Kirian (my conlang) Showcase

This blog is about my conlang, Kirian. If you do not like conlanging or even linguistics in general, this will probably not be interesting for you.

The language is spoken throughout the entirety of Kiru, the fictional artificial world whose backstory is detailed here, also known as zaħ by the natives. By the time of the first kingdom, the language had split into 3 different dialects: Matmeu (Mə́šzu Mə́tmɛŭtyħ), Chepmeu (Mə́šzu Čépmɛŭtyħ) and Uswopa (Mə́šzu Úsħŭopatyħ) which differed in phonology and vocabulary but were grammatically for the most part identical. The first kingdom also had an imperial standard called Kingspeach in English (Mə́šzu Ášaktys) which was based on an archaic dialect of Matmeu spoken in the capital before the first kingdom even came into being. I will mostly be using this standard if i write/describe something in Kirian, unless i state otherwise

Phonology

Kingspeach has the three "basic" stops [p, t, k] which do not have voiced equivalents along with three nasals [m, n, ŋ] that match them. The proto-language also had the labialized velars [kʷ, ŋʷ], but these are only preserved in Uswopa and Chepmeu. There are two sibilants [s] and [ʃ]<š> both of which have fricative equivalents [ts]<z> and [tʃ]<č> along with two non-sibilant fricatives [h] and [x]<ħ> which was historically also pronounced [ħ]. In old Matmeu and Uswopa, [tɬ] and [ɬ] merged with [tʃ] and [ʃ] but this change did not happen in Chepmeu which still distinguishes between them. Lastly, there are two liquids, [r, l].

In the 240s KDC, a great sound change happened which erased all plosives, nasals and the phoneme h at coda positions if they were preceded by a vowel and then lengthened that vowel. Kingspeech was not affected by this, but every other dialect was.

elúk(ks.)-elū(Uswopa)  "heir"

There are 9 vowels in Kingspeach, but most later dialects merged some of them with the exception of Uswopa. They are: [i, ɯ, u, e, ə, o, ɛ, a, ɔ] and all of them are spelled like in the IPA except for [ɯ], which is spelled <y>.

The syllable structure is (C)(G)V(C)(C), G represents glides, which can be described as just non-syllabic high vowels, ĭ[j], ŭ[w], y̆[ɰ]. Stress is unpredictable in words with bisyllabic roots and is written as an acute above the stressed vowel.

General Grammar

The word order is fluid and can take any form depending on which part of the sentence is emphasized, but if it is completely unmarked the sentence is VSO.

The language has a marked nominative alignment, more broadly, a nominative-accusative alignment. The accusative singular is always the citation form and doesn't have a suffix for nouns.

Nouns and Adjectives

Nouns and adjectives are conjugated the same way, but with different suffixes. Adjectives come after the noun.

There are three noun states: the governed state (RCT), the construct state (CNS) and the adverbial state (ADV). The governed state is considered the "default" one and is by far the most common. It is formed by just putting a case suffix on the root, while the construct state is the state taken when a noun is in possession of another noun and is formed by first adding the suffix -zu to the noun and then the usual case suffix. The adverbial state turns nouns into adverbs in one of two ways: by adding the infix -(i)ŋ- after the stressed vowel which makes the adverb mean "like (noun)" (I.ADV) and by adding the infix -s(u)- after the stressed vowel, making the meaning "at/in/on (noun)" (II.ADV). Aside from nominative and accusative, there is also a dative case that also indicates possession in the format possessed.CNS-(any case) possessor-RCT-DAT.SG and a passive case (PSV) which just creates a passive sentence.

Šéhor Ásšakɛp lukúčzuli núrnutys.

be.PRS-IMPERF.III-SG Ashakep.IIADV child.CNS-NOM.SG person.RCT-DAT.SG 

"The person's child is in Ashakep (a city)."

Pronouns

There are 4 sets of personal pronouns: first person, second person, the proximate person (III) and the obviative person (IV). They are conjugated the same as nouns and adjectives, but just have the governed state and are irregular; in the accusative singular, they are: tɛp (I), ŭaš (II), hə (III) and ŋu (IV). 

There are 3 basic interrogative pronouns: ha (what), mor (who) and eħ (which) which can be modified with other words and suffixes to make more specific interrogative pronouns (such as hap (ha-ɛp) "where" and éħikzɔ/éħzɔ (eħ-íkzɔ) "when")

The demonstrative pronouns are merged with the relative pronouns and function mostly the same as adjectives, except they come before the noun.

Verbs

Verbs are conjugated according to 4 factors: number singular, dual, plural), tense (past, present, future), mood (the basic moods are perfective/simple, imperfective, imperative) and person (I, II, III, IV). I'm aware that perfective and imperfective are not usually moods, but in this language they function as such. Number, mood and person combine to form many different suffixes for conjugation, but tense is unique because verbs are inflected for it by ablauting the words' vowels to a certain height. The past tense uses high vowels, the present uses mid vowels and the future uses low vowels

pítyħ-we saw

pétəħ-we see

pɛ́taħ-we will see

The language has a copula, the verb šɛs "to be" which functions like a normal verb

This is just a summary of the most basic parts of the language. I might make a part 2 if I feel like it in the future