Qi (Irfikian Language)

Qi (IPA /ʧɪ/) is a language spoken by about 3.5 million people in and around the country of Qila'a'o on the planet Irfik. It is one of the stranger languages of Irfik, and the first earth-man to learn and transcribe the language, Derrek Wisthaum, described it as: ...an unusual tongue ...[Qi is] an explosion in a glottal stop factory (D. Wisthaum, The Farming Lands of Irfik 2064).

Qi is written, by natives, in the Qi'a alphabet, a simple alphabet consisting of 14 characters, 10 consonants, 3 vowels, one diacritic and a letter that serves as a glottal stop, transcribed into roman as an apostrophe. An image of the Qi'a script is below:

It is a simple alphabet and most letters, have remained unchanged for 4,500 years.

The language is plagued by the unusual word order VSO. Adjectives always come after nouns. The only time the word order differs slightly is if there is an adverb, as adverbs come before verbs. So, 'The little ducks swam in the cool pond happily' would have the word order:

Adverb Verb subject adjective(pl)(definite article) in object(definite article) adjective.

Namely:

Ra'a-nazo'i'o ada'a'o bi'aqu'-i'aza-bá'ó a'a va'á'inaq-bá'ó zi'i'iz