The Kaomiguen language (kâômiighueNh phâZhlîîng, pronounced /kɑ.ɔ'mi:.ɣwɛɴ ɸɑʐ.jɐz'ɺɨ:ŋ/), sometimes referred to as Emugan or Emuganese, is the constructed language spoken by the Emugans at their arrival to Earth in 2040. By 2119, Kaomiguen is used as an international language due to its relative ethnical neutrality and shares the status of official language in the UFE.
One of the most remarkable characteristics of Kaomiguen is its extreme flexibility respect to word order, allowing to write a sentence with any of the six word orders.
History[]
Kaomiguen's origin dates back to 4205 BSC (Before the species contact), when a group Emugan linguists began a project to create an universal language in order to avoid conflicts caused by a misundersatanding. After three years, they created a single language that included the grammar, the vocabulary and the phonology of all the official languages of every commonwealth of Kaomozi.
The legistures of the commonwealths approved teaching the language in schools and after a test period of two standard years in which it received wide acceptance, the language was approved in a referendum and was named Kaomiguen.
Phonology[]
Kaomiguen has 72 consonant phonemes, 20 vowel phonemes, 10 long and 10 short, and 4 semivowel phonemes.
Consonants and semivowels[]
The inventory of consonants in Kaomiguen is spread over almost all the places of articulation founded in human languages, but it has no clicks, ejectives nor implosives. The 72 consonants and 4 semivowels are:
Vowels[]
The inventory of vowels in Kaomiguen is similar to that of Germanic, Romance and Slavic languages, with each of the 10 long vowels phonetically paired with one of the 10 short vowels. The 20 vowels are:
Long vowels occur in stressed syllables and short vowels in unstressed syllables.
Diphthongs[]
The 4 semivowels combine with the vowels to form 12 rising diphthongs and 12 falling diphthongs. The main characteristics of Kaomiguen diphthongs is the use of vowel harmony. front vowels only forms dipthongs with palatal semivowels and back vowels only with velar semivowels. The 24 diphthongs are:
If the stressed syllable has a diphthong, the main vowel is replaced by its long counterpart.
Syllable structure[]
Kaomiguen follows a strict syllable structure: (C)V(C). A syllable can start with a vowel or a consonant followed by a vowel and, in both cases, followed by a final consonant. There is always a hiatus between two consecutive vowels; nonetheless, this rule changes when using the Latin script for transliteration (see below), which uses the apostrophe to indicate that there is a hiatus.
Stress[]
Grammar[]
Kaomiguen is a nominative–accusative language, morphologically agglutinative, slightly flexive and uses several particles to determine the grammatical functions of the sentence elements.
Word order[]
Kaomiguen has a relative free word order, meaning that it can follow any of the structural orders which are: SOV, SVO, VSO, VOS, OVS and OSV . However, each structural order has strict rules. The SVO, VSO and VOS sentences are head initial, have the adjectives after nouns, to place adpositions as prepositions before the noun phrases they govern and use the place-manner-time order. In contrast, SOV, OVS and OSV are ussually head final, have the adjectives before nouns, to place adpositions as postpositions after the noun phrases they govern and use the time-manner-place order. SOV, SVO and OSV sentences follow the inderect-direct objects order and VSO, VOS and OVS sentences follow the direct-indirect objects order. SOV, SVO and VSO place complements after the object and VOS, OVS and OSV sentences place complements before the object.
Nouns[]
The noun is the nominal part of speech which refers to a concrete or abstract entity.
Gender[]
In Kaomiguen there two classes of nouns, animate and inanimate beings, both in the sense of living, not motion. The fomer class has three genders: masculine, feminine - both of which are based on the sex of living beings - and neuter - which is used when the speaker doesn't know the sex of the person, of the animal or of the plant; in plural it's used to include beings that are masculine, feminine and ambiguous. The latter class includes objects, places, abstractions and actions. Animate nouns are simultaneously divided in five subclasses: people, animals, plants, fungi and others.
Inflexion[]
Animate nouns inflect according to gender and subclass. The inflections are:
Prefixes[]
There are X types of noun prefixes. A word with a suffix of one type cannot have another prefix of that same time.
Articles[]
This type of prefix deals with the definiteness of nouns. There are four prefixes, two for a noun class:
The prefix la- is for definite animate nouns.
- nheetjiph male cat → lanheetjiph the male cat
The prefix ne- is for idefinite animate nonuns.
- phiiLat daughter → nephiiLat a daughter
The prefix di- is for definite inanimate nouns.
- GGhôôtlsasj glass (drinking vessel) → diGGhôôtlsasj the glass
The prefix ro- is for definite inanimate nouns.
- mhiisâR table → romhiisâR a table
Suffixes[]
There are two groups of noun suffixes. The first group are suffixes subdivided in four types. A a word with a suffix of one type cannot have another suffix of that same time. The second group, known as jumpers, have no defined position, and can go after the verb stem or after any suffix, even another jumper.
Group 1[]
Type 1
There are two suffixes:
The suffix -ênj is for augmentatives.
- ropioolhgar a city → ropioolgarênj a metropolis
The suffix -ûLh is for diminutives.
- pââRRed male parrot → pââRRedûLh male parakeet
Type 2
This type of suffix indicates the speaker affect. There are four suffixes:
The suffix -ôdls expresses positive affect.
- Dêêuvat goddes → Dêêuvatôdls goog/merciful/friendly... goddess
The suffix -êTsh expresses negative affect.
- zjaalhdat girl → zjaalhdatêTsh brat
The suffix -îkh expresses praising affect.
- dzhaaRmed brother → dzhaaRmedîkh brother praised by the speaker
The suffix -ûzh expresses endearment.
- maakkhed father → maakkedûzh daddy
Type 3
This type of suffix deals with plurals. There are two suffixes, one for each noun class:
The suffix -ôis is for animate nouns.
- pââRRon parrot → pââRRonôis parrots
The suffix -êuz is for inanimate nouns.
- pioolhgar city → pioolgarêuz cities
Type 4
This type of suffix indicates the case of the noun. There are five suffixes:
The suffix -o is used for the nominative case.
- laDêêwed the god → laDêêuvedo the god
The suffix -i is used for the accusative case.
- nefêêNDon a boss → nefêêNDoni a boss
The suffix -e is used for the genitive case.
- lanheetjâbh the female cat → lanheetjâbhe of the female cat
The suffix -a is used for the dative case.
- nedzhaaRmedîkh brother praised by the speaker → nedzhaaRmedîkha to brother praised by the speaker
The suffix -u is used for the predicative case. This case is used when a noun goes after the verb bîîlhûrh to be.
- nePââRRTon parrot → bîîlhûrh nePââRRTonu to be a parrot
Group 2[]
l
Adjectives[]
s
Circumfixes[]
There is just one type of circumfixes, which are used to form the comparative and superlative forms.
Comparatives[]
mhurr ... (kêh) → more ... (than)
lzis ... (kêh) → less ... (than)
djân ... d
Superlatives[]
phlanj ... (nô) → most ... (of)
medh ... (nô) → least ... (of)