Kimow
| Kimow | |
|---|---|
| Kimau[1] | |
| kimow | |
| Pronunciation | [kʰím.ǒʊ] [kʰǐm.ɑ̄w] |
| Created by | Jukethatbox |
| Date | 2024 |
language isolate
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Dialects |
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Kimow(/kiːmoʊ/, kimow; Kimow: [kʰím.ǒʊ] or [kʰǐm.ɑ̄w]), also(but less commonly) called Kimau, is a language isolate that is notorious for the fact that the majority of its words are homonyms, meaning they have various meanings. For example, the name of the language, Kimow, can mean "Kimow"(adj.), "the Kimow language", "the Kimow people", "an ethnic Kimow", "a Kimow speaker(so not necessarily an ethnic Kimow)", "a member of the Kimow diaspora", "Kimow food" or "a Kimow city". There are also only two main dialects, the Kimo and the Wakki, and their homonymic meanings differ greatly at times, making mutual understanding difficult. Tone and phonology vary slightly as well, though not as greatly and are thus more mutually intelligible.
Phonology
Orthography
Consonants
Vowels
Red sounds are exclusive to Kimo dialects, while blue sounds are exclusive to Wakki dialects. Green sounds are exclusive to Igkin dialects, which although are a subset of Kimo dialects, do have some different sounds. Black sounds are in all sets of dialects.
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | ɯ[3] u[4] | |
| Close-mid | e ø | ɘ[5] ɵ[5] | o |
| Open | a œ[6] | ɑ[7] |
Prosody
Stress
Intonation
Phonotactics
Morphophonology
Morphology
Syntax
Constituent order
Noun phrase
Verb phrase
Sentence phrase
Dependent clauses
Example texts
Other resources
- ^ Original exonym of the language before widespread English-based romanisation, now only used in German in the form of *kimauisch*.
- ^ Mostly extinct, some elderly speakers still exist.
- ^ Allophone of [m] in initial position.
- ^ In Wakki dialects, the [u] is substituted by [w] in most cases.
- ^ a b Both are variants of [e] and [ø] in Kimo and Wakki dialects.
- ^ Alternative allophone of /ø/, though [ø] is still more widely used.
- ^ Wakki variant of Kimo [o].