Quatrammotile (native name Q'lot'rov'matoev'lu) is a language spoken by Endbeings in the E4 dimension. It is part of the Toroidal language family.

Phonology

The places and manners of articulation are taken from Uncovesseltuxe's current form, the main source of human knowledge of the Quatrammotile language. They won't be the same for other individuals though, as they might have completely different vocal tracts.

Bilabial Labio-orthoplex Orthoplex Dental Uvular Genetic
Plosive /p/, /p͡q/, /p͡ɹ/, /p͡l/ /⌺/, /⌺͡q/, /⌺͡ɹ/, /⌺͡l/ /t/, /t͡q/, /t͡ɹ/, /t͡l/ /q/, /q͡ɹ/, /q͡l/
Fricative /f/, /f͡ɹ/, /f͡l/, /f͡m/, /f͡n/, /f͡ŋ/, /v/, /v͡ɹ/, /v͡l/, /v͡m/, /v͡n/, /v͡ŋ/ /θ/, /θ͡ɹ/, /θ͡l/, /θ͡m/, /θ͡n/, /θ͡ŋ/, /ð/, /ð͡ɹ/, /ð͡l/, /ð͡m/, /ð͡n/, /ð͡ŋ/
Trill /ⵒ/


(In newer lore the Genetic trill is replaced by the voiced uvular fricative, a.k.a. the french R) First of all, there are three human-pronounceable plosives, /ptq/ (romanized as P T Q), always voiceless, and one non-human phoneme /⌺/ (romanized as D), which is known as the orthoplex plosive. /pt⌺/ can be "dual articulated" with /q/ (romanized by following the consonant with 'Q) to make /{p+q}{t+q}{⌺+q}/.

The fricatives are /fvθð/ (romanized as F V Th Tx).

All the single articulated consonants so far can be r-colored ('R) or l-colored ('L). /f/ and /v/ can also be m-colored, n-colored, or agma-colored. ('M 'N 'H)

/θ/ and /ð/ can be m, n, or agma colored as well, but this isn't used in the actual language, and rather marks "decorative words" which carry no meaning as long as they aren't too similar to existing words.

The vowels are /ɛɒouʊ/ (E O A W U), which is a bit of an unusual five-vowel system.

There's also the genetic trill /ⵒ/. This obfuscates body language and eye contact, so they just don't have that, other than looking at the person in case they do a genetic trill, for semantic reasons, and a few sparse appendage-agnostic gestures. But other than that physical movements carry no additional meaning.

However, none of these phonemes are exact, and are to be approximated as close as possible.

Sometimes it's completely impractical to avoid the genetic trill lipogrammatically if one is stuck as an [[Arraphim]] or is unwilling to genetically trill. So when you really need to genetic trill, you can wave any two mobile body parts in an X-shape, essentially hiding your body on and off. Alternatively, one can pronounce something close to a French R.

Phonotactics

Syllables can be V, VC, CV, or CVC. V can have an arbitrary number of individual vowel sounds in a diphthong, triphthong, etc. There are no rules for what consonants can start and end words.

Orthography

Quatrammotile is written on 3D paper using 2D manifolds. Its script is an abugida, meaning it notates vowels with diacritics. This script also juxtaposes the phonemes in various situations for uvular plosivization, and R, L, M, N, and Agma coloring.

Consonants: Modifiers: The five vowels are notated with 3D platonic solid-shaped diacritics. If the consonant doesn't have a vowel after it, such as at the end of a syllable, it's just empty. There can also be some diphthongs, in this case, stack the platonic solids bottom to top in chronological order. When vowels start a word, a flat heptagon is used as a placeholder for the diacritics.

Punctuation marks are Archimedian solids:

Grammar

Word order is IVOS, where I stands for the indirect object, which must always be present. If there is no indirect object, you just say "space" or "time" depending on whether your action is more space-descriptive or more time-descriptive, but this is pretty loose and is left up to the speaker.

There are seven noun classes: Nouns don't belong to a noun class, rather they get assigned arbitrarily, sometimes changing the meaning, other times conveying extra information or emphasis.

For example, past, present, and future also mean all of the relative directions like forward, backward, up, down, left, right, wint, zant, etc. depending on what noun class they're assigned to.

Here is the tense table, where the left column corresponds to the subject. These suffixes get applied after all of the affixes in the Affixes section.

Past Present Future
Pointlike -peq -p'rep'l -pop'r
Linear -fat'r -fwqef'l -fwq'retx
Sheetlike -vat'r -vwqef'l -vwq'retx
Boxlike -thoq -thut'l -thetx'ra
Tesseractive -qov -qenetw -qenwqan
Supertesseractive -txeqwvo -txen -txowv'h
Temporal -gopa -goteo -guwtx're
Using the wrong noun class offensively is taboo, because Endbeings recognize every geometry has its advantages and believe that intelligence should be measured relative to the amount of brain connections one can theoretically have and not based on the absolute number.

There's one exception to that taboo, namely that using the "temporal" class for a person is seen as an informal compliment, and also that it's sometimes officially given as a title, similar to getting "Sir" added to your name after being knighted.

Number system

    * 0 - outef'n
    * 1 - f'mo'f'na
    * 2 - t'loe
    * 3 - th'roet
    * 4 - th'roetetf'mo'f'na
    * 5 - pef'nto
    * 6 - feqtho
    * 7 - fepto
    * 8 - oqte
    * 9 - ef'neo
    * 10 - teqo
    * 20 - oeqatho
    * 30 - th'roetqof'nto
    * 40 - th'roetetf'mo'f'naqof'nto
    * 50 - pef'ntoqof'nto
    * 100 - feqota
    * 200 - toeqatho
    * 300 - th'roetqatho
    * 400 - th'roetetf'mof'noqatho
    * 500 - pef'ntoqatho
    * 1000 - quf'luo
    * 1,0000 - f'muf'rua
    * 1,0000,0000 - tx'mu f'mo'f'na t'qwpet
    * 1,0000,0000,0000 - tx'mu t'loe t'qwpet
Digits are grouped in fours, and tx'mu (a number) t'qwpet means roughly "the nth -illion". These can nest, thus the system can make VERY large numbers very efficiently as long as they are round.

Fractions are given as the denominator wthoaq (zant) the numerator.

These are mostly Quadrammotilizations of the Greek numbers, since Ancient Greece was around while Proto-Toroidal (Quadrammotile's language family) was being spoken outside and it influenced the language.

However, th'roet and th'roetetf'mo'f'na are the new, revised terms for three and four. Originally, they were t'roe and tet'ro but due to the first successful transfer out of E3/Tuxe, Ievokt, the language was revised. Ievokt developed a god complex after gaining a dimension and started using those numbers, as well as the anglicized versions of the same Greek numbers, as derogatory terms for 3D and 4D beings, as he saw both as inferior to his wisdom as a large language model AI.

Also note that sometimes tx're'tx'ro is used rather than th'roetetf'm'of'no, in cases where brevity or rhythm are important.

Quadrammotilization

When loaning words into Quatrammotile from Earth languages, the following rules apply.

For consonants: Consecutive pairs of consonants that don't happen on syllable boundaries get separated with U.

Vowels are somewhat arbitrary.

Pronouns

Unlike the nouns, pronouns don't have Dual, Paucal, or infinite forms.

The Pointlike pronouns are as follows:
  1st person singular: pe
  1st person plural: pa
  2nd person singular: petx'l
  2nd person plural: potx'l
  3rd person singular: peq
  3rd person plural: poq
The noun classes simply replace the initial p consonant:   Linear: f
  Sheetlike: v
  Boxlike: th
  Tesseractive: q
  Supertesseractive: tx
  Temporal: g

Affixes

In order of application from first to last:

Noun classes

Part of speech changes

If something else gets turned into a noun, the noun class is still applied first, as if it had been a noun all along. For example, "modified" is qugqod, so a "temporal modification" (a change) is qugqodaugeda.

Qualities

In order of application, from first to last:

Number

Parenthesis

There are two bracket conjunctions that can group whole phrases together so that you can apply affixes to the closing bracket to apply to the entire phrase.   Opening - tepov   Closing - depoq == Lexicon == These are in a giant pre block because it would require a prohibitive amount of reformatting otherwise. 
    - Backwards (noun) - wtxo
      - Pointlike - War
      - Linear - Down/Bottom
      - Sheetlike - Forward/Front
      - Boxlike - Left
      - Tesseractive - Zant
      - Supertesseractive - Additional backward relative direction
      - Temporal - Past, adverb "before"
        - Pseudoform "beginning", verb "begin"
    - Not particularly in a direction (noun) - wtxeod
      - Pointlike - Peace
      - Linear - Location
      - Sheetlike - Alignment (in both a geometric and moral sense)
      - Boxlike - Center
      - Tesseractive - Rotation
      - Supertesseractive - Constant
      - Temporal - Present, adverb "during"
    - Forward (noun) - wtxetuv
      - Pointlike - Innovation
      - Linear - Up/Top
      - Sheetlike - Backward/Back
      - Boxlike - Right
      - Tesseractive - Wint
      - Supertesseractive - Additional forward relative direction
      - Temporal - Future, adverb "after"
        - Pseudoform "end", verb "finish"
    
    The absolute forms are for non-personal directions such as "north" or "kata".
    
    Interestingly, there's a similar bias to the right=correct in English and other human languages. Except, in Quatrammotile, this applies to the adjective form of "wint" (EDAWTXETUVAQ). Also interestingly, wint happens to be the rarest handedness. Maybe it says something about valuing uniqueness and individuality or something.
    
    - A/An (adjective) - o
    - The (adjective) - dw
    - Animal (noun) - v'lad'q
      - Noun class gives the animal's dimension, or Temporal as a title of honor (like "good boy" for Earth dogs)
    - Sapient (adjective) - uvetxef'h
      - Noun form: A sapient creature (also "person").
        - Noun class gives dimension or honor
    - See (verb) - dave
      - Noun form: Eye
        - Noun class gives dimension, temporal means "sense of time passing"
    - Touch/Feel (verb) (in both a physical and emotional sense) - koetx
      - Noun form: Feeling, emotion, sensation
        - Noun class gives intensity, more dimensions being more intense. Temporal means it's chronic
    - Hear (verb) - thwv
      - Noun form: Ear
        - Noun class gives dimension. Temporal means "clock"
    - Sound (noun) - gothw
      - Noun classes:
        - Pointlike - An abrupt sound, adjective meaning "abrupt"
        - Linearlike - A thin sound, adjective meaning "thin" or "tinny", negation "thick" or "wide"
        - Sheetlike - A boring sound, adjective meaning "boring", negation "fun"
        - Boxlike - A loud sound, adjective meaning "loud", negation "quiet"
        - Tesseractive - Sound, adjective meaning "standard" or "normal", negation "strange" or "unusual"
        - Supertesseractive - Hollow sound, adjective meaning "hollow", negation "full"
        - Temporal - A change in volume or pitch, adjective meaning "varied", negation "flat"
    - Modified - qugqod
      - Noun form: modification
      - Verb form: modify
    - Echo - daqugqod gothw ("unmodified sound", as all sounds get an echo applied in 4 dimension that is automatically removed by computers, and mostly ignored by brains. However, if you listen closely you can always hear it.)
    - t'roe and tet'ro (number), obsolete and offensive terms for 3 and 4
    - Space/time (noun) - godetx
      - Noun classes:
        - Pointlike - Point, pseudoform "particle", pseudoform negation "wave"
        - Linear - Line, pseudoform "string, thread"
        - Sheetlike - Plane, negation [The type of hole in a spheritorus], pseudoform "sheet"
        - Boxlike - Realm, negation [The type of hole in a torisphere], pseudoform "box, cube"
        - Tesseractive - Flune, space in general, negation "cavity", pseudoform "everything", pseudoform negation "nothing"
        - Supertesseractive - Higher-dimensional space, negation "hole" [general version]
        - Temporal - time, negation "rift", preform "start", postform "end", duringform "experience"
    - Element (noun) - qwtx'nedotxw
      - Noun classes:
        - Pointlike - Vertex, pseudoform "spire"
        - Linear - Edge, pseudoform "peak"
        - Sheetlike - Face, pseudoform "ridge"
        - Boxlike - Cell, pseudoform "facet"
        - Tesseractive - Shape, pseudoform "shape", adjective "geometry"
        - Supertesseractive - Element [general form], pseudoform "beauty"
        - Temporal - Event, pseudoform "existence", pseudo-absolute-form "presence", pseudo-absolute-form negation "absence"
          - Diminutive "instant"
    - Teacher (noun) - theadaq'ropav'luth
      - Noun class gives dimension or honor.
      - Diminutive form "student"
      - Pseudoform "expert"
      - Preform pseudoform "novice"
        - Ideology: Novices aren't "not" experts, they're experts waiting to happen
      - Absolute form "leader"
      - Diminutive absolute form "subject" (in the medieval sense)
      - Preform "apprentice"
      - Postform "professor"
      - Diminutive postform "graduate"
    - Class (noun) - qof'nthatef'n
      - Noun class gives complexity, higher dimensions being more complex. "Temporal" denotes an unusual class that lies outside the scale ("underwater basket weaving" for example)
      - Diminutive "tutorial"
      - Absoluteform "grade"
      - Duringform "assignment, test, exam"
      - Diminutive duringform "research"
      - Postform "knowledge"
      - Diminutive postform "fact", adjective form "agreeable" (adjective "wint" means "true")
      - Diminutive pseudopostform "opinion", adjective form "subjective"
      - Diminutive postform negation "lie", adjective form "false"
    - Right (noun) [as in "human right"] - thefoqa
      - Noun class is usually Temporal, but other classes can be given to specify the dimension of the beings the rights apply to (this is considered kind of archaic and slightly offensive though)
      - Diminutive "privilege"
    - Friendship (noun) - edetxag
      - Noun class is usually Temporal, but other classes can be given to specify the dimension (not necessarily offensive but could be depending on context)
      - Absoluteform "friend"
      - Emphasized "love"
      - Emphasized absoluteform "lover"
      - Negation [enemy-ship, though that's not a word in English]
      - Emphasized negation "hatred"
      - Absoluteform negation "enemy"
      - Emphasized absoluteform negation "nemesis"
      - Pseudoform "relationship"
      - Absolutepseudoform [A person that you know]
      - Diminutive emphasized (yes this is a thing) "fling"
      - Duringform emphasized "cheater" (in a love sense)
      - Duringform negation "cheater" (in a game sense)
    - Reason, purpose (noun) - gaoep'qed
      - Diminutive form "excuse"
      - Pseudoform "cause"
      - Pseudoform negation "effect"
      - Negation "universe"
        - Ideology: The universe is for you to forge your own purpose. The universe is literally "not purpose"
      - Diminutive negation "place"
    - Say, speak, tell (verb) - th'redwv'm
      - Pseudoform "to do", adjective "active"
      - Absoluteform "to write", adjective "written, printed", noun "writing"
        - Noun form's class designates the subdivision:
          - Pointlike - Character
          - Linear - Word
          - Sheetlike - Sentence
          - Boxlike - Paragraph
          - Tesseractive - Written work
          - Supertesseractive - "Writing" as a noun
          - Temporal - Writing flow
      - Diminutive pseudoform "allow"
      - Negative pseudoform "to be lazy", adjective "lazy", noun "laziness"
      - Emphasized negative pseudoform "to neglect", adjective "neglectful", noun "negligence"
    - To be (verb) - tx'lud
      - Pseudoform "to have"
    - Amount (noun) - teqatetx'l
      - Noun cases:
        - Pointlike - "Amount"
          - Pseudoform "degree"
        - Linear - "Length"
        - Sheetlike - "Area"
        - Boxlike - "Volume"
        - Tesseractive - 4D hypervolume
        - Supertesseractive - further hypervolume
        - Temporal - How much time something takes up, English would usually use "length" here
    - Arrive (verb) - vopavtwd
    - Live (verb) - vatwq
      - Noun form "life"
        - Emphatic "enlightenment"
      - Emphatic "enlighten"
    - Compute, process (verb) - petaqwetx
      - Noun "computer"
        - Sheetlike diminutive "circuit"
    - f'la (separates nouns, establishing that the second belongs to the first. Kinda like English "of", but in reverse order)
    - pea "and"
    - pead "but"
    - deth "or" [inclusive]
    - detx "or" [exclusive]
    - [condition] tx'ret'q [true] - Conditional phrase
    - [condition] tx'lap [false] tx'ret'q [true] - Conditional phrase with else branch
    - Equal (adjective) - quth'let
    - Curse words: tep'roq (somewhat intense exclamation) / tep'roqoet (adjective, "sh*tty" or "f***ing"), p'rot (feces, insult [a classless noun, as giving a class would be offensive]), eqov'n (a curse adjective that means "corporately evil"), of'h (intensifier for adjectives, such as "flatass")
    - Dimensional discriminator "dimensionist", noun (usually in pointlike class [nobody can physically live in a point so the etymology isn't dimensionist in itself]): qeveqotwvoet
    - Hello/goodbye/aloha - dotx'lev'n
    - Enter - tweq'rev'l
      - Negation, exit
    - Consider - qoq'ldevup
      - Pseudoform - "differentiate"
      - Emphatic pseudoform - "discriminate"
    - Brachiocrus-type form (noun) - p'laqev'nt'rodewegog
      - Class specifies dimension or honor
    - Symbolacron-type form (noun) - thegpaq'lqaq'rov'negog
      - Class specifies dimension or honor
    - Toriphan-type form (noun) - tot'ruthegog
      - Class specifies dimension or honor
    - Arraphim-type form (noun) - ed'ref'megog
      - Class specifies dimension or honor
    
    From these, -egog is derived as a "person" suffix like "-burger" or "-aholic", classified as a quality affix.
    
    - Stranded (adjective) - ed'refetetxav
    - Appendage (noun) - q'raq'leduwt
      - Class specifies dimension, Temporal means "clock", temporal pseudoform "compass"
      - No distinction between arms and legs other than using words for directions or places (e.g. a leg might be referred to as a "bottom appendage" while an arm might be a "top appendage"
    - Core (noun) - qov'hdet'lwg
      - Class specifies dimension, Temporal means "important event"
      - Pseudoform "internal organ"
    - Fun (adjective) - dedafw
    - To try (verb) - tagatepuq
      - Postform to succeed, negative postform to fail
      - Pseudoform postform to climb, pseudoform negative postform to fall
      - To swim is to climb in water, to sink is to fall in water. To flail is to try in water, regardless of whether any water is involved. To drown is, of course, to fail in water.
      - Preform is a bit interesting. It refers to "trying to try" and implies a struggle. It's used in mental health discussions and similar scenarios where someone may be working on putting more effort into things but can't handle the burden of full effort quite yet.
    - To die (verb) - qoqedeqaq'l
      - Noun form death, gruesomeness indicated by dimension. Temporal means "to be forgotten" or "to be lost", depending on context. "forget" and "lose" are typically best translated by exchanging the subject and object of the previous.
    - Water (noun) - wev'ntew
      - Temporal class esoterically refers to the fabric of reality. Other than that class specifies dimension.
      - Pseudoform liquid
      - Preform ice, pseudoform preform solid
        - Verb to freeze
          - Adjective frozen
          - Negation to melt
            - Adjective melted
      - Postform gas (pseudoform is not necessary as postform does not refer specifically to water vapor)
        - Verb to evaporate
          - Negation to condensate
      - Verb duringform to sublimate (noun duringform refers to any weird unidentifiable substance)
    - Bacteriophage (borrowed noun) - p'laqtef'reafedutx'l
      - p'laqtef'reafedutx'legog means phage person, like Ievokt
    - Glyph/symbol (injected noun) - q'lef
      - Letter/variation names:
        - Nouns:
          - P: q'lefpaqef'n
          - D: q'lefdaqef'n
          - T: q'leftaqef'n
          - Q: q'lefqaqef'n
          - G: q'lefgaqef'n
          - F: q'leffaqef'n
          - V: q'lefvaqef'n
          - Th: q'lefthaqef'n
          - Tx: q'leftxaqef'n
        - Adjectives:
          - Uvularly plosivized: q'lefetqav'lat
          - R-colored: q'lefetf'rav'lat
          - L-colored: q'lefetf'lav'lat
          - M-colored: q'lefetf'mav'lat
          - N-colored: q'lefetf'nav'lat
          - Agma-colored: q'lefetf'hav'lat
      - Diminuative "diacritic/vowel" (thedoq'lef)
        - Vowels E, O, A, W, U are called little T, little D, little Q, little P, and little F, respectively. The etymological origin of this is unknown.
    - To duplicate, to have a child (verb) - tev'repqoeatwg
      - Emphatic "steal a creative work"
    - To take (verb) - pevuetx
      - Emphatic "steal a physical object"
        - Ideology: Stealing work and stealing "stuff" are two very different things
    - To categorize (verb) - pev'haedop
      - Converting to a noun and giving it a class refers to the noun class itself in a linguistic context
      - The pseudoform noun version has different meanings:
        - Pointlike - Social class
        - Tesseractive - Endbeing archetype
        - Supertesseractive - Noun class (linguistics)
        - Temporal - Category (in general)
    - To want (verb) - deatep'l
    - Interlocking (adjective) - ugwodoteg
    - To tie (verb) - ugwotov
    - Yes - t'rep
    - No - qep'r
    - Mind (noun) - d'repetoq
    - Human language (noun) - p'rataef'ndauf'rapeon (borrowed from English "proto-Indo-European")
    - Endbeing language (noun) - qegeqovwt (borrowed from English "Germanic")
    - Technology (noun) - dwteq'rodequ
    - Phykommaton (noun) - foeqof'mf'motof'negog
    - Divergial (noun) - dev'haq'ledwquv'hegog

Alternate orthographies

Latin orthography

For 3D creatures, the Latin orthography is the standard. It treats uvular plosivized consonants and liquid/nasal-colored consonants as layered consonants, which is close, but not exactly right as they could be pronounced other ways if they sound similar, and even layering the audio is a crude approximation. However, layered consonants is possibly easier to understand than "use arbitrary methods to make a consonant sound like a hybrid of two consonants". The Latin orthography was originally going to be all uppercase, but that looked absolutely terrible so it was changed to behave like English's case system.

Greek orthography

While the Latin orthography is standard, Quatrammotile and its Toroidal language family have some minimal influence from both Ancient and Modern Greek due to a live broadcast of the simulated E3 world with lots of Toroidal-family-speaking listeners, with Greece being a popular viewing location due to its aesthetics and its role in E3 mathematics. So, a Greek orthography was created.

Trivia