Old Izhkut

Old Izhkut
Pokht-Izhkut, Old Ishcot
dean
Pronunciation	[ˈdʲɛn]
Created by	Jukethatbox
Date	2025
Setting	Radael
Native to	Pokht-Izhkutrëa
Ethnicity	Pokht-Izhkut people
Era	As a native language, 500 UH—10 BH
Language family	Taskaric Iskeric Ilyic Old Izhkut
Early forms	Proto-Taskaric Proto-Iskeric Proto-Ilyic

Old Izhkut(dean, Old Izhkut: [ˈdʲɛn]; Izhkut: mëja izhkut, [ˈmɛɟa iʒkut] [ˈmɛd͡ʒa iʒkut]), also called Pokht-Izhkut or Old Ishcot, is a classical language of the Ilyic branch of the Taskaric languages. It originally developed in the Petrum region, where it was the official language of most of the Petrucian city-states, and was the native language of most of the "Proto-Izhkut" peoples that would later become the Izhkut, Pokht and Ilyod.

Old Izhkut began to diverge into the Pokht-Izhkut languages around 10 UH; Ilyod was the first to be attested separately from Old Izhkut, when it was declared the national language of the emerging Kingdom of Ilyod(Old Izhkut: Iliodreag; Ilyod: Myerilyud). The growing Izhkutrëa followed suit shortly after at the turn of the BH, declaring Izhkut the administrative language of Izhkutrëa. Pokht, historically known for more conservative dialectology, took longer to be recognised as a separate language from Old Izhkut; this only occurred through Izhkut occupation, which, after invading and establishing Izhkut control over the former Pokht city-states, enforced a ban on the use of the Pokht language, which logically required an actual definition of a "Pokht" language.

Although spoken Old Izhkut is not intelligible with any modern descendant of the language, it still holds high prestige in Izhkut society; Old Izhkut is taught at a compulsory level from the start of middle school onwards, and prose was historically written almost exclusively in Old Izhkut until the publication of Blue Coasters in 222 BH. Although Izhkut modernists have rejected the use of Old Izhkut and championed the use of modern Izhkut, Old Izhkut still takes an important part in Izhkut society.

Phonology

Consonants

		Bilabial	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	plain	p b		t d			k g
	palatalised			tʲ dʲ
Fricative		ɸ β	θ ð	s z	ʃ ʒ		x	h
Nasal		m	n̪	(n)		ɲ	ŋ
Tap				ɾ
Approximants				l		j

The bilabial fricatives /ɸ β/ were fronted to labiodental /f v/ in most descendants of Old Izhkut; however, some eastern Pokht varieties still preserve the original bilabial fricatives. Bilabial fricatives also appear in Colonial Izhkut as so-called "L-allophones"; as in, they appear as allophones of /f v/ before lateral approximants.

Vowels

		Front		Back
Close		i		u
Mid	Close-mid	e	ø	o
	Open-mid	ɛ
Open				ɑ

/ø/ was an unstable vowel in Old Izhkut and was dropped in most descendants of Old Izhkut.

Comparison with descendants

	Old Izhkut	Izhkut	Ilyod	Pokht
"window"	abarm [ˈɑbɑɾm]	abarm [ˈabaɾm] [ˈabaɹm]	abalm [ˈaβalm]	abam [ˈɑb̥ɑm]
"blue"	dioelle, djoelle [ˈdʲøllɛ]	jull [ˈɟûl] [ˈd͡ʒuːl]	djelh [ˈɟʝɛʎ]	tjoell [ˈtʃøɫ]
"land"	misodra, misoddra, misohra [miˈsoðɾɑ] [miˈsohɾɑ] [miˈsuðɾɑ] [miˈsuhɾɑ]	Misogra "Colonies" [miˈsogɾa]	esudra "home" [əˈsuðɾa]	misuğra "Pokhtreg" [miˈsuːɽɑ]

A-fronting

"A-fronting" (Izhkut: A-budrean) refers to the process in which the originally open back vowel /ɑ/ in Old Izhkut was fronted to a more central /ä/ or even front /a/ realisation. A-fronting was most common in Izhkut and Ilyod dialects, though it did not occur in the majority of Pokht dialects, where the originally open back pronunciation remained, exemplifying the more conservative phonological changes of Pokht.