Khattish

Khattish Zupett [zɯpət'] is the language of Khat region in Grundet. Khattish derives from Proto-West-Herookuan languages. Although Khattish is a cousin language of Sceptrian, the strong influence from Kher languages has made it hard to recognize the shared traits.

Phonology

Consonants

Standard Khattish features a strict set of phonemes with mostly four places of articulation. Dialects show some variations such as labio-dental and post-alveolar fricatives.

The IPA symbol is shown after the romanization if they aren't the same.

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Velar	Uvular
Nasal		m	n		ng ŋ
Plosive	Voiceless	p	t		k	kw q
	Voiced	b	d		g	gw ɢ
Fricative	Voiceless	f ɸ~f	s	ss ʃ	h x
	Voiced	v β~v	z	zz ʒ	x ɣ
Ejective		pp p'	tt t'		kk k'
Affricate		pf pɸ	c t͡s	cc t͡ʃ	kh kx
Trill		pr ʙ	r			rr ʀ
Approximant		w w~ʋ		l ɹ~l	j ɰ~j

• Plosives can be geminated
• /f/, /v/ and /ʋ/ are allophones of /ɸ/, /β/ and /w/ with close vowels
• /l/ and /j/ come with front vowels while /ɹ/ and /ɰ/ are used with back vowels

Vowels

		Front	Central	Back
Close	Unrounded			u ɯ
	Rounded			ú u
Mid		é e	e ə~ɵ
Open-mid	Unrounded			a ʌ
	Rounded			á ɔ

• Can be long
• /ɵ/ appears as an allophone of /ə/ after voiced consonants

Orthography

Formal Khattish uses featural abjad script Cekara shown above with its romanization. See also the modern script.

Morphology

• roots slightly similar to semitic roots: voiceless bi- and triliterals (while Kher have quadriliteral roots which work more like semitic ones)
  • voicing & ejective→affricate as one derivation process: √p-p → b-p and p-b
  • derivation with affixes as well

Noun

Animate (AN) and inanimate (IN) grammatical genders, singular and plural numbers

Noun cases:

• Absolutive (ABS): Subject of intransitive verbs and direct object of transitive ones
  • base form
• Ergative (ERG): Agent of transitive verbs
  • final é
• Dative (DAT): Indirect objects and beneficials
  • final k with AN and ee with IN
• Genitive (GEN):
  • final l with AN and j with IN
• Locative (LOC):
  • final h
• Causative (CAU):
  • final f

Apposition

postpositions

Numeral

decimal base

Syntax

ergative-absolutive alignment, word order SOV (verb-final), head-medial