Kala

• Kala is meant to be a simple and euphonic personal conlang.

• Many lexical entries are inspired/influenced/borrowed by/from any number of natlangs

Pronunciation

• Where ~ appears, it indicates free variation between phonemes.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i~i: (i)		u~u: (u)
Mid	e~e: (e)		o~o: (o)
Open		a~a: (a)

Diphthongs

falling

• [aɪ~aɪ:] - ai
• [aʊ~aʊ:] - ao

rising

• [wa~wa:] - ua
• [waɪ~waɪ:] - uai
• [ja~ja:] - ya
• [jaʊ~jaʊ:] - yao
• [je~je:] - ye
• [jo~jo:] - yo

Consonants

	Labial	Dental		Palatal	Velar		Glottal
		central	lateral		plain	labial
Nasal	m (m)	n (n)		ɲ (ny)
Plosive	p~b (p)	t~d (t)			k~g (k)	kʷ~gʷ (ku)	ʔ (')
Fricative		s (s)		ʃ (s)			h~ɦ (h)
Affricate		ts (ts)	tɬ (tl)	tʃ (ts)
Approximant			l~r (l)	j (y)		w (u)

Syllable Structure

• (N)(C)V
• N = prenasal /n/ or /m/

• The three codas are /k/, /m/, and /n/.
• /k/ only occurs as a final coda to negate verbs and nouns.

Prenasalized consonants

• In Kala, almost every consonant can be prenasalized, but primarily the plosives /p/, /t/ and /k/ can be analyzed as prenasalized,

while most other instances could be easily analyzed as cases of syllabic /n/ or /m/.

• mb /mp~mb/

Example: mpaka /ˈmpa.ka/ - n - boundary / border / line

• nt /nt~nd/

Example: ntama /ˈnta.ma/ - n - calf (a young cow or bull)

• nk /ŋk~ŋɡ/

Example: nkapa /ˈŋka.pa/ - n - alcohol / grog

Writing System

See: Moya

Grammatical Principles

• The grammar of Kala should be regarded as a guide indicating how grammatical distinctions of gender, number, tense/aspect, noun, verb and particles are made. I have adopted the Arab grammarian's division into three categories (1) Noun [no / ata] / , (2) Particle [peya] , (3) Verb [uati] . Kala does not always follow European models. It discards all redundancies. In English we say “two boys came yesterday”; in Kala “two boy come yesterday” [ta’o tahi yomaye tala] it is clear that more than one boy is already indicated by ‘two,’ while ‘yesterday’ shows the time, or tense of the verb.

Sentences

See: Kala Sentences

Nouns

See: Kala Nouns

Verbs

See: Kala Verbs

Questions

• There are three kinds of question: those that can be answered with a simple "yes" or "no", those that present a range of options to choose from, and those that ask for a particular piece of information.

• Additionally, questions can be direct ("Where are we going?") or indirect ("I asked you where we are going", "I don't know who I am").

Yes/No questions

• A sentence can be turned into a yes/no question by adding a? ("yes?") or ak? ("no?") just before the interrogative particle ka.

• Do you speak German?

ta alemanyatla kala ka

2S Germany.Language speak INT.PART

• Did you eat?

ta inaye ka

2S eat.PAST INT.PART

• We're lost, aren't we?

nam kayo ak ka

1P lost COP.NEG INT.PART

• Does she understand?

ha unya ka

3S understand INT.PART

Indirect

• I want to know whether the food has arrived.

na iya ke ina talaye unyaue

1S COND.PART TOP.PART food come.PAST know.VOL

• She asked if I could help.

ha iya ke na yotapa kanyoye

3S COND.PART TOP.PART 1S help.ABIL ask.PAST

• The answer to a yes/no question is a ("yes") or ak ("no"), a states that the possibility expressed in the question is true; ak states that it is false:

• ta nkapaue ka - 2S alcohol.VOL INT.PART – Do you want (a) beer?

• tsepa a - please yes – Yes, please. (I do want beer)
• nyasak - thank you.NEG – No, thanks. (I don't want beer)

Alternative questions

• An alternative question simply asks the listener to pick one of a number of options, usually expressed as a list joined with the conjunction ua:

• ta tsa'i ua kaua ua nkapa ueha ka - 2S tea or coffee or beer want INT.PART – Do you want tea, coffee, or beer?

• tsepa kaua - please coffee – Coffee, please.

• ta nya tsiti ua uelo ua yala talaye ka - 2S tea or coffee or beer want INT.PART - Did you come by car, or by bicycle, or did you walk?

Other questions

• Other questions use interrogative determiners or pronouns such as ote, ko, ke, ama, ku, to, mo, and nye. The interrogative word appears at the beginning of the sentence:

• ote mosa ke ta yomu ka - which book TOP.PART 2S read INT.PART - Which book are you reading?
• ko moyako ke ta tsopo ka - person write.AG TOP.PART 2S prefer INT.PART - Who is your preferred author?
• ke itla maka kapi ka - TOP.PART this music ugly INT.PART - What is this ugly music?
• ke ta muya ka - TOP.PART 2S do INT.PART - What are you doing?
• ama ta moku ka - time 2S sleep INT.PART - When do you sleep?
• ku ta inatli ka - amount 2S eat.FUT INT.PART - How much will you eat?
• to ta yalaye ka - way 2S walk.PAST INT.PART - How did you walk?
• mo nam a ka - place 1P COP INT.PART - Where are we?
• nye ta empa ka - reason 2S run INT.PART - Why are you running?

Numbers

Cardinal Numbers

• e'o - zero / nothing
• na'o - one
• ta'o - two
• ha'o - three
• ma'o - four
• ya'o - five
• tsa'o - six
• ka'o - seven
• pa'o - eight
• sa'o - nine
• ue'o - ten
• nye'o - (one) hundred
• tle'o - (one) thousand
• mue'o - ten thousand
• kye'o - (one) hundred thousand
• nte'o - (one) million

Higher Numbers

• uena'o - eleven / 11

• taue'o - twenty / 20

• nyeka'o - one hundred seven / 107

• hanyetauetsa'o (long form) | hatatsa'o (short form) - three hundred twenty six / 326

• tsatletauema'o - six thousand and twenty four / 6024

Ordinal Numbers

• ki- - ordinal prefix

Example : kisa'o - ninth (in a sequence)

Example : kiyanyepa'o - 508^th

Fractions

• i- - fractional prefix

Example : isa'o - a ninth, 1/9

Example : iha'o te pa'o - three eighths, 3/8 [lit: a third of eight]

Punctuation

See: Moya

Index

grammar outline | sentences | questions | lexicon | thematic lexicon | writing