Ckul

Ckul
Ckul
Pronunciation	[ʦkʼul]
Created by	Aquatiki
Date	2025
Setting	Something distantly related the Avatar movies
Native to	None
Language family	Indo-European Italic Ckul
Early form	Vulgar Latin

Ckul (autoglossonym: ckul; Ckul: [ʦkʼul) is a Italic language, with strong influence of Na'vi. It is the result of a contact among members of the languages.

While its vocabulary derives for the most part from Vulgar Latin, Na'vi influence is most notable in its phonology and its some of its grammar and vocabulary.

History

Main article: Ckul/History

The language name derives directly from the Latin word for 'exile', suggesting the speakers were somehow transported to and transmuted to be able to live on Earth. After becoming Christianized in the region of North Africa, they were driven to Spane, so they are indeed exiles twice over. Ultimately from Latin exsul (“exile (person)”), it came to refer to "a person in exile on Earth, after having been exiled from Pandora."

This sad tale continues for the Ckul. Their exile in the Atlas mountains was followed by an exile to Muslim Spain. Later, most Ckul migrated to Central America, where their minority status continues to hamper their lives to this day.

Orthography and Phonology

Alphabet

The Tskxul alphabet consists of 26 symbols. There seven vowels are and twenty consonant sounds.

Letters of the Ckul alphabet
Aa	Ææ	Bb	Cc	Dd	Ee	Ff	Gg	Hh	Ii	Kk	Ll	Mm	Ññ	Nn	Oo	Pp	Rr	Ss	Tt	Uu	Ww	Xx	Yy	Zz

• The letter æ is used to make the 'ash' sound, but in Na'vi it is written ä.
• The letter h is used to make the glottal stop, but in Na'vi it is written with an apostrophe.
• The letter j is used to make the /j/ sound, as in Spanish.
• The letter ñ is used to make the /ŋ/ sound, but in Na'vi it is written ng.
• The letter x is used to make the /h/ sound, as in Spanish.
• The letter y is used to make the /ɪ/ vowel, but in Na'vi it is written ì.

Phonology

Consonants

	Labial	Alveolar	Dorsal	Glottal
Nasal	/m/ m	/n/ n	/ŋ/ ñ
Ejective	/pʼ/ p	/tʼ/ t	/kʼ/ k
Stop	/p/ b	/t/ d	/k/ g	/ʔ/ h
Fricative v-	/f/ f	/s/ s		/h/ x
Affricate		/ts/ c
Fricative v+		/z/ z
Liquid		/ɾ/ r
Lateral		/l/ l
Glide	/w/ w		/j/ j

When in the coda, the voiceless stops are unreleased. In all positions, the voiceless stops are unaspirated.

Vowels

	Front	Back
High	/i/ i	/u/ u
Near High	/ɪ/ y
Middle	/ɛ/ e	/o/ o
Low	/æ/ æ	/ɑ/ a

There are also six diphthongs and two syllabic consonants: æw, aj, aw, ej, ew, oj and rr, and ll.

Phonotactics

• Allowed simple onsets: b, d, g, p, t, k, h, m, n, ñ, r, l, w, j, f, s, z, c, x, ø
• Allowed complex onsets: {f, s, c} + {b, d, g, p, t, k, m, n, ñ, r, l, w, j}
• Allowed nucleus: a, æ, e, i, y, o, u, aj, aw, ej, ew, oj, rr, ll
• Allowed coda: b, d, g, p, t, k, h, m, n, l, r, ñ, ø

The only exception to this formatting is that a syllabic consonant nucleus requires an onset consonant (not null), and may not take a coda consonant.

Vowel hiatus is common. VCV is typically syllabified as V.CV.

Morphophonology

Mutation

In certain situations, several consonants undergo mutation (or lenition).

Consonant	p	t	k	b	d	g	c	h
Mutation	b	d	g	f	s	x	s	ø

Affixes that cause mutation are marked with a + sign, instead of a - sign for merely attaching.

Simplifications

• Because identical vowels cannot occur next to each other, they contract.
• It is possible for the syllabic consonants to occur immediately after their consonant-counterpart. When this happens in an unstressed syllable, the pseudovowel disappears. In a stressed syllable, the infix disappears. Pseudovowels in monosyllables behave as though unaccented.
• In rapid speech final -e is frequently elided when the following word starts with a vowel.

Grammar

Affixes

Ckul has singular, dual, plural. All are formed by prefix:

• The lexical form is the singular, in almost every case.
• du+ (from duo) makes the dual.
• flu+ (from plūrēs) makes the plural.

The case system is highly regular, all suffixing:

• The lexical form is the absolutive. This is the subject of an intransitive verb or the patient of a transitive verb.
• -i for the dative. This is the collapse of the old genitive, dative, and ablative.
• -(u)n for the ergative. This is the actor in a transitive clause.

Apart from these few forms and the prenouns, almost every other affix in the language is able to precede or follow its head. When it is not ambiguous, heads and their modifiers may be some distance apart. This means the language is moderately to heavily non-configurational. When attributive, adjectives agree with their noun-head. When predicative, they use the lexical form. There is no gender.

The vocative is accomplished through intonation or the particle ma.

Nouns

Ckul nouns show three case endings (absolutive, ergative, and dative), and two case-like structures (genitive and topical). There are three numbers: singular, dual, and plural. Note that the forms without the dual or plural are ungrammatical in an utterance (requiring a determiner).

	Singular	Dual	Plural
Absolutive	pædrr - *father	dubædrr - two fathers	flubædrr - fathers
Ergative	pædrun - *father	dubædrun - two fathers	flubædrun - fathers
Dative	pædri - *to father	dubædrri - to two fathers	flubædri - to fathers
de	de pædrr / pædrrde - *of father	de dubædrr / dubædrrde - of two fathers	de flubædrr / flubædrrde - of fathers
fbi+	fbibædrr - *as for father	fbidubædrr - as for two fathers	fbiflubædrr - as for fathers

The noun-phrase in Ckul is both slotted and non-configurational. See the table below for the full schema. Basically, the main determiners affix to the noun, either to the left or the right, in a certain order.

Specifier +FOCUS		Quantifier + FOCUS		Number		Genus + FOCUS		NOUN + CASE	Genus -focus		Quantifier -focus		Specifier -focus
1. the/this	hyl-	1. all/every	tod-	1. dual	du+	1. kind	gen-		1' kind	-ner	1' all/every	-dal	1' the/this	-ll
2. this/that	sde-	2. each/per	kæd-	2. plural	flu+						2' each/per	-dæ	2' this/that	-ce
3. what/which	cwi+												3' what/which	-cwi
4. an/some	hal-												4' an/some	-lyg

For a given morpheme pair, to occur on the left brings it into focus. Compare this to putting its partner on the right, which does not attract focus. For example, cwisuk is WHICH captain?, whereas dukcwi is Which CAPTAIN?.

Certain English words require two of these bound morphemes to translate. For example 'all' + 'dual' = 'both'.

Pronoun

Pronouns inflect as noun do, but also have a dedicated genitive adjective. ≪he≫ is the infix of honor/humility for pronouns, and always appear just before the case ending (or at the end for the absolutive).

	Singular			Dual			Plural
	A	E	D	A	E	D	A	E	D
1st excl	jo	jon	joj	duno	dunon	dunoj	no	non	noj
1st incl				hæmfno	hæmfnon	hæmfnoj	ño	ñon	ñoj
Second	tu	tun	ti	hæmftu	hæmftun	hæmfti	wo	won	woj
3rd ani	ja	jan	jaj	dua	duan	duaj	ear	ean	eaj
3rd inanim	jy	jyn	jyi	duy	duyn	dui	eor	eon	eoj

Possessive Adjectives

	Singular			Dual			Plural
	A	E	D	A	E	D	A	E	D
1st excl	mea	mean	meaj	dul	dulun	duli	nojcrr	nojcrun	nojcri
1st in				hæmbor	hæmbon	hæmbori	ñojcrr	ñojcrun	ñojcri
2nd	weh	wehan	wehi	hæmñe	hæmñen	hæmñi	wejcrr	wejcrun	wejcri
3rd ani	sa	san	saj	dup	dupan	dupaj	lor	lon	loj
3rd inan	sy	syn	syi	duk	dukan	dukaj	lu	lun	lui

Verbs

Lexical entries for verbs look different from other words because the contain middle dots where the second and third infix locations are. TAM particles are typically infixes in the verb, though some are exclusively suffixes and other exclusively prefixing. There is a slight tendency to put the verb last, but it is not a majority of utterances. Verbs are strictly transitive or intransitive, and may not delete an argument unless it is very clear from context (e.g. imperatives, or after a topic has been set).

Slot 1

In almost all verbs, the position for the valency-altering affixes is before the beginning, i.e. prefixing. It is still marked with a middle dot in the lexicon, making verbs easy to spot.

Only one or one of the following may occur:

• ≪fæ≫ - causative
• ≪se≫ - reflexive/middle
• ≪hi≫ - anti-passive

In the same slot, the subjunctive affixes may co-occur with the previous (or not):

• ≪sì≫ - positive irrealis
• ≪ne≫ - negative irrealis

Subjunctives are considered the polite imperative. True imperatives take no such infix.

Deverbals

Unlike all the other verbal infixes, these occur after a consonant, not after a vowel. The cannot co-occur with any others and turn a verb into an adjective or noun. They all lack aspect, and the first two lack tense.

• ≪ar≫ - active infinitive (no tense or aspect, verbal noun)
• ≪ad≫ - anti-passive infinitive (no tense or aspect, verbal noun)
• ≪añ≫ - non-past participle (no aspect, verbal adjective)
• ≪am≫ - past participle (no aspect, verbal adjective)

After becoming an adjective or noun, these may take normal morphology (e.g. plural, definiteness, etc.).

Slot 2

Typically coming after the first vowel of the verb, most of slot 2 infixes conveys tense and aspect. ≪null≫ is present imperfective.

• ≪wy≫ - simple past (preterite)
• ≪wa≫ - imperfective past (imperfect)
• ≪re≫ - perfective past (pluperfect)
• ≪sdi≫ - present perfect (perfect)
• ≪wi≫ - future imperfective (future)
• ≪weri≫ - future perfective (future perfect)

Slot 3

Almost always simply suffixing, slot 3 conveys mirativity, honor, and/or evidentiality.

• ≪an≫ - positive mirativity
• ≪im≫ - positive mirativity and indirect evidentiality
• ≪i≫ - formal register
• ≪id≫ - formal register and indirect evidentiality
• ≪ur≫ - negative mirativity
• ≪uñ≫ - negative mirativity and indirect evidentiality

Notice that this means ≪null≫ here is neutral mirativity, informal register, and direct evidentiality.

Sample Texts

Our Father

Ma sembu-ñojcrr cwo sdar skæl-l-yn,
sysasdiñcyfyg nom-tu,
syædwen reñ-tu,
syfi wolunda-tu,
frecwom skæl-l-yn cwom trr-l-yn.
Pan-ñojcrr kodizan sydon nowi oz,
ut syperdon nowi flufkád-ñojcrr,
frecwom ñon perdon fluberamdonll nowi;
ut neynduk ño yn-sentacton,
gi syfælyfre ño de hylmæl.
Amen.

Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name;
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our sins,
as we forgive whoever sins against us;
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
Amen.

Ma sempu ngoytsrr tswo star skxäl-lìn,
sìsastingtsìfìk nom txu,
sìätwen reng txu,
sìfi wolunta txu,
fretswon skxällìn tswom txrrlìn.
Pxan ngoytsrr kxotizan sìton nowi oz,
utx sìpxerton nowi flufkxat ngoytsrr,
fretswom ngon pxerton fluperamtonll nowi;
utx neìntukx ngo ìn sentxatstxon,
ki sìfälìfre ngo te 'ìlmäl.
Amen.