Kiwi

Kiwi
Taʻ rī kiwinikaʻ
Pronunciation	[/tɑʔ rɪː kɪˌwɪɲɪˈkɑʔ/]
Created by	–
Native to	Easter Island
Native speakers	⅜ (2013)
Language family	Rana languages Kiwi
Early form	Proto-Rana
Language codes
ISO 639-1	ki
ISO 639-2	ki
ISO 639-3	qki

Kiwi (natively known as taʻ rī kiwinikaʻ, IPA: /tɑʔ rɪː kɪˌwɪɲɪˈkɑʔ/) refers to the constructed language supposedly spoken on Easter Island, constructed by Waahlis. The language was devised as an effort to screw with the minds of marine biologists, as well as a hypothetical language for Pagurus prideaux.

The Kiwi language is constructed to be agglutinative, for a change, yet retains the simple phonotactics of Polynesian languages. The phonology is simple by Europan standards, as is the orthography. Morphology and grammar show clear influences from Ojibwe, Navajo and to a certain degree, Spanish. The most interesting bits of information on the language is that is has a very weak word-final stress, lacks adjectives and adverbs, and that is a hyper intelligent shade of blue.

Background

Starting date: August 11th 2013. The 223rd day of the year. Would you know.

Phonology

Consonants

Kiwi has 12 consonants, some of which show great allophony. It is unusual in that it has no proper fricatives; only the pseudo-fricative /h/.

Consonants

	Labial	Alveolar	Dorsal	Glottal
Nasal	m /m/	n /n/	ng /ɲ ~ ŋ ~ ɴ/ 1
Plosive	p /p/	t /t/	k /c ~ k ~ q/ 2	ʻ /ʔ/
Fricative				h /h/
Approximant	w /w ~ v/ 3	l /l/	y /j/
Tap		r /ɾ/

1. The dorsal nasal is pronounced palatalised if they precede near-front from mid to high vowels, and uvularised if preceding back vowels.
2. The dorsal plosive is pronounced palatalised if they precede near-front from mid to high vowels, and uvularised if preceding back vowels.
3. The labial fricative /v/ and the labiovelar approximant /w/ are in free variation.

Consonant allophony

The Kiwi dorsal nasals and plosives assimilate to the following vowel in the syllable. The near-front mid to high vowels /e̞ː/ and /ɪ/ thus act palatalising. Likewise, the back and near-back vowels uvularise the consonants.

kiwi'
/kɪˈwɪʔ/ → /cɪˈwɪʔ/
kiwi'
common_language.c5.sg
common language

kulā'
/kʊˈlaːʔ/ → /qʊˈlaːʔ/
kulā'
darkness.c5.sg
darkness

ngunē'e
/ŋʊne̞ːʔə/ → /ɴʊne̞ːʔə/
ngunē'e
dagger.c3.sg
dagger

Vowels

The language distinguishes 7 different vowel qualities, 3 of which display differences in length.

Vowels

	Front	Near-front	Central	Near-back	Back
Close				u /u/ · ū /uː/
Near-close		i /ɪ/, [ʏ] · ī /ɪː/
Close-mid
Mid		ē /e̞ː/	e /ə/		o /o̞/ · ō /o̞ː/
Open-mid
Near-open
Open	ā /aː/				a /ɑ/, [ɒ]

Phonotactics

Kiwi phonotactics follow the same pattern as most Polynesian languages. Kiwi syllables may contain one consonant in the onset, or there is no onset. Syllables with no onset contrast with syllables beginning with the glottal stop: /ɑˈlaː/ ('hi') contrasts with /ʔɑˈlaː/ ('to be whole'). Codas and consonant clusters are normally prohibited in the phonotactics Austronesian languages, but Kiwi allows a final glottal stop as a syllable coda. It is elided if the following syllable has an onset.

The syllable has a minimum of one vowel. A one-vowel syllable has any one of the short or long vowels. Any vowel clusters form diaereses.

The structure of the Kiwi syllable can be represented as being (C)V(C), where the round brackets around C and second C mean that a syllable-initial or syllable-final consonant is optional.