Kośtsiśtsi

Kośtsiśtsi [kɔʃ.tsɨʃ.tsɨ] is the primary and co-official language of the People's Republic of Dróstsiśtsi. It is a member of the Kośtsiźda family, and the only one in the family significant in the Ŋorld.

Phonology

Unless otherwise noted in ⟨⟩ brackets, the IPA is the same as the romanization. When two values are shown in the same cell with a ~ separating them, the first is found in "front" words while the second is in "back" words.

Consonants

		Labial	Dental	Sibilant	Lateral	Trill	Postalveolar	Velar
Stop	Voiceless	p	t	ts	tɬ ⟨tł⟩	tr̥ ⟨tŕ⟩	tɕ~tʃ ⟨tś⟩	c~k ⟨k⟩
	Voiced	b	d	dz	dɮ ⟨dl⟩	dr	dʑ~dʒ ⟨dź⟩	ɟ~g ⟨g⟩
Fricative	Voiceless	f	θ ⟨tt⟩	s	ɬ ⟨ł⟩	r̥ ⟨ŕ⟩	ɕ~ʃ ⟨ś⟩	ç~x ⟨x⟩
	Voiced	v~w ⟨v⟩	ð ⟨dd⟩	z	l~ɫ ⟨l⟩	r	ʑ~ʒ ⟨ź⟩	ʝ~ɣ ⟨ǵ⟩
Nasal		m	n					ɲ~ŋ ⟨ń⟩

Consonants in words with front vowels (see below) have slightly different pronunciations from the same consonants in words with back vowels. They are often slightly palatalized in front words and velarized in back words, though certain sounds take stronger variation. /v/ and /l/ are often heavily velarized in back words, the postalveolar sounds are typically only postalveolar in back words and alveolo-palatal sibilants in front words, and the velar sounds are palatal in front words and velar in back words.

Codas

The chart above only applies for initial consonants; in coda position, the chart collapses, with the stop and fricative series merging into a single archiphoneme depending solely on place, although the nasals remain separate. The main archiphonemes vary depending on the following consonant; all assimilate to the next consonant's voicing, and in addition the labial, dental, and velar sounds vary between the stop and fricative forms copying the value of the succeeding consonant. Before nasals, both the stop and fricative forms are allowed for labials, dentals, and velars, as long as it is voiced, although the stop version is more common in heterorganic clusters. Coda nasals do not assimilate to following consonants in any way.

Orthographically, in the latin alphabet the coda assimilation is represented somewhat irregularly; normally they are written the same as in onsets, but several pairs are written the same, shortening the writing effort. At the ends of words only the unvoiced version is used, as all (non-nasal) consonants are devoiced in this position.

Orthography	t	d	l	r	g
Sound 1	t	d	ł	ŕ	g
Sound 2	tt	dd	l	r	ǵ

⟨póx⟩+⟨tsi⟩=⟨póktsi⟩ [poktsɨ] "eye [NOM]"

⟨póx⟩+⟨du⟩=⟨pógdu⟩ [pogdu] "eye [ACC]"

⟨póx⟩+⟨sa⟩=⟨póxsa⟩ [poxsα] "I see"

⟨póx⟩+⟨vo⟩=⟨póǵvo⟩ [poɣwo] "they see"

⟨póx⟩+⟨ne⟩=⟨pódne⟩ [podnə]~[poðnə] "you see"

⟨kas⟩+⟨tsi⟩=⟨kastsi⟩ [kæstsi] "neck [NOM]"

⟨kas⟩+⟨du⟩=⟨kazdu⟩ [kæzdy] "neck [ACC]"

⟨kas⟩+⟨sa⟩=⟨kassa⟩ [kæssæ] "I close"

⟨kas⟩+⟨vo⟩=⟨kazvo⟩ [kæzvø] "they close"

⟨kas⟩+⟨ne⟩=⟨kazne⟩ [kæzne] "you close"

Sounds can rarely change based on surrounding sounds as well. The sequences /vu/ and /ɣi/ are pronounced as [vu] and [ɣi] instead of the expected [wu] and [ʝi] due to similarity. In coda positions where [iʝ] is expected, it is instead shifted into [iɟ]. Coda [w] after rounded vowels is also often [v], and the cluster [ɣw] also dissimilates into [ɣv].

Vowel

	Unrounded	Rounded
High	i~ɨ ⟨i⟩	y~u ⟨u⟩
Mid	e~ə ⟨e⟩	ø~o ⟨ó⟩
Low	æ~α ⟨a⟩	œ~ɔ ⟨o⟩

As the first vowel in a word, unrounded vowels are phonetically front and rounded vowels are back. In following syllables they take on the frontness of the first vowel.

⟨dolne⟩ [dɔɫnə] "you look for" ⟨ledne⟩ [ledne] "you love"

Note that the morpheme ⟨vo⟩, a common grammatical morpheme marking third person agreement, is typically pronounced [wo~o] instead of the original [vɔ~wɔ] expected from the spelling. This is the only morpheme where this happens.

Phonotactics

The syllable structure is CV(C), with a mandatory onset consonant and vowel. Codas are optional, but syllables without codas are largely limited to grammatical affixes. See the Codas section above for more.

Morphology

The grammar system is similar to Inuit-Yupik-Unangan languages, with a word initial root and a wide variety of grammatical suffixes able to follow. Roots are not inherently marked as a verb or noun; instead, this information comes from the affixes. Nouns must be marked with one of a number of case affixes, while verbs must be marked with the person of their subject. Hence, roots cannot c

Nouns

Nouns do not have gender, but must be marked with case and number. Cases are as follows:

nominative	accusative	dative	genitive	vocative	comitative	posessive	instrumental	benefactive	locative	ablative	causal	distributive
tsi	du	gof	da	ka	rat	noś	pof	sax	gof	sox	zax	dlaf

The "genitive" marks all English modifiers- genitives, adjectives, and adverbs- except posession, and does not take agreement. Posession is marked by -noś on the noun being posessed with the preceding noun being the posessor, but a pronoun can follow the -noś instead, where the pronoun is what is being modified instead of the previous word. Additionally, cases can stack if needed; they are ranked with the more important ones closer to the root.

⟨pógnoźnepovzax⟩ [pognɔʒnəpɔvzαx] "because of using your eyes", eye-POS-2PS-INST-CAU

Verbs

Verbs mark for a number of categories, but many of them either aren't necessary or have one option unmarked. They follow the order of "person, number, tense, aspect, mood, voice" from left to right.

Person and Number

Person marking is polypersonal, with the marking of both the subject and object necessary on verbs which are taking an object. The marker for the subject always comes before that of the object, and the number of each person follows the person marker. Each position has the option of being occupied by a first, second, and third person proximate or obviative (hereafter referred to as fourth person- 4P) marker.

Typically, if two person markers are attached right next to each other, they are treated as being separate markers; the singular is normally unmarked, and only used to specify two preceding markers as both referring to the same speaker.

1P	2P	3P	4P	singular*	dual	plural
sa	ne	vo	xól	nó	te	ku

póxsa "I see"

póxsane "I see you"

póxsanenó "We [me and you] see"

póxsavonó "We [me and not you] see"

póxsanete "I see you two"

póxsanetenó "We [me and two of you] see"

póxsavokunóne "We [me and multiple other people] see you"

Syntax

The language defaults to SOV word order, but the components can move to put an emphasized portion at the front. Modifiers always come right after what they modify.

Vocabulary

Kośtsiśtsi has a fairly limited number of possible roots, with one root often able to encompass a wide semantic space. Compounding is common, often to specify a type of whatever the root is, but also in fairly simple vocabulary.

⟨dzix⟩ "sea"+⟨źil⟩ "circle"=⟨dzigźil⟩ [dziɟʒil] "island"

As noted above, words used in normal speech take on noun or verb affixes, with roots unable to appear in isolation. However, a handful of particles and numerals are allowed to, as well as names and words not being used in a phrase.

Numerals

The language uses a base 60 numeral system, with a subbase of 8. In writing, each "digit" from 0 to 59 is written with two characters representing its base 8 structure; in speech it is similar, but with certain numbers having separate words, and that single digit octal numbers do not have a preceding 0.