Kythish

Introduction

Kythish (cwiþeś), also known as Hacean, is a Germanic language spoken in the cantons of the Kythe, on the world of Oktosïï. It is derived from Old English, with a sizeable Celtic influence.

Phonology

Alphabet

Kythish is written using a variant of the Latin alphabet, omitting some letters and adding several more. Majuscules are not used. The collation order is as follows:

a á b c ć d ð e é f g ǵ h i í j l m n ŋ o ó p r ŕ s ś t þ u ú v w ẃ ƿ y ý z ź

In addition, there are four glyphs used exclusively for more divergent dialects, these are as follows:

ç ḉ (collated between ć and d)

ø ǿ (collated between ó and p)

There are also 7 consonantal digraphs, 6 standard and one dialectal, which result from initial consonant mutation. In the rare occurrence that they need to be collated, they are placed directly between the parent consonant and the next letter in the alphabet. These digraphs are as follows:

bh ch çh dh gh ph th

Note: Sometimes hƿ is considered a digraph, due to pronunciation differences, but it has no special collation position.

Phonemes

See Kythish phonemes.

Morphology and Syntax

In general, Kythish word order follows the SVO, IP-V2 pattern; that is, the verb must always be the second concept in a clause or subclause. There are two exceptions to this, though neither are uniform: In perfective constructions, the verb may be at the very end of the sentence (SOV), and in imperative constructions, the verb will often be first (VSO). In addition, Kythish is a Place-Manner-Time language.

Adjectives and Adverbs

Kythish adverbs and adjectives are considered one and the same natively, and both follow the word they modify, though there is no practical restriction on head-final phrases for nouns.

A small number of adjectives and adverbs are bare stems, but most are derived from nouns or verbs, or indeed other adjectives and adverbs, using suffixes:

-ec, -eg, -eś	Pertaining to [noun]. In addition, -eś is almost exclusively used for the names of languages derived from place or race names.
-sum, -swm	Pertaining to [verb] (or, less frequently, [noun]). The latter suffix was formerly dialectal.
-lýs	Without [verb] or [noun].
-fowƿ	Epitomising or bountiful in [verb] or [noun].

See the Kythish lexicon for more.

Nouns

A reasonable proportion of Kythish nouns are bare stems — such as ŋúr, "small ship" or hẃd, "guard dog" — but many more are formed using still-active suffixes. For example, the huge majority of nouns derived from verbs have the suffix -e (with an anomalous schwa pronunciation), — such as ceine, "a lesson", from ceinan, "to teach" — and agent nouns (such as "runner" in English) are formed using -ár — such as ceinár, "teacher". Some basic nouns have a final schwa -e not because they are derived from a verb, but because their etymon ends in an unstressed vowel — such as duźe, "pet dog".

Nouns are conjugated for four cases, (nominative (stem), accusative (-en), dative (-wm) and possessive (-as)) a dual (-az) and a plural (-aen). The overwhelming majority of Kythish nouns are regular; however, there is a certain degree of leeway. Nouns ending in a sonorant consonant, for example, can drop the vowels in the suffixes and append just the final consonant, as is the case for many other suffixes. Stylistically, this is preferred for monosyllabic roots and less common in polysyllabic ones. Thus:

Nominative	Accusative	Dative	Possessive
ŋúr	ŋúren, ŋúrn	ŋúrwm, ŋúrm	ŋúras, ŋúrs
duźe	duźen	duźwm	duźas
ceinár	ceináren	ceinárwm	ceináras

The dual and plural forms follow the same patterns, and are also given accusative, dative and possessive suffixes — e.g. duźaen, duźaenen, duźaenwm, duźaenas.

Nouns can be irregular in one of three different ways: irregular dual or plural (such as mon, "man" -> meinaz, "two men" -> mein, "men".), irregular in accusative, dative or possessive (such as, again, mon -> monn in accusative, pronounced exactly the same as the nominative), or where the dual or plural form are irregular in accusative, dative or possessive. Any regular noun can belong to the last class, where there is a growing trend to form the accusative of regular plurals as -n, such as hẃdaen -> hẃdaenn. In all of these situations, a regular form can be used and still be correct, if a little odd sounding at times. (For example, monaz is the preferred dual of mon in some areas.)

Verbs

Kythish verbs are conjugated for past tense, 3 persons and perfective, continuative and, historically, frequentative aspects. Most verbs are regular, but there are slowly dwindling numbers of irregulars, mostly comprising the former strong verbs of Old English. There is also a closed class of prefixes and (a few) auxiliary verbs that are used to represent various moods, with one notable exception. The future tense is expressed with the prefix sću-, or indirectly with such verbs as ƿewƿan, will, to will.

For examples using the verbs seiźan, to say, ceinan, to teach, and seijan, to see: Kythish verbal paradigm.

Vocabulary

The majority of terms in Kythish originate in Old English, úwƿdiŋleś (usually termed Old Hacean, úwƿdáceś, in Kythish), through the medium of Middle Hacean, medáceś. However, Middle Hacean was subject to an influx in Celtic (primarily Welsh) terms, such as caes, hate, from Welsh cas. The Kythe itself borders a number of other states, including the former-empire of Terra Matsu. The provinces of Terra Matsu that border the Kythe are Terä Matsu itself and the autonomous province of Säämi. In the mountainous region to the west of hácei live the Nordaþ people, who speak a Germanic language from which Kythish has a number of fairly recent borrowings, such as fjúþ, hate, from Nordaþ fjaþ, a word which has largely replaced the Welsh-derived caes. The region bordering Säämi, banoǵacei, uses a sizeable amount of borrowings from that language, but few of these have entered the main language. A similar situation occurs in the south, where a number of non-Indo-European languages abound.

The term "the Kythe" in English derives from Nordaþ usage of kyþe, itself a derivation of Kythish cwiþe, homeland. Thus, "the Kythe" means "the homeland", and the word is used as a noun and proper noun in Kythish (for example, "Where do you come from?" in Kythish is "cwiþe ðen eþ hƿaan?" or "cwiþe ðen ezynþ hƿaan?", literally meaning "what is your homeland?" or "what is your Kythe?").

The alternative name for Kythish, Hacean, derives directly from hácei, commonly translated either as "Hacea" or "Hacei" depending on context. hácei is both the name of the capital city of the region also called hácei and the capital city of the entire Kythe. It is considered incorrect to call Kythish háceś nowadays, but for a long time this was the usual name. The name itself derives from an unknown aboriginal source, as with the name of the other main city of the western Kythe, þýcod.