Tpal (language)

Tpal (also known as Orange Hands or Orange Eye Sign Language) is the language of P|o Tbrov. It is a sign language.

## Writing

TbropalC is the closest that Tpal has to writing. It is not a true writing system, but instead acts as a visual aid to remind a storyteller about a story. It is written on blackshells with adhesive clay, sand, crushed rocks and colourings. It is made of tiny coloured pictures, often somewhat representative of the colour-handshape of signs. It does not encode the language so cannot be read, instead stories or instructions must be memorised while looking at the shell and repeated later on the hands. Each shell is a unique work of art and can be exchanged as a high value form of currency. The Black-Plethora library (Cbro<..>Cbro) is made up of many collected shells and archivists that remember the stories of all of them and educate new students as to their meaning.

## Phonemes / Morphemes

In Tpal all phonemes are morphemes. The romanisation exists purely as a way to document the language for out of universe demonstration. In documentation the least number of phonemes necessary for a recognisable sign are documented.

Handshapes are the shape the hand takes when making a sign.

Placement is where the sign is placed on the body. No placement means that its in front of the body in signspace.

Movement is the movement done while signing.

 Point upward
 Palm doward (underscore)
 Point downard
 Vertical
 Horizontal

Orientation is the orientation of the hand when signing. The <'> and <,> grapheme are often dropped.

NMFs or Non Manual Features are what the face, shoulders or other parts of the body do in a sign.

 Two hands signing at the same time, touching
 Two signing hands at the same time, not touching
 Opposite hand (modifier to handshape)
 Hold from previous sign (modifier to handshape)
 Becomes (between handshapes)
 Direct mirroring of both hands (treated like a movement)
 Fingerspelling (makes following letters into fingerspelling letters)
()FRS

## Romanisation Orthographic Rules

### One handed signs

- (handshape) (orientation) (movement 1) (placement) (movement 2) (NMF)

E.g. Tpal, Tlvpalo-aaaa

### Two handed signs

Either:

- same as above but with + or x in between

e.g. C\_,ches<\*xC\_,ches>\*

(left handshape) (left orientation) (left placement) (movement 2, left hand) (movement 1, left hand) (+ or x) (movement 1 right hand) (movement 2 right hand) (right handshape) (right orientation) (right placement).

E.g. C\_,ches\*<>\*C\_,ches

### General

Written signs can and should be reduced to only morphemically relevant phonemes, not every phonemes need to be written. The writing system is a memory aide not an IPA.

E.g. Tl,vpal” can be written Tpal.

A movement before a placement can be interpreted to be moving before coming to the placement (movement 1), whereas movement after a placement can be interpreted as moving away from the placement or along the placement area (movement 2).

E.g. 5nos^ is a 5 handshape moving up way from the nose. 5^nos is a 5 handshape moving up from underneath to the nose.

The orthography is NOT used in universe. This orthography is a loose way to document signs and act as a memory aide. This is also NOT a system that is usable for any other sign language without major adaptations. If you wish to adapt this system to another sign language, feel free to copy this document and change any part of it.

## Grammar

Tpal uses topic comment sentence structure. This means objects are stated before any actions or descriptions. It therefore mostly manifests as SOV or OSV (interchangeably) as well as head initial constructions in noun-adjective constructions. Nouns agree in motion/sign-space to the verb/adjective. Verbs/adjectives will take the same sign-space as the noun and nouns will take the motion of verbs.

 P|o 5^. T.
 P|o< 5< B<
 P|o.1 5.1 5^.2 T.12

Tpal is highly synthetic, and uses both fusional and agglutinative structures. If two signs can be signed simultaneously they often will be with each hand - usually indicating that there is one object OR two objects that coexist in the same time and space (or abstract equivalent). This can be used for simple adjectives, and verbs and in this case the noun doesn't need to take the adjective/verb's motion. This is VERY OFTEN used for patterns.

<op> indicates that the hand used is the opposite to the dominant hand. If no op is present then either it doesn't matter which hand is which OR the dominant hand is first followed by the secondary hand. <ho> is used to indicate that the handshape is held from the previous sign and not resigned. <+> (without spaces) is used to indicate that the two hands and therefore objects are touching. < + >(with space either side) is used to indicate the hands are not touching and there is physical or abstract distance between the objects.

 Plo+5v opPl+Ov
 1L+5v ho1L+O."""

The copula/demonstrative is used for clarification and can be dropped when not needed. It can be used to make it clear that the object/s are in a certain location or that the sentence said was actually a 'noun is adjective' or 'noun is noun' sentence in cases where that may be unclear or confused for 'noun and noun' or 'noun does verb'.

Pronouns are dropped.

Nouns align with verbs in motion. In SOV sentences Object aligns with Verb. In SV or SAdj sentences, Subject aligns with verb or adjective.

The <.> phoneme can be towards slightly different directions, indicating slightly different objects. If multiple of these are in the same sentence it will be written as <.1> <.2> <.3> up to <.9>. If a verb goes between these placments then it is written <.12> or <.65>.

## Additional information

* Pronouns are almost always dropped when possible
* Nouns align with verbs in motion. In SOV sentences Object aligns with Verb. In SV or S-Adj sentences, subject aligns with verb or adjective.
* The motion phonemes/morphemes (such as <.>) can be towards slightly different directions, indicating different objects in that direction. If multiple of these are in the same sentence it will be written as <.1> <.2> <.3> etc.