Kalyahekwe

Kalyah language
Kalyahekwe
Pronunciation	[/kalʲ.ˈja.hɛ.kʷɛ/]
Created by	Raistas
Setting	planet Liifam
Ethnicity	Kalyaheen
Language family	Settameric languages Western Plains languages Kalyah language
Early form	Proto-Settameric

Kalyah (with four varieties, known as Möhkinis, Teimyois, Šonoowis and Eihtoomis) is a language, spoken in the western part of a vast flat region of the Northern continent, simply called the Plains. The most commonly spoken variety is Teimyois, it is referred to as an "ð-dialect", because the *θ is still distinct in most cases as a phoneme /ð/. The grammar and the examples used here are from Teimyois, but data on other dialects will be given as well. It is spoken by approximately 117,000 people across the northern part of the Plains near the Frost Bay (Iniikekwa).

Kalyah is believed to have begun as a Plains Settameric dialect spoken between 2,500 and 3,000 years ago in the original homeland, near the Kahaaler mountains and slowly spread eastward. However, it's divergence into separate dialects began much later, around 700 years ago. The main criteria of division are reflexes of *l, *š and *θ as the boundaries, made by those reflexes, are quite clear. Another important phonological variation involves the palatalisation of the phoneme *k to "č" before /j/ and /i(ː)/, however the division is not as clear, since *ky is often pronounced as [c] in the west, slowly becomes [c͡ç], when moving eastward, until it finally becomes [t͡ʃ] Eihtoomis dialect.

Phonology

Consonants

This table shows the possible consonant phonemes in the Kalyah language and its varieties:

	Bilabial	Dental		Postalveolar	Palatalized	Velar		Glottal
						plain	labialized
Nasal	m	n			ny /nʲ/
Stop	p	t			ky /c/	k	kw /kʷ/
Fricative	f	θ	s	š /ʃ/	hy /ç/			h
Affricate		c /t͡s/		č /t͡ʃ/
Approximant	w	ð			y /j/
Lateral Approximant		l			ly /lʲ/

•   Found only in the Möhkinis dialect, where it is a reflex of *č. This dialect has no [t͡ʃ]
•   Present in Teimyois and Möhkinis. [ð] comes from *θ between two vowels in Teimyois and from *l in Möhkinis. *l is preserved as [l] in Teimyois, becomes [n] in Šonoowis and [j] in Eihtoomis.
•   Present in Šonoowis and in Southern Eihtoomis. In other dialects *š becomes [s].

When /j/ precedes a consonant, it becomes palatalized. In most dialects /j/ then disappears. For example the name of the language is often pronounced [ka.ˈlʲa.he.kʷe] with a palatalized (or even a trully palatal /l/). In Eihtoomis plain velars also palatalize before /i(ː)/ and become [t͡ʃ]. A unique combination is "hy" which is almost always pronounced [ç], but that sound is rare, for example: lyahyi "rime" is [lʲaçɪ]. Whether palatalized consonants are separate phonemes or not is a matter of debate, but there is at least one minimal pair: lyoma ([ˈlʲo.ma], "hiding") and loma ([ˈlo.ma], "hammer, obviative") since two consonants in a row are not allowed word-initially in Kalyah. Both plosives and affricates (except č) can be preaspirated between two vowels and word-finally in monosyllabic words, which is marked with "h" before a consonant, for example: ahto "man", fohk "leaf", iskahceh "s/he fed it", fiihp "lake", liihkʷ "fire".

Vowels

Vowels

	Front		Back
	unrounded	rounded
Close	ii |[iː]	öö [øː~ʉː]	oo [oː~uː]
Near-Close	i [ɪ]	ö [ø~ʏ]	o [o~ʊ]
Mid	ee [eː]
Near-Open	e [ɛ]
Open	a [a]		aa [ɑː~ɔɑ]

All dialects have the same set of vowels, but they may differ in certain words. Kalyah has several diphthongs as well, that can be monophthongized in many Southern varieties. The quality of those diphthongs varies too among dialects:

Diphthongs

	Dialects:
	Möhkinis	Teimyois	Šonoowis	Eihtoomis
ei	[aɪ]	[eɪ]	[ɛæ]	[eɪ]
aa	[ɒː]	[ɔɑ]	[ɔɑ]	[ɑː]
oi	[oɪ]	[ʊɪ]	[ɛɵ~œ]	[øʏ]
yo	[jo]	[jo]	[œː]	[je]
ya	[ja]	[ja]	[ɛæ]	[je]
yö	[jo]	[jø]	[øː]	[øː]

Prosody

Stress in Kalyahekwe is non-phonemic. Traditionally, the word stress is antepenultimate and dynamic. This means that it falls on the third from last syllable in words with three or more syllables, but on the first syllable of the root in other words. But in Northern dialects it is always placed on the initial syllable instead. Both variations are correct in modern Kalyah. In its earlier stages of development Kalyah probably had a pitch accent, but it was lost completely nowadays. If a word is longer than four syllables, a secondary stress can be placed on the second to last syllable, for instance: koočikwaaniitis [koː.ˈt͡ʃɪ.kʷɔɑ.ˌniː.tɪs] "we might not be running around".

Morphology

Like most Settameric languages, Kalyah is highly synthetic, meaning it exhibits a great deal of synthesis and a very high morpheme-to-word ratio. It is agglutinating, and thus builds up words by stringing morpheme after morpheme together, rather than having several affixes which carry numerous different pieces of information, but certain morphemes can fuse together.

Kalyahekwe distinguishes between animate and inanimate categories in nouns and person markers. Animate nouns are generally living things that can move on their own, and inanimate ones generally nonliving things, although that is not a simple rule because of the cultural specifics. Some words are distinguished by their noun class and have the same root; for example, hacikwi means "fir tree" and is animate, while hacikw is inanimate and means "wood".

Nouns

Apart from animacy, Kalyah nouns have a category of number, a simple singular/plural contrast for almost all nouns, but words for naturally paired objects have dual, which acts like plural. Verbs must agree with the animacy and number of its nouns. Kalyah nouns do not have a case distinction, but it has obviation instead, where one of the two participants would be marked as proximate (whichever one was deemed more important), and the other marked as obviative. In some situations, like when a sentence contains an intransitive verb, obviative marking is omitted. This is also true of sentences with only one noun where the role of the noun is obvious from the personal marking on the verb.

	Inanimate			Animate
	"hammer"			"woman"
	Singular	Plural		Singular	Plural
Proximate	lom	loma		lomin	lomoi
Obviate	očča	oččoo		oččan	oččone

When an object is possessed by somebody, it is marked by a possessive marker. All possessive prefixes are represented in the table below:

Possessive prefixes
	singular	dual	plural
1st	k(i)-	kas-	kil-
2nd	t(i)-	tas-	til-
3rd an.	h(i)-	has-	hil-
3rd inan.	yo-	yas-	yil-

Verbs

Verbs mark aspect, mood, subject and object and have two categories: independent (in a main clause) and conjunct (used in subordinate clauses, with participles and question particles). Intransitive verbs can only mark the subject, while transitive can also mark both direct and indirect objects (or one of them). Some markers can show variations among different dialects.

Kalyah verbs have a similar shape to other Plains languages. Here is a template for all types of verbs:

Transitive verbs
prefixes				word stem					suffixes
particles	Ind. Obj.	1,2 Subj. sg.	Dir. Obj. sg.	Aspect	Modality	Root	DIR/INV	Mood	3sg. Subj.	Obj. du./pl.	Subj. du./pl.	negativity	interrogative
Intransitive verbs
prefixes		word stem				suffixes
particles	Subj. sg.	Aspect	Modality	Root	Mood	Subj. du./pl.	negativity	interrogative
Conjunct verbs
prefixes		word stem				suffixes
initial vowel	Dir. Obj. sg.	Aspect	Modality	Root	Mood	Subj. sg.	Obj. du./pl.	Subj. du./pl.	negativity	interrogative
Middle verbs
prefixes			word stem					suffixes
ne-	Ind. Obj.	1,2 Subj. sg.	Aspect	Modality	Root	Mood	DIR/INV	3 Subj. sg.	Subj. du./pl.	negativity	interrogative

Below are all person markers for subject and both direct and indirect objects. Variations among dialects are included.

	Indirect Object		Subject			Direct Object
	singular	plural	singular	dual	plural	singular	dual	plural
1st	ti_	til_	k_	k_as	k_iit	m_	m_as	m_iit mi_iyiŠ
2nd	ta_	tal_	ki_	ki_as	ki_iit ki_ih	ni_ ti_	ni_as ti_as	ni_iit ti_iit ti_iyiŠ
3rd an.	ha_	hal_	_h _eh	_ah _ehci	_iit _iyih	so_(a) _š(a)Š	_(a)si _šosiŠ _soθM	_(a)li _šoyiŠ
3rd inan.	–	–	_ _eθiM	_as	_iin	yo_(a) _i	yo_(a)si _oči _oθM	yo_(a)li _iyiŠ

• M - Möhkinis dialects, Š - Šonoowis dialect.