User:Nicomega/Kareyku

Kareyku
Kareyku
Pronunciation	[/ka.ˈrej.ku/]
Created by	Nicolás Campi
Setting	Earth-like planet
Native speakers	Unknown (2010)
Language family	Kareykian Old Kareyku Kareyku

Kareyku is a case-heavy language with 11 cases and 6 evidentials. Here I was trying a new concept using more evidentials than verb-heavy morphology and being influenced from Japanese and Quechua, among others. It also uses some particles not unlike Chinese. Mostly the idea was to create a language where a lot of meaning could be conveyed as shortly as possible and using suffixes that convey a who-to-who relationship rather than personal suffixes.

Introduction

While I was working on some college exams I came across a very old paper with, what seemed to be, notes on a language I had apparently abandoned. When I started looking at it I realized immediately that it was a very old jotting and that it had been discarded long ago. However as time passed I decided I could give this language a better finale.

The notes were very inconsistent (and even contradictory at times), with few examples jotted down with no translation which cannot be understood now. I tried to take as much of the original general shape and aesthetic of the language and give it some structure. What resulted is Kareyku.

Many years of reading about this and that language gave me plenty of ideas I didn't have at the time I discarded it (which might have been very early in my conlanging). Mostly this language consists of these new ideas rather than the original which is scarce and impossible to decipher, but certainly not very developed. Basically I wanted to retain the frame and general shape, but change the grammar to something more interesting.

Phonology

Consonants

	Bilabial	Dental	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Labio-Velar	Glottal
Stop	p b	t d	ch j [t͡ʃ d͡ʒ]	k g	q
Fricative							h
Sibilant		s z	sh [ʃ]
Nasal	m	n
Liquid		l r
Approximant			y [j]			w

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e ɛ		o ɔ
Open		a

Kareyku diphthongs are: ay, ey, oy, au, eu, ou. Notice that e, i shift to /ɛ/ and o, u to /ɔ/ when next to the uvular.

Grammar

Kareyku doesn't use pronominal affixes per se. Although it does have independent pronouns, the verb is inflected with what are called natively "transitions". The transitions indicate the "who–to–whom" character of the verb. Independent pronouns can also be provided to avoid confusion when needed. The language also uses a host of seven evidentials. Other features include a number of postpositions that act as declensional cases and commentary particles.

Evidentials

Evidentials are used in Kareyku to mark how evident one statement is or the source of said statement. Only one evidential marker can be used each time, and they can be used either with verbs, adjectives or nouns. There are seven evidentials in Kareyku:

Evidential	Description	Form
Empiric	statement is fact either empiric or to the speaker.	-s, -si
Hearsay (reportative)	the speaker heard about the statement.	-n, -ni
Inferential	the speaker assumes the statement to be true.	-ch, -chi
Renown	the thing being referred is famous for what is stated.	-l, -li
Belief	the speaker believes the statement to be true.	-sha
Infamy	the thing being referred is infamous for what is stated.	-lya
Obviative	the statement is obvious, or should be, to the speaker.	-lcha

So for instance, if we have the previous example sentence: qappaka pile 'I eat fish'. We can further develop it into:

qappakas pile. I eat fish (it's a fact, I'm doing it). qappakan pile. I eat fish (I have heard, I don't remember). qappakach pile. I eat fish (I assume, because I'm eating it). qappakal pile. I eat fish! (I'm famous for that!)

qappakasha pile. I believe I eat fish. qappakalya pile. I eat fish (I'm infamous for it, because I eat too much or I don't finish them). qappakalcha pile. I eat fish (duh! It's obvious!)

Evidentials have an active role in formality and informality contrast and in politeness vs. rudeness. For instance, it is considered in Kareyku culture that you should not always be sure of things you say, even when talking about yourself the continuous use of the "fact evidential" can result in rudeness. The rudest of them all, of course, is the "obvious evidential" which is considered very aggressive and rude, you should never point out to others they don't know something, even when you are right or even if the fact is really obvious.

The case with the "infamous evidential" is interesting. It used to be a respectful or augmentative equivalent of the "famous evidential" but as time passed it started to be felt pompous and so developed as a satirical comment, thus infamity for doing something too much.

Evidential usage

To clear up some doubts about evidentials I will clarify some with examples. For instance, how the "obvious evidential" is used. It is the equivalent to the usage we give to tone in this context, "duh!" and the like.

In a given dialogue:

- Chaman koy? - pilelcha!

This can be translated into:

- What is this? - Duh! It's a fish! or It's a fish, don't you see it?

Hence the interpretation as a rude or very informal referential. The "fact evidential" is really more neutral, but still informal. While it is common in normal speech, it can be rude using it to someone you don't know or an elder, or someone who deserves respect altogether.

Now the "infamous evidential" always marks someone for something his famous for abusing. For instance if you say qappatal can mean "he is famous for eating" as in "he enjoys it very much". But saying qappatalya will yield the sense "he is famous for eating" as in "he can't stop eating" or "he's a fat-ass". This ending used to be the much more formal, much older form of -l, used about people like the king "his majesty is most famous for defeating his enemies" and over time through popular usage it came to be pejorative but in a sense of excess.

Even if between friends you would tend to use -s the "fact evidential" it would be good to remind that when facing someone's father, for instance, it'd probably be better to use -sha "I believe". Even in the same example as before:

- Chaman koy? - What is this? - pilesha. - I believe it is fish.

While you could answer pile or piles to a friend or acquaintance. odanibeki las wile. I'm happy for being with you.

Evidentials focus

As mentioned before, the evidentials can be affixed to verbs, nouns or adjectives with different results. In fact in a sentence the place where one affixes the evidentials makes subtle changes in the sense of the sentence. For example, if we go back to our sample sentence: qappaka pile.

Using the "hear-say evidential" we can get qappakan pile or qappaka pilen. The first one means "I've heard I eat fish", while the second would be closer in meaning to "Fish is what I've heard I eat". The difference is very subtle, but can be used for rhetorical purposes.

In fact qappakach pile means "I assume I eat fish", but qappaka pilech means "I assume that what I eat is fish". That's why a sentence like qappaka piles sounds a lot like "What I'm eating IS fish". Depending where the evidential is placed the focus shifts.

Nouns

Noun Declensions

Case	Suffix	Example	Translation
Allative	-lto	pokolto	towards the house
Benefactive	-kume	pokokume	for the house
Translative	-bara	pokobara	through the house
Locativo	-lyo	pokolyo	at the house
Commitative	-ni	pokoni	with the house
Abessive	-wan	pokowan	without the house
Causative	-beki	pokobeki	because of the house
Ablative	-wo	pokowo	from the house
Genitive	-na	pokona	the house's
Instrumental	-qa	pokoqa	with a house, by a house
Dative	-ran	pokoran	for the house

Verbs

There are 3 main transitions:

From 1st person to someone else From 2nd person to someone else From 3rd person to someone else

The logic for Kareyku speakers behind this is that you can only know your intentions. When someone has a present only the giver can know if you are going to give the present to me or to him, hence, the most complete transitions are from the first person, the one I'm sure.

Transition 1 is expressed by infix -ka Transition 2 is expressed by infix -da Transition 3 is expressed by infix -ta

This transitions are only for the Present tense. Kareyku doesn't use a negative particle, there are two different conjugations, positive and negative, for each tense. The negatives being:

Transition 1 is expressed by infix -ke Transition 2 is expressed by infix -de Transition 3 is expressed by infix -te

So, if you have the verb qappa 'to eat', qappaka means 'I eat (it)'. If you use pilé meaning 'fish' then you get qappaka pilé 'I eat fish' and the negative would be qappake pilé 'I don't eat fish'. The transitions are needed even when there is a subject present, and intransitive verbs take a transition as a subject but regardless the object. Thus, qappaka, can mean 'I eat (it)' as well as 'I am eating'.