Kimow

Kimow
Kimau
kimow
Pronunciation	[ˈkʰím.ǒʊ] [ˈkʰǐm.ɑ̄w]
Created by	Jukethatbox
Date	2024
Native speakers	7.7 million(total) (2024) Kimo: 3.96 million Wakki: 3.74 million
Language family	language isolate Kimow
Dialects	Kimo dialects Igkin dialects Kemḥu Kka Mukku (†) Wakki dialects
Writing system	Latin

Kimow(/kiːmoʊ/, kimow; Kimow: [ˈkʰím.ǒʊ] or [ˈkʰǐm.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

Kimow uses its own version of the Latin alphabet for writing.

Vowels + pulmonic consonants

Letter (Maj-min)	A a	B b	C c	D d	E e	F f	G g	H h	Ḥ ḥ	I i	K k	Ḵ ḵ	L l	M m	N n	O o	P p	S s	T t	U u	W w	V v	Y y	Z z
IPA	a	bʱ	c	dʱ	e ɘ	f	gʱ ʔ	h	ɦ	i	kʰ	q	l	m	n ŋ	o ɑ	pʰ	s	tʰ	u/ʊ w		v	j	z

Consonants

Aside from Wakki dialects using [w] as a replacement for [u] and [ʊ], consonants do not vary at all between Kimow speakers.

		Bilabial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar/ Labial-velar	Uvular	Glottal
Plosive	pulmonic				c ɟ		q ɢ	ʔ
	aspirated	pʰ bʱ		tʰ dʱ		ˈkʰ gʱ
	ejective/glottalised	pʼ bʼ p͡ʔ b͡ʔ		tʼ t͡ʔ			qʼ ɢʼ q͡ʔ ɢ͡ʔ
Nasal		m		n	ɲ	ŋ
Fricative	pulmonic		f v	s z	ç			h ɦ
	ejective/glottalised		fʼ vʼ f͡ʔ v͡ʔ	sʼ zʼ s͡ʔ z͡ʔ
Approximant	normal				j	w
	lateral			l		ɫ

Ejective controversy

There is an ongoing debate on whether the doubled consonants of Kimow(kk, gg and so forth) are ejective consonants or diphthongs with a glottal stop. Previous studies have tried to link the two sets of different sounds to dialectical difference between Kimo and Wakki, but no correlation was found between use of glottal diphthongs or ejectives on dialectic differences alone. Subsequent studies on less spoken dialects, such as Kemhu Kka and Mukku found no correlation either. Thus, the theory that use of ejectives or glottal diphthongs depends on dialect is now generally considered outdated and disproven, though a replacement theory with substantial evidence has yet to be found. Until such a theory is proposed, the linguistic community has agreed that the differences are completely arbitrary and are sometimes up to the speaker.

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	Near-close	Back
Close	i			ɯ u
Near-close			ʊ
Close-mid	e ø	ɘ ɵ		o
Open	a œ			ɑ

Prosody

Stress

Across all dialects, stress has only one pattern: prototonic in most cases, oxytonic when there is a case marker.

Tone

Use of tone in Kimow is not indicated in the orthography and varies by Kimo and Wakki dialects, though within their own subsets they tend to conform to one standard tone system.

Tone
Kimo	Wakki
high [˦ ]	rising [˩˥]
rising [˩˥]	mid [˧]
falling [˥˩]	low rising [˩˨]
	rising-falling [˧˦˧]
extra low [˩]	low [˨]
low [˨]