Omni-kan

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Omni-kan
Pronounced: /omnikan/
Timeline and Universe:
Species: Human
Spoken:
Total speakers:
Writing system:
Genealogy:
Typology
Morphology:
Morphosyntax:
Word order:
Credits
Creator: Qwynegold
Created: 2009

Omni-kan is an international auxiliary language. Its earlier names include Pasetok, Pastok, Omnis-kan and Omenis-kan. Although Omni-kan is an auxlang, there is no serious ambition to make it an actually used international language. It was just created for the fun of the challenge of creating a conlang that could potentially be spoken by as many people as possible on Earth.
Since the language is supposed to be international the phonemic inventory is rather small, and several phonological constraints exist for ease of pronunciation. Yet homonyms are avoided. Omni-kan has borrowed all of its words from other languages. There are 49 languages that have been especially prioritized in word borrowing and phonology: Modern Standard Arabic, Mossi (Mòoré), Yoruba, Swahili, Armenian, Albanian, Tamil, Turkish, Kazakh, Uzbek, Mongolian, Hungarian, Finnish, Vietnamese, Indonesian/Malay, Mandarin, Burmese, Thai, Quiché (K'iche'), Quechua, (Paraguayan) Guaraní, Tok Pisin, Tashelhiyt, Hausa, Oromo, Fula, Akan (Twi dialect), Kanuri, Bambara, Telugu, (White) Hmong, Persian, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, English, Russian, Ancient Greek, Portuguese, Bengali, French, Japanese, German, Punjabi, Javanese, Marathi, Korean, Italian, Wu (Shanghai dialect), Cantonese (Canton dialect). All major language families, and major branches of the largest families, are present among these 49 languages. At least 3,88 billion, and possibly as many 8 billion people (including second language speakers) speak these languages.

Phonology

Phoneme inventory

Pulmonic consonants
  Bilabial Labiodental Dental Alveolar Postalveolar Retroflex Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyngeal Epiglottal Glottal
Nasal /m/ <m>   /n/ <n>     /ŋ/[1] <g>        
Plosive /p/ <p>   /t/ <t>     /k/ <k>          
Affricate         /tʃ/ <c>              
Fricative     /f/[2] <f>     /s/ <s>                       /h/ <h>
Approximant   /ʋ/ <w>     /j/ <j>        
Trill     /r/[3] <r>              
Tap or flap                    
Lat. fricative                    
Lat. approximant     /l/ <l>              
Lateral flap                    
Co-articulated pulmonics
  Labial-palatal Labial-velar Alveolo-palatal Palatal-velar
Fricative          
Approximant        
Vowels
  Front Near-front Central Near-back Back
Close /i/ <i>                 /u/ <u>
Close                    
Close-mid                
Mid /e/ <e>             /o/ <o>
Open-mid                    
Near-open              
Open     /a/ <a>        
  1. ^ ^ ^ These are marginal phonemes. There are no minimal pairs involving these phonemes, except for possibly in proper nouns and interjections. [ŋ] is in complementary distribution with /n/, [f] with /p/, and [r] with /l/. The former ones can be replaced by the latter ones if the speaker cannot pronunce any of the alternatives marked with the same color in the above phoneme charts.


The sounds of Omni-kan can be pronunced in several ways depending on what the speaker is capable of, but the most desirable pronunciations have been marked in the above tables. The desirable realization may be substituted for any phoneme marked with the same color. For example /s/ should preferrably be an alveoral fricative, as "/s/ <s>" has been marked in column alveolar, row fricative, but postalveolar, retroflex and alveolo-palatal realizations are also acceptable.

There are also six diphthongs: /ui, oi, ei, ai, ou, au/. The final /i/ could optionally be [j], and final /u/ could be [w]. The diphthongs can also be split up into two syllables, with an optional [ʔ] between. /ei/, /au/ and /ou/ are marginal phonemes as mentioned above, and in complementary distribution with other phonemes.

Phonological constrains

The syllable structure of Omni-kan is (C)V(C). The onset can be any consonant except g, while the coda can be any of m, n, g, p, t, k, c, f, s, l. The allowed medial clusters are:

  • mp mf
  • nt nc ns ny nw nr nl
  • gk
  • pt ps pr pl
  • ft fr fl
  • tn tw tr tl
  • kn kp kt kc ks kw kr kl
  • sn sy sw sr sl
  • lm lp lf lt lk lc ls ly lw

The sequences yi and wu are disallowed.

Complimentary distribution

In the following list $ stand for either syllable break or word boundary.

  • V1n - V1
  • au - o
  • ei - e
  • f - p
  • g - n
  • ou - o, u
  • r - l
  • s$ - t$
  • ti - ci

Borrowing scheme

When borrowing words, the word might need to be changed to fit Omni-kan's phonological constrains. Generally, e is used to split up non-word final consonant clusters, while o is used at the end of words. If possible, the vowel is placed so that the consonants are still adjacent. Here some other rules, which take precedence over the above:

  • #CiV > CijV
  • #CuV > CuwV (but see wo and wu below)
  • Cː > C
  • CCiV > CCijV
  • CCuV > CCuwV (but see wo and wu below)
  • Vː > V
  • Vst > Vt
  • eu > e
  • iV > jV
  • ji > i
  • m# > mo
  • r· > l·
  • wo > o
  • wu > u

Morphology

Pronouns

Personal pronouns
Sg. Pl.
1st p. mi
I		 mikal
we
2nd p. tu
you		 tukal
you
3rd p. o
s/class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"he		 okal
they

Unlike in some other languages, the second person plural pronoun is not used as a polite form of addressing one person.

Prepositions

  • co ‒ to
  • ni ‒ at, in, on
  • te ‒ of, -'s
  • Menten is used for telling what way something is going, like the words along, through and via in English.

See Location for examples of how locational relations are expressed.

Syntax

Location

Location is usually expressed by a locational preposition followed by a noun in genitive and a locational noun. The preposition tells the direction: to, from, along or not moving. The locational noun (LOC.NOUN) tells the actual place. The locational can be combined with the prefix ka-, which means that the subject has physical contact with the place. In the following list, the different ways of telling location has been likened to different noun cases.

  • Adessive - tou NOUN GEN fukan.
  • Apudessive - tou NOUN GEN wijeri.
  • Inessive - tou NOUN GEN in.
  • Intrative - tou NOUN and NOUN GEN aita.
  • Pertingent - tou NOUN GEN ka-LOC.NOUN.
  • Subessive - tou NOUN GEN alat.
  • Superessive - tou NOUN GEN (ka)-soharu.
  • Ablative - ta NOUN GEN fukan
  • Delative - ta NOUN GEN (ka)-soharu.
  • Egressive, initiative - ta NOUN (GEN LOC.NOUN).
  • Elative - ta NOUN (GEN in).
  • Allative - si NOUN GEN fukan.
  • Illative - si NOUN GEN in.
  • Terminative - si/tou NOUN (GEN LOC.NOUN).
  • Perlative (penetrating) - menten NOUN GEN aita.
  • Perlative (going through a space) - menten NOUN GEN in.
  • Prosecutive - menten NOUN GEN soharu.
  • Vialis - with NOUN GEN use.
  • Temporal (at an exact point of time) - tou TIME.NOUN (GEN in).
  • Temporal (around some time) - tou TIME.NOUN GEN fukan.
  • Temporal (sometime during a time span) - tou TIME.NOUN GEN aita.
  • Benefactive - si NOUN (GEN sake).
  • Dative, orientative - si NOUN.
  • Exessive - ta NOUN (GEN LOC.NOUN) (si NOUN (GEN LOC.NOUN))
This article is part of a series on International Auxiliary Languages.

Romance-based Auxlangs: Aercant * Atlango * Interlingua * Latin Nov * Novial * Occidental (Interlingue) * Panroman * Romanal
Germanic-based Auxlangs: Folksprak * Nordien
Slavic Auxlangs: Novoslovnica
Turkic Auxlangs: Jalpi Turkic
African Auxlangs: Afrihili
Mixed-Origin Auxlangs: Esperanto * Adjuvilo * Ido * Ayola * Medial Europan * Bolak * Kotava * North American * Pantos-dimou-glossa * Pasetok * Sasxsek * Universalglot * Volapük
A priori auxlangs: -

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