tutmaya

Tutmaya is a constructed language created for world-building and linguistic experimentation. It originated in online conlang communities in the early 2010s and is used in fictional settings as well as scholarly exercises to explore grammar and sound systems.

Name and origins: The language is self-designated as Tutmaya by its creators. The project began as a collaborative sketch among hobbyists and evolved through community input, revisions of grammar, phonology, and lexicon, and the publication of reference materials.

Phonology and writing: Tutmaya features a relatively regular phoneme inventory with a five-vowel system and about eighteen consonants. Syllables are typically CV or CVC. The standard orthography is Latin-based, with diacritics used to mark vowel quality and stress.

Grammar: The language follows a subject–verb–object order in neutral clauses. It employs predominantly suffixal morphology, with nouns marked for number and case and verbs encoding tense and aspect. Noun phrases show demonstratives and possession via postpositional particles or pronominal suffixes.

Lexicon and usage: Vocabulary is curated to support consistent semantics across texts, with thematic word lists for everyday and technical domains. The language is used in online texts, role-playing scenarios, and study materials; several beginner grammars and dictionaries exist in community repositories.

Speakers and status: There are no native speakers. Tutmaya exists as a communal project rather than a living language, with continued development by hobbyists and educators and occasional formal studies within constructed-language circles.