Iskel
| Iskel | |
|---|---|
| Language family | language isolate |
| Early form(s) | Lanesil |
| Writing system | Latin Iskelan script |
| Official status | |
| Spoken in | Juya Gwaña |
| Speaker | |
| Demonym | Iskelan |
| Endonym | Ískelam |
| Number of speakers | 0 |
| Technical information | |
| Usage | native language |
| Language code | ISK |
Iskel (ɪsᴋ: [ískel~ísqel], ᴇɴɢ: /ˈɪskəl/) is Suqi's first conlang (begun in 2018). It has influence from Italian, Spanish, Korean, English, and Latin, hence the name. It's a non-naturalistic analytic and agglutinative language. It was intended to be a more efficient way of conveying information where English struggles to in terms of nuance, ambiguity, and regularity. In Nguhcraft, it is an official language of Suqi's primary base Juya Gwaña (which means "ocean cluster" in Iskel).
Phonology
Iskel's phonology was initially a combination of English and Spanish. That is still reflected, but it was expanded as Suqi learned more about linguistics.
Iskel is a pitch-accent language. Every polysyllabic word has a syllable with a high tone. Low tones also occur, but are not obligatory. If they do appear, they can only occur on one syllable. High tone is marked with an acute accent in romanization, low tone marked by a grave accent in romanization. All other tones are phonetically mid tones. If a high tone is on the penultimate syllable, it doesn't get written.
One unique feature Iskel has is "narealization", which is essentially the scrunching of the nostrils during a consonant's pronunciation. If emphasized, it may result in nareal frication. This feature, which can occur on every consonant, is primarily for visual communication, but it can be done strongly enough to be heard if needed. Narealization will be transcribed in IPA with the nasalization diacritic (the tilde) since Iskel does not have nasalization.
Iskel has no gemination, no allophony, and no phonotactical limits (except for no more than 3 consonants or vowels in a row). The latter two features were to increase vocal flexibility for those who regularly speak the language (and it works).
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Postalveolar | Palatal | Velar/Uvular | Guttural | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plain | Nareal | Plain | Nareal | Plain | Nareal | Plain | Nareal | Plain | Nareal | Plain | Nareal | Plain | Nareal | |
| Nasal | ɱ (m) | ɱ̃ (m') | n | ñ (n') | ɲ (ñ) | ɲ̃ (ñ') | ŋ | ŋ̃ (ŋ') | ||||||
| Stop | p | p̃ (p') | t | t̃ (t') | t͡ʃ (c) | t͠ʃ (c') | k~q | k̃~q̃ (k') | ʔ | ʔ̃ (ʔ') | ||||
| b | b̃ (b') | d | d̃ (d') | d͡ʒ (j) | d͠ʒ (j') | g | g̃ (g') | |||||||
| Fricative | f | f̃ (f') | θ (þ) | θ̰[1] (þ') | s | s̃ (s') | ʃ (ś) | ʃ̃ (ś') | ʎ̥˔ (ll) | ʎ̥̃˔ (ll') | x | x̃ (x') | h | h̃ (h') |
| v | ṽ (v') | ð | ð̰[1] (ð') | z | z̃ (z') | ʒ (ź) | ʒ̃ (ź') | |||||||
| Approximant | w | w̃ (w') | l | l̃ (l') | j (y) | j̃ (y') | ||||||||
| Vibrant | ɾ (r) | ɾ̃ (r') | ʀ (rr) | ʀ̃ (rr') | ||||||||||
| Click | ᵏʇˀ (t!) | ᵏʇ̰ˀ (t!') | ᵏ!¡ˀ (r!) | ᵏ!̰¡ˀ (r!') | 𐞥ǂˀ[2] (q!) | 𐞥ǂ̃ˀ[2] (q!') | ||||||||
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i | ɪ (ĭ) | u |
| Mid | e | ə (ĕ) | o |
| Low | a | ɐ (ă) | ɑ (ą) |
Morphology
Parts of Speech
All nouns end in -a, all verbs end in -e, all adjectives end in -o. In order to turn one into the other, the vowel suffix is changed to its new part of speech. Proper nouns, expletives, adverbs and all other parts of speech may end in any sound. If two nouns placed together modify each other equally (in the semantics), neither are changed to an adjective. Adjectives may be used as adverbs. The only verb that does not end in -e is the copula ix.
Cases
Iskel only has the dative and genitive cases. The dative marker is an infix -ĭĭ- placed in the middle of the word, or one phoneme before the middle. If placing it in either location results in the infix being adjacent to 2 or 3 vowels, it is moved to the earliest point where it's only adjacent to one vowel as per the phonotactics.
papa (dog) → páĭĭpa (dog-DAT)
ogyoran (homes) → ogyĭĭoran (homes-DAT)
źiiema (Saturn) → ĭĭźiiema (Saturn-DAT)
The genitive case is marked with prefixes that combine with person and number marking, and distinguish between literal ownership and relation. The possessee is marked, not the possessor.
| Basic | Genitive | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ownership | Relation | |||
| 1P | SG | yos / īo | mu- | ñu- |
| PL.INCL | ítio | áfin- | állin- | |
| PL.EXCL | imos | xe- | lle- | |
| 2P | SG | it | mi- | ñi- |
| PL | yare | wă- | yă- | |
| 3P | SG | ime / vul / ksini | af- | all- |
| PL | imen / vuln / ksinin | áfn- | álln- | |
To mark absolute possession (i.e. "the cow is mine" instead of "my cow"), the prefix becomes its own word instead and placed after the possessee.
Syntax
Heads & Dependents
All heads precede their dependents except in some word order variations specified in the following section.
Word Orders
SVO is used for the indicative mood. To emphasize the indicative mood, one may prefix the verb with áxa-.
Imen ixeś atelman españom. / Imen áxàixeś atelman españom.
3-PL COP-FUT person-N-PL Spain-ADJ-ORIGIN / 3-PL IND.COP-FUT person-N-PL Spain-ADJ-ORIGIN
"They will become Spanish people."
VOS is used for the interrogative mood. Relative pronouns can become interrogative by suffixing -ðs. The resulting question is in SVO order.
Ixeś atelman españom imen
COP-FUT person-PL Spain-ADJ-ORIGIN 3-PL
"Will they become Spanish people?"
It q!ome ja it aram-o → It q!ome jaðs it aramo.
2.SG eat-V when 2.SG hunger-ADJ → 2.SG eat-V when-INT 2.SG hunger-ADJ
"You eat when you're hungry." → "You eat when you're hungry?"
V↗OS (rising intonation on the object) is used for the hypothetical mood.
Ixeś atelman españom imen.
COP-FUT person-N-PL Spain-ADJ-ORIGIN 3-PL
"They could become Spanish people."
↗VSO (rising intonation on the verb) is used for the imperative/jussive mood. Alternatively, one may prefix the verb in an SVO structure with híre- instead.
Ixeś imen atelman españom. / Imen hírèixeś atelman españom.
COP-FUT 3-PL person-N-PL Spain-ADJ-ORIGIN / 3-PL IMP.COP-FUT person-N-PL Spain-ADJ-ORIGIN
"They ought to become Spanish people."
↗OVS (rising intonation on the object) is used for the optative mood. Alternatively, one may prefix the verb in an SVO structure with kwel- instead.
Atelman españom imen ixeś. / Imen kwelixeś atelman españom.
person-N-PL Spain-ADJ-ORIGIN 3-PL COP-FUT / 3-PL OPT-COP-FUT person-N-PL Spain-ADJ-ORIGIN
"I hope they will become Spanish people."
Emotion Markers
Iskel has optional particles placed before a clause that mark the speaker's emotion resulting from what is said.
- gwĕʔ - positive
- xwĕʔ - angry
- t!wĕʔ - bummed-out
- q!wĕʔ - excited
- twĕʔ - firm
- hwĕʔ - sad
Ĕ is replaced with Ą if the speaker's emotion is weak.
- gwąʔ - content
- xwąʔ - irked
- t!wąʔ - disappointed
- q!wąʔ - expectant
- twąʔ - serious
- hwąʔ - feeling down
Script
Lexicon
Copula
The copula, ix, is optional to use. The word oksete (to exist) may be used to mean "there is".
Determiners
Iskel has no indefinite article and one definite article, ĕŋk, which is only used in cases where the speaker's meaning cannot come across without it.
There are 4 declensions for the demonstrative determiner eost. It can be interpreted as a proximal demonstrative, but is used for topical proximity not physical proximity. Likewise, its distal counterpart eostĕ is only for topical distance. Both can be inflected for plurality as eosn and éoskĕn, respectively.
Pronouns
Yos and īo are interchangeable as the first-person singular pronoun. Typically īo is used for emphasis. In cases when the pronoun is repeated in an utterance, speakers prefer to avoid saying yos or īo twice in a row. The third-person pronouns come in three forms: common gender, neuter gender, and inanimate. Common gender is used for referring to a specific person or a group of a certain gender. Neuter gender is used for general people, mixed-gender groups, and animals. Inanimate is used for dead people and everything else.
| Singular | Plural | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | Reflexive | Basic | Reciprocal | Reflexive | ||
| 1P | INCL | yos / īo | yosoi | ítio | ítioyan | ítiosòi |
| EXCL | imos | ímosyan | ímosòi | |||
| 2P | it | itsoi | yare | yáreyan | yáresòi | |
| 3P.COM | ime | noun-soi | imen | yan | noun-nsoi | |
| 3P.NEU | vul | vuln | ||||
| 3P.INAN | ksini | ksinin | ||||
"Someone" and "some people" are atelma (person) and atelman (people) if they refer to someone in particular, but atelña and atelñan if they refer to no one in particular, which covers some instances of "anyone". "Other" and "others" are otes and otésn. Iskel cannot directly express the concept of "no one"/"nobody".
| Relative/Interrogative | Relative | Interrogative |
|---|---|---|
| who | ji | jiðs |
| what | ke | keðs |
| why | je | jeðs |
| when | ju | juðs |
| where | jo | joðs |
| how | kamái | kamáiðs |
| which/what kind | ja | jaðs |
| how much | ją | jąðs |
| what result | ka | kaðs |
| catch-all + disbelief | kă | kăðs |
Numerals
Iskel uses base-12, excluding zero. It does have a numeral for zero, but it is not used in any other numerals.
| Arabic | Iskel |
|---|---|
| mysterious number i dont remember making | ca |
| Ø (no numeric value) | áŋkivol |
| 0 | ʔiv |
| 1 | ʔu |
| 2 | to |
| 3 | ðe |
| 4 | skwą |
| 5 | ki |
| 6 | śe |
| 7 | ze |
| 8 | kho |
| 9 | na |
| 10 | ye |
| 11 | ha |
| 12 | lu |
| 13 | ʔuʔu |
| 14 | ʔuto |
| 15 | ʔuðe |
| 16 | ʔuskwą |