Iskel

Iskel
Language family	language isolate
Early form(s)	Lanesil
Writing system	Latin Iskelan script
Official status
Spoken in	Juya Gwaña Legwa Rina
Speaker
Demonym	Iskelan
Endonym	Ískelam
Number of speakers	0
Technical information
Usage	native language
Language code	ISK

Iskel's flag

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) and ŋation Legwa Rina (which means "land of ruin" 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.

Pitch-Accent

Iskel is a pitch-accent language. Every polysyllabic stem has a syllable with a high tone. Mid tones also occur, but are not obligatory. If they do appear, they can only occur on one syllable in a stem. Polysyllabic affixes may contain no tones, but this is only in situations where an epenthetic vowel has been fossilized onto the affix.

When multiple pitch-accented stems combine, only one of the high tones remains. The mid tones become lost and the rest of the high tones become mid tone. This is known as pitch degradation. All other vowels are phonetically low tones.

Suffixes are split into two accent groups. Accent I suffixes follow the above format of pitch degradation. Accent II suffixes restructure the pitch-accent of the entire word to make the penultimate syllable a high tone and the 2nd syllable before it have a mid tone. It is unclear whether suffixes in specific accent groups have any common pattern between them.

High tones are written with a back-facing apostrophe prior to the syllable (’), and mid tones are written with a front-facing apostrophe prior to the syllable (‘). In fonts where they look strongly alike, the front-facing apostrophe may be replaced with the latin script ayin (ʿ )

Consonants

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 phonemic 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. Rarely, the tilde will be placed below the letter instead of above due to formatting issues, leading it to look like the letter has creaky voice. Iskel does not have creaky voice, so it should not be read as such. Narealized consonants are romanized by doubling their consonant's letter.

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar/Uvular	Glottal
Nasal	ɱ (m)		n	ɲ (ñ)	ŋ
Stop	p		t	t͡ʃ (c)	k~q (k)	ʔ
	b			d͡ʒ (j)	g
Fricative	f	θ (þ)	s	ʃ (ṣ)	x	h
	v	ð	z	ʒ (ẓ)
Lateral			l	ʎ̥˔ (ł)
Sonorant	w		ɾ (d)	j (y)	ʀ (r)
Click		ᵏʇˀ (ç)	ᵏ!¡ˀ (!)	𐞥ǂˀ (q)

Iskel vowel qualities

	Front	Back
Close	i	u
Near-Close	ɪ (į)	ʊ (ų)
Close-Mid	e	o
Mid	ə (ę)
Near-Open	ɐ (ą)
Open	a	ɑ (ǫ)

Phonotactics

Iskel has no consonant gemination and no allophony. Iskel only allows a maximum of 3 consonants in a row, and a maximum of 3 vowels in a row. Any sound can occur near any other sound, although most consontant and vowel clusters are rare, and affixation favors minimizing clusters.

Non-syllabic vowels in a polyphthong are written with a breve above the vowel letter ⟨ĭ į̆ ų̆ ŭ ĕ ę̆ ŏ ă ą̆ ǫ̆⟩. Long vowels are written with a macron above ⟨ī į̄ ų̄ ū ē ę̄ ō ā ą̄ ǭ⟩. In cases where a combining diacritic on an ogonek vowel renders poorly, a circumflex for non-syllabic vowels ⟨ĭ î û ŭ ĕ ê ŏ ă â ô⟩ and diaerisis for long vowels ⟨ī ï ü ū ē ë ō ā ä ö⟩ are used instead.

The minor phonotactical limitations exist to increase vocal flexibility for those who regularly speak the language (and it works).

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 -ï- 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) → païpa (dog-DAT)

ogyoran (homes) → o’gyïoran (homes-DAT)

ẓī’ema (Saturn) → ïẓī’ema (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	mų-	ñų-
	PL.INCL	itio	’afin-	’ałin-
	PL.EXCL	imos	xe-	łe-
2P	SG	it	mi-	ñi-
	PL	yade	wǫ-	yǫ-
3P	SG	ime / vųl / ksini	af-	ał-
	PL	imen / vųln / ksinin	’afn	’ałn-

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 ixeṣ a’telman es’pañom. / Imen axa‘ixeṣ a’telman es’pañom.

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.

Ixeṣ a’telman es’pañom imen

COP-FUT person-PL Spain-ADJ-ORIGIN 3-PL

"Will they become Spanish people?"

It qome ja it a’damo → It qome jaðs it a’damo.

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.

Ixeṣ a’telman es’pañom 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.

Ixeṣ imen a’telman es’pañom. / Imen ‘hire’ixeṣ a’telman es’pañom.

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.

A’telman es’pañom imen ixeṣ. / Imen kwe’lixeṣ a’telman es’pañom.

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.

• gwęʔ - positive
• xwęʔ - angry
• çwęʔ - bummed-out
• qwęʔ - excited
• twęʔ - firm
• hwęʔ - sad

Ę is replaced with Ǫ if the speaker's emotion is weak.

• gwǫʔ - content
• xwǫʔ - irked
• çwǫʔ - disappointed
• qwǫʔ - expectant
• twǫʔ - serious
• hwǫʔ - feeling down

Lexicon

Copulae

There are four copulae: the qualitative, similative, identical, and exact identical.

• The qualitative copula, ix, is used when the predicate demonstrates a quality of the predicand. For example, "I am a mistake" is Yos ix eda. It is frequently omitted.
• The similative copula, en, is used when the predicate is merely something similar to the predicand. For example, "I am similar to you" is Yos en it.
• The identical copula, taʔ, is used when the predicate is apparently identical to the predicand, but still its own thing or person. For example, "The color here is the same as the color there" is Kilita akeno taʔ kilita ekyo.
• The exact identical copula, al, is used when the predicate and predicand are completely indistinguishable from each other to the point that they potentially refer to the exact same thing or person. For example, "She is Mrs. Green" is Imen al Gdīnðu.

States of Being

The word kse (to exist) may be used to mean "there is", and can be used to denote a static relationship where motion would otherwise be assumed. This happens by kse being placed before the main verb and the main verb becoming an adverb. For example, when the preposition bo’xat, meaning "under/beneath", is turned into a verb, bo’xa‘te, it means "to go down". However, the verb kse can be added to mean "to be under/beneath": kse bo’xa‘to.

Determiners

Iskel has no indefinite article and one definite article, kŋę, which is only used in cases where the speaker's meaning cannot come across without it.

There are 4 declensions for the demonstrative determiner eŏst. It can be interpreted as a proximal demonstrative, but is used for topical proximity not physical proximity. Likewise, its distal counterpart eŏstę is only for topical distance. Both can be inflected for plurality as eŏsn and eŏskęn, 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, so they alternate between the two. 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	yo’soĭ	i‘tio	i‘tioyan	‘itio’soĭ
	EXCL			imos	imosyan	‘imo’soĭ
2P		it	it’soĭ	yade	yadeyan	‘yade’soĭ
3P.COM		ime	noun-soĭ	imen	yan	noun-nsoĭ
3P.NEU		vųl		vųln
3P.INAN		ksini		ksinin

"Someone" and "some people" are a’telma (person) and a’telman (people) if they refer to someone in particular, but a’telña and a’telñan if they refer to no one in particular, which covers some instances of "anyone". "Other" and "others" are otes and o’tesn. Iskel cannot directly express the concept of "no one"/"nobody".

Relative/Interrogative	Relative		Interrogative
	Pronoun	Sentence	Pronoun	Sentence
who	ji	A’telma ji beibe metia. person-N who drink-V medicine-N "The person who drinks medicine."	jiðs	Jiðs beibe metia. who-INT drink-V medicine-N "Who drinks medicine?"
what	ke	Łeka’refan ta’et ke ‘plokseve’teñasi. 1.EXCL.GEN-food-N-PL all what explode-V.PST-PRS "All our food that has been exploding."	keðs	‘Plokseve’teñasi keðs. explode-PST-PRS what-INT "What has been exploding?"
why	je	Qoma je yos guse ʔu’nevan. eat-N why 1.SG like-V egg-N-PL "The meal that I like eggs due to."	jeðs	Yos guse jeðs ʔu’nevan. 1.SG like-V why-INT egg-N-PL "Why do I like eggs?"
when	ju	Įn’sena ju ime a’veña. show-N when 3.SG.COM fun-V.PST "The show when/where she had fun."	juðs	Ime a’veña juðs. 3.SG.COM fun-V-PST when-INT "When did she have fun?"
where	jo	Gaĭsa jo sotia ksesi. air-N where sound-N exist-V-PRS "The air where the sound is."	joðs	Sotia ksesi joðs. sound-N exist-V-PRS where-INT "Where is the sound?"
how	kamái	Vezida ka’maĭ ksinin vwale. speed-N how 3.INAN-PL fly-V "The speed that they fly due to."	kamáiðs	Ksinin vwale ka’maĭðs. 3.INAN-PL fly-V how-INT "How do they fly?"
which/what kind	ja	Axxinan ja it ne’guse. nightmate-N-PL which 2.SG NEG-like-V "Nightmares which you dislike."	jaðs	It ne’guse jaðs. 2.SG NEG-like-V which-INT "Which (dreams) do you dislike?"
how much	jǫ	Ki jǫ memseṣ. five amount mind-V-FUT "Five that will be thought of."	jǫðs	Memseṣ jǫðs . mind-V-FUT amount-INT "How many will be thought of?"
what result	ka	Mų’gusa ka se’latoþa. 1.SG.GEN-like-N what_result salt-ADJ-QUAL "My appreciation that results from saltiness."	kaðs	Se’latoþa kaðs . salt-ADJ-QUAL what_result-INT "What results from saltiness?"
catch-all + disbelief	ką	Vųlkęn ką aŋ’kse! Vulcan REL.MIR NEG-exist-V "Vulcan, which apparently doen't exist!"	kąðs	Aŋ’kse kąðs! NEG-exist-V REL.MIR-INT "Huh?! Doesn't exist?"

Numerals

Iskel uses biejctive base-12, meaning it's base 12 but zero is not used to make any other numerals.

Arabic	Iskel
mysterious number i dont remember making	ca
Ø (no numeric value)	aŋki‘vol
0	ʔiv
1	ʔų
2	to
3	ðe
4	skwǫ
5	ki
6	ṣe
7	ze
8	kho
9	na
10	ye
11	ha
12	lu
13	ʔųʔų
14	ʔųto
15	ʔųðe
16	ʔųskwǫ