 11th Century CE after being brought to Goidelia by Teutonic invaders.

Tipsprek is closely related to Anglic and is the dominant Teutonic language on the Goidelia subcontinent and the official language of Tiperyn, with both languages belonging to the Anglo-Tipslansk languages. This is due to centuries of shared culture and language amongst early Teutonic tribes that lived in the area of northwestern Artemia that the Teutonic migrants to Goidelia descended from. It is hypothesised that the a single Proto-Anglo-Tipsprek language with several dialects was shared by most Teutonic tribes that migrated to Goidelia from 1000-1100 CE. However, there was a distinct split after this period, with burgeoning Teutonic society of southern Tiperyn developing Old Tipsprek and those of northern Tiperyn developing Old Anglic. Although this development was staggered and irregular, it is generally accepted that the border between these two language families formed roughly at the 60th parallel north, with the Izerhert Mountain Range isolating much of the Old Anglic speaking population.

Colloquially, Tipsprek is considered to being in-between Anglic and, which is primarily spoken in Noordelijkland and two states on Tiperyn's eastern coast. Meanwhile, Noordelansk is considered to be in-between Anglic and in similarity.

Etymology
The word Tipsprek is a compound of the nouns Tipslan and sprek. Tipslan is a region in southwestern Goidelia and modern Tiperyn from which the Tipsprek language originated from. Meanwhile, sprek can be translated from Tipsprek as "speech" or the noun form of "speak". Thus, Tipsprek roughly translates to the "speak of Tipslan", or more literally, the "speak of the farthest".

The word Tipslan was used by Proto-Anglo-Tipslansk Teutonic tribes to describe the subcontinent of Goidelia as early as the 8th Century CE. This word in turn was derived from Tiper—meaning furthest in Old Tipsprek—and lan—meaning land. Tipslan was applied to the region of southern Goidelia that Teutonic tribes initially invaded in the 11th Century CE, now the name for the Grand Duchy of Tipslan and the native name for the Holy Tiperyn Realm.

Alphabet
Tipsprek uses Gothic script, specifically a variant of the Tipskrift alphabet that is shared with Hawkreath Anglic.

Adjectives
In Tipsprek, adjectives—words that modify nouns by providing more information about the nouns—are not and do not agree with the nouns they modify. Tipsprek has no system of in that there is no dictinction between male, female or neuter gendered nouns and there is no aspect of verbs, articles, pronouns or adjectives that nouns must be in agreement with. For example, in de geveldik famkes (the awesome girls) and de geveldik jong (the awesome boy), the adjective geveldik does not modify the nouns famkes or jong or vice versa.

Possession
Possession is expressed with the preposition fan (of), use of dependent possessive pronouns, or combined use of one of eight forms of the veze (be) and independent possessive pronouns. A possessive phrase formed from a noun or noun phrase is formed, meaning separate words carry the meaning that could be carried by a suffix in Anglic. In the case of possession, the word fan replaces the Anglic ending -'s. Thus, de famke fan Gesina (the girl of Gesina) expresses that de famke (the girl) is Gesina's, with fan Gesina (of Gesina) becoming an adjective in this case. As another example, de begrutting fan skoaledistrikt (the budget of the school district) expresses that de begrutting is the school district's.

However, in the case of pronouns, possession is marked by different dependent and independent cases. In possessive phrases that are formed with dependent possessive pronouns, also called possessive determiners or possessive adjectives (my, your, his, her, their, its, our), the pronoun immediately precedes the object of the sentence. For example, myn appels means "my apples" in Anglic and shyn famkes means "their girls". Independent possessive pronouns, also called absolute possessives (mine, yours, his, hers, theirs, its, ours), are typically used as the object of a verb—a form of veze (be)—with the subject of the sentence being the thing that is being possessed. For example, de famkes byin hyns (the girls are his) and de appel ys myns (the apple is mine). In this case, the verb changes form to agree with the number of the subject (the plural famkes and singular appel in the previous examples) while the pronoun matches the gender and number of persons who possess the subject.

There are few cases in Tipsprek where independent possessive pronouns have to agree with the number of the subject. While in Anglic the sentence the dogs and their owner using the independent possessive is grammatically correct, the Tipsprek equivalent would literally translate as the dogs and the owner of the dogs using the preposition fan (of).

Independent possessives can also be used alone in sentences as the subject or object of a verb. For example, syns is hyir (hers is here) or shyns byin moai (theirs is beautiful).

Pronouns, case, and person
Similar to Anglic, personal Tipsprek pronouns distinguish between the subjective and objective case, gender, possession, and plurality. Although Tipsprek lacks a system of grammatical gender, it does feature some nouns and pronouns with, meaning gender character is semantically applied to certain nouns with no grammatical gender.

For example, "𐌷𐍉" and "𐍃𐍉" (ho and so, translated into Anglic as "he" and "she" respectively) are pronouns used to denote gender of a person, animal or objects in some contexts. The gender neutral variant of this variant of this pronoun is "𐍃𐌷𐍉" (sho, translated into Anglic as "they"). The gender neutral form of pronouns are generally more similar in sound to their female equivalents than their male equivalents, which is likely descendent from the matriarchal culture that Old Tipsprek arose from. In some dialects, particularly Chimchag Tipsprek, the female 3rd person singular is used in place of the neuter 3rd period singular. In all dialects there is no distinction between singular gender neutral 3rd person pronouns and all plural 3rd person pronouns or between plural and singular 2nd person pronouns.

Demonyms
Placenames can generally be turned into demonyms through the addition of the -sk, -ansk or -k suffix. Generally, the -sk suffix is added to the end of place names that end in consonants. The -k suffix is only used if the place name ends with an "s" in Tipsprek. Meanwhile, if a placename ends with a vowel or grouping of vowels, the -ansk replaces the vowel or vowel group outright. For example, Tipslansk is created by combining Tipslan and -sk, meaning of Tipslansk or person/people of Tipslansk depending on the context. Listed below are examples of Tipsprek demonyms:

In Tipsprek slang, this concept can be applied to any noun to express a person's identity. To describe professions, an object associated with the profession in question may be modified in this way to represent the profession. This is often used in casual settings, while the profession is directly named as a noun in a formal setting. For example, a butcher may say yk bin hakmesk (I am of cleaver) rather than yk bin in slakter (I am a butcher), with hakmesk being derived from the noun hakmes meaning cleaver. Likewise, a bricklayer may say yk bin bakstiensk (I am of brick) rather than yk bin in bakstienlak (I am a bricklayer), with bakstiensk (of the brick) being derived from the noun bakstien (brick). In the Chimchag dialect of Tipsprek, the -ski suffix would be used rather than -sk. Thus, a Chimchag bricklayer would say yk bin baksteinski rather than yk bin baksteinsk. The form of the object does not change with the form of the subject. For example, yk bin handelsk (I am of trade) and yken bins handelsk (We are of a trade).

This feature can further be applied to nouns a person identifies with in general, but is usually applied to activities rather than tools. For example, an art enthusiast may say yk bin keunstsk (I am of art) while a professional artist may say yk bin boarstelsk (I am of brush).

However, words modified in this manner are different from their literal translations. For example, "of brick" as in "that house is make of brick", would be said as fan bakstien while a bricklayer would describe themselves as a bakstiensk ("of brick", essentially equivalent to a demonym of "brick") informally and bakstienlak (literally "bricklayer" formally.

Prepositions
Tipsprek are words that are used to express a relationship between a noun or pronoun (also known as the complement) and another word.

An example of a preposition being used as an adjunct to a noun is the noun phrase De famke vikt read hier (The girl with red hair). The preposition vikt (with) acts as an to the noun De famke (the girl), signalling that the speaker is talking specifically about the girl that has red hair to the exclusion of others. The use of vikt transforms vikt and read dier into an adjective describing the subject De famke, with the entire preposition phrase also being a noun phrase (a group of words that could be replaced by a pronoun).

Another example is the use of a preposition as an adjunct to a verb. In the sentence So vell utenkant de vein (She fell outside the car), the preposition utenkant (outside) augments the noun de vein (the car) into an adverb. The adverb utenkant de vein then describes where she fell. Like the previous example, this is a distinct prepositional phrase. If combined into one sentence with the previous example, the sentence De famke vikt read hier vell utenkant de vein (The girl with red hair fell outside the car) would be composed of two prepositional phrases.

As an adjunct to an adjective, prepositions are used to link an adjective to the complementary noun or pronoun. For example, in Yk bin bliid foar dy (I am happy for you), the preposition foar (for) is connecting its complement dy (you) and the adjective bliid (happy).

As a , prepositions can act as a complement to a copular verb (be, am, is, are, being, was, were, been). For example, in de kaai ys under de stien (The key is under the stone) the preposition under (under) is linking the copular verb ys (is) with the noun stien (stone). At the same time, the copular verb ys links the subject of the sentence, de kaai (the key), with the prepositional phrase under de stien (under the stone) which is both the subject complement and an adverb in this case.