Izhkut

Izhkut
Ishcot
jënn izhkut
Pronunciation	[ˈɟɛ̂n̪ iʒkut] [ˈd͡ʒeːn iʒkut]
Created by	Jukethatbox
Date	2022
Setting	Radael
Native to	Izhkutrëa
Ethnicity	Izhkut people
Native speakers	126,000,000 (256 BH) 234,000(L2)
Language family	Taskaric Iskeric Ilyic Pokht-Izhkut Izhkut
Early forms	Proto-Taskaric Proto-Iskeric Proto-Ilyic Old Izhkut
Standard forms	Standard Izhkut General Colonial
Dialects	Mainland dialects North(Ilyod) dialects Ubëes dialect South(Pokht) dialects Izhkrilin dialects Colonial dialects Bay Area dialects Usergonefa dialect → Bay Islands Creole Strait dialects Shepsë dialect Ebënzinu dialect Mosëoch dialect
Official status
Official language in	Izhkutrëa, Minūrun Pokht, Ilyod
Recognised minority language in	Ingdikh
Regulated by	Institute of the Izhkut Language (Sraunyu Jënn Izhkut)

Izhkut(jënn izhkut, Standard Izhkut: [ˈɟɛ̂n̪ iʒkut]; General Colonial: [ˈd͡ʒeːn iʒkut]), also known as Ishcot is the most spoken Taskaric language and second most spoken language(after Moshurian) in Radael, with a native speaker population of 126,000,000 people, and it is spoken by another 234,000 as an L2 language. The language as a whole also operates as a lingua franca in the scientific community in Birnu, as well as in diplomacy on the continent. It is also one of the 8 official languages in the West Birnu Economic Union(WBEU).

Modern Izhkut is divided into two main dialect groups: Mainland and Colonial. Mainland dialects are spoken in Izhkutrëa proper, and historically were the basis of Standard Izhkut, though modern Mainland dialects have mostly diverged from the Standard to varying degrees(even the least divergent dialects, such as those of Ubëes, have incorporated many slang words that are not recognised in Standard Izhkut). Colonial dialects are a diverse dialect continuum primarily spoken in the Izhkut Colonies(Standard Izhkut: Misogra; Colonial Izhkut: Uesi), characterised by a phonology and grammar distinct from Standard or Mainland Izhkut, as well as a vocabulary heavily influenced by languages indigenous to the Colonies and also great internal diversity; Colonial dialects themselves are generally divided into Bay Area(in and around the Gibios Bay) and Strait(around the Chepsëh strait) dialect continua that have their own distinct vocabulary and slang, if similar phonology and grammar.

Izhkut has a historical tendency of absorbing and often eventually replacing geographically nearby languages, a process called Izhkutifisation(Izhkut: Izhkutyomin), due to its importance Birnu-wide. Historically, the victims of this process have often been closely philologically related to Izhkut itself; notable victims that are now extinct include the Ilyod language, the Izhkrilin language(of which little is attested), and the Yingid languages. Notable languages that are currently in the process of being Izhkutifised, but are still (however barely) extant, include Pokht, Iskvish and to an extent Bay Islands Creole. Other languages have been described as entering the Izhkutifisation process at some point, but have since left it; most notably Ingdikh, a language wholly unrelated from Izhkut spoken in the republic of the same name, was at one point almost entirely relegated to vernacular use in Izhkut-dominated Ingdikh society before rebounding after the Hlisgit Revolution and its official endorsement as the sole official language of the revolutionary Republic of Ingdikh.

More recently, concerns have been raised over the possible Izhkutifisation of the many languages spoken in Minūrun; this has been mostly attributed to Izhkut neo-colonialism and Izhkutrëa's almost total control over Minūrese trade, as well as more generally increasing globalisation in Birnu leading to Izhkut's wider use as a lingua franca.

Phonology

Consonants

This table only shows the consonants in Mainland Izhkut.

	Bilabial	Labiodental	Dental	Alveolar	Post-alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	p b		t d			ɟ	k g
Nasal	m	(n̪)		n		ɲ	(ŋ)
Fricative		f v	(ð)	s z	ʃ ʒ		x	(h)
Tap or Flap	(ɾʷ)			ɾ		(ɾʲ)
Semivowel						j
Laterals				l

[n̪] is an allophone of /n/, usually pronounced at the end of a word, such as in jën [ˈɟɛ̂n̪] "language, speech". [ð] is a lenited allophone of /d/, though where this lenition actually occurs depends on dialect. The general rule is that /d/ is lenited before or after an /e/ or diphthong ending in -/ɪ̯/, e.g. yeid [jeɪ̯ð] "legend (person)".

Though in Old Izhkut /h/ was its own phoneme, /h/ merged into /x/ some time during the transition to modern Izhkut. However, by the time of the development of Colonial dialects, /h/ reappeared as an allophone of /x/ after /ɛ/, /e/ and /i/(and later replaced /x/ as a whole). This allophonic use of /h/ seeped into Mainland dialects and eventually Standard Izhkut by 256 BH, and has remained a sanctioned part of Izhkut phonological rules to this day.

Vowels

Izhkut has a lot of vowels and diphthongs, most of which preserved from Old Izhkut.

Izhkut phonemic vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Close-mid	e		o
Open-mid	ɛ
Open		a

Additionally, four of the six phonemic vowels have non-syllabic allophones that appear in diphthongs.

Non-syllabic allophones of Izhkut phonemic vowels

	Phoneme	Allophone
Close	i	ɪ
	u	ʊ
Close-mid	e	ɨ
	o	ɔ

All six phonemic vowels can form valid diphthongs with their non-syllabic counterparts. Two identical vowels next to each other in a diphthong don't occur either, nor does /eɛ̯/ or /ɛɨ̯/.

	a	i	u	o	e	ɛ
a	-	aɪ̯	aʊ̯	aɔ̯	aɨ̯	aɛ̯
i	ia̯	-	iʊ̯	iɔ̯	iɨ̯	iɛ̯
u	ua̯	uɪ̯	-	uɔ̯	uɨ̯	uɛ̯
o	oa̯	oɪ̯	oʊ̯	-	oɨ̯	oɛ̯
e	ea̯	eɪ̯	eʊ̯	eɔ̯	-
ɛ

Though /eɛ̯/ and /ɛɨ̯/ don't occur in any dialect, some older, primarily Pokht-derived placenames still orthographically retain these diphthongs, e.g. the city of Kohfëef. However, these diphthongs are replaced with i-initial or i-final dipthongs, so Kohfëef is pronounced [ˈkoxfeɪ̯f] and Ubëes is pronounced [ˈubeɪ̯s]. /ɛ-/ diphthongs also do not occur and have merged with /e-/ diphthongs.

Prosody

Stress

Stress in Izhkut is generally prototonic.

Pitch-accent

Izhkut incorporates a two-tone pitch-accent system very similar to Swedish. The two tones, often called contour I(falling tone) and II(mid/no tone), vary between dialects, though their placements are the same.

Meaning (I)	Contour		Meaning(II)
	I	II
whistle	sillu	silu	silo
wail (n.)	ouggu	ougu	wheat
place	dost	dost	youth

Contour I is usually orthographically indicated by the doubling of the proceeding letter, with contour II left unindicated.

Phonotactics

Izhkut syllables follow the rule of (C)(r)V₁(V₂)(C), where C represents any consonant apart from the flap, r represents the flap, V₁ represents any vowel, and V₂ represents any vowel that isn't identical to V₁.

Morphology

Articles

Izhkut has no indefinite articles. Definite articles are inflected on number and proceeding sound.

	Consonant	Vowel
Sing.	ge	g'
Pl.	lege	leg'

Personal pronouns

			Case
			Nominative	Genitive		Accusative	Dative
				Singular	Plural
Singular	1st		na	nai	naid	nade	nadea
	2nd	informal	See § T-V distinction.
		formal	la	lai	laid	lade	ladea
3rd			sa	si	seid	sid	siud
Plural	1st	incl.	ena	enai	enaid	enna	enae
		excl.	ouna	ounai		ounna	ounnai
	2nd		ela	elai	elaid	elade	eladde
	3rd		mena	menai	menaid	menna	mensi

Izhkut personal pronouns are inflected on case almost identically to Old Izhkut, though number inflection is dropped for all cases except the genitive.

However, modern Izhkut also departs from Old Izhkut grammar through various forms, such as T-V distinction in plural second-person as well as the use of pitch-accent to differentiate nominative and accusative.

Vocative

In Mainland dialects, a vocative particle, i, is always placed before formal singular second and third person pronouns. For example:

Luën i la sëm?

"What would you like?"(lit. "Want o thou what?")

Luën i sa ge luhus reosh.

"He would like the chicken soup."(lit. "Want o he the soup chicken.")

Traditionally, Izhkut royalty also used the particle before the singular first-person pronouns, the Izhkut equivalent to the royal we in English. For example, Margaret Thatcher's famous "We have become a grandmother" phrase would be:

Zre delun a i na mizhmalla.

T-V distinction

Standard Izhkut employs a T-V distinction for singular second-person pronouns. Though the V is regular across most dialects and has highly regular inflection(la, lai, laid, etc.), the T is much more variable among dialects and its inflection is highly irregular. However, some common dialectal examples include:

• Mainland dialects: usually lu, lun, lai or no distinction
  • Northern dialects: ru, lu
    • Rëshpi dialects: in
  • Southern dialects: a, ai or no distinction
• Colonial dialects: various
  • Bay Area dialects: uses singular third-person pronoun sa
    • Usergonefa: sa, muos(pejorative)
  • Strait dialects: uol, ol
    • Shepsë: ra
    • Ebënzinu: uol, sa, ha(h not pronounced)
• Mosëoch: no distinction

Demonstrative pronouns

Izhkut demonstrative pronouns are inflected on distance(proximal, distal), grammatical number(singular/plural) and case(nominative/accusative). The nominative forms also act as demonstrative determiners.

	Proximal		Distal
	nom.	acc.	nom.	acc.
Singular	ni	nir	nea	neid
Plural	ri	rin	dri	drid

Syntax

Like most Taskaric languages, Izhkut syntax is mostly isolating, with grammatical mood and tense shown by preceding and proceeding particles.

Constituent order

Izhkut, like most Taskaric languages, uses a VSO(verb-subject-object) and noun-adjective constituent order.

Verbs

Mood

Infinitive

Infinite verbs are marked by the proceeding particle ana.

Imperative

The imperative mood in Izhkut is highly regular: the particle ma is placed before the verb, as so:

Ma yush leg'abarm.

"Shut the windows."

While m'u [mu] is used with the copula, as in:

M'u lan!

"Be good!"

The negative imperative mood is, in contrast, heavily irregular and dependent on dialect; see § Negative imperative.

Passive/active voice

In Izhkut, the active voice is uninflected whereas the passive voice is indicated by a proceeding zre particle. For example:

Drapuk g'ivi.

"The man eats."

"The man is being eaten" would be:

Zre drapuk g'ivi.

Aspect

Dichotomic aspect(perfective/imperfective) is optional, but can be shown(and is commonly done so in Colonial dialects) by one of two particles:

• lae verb - perfective(le verb in Colonial dialects.)
• lun verb - imperfective

Tense

Present tense is left unmarked. Tenses apart from present tense are shown by proceeding particles:

• verb ya - far past
• verb a - past
• verb oë - future
• verb oëhe - far future(rarely used)

Negation

The Izhkut equivalent of "no" is mera in Mainland dialects. In Colonial dialects, the negative pronoun/determiner hem is used in place of mera.

Hem

The Izhkut negator, hem, has many uses. When placed before the copula, it means "There is no (more)".

Hem u griu. - "There is no (more) juice."

It is also composes part of many other negative pronouns:

• hemiu - nobody, no one
• hemdë - nothing
• hemloa - nowhere
• hemzin(Colonial eye dialect hemzhin) - never

Hem also acts as a negator:

Yutleg'iu– hem la, mizan...

"Some people– not you, of course..."

And also as the negative interjection in Colonial dialects:

Hem, jalak m'ra drid.

"No, don't touch that."

Finally, hem acts as a negative determiner, as in:

Lam na hem zaj.

"I have no money."

Negative imperative

In Mainland dialects, the imperative is marked by the preceding particle ma, while the negative imperative is usually marked by the particle h'ma(hem + ma, pronounced [xˈma]). In Southern Mainland dialects, double negatives are also used in negative imperative phrases, a feature borrowed from Pokht:

H'ma drapuk hem yosh.

"Don't eat pork."(lit. "Don't eat no pork.")

Negative imperatives are, however, very differently expressed in Colonial dialects. First, in Colonial dialects, imperatives are generally unmarked; Ma yush "Shut up" in Mainland dialects would simply be Yush in Colonial dialects.

Though the negative imperative is marked, how exactly this is marked depends on dialect. In Bay Area dialects, the negative imperative is marked by mera(the negative interjection in Mainland dialects) or alternatively eye dialect m'ra, and is placed after the verb, in contrast to the precedent placement of Mainland h'ma, e.g.:

Drapuk mera yosh. / Drapuk m'ra yosh.

"Don't eat pork."(lit. "Eat not pork.")

In Strait dialects, the particle hea is used in the same way as h'ma.

Word derivation

Adjective form

Nouns can be converted to adjectives by adding the suffix -re(-ar in Colonial dialects), as in gilab "sand" > gilabre/gilabar "sandy". However, this process cannot be applied on placenames in Mainland dialects.

Dialects

Mainland

The Mainland dialects(Izhkut: yojjun Brigashed [ˈjôɟun̪ bɾʲiˈgaʃeð]) refer to the dialects of Izhkut that are spoken in Izhkutrëa proper. It is generally split into three sub-dialect groups: the North dialects, South dialects and Izhkrilin dialects.

North dialects

The North dialects or Northern dialects(Izhkut: yojjun oshulre), also called the Ilyod dialects(yojjun Ilyod) are dialects spoken in the north of the Mainland. Their alternate name of the "Ilyod dialects" refer to the influence that the now extinct Ilyod language(historically widely spoken in the areas where the North dialects are now prevalent) had on the phonology of the North dialects; most notably, the merging of /o/ into /u/, the lenition of /t d/ to /θ ð/ in all places(called "T-D lenition", this lenition also occurs in other dialects of Izhkut, though only allophonically of /t d/) and the lenition of the /lj/ cluster to just /j/. More recently, some features of Colonial Izhkut have seeped into the North dialects, more specifically the affricatisation of /ɟ/ to /d͡ʑ~d͡ʒ/.

South dialects

The South dialects or Southern dialects(Izhkut: yojjun meshelre), also called the Pokht dialects(yojjun Pokht) are dialects spoken in the south of the Mainland. Their alternate name of the "Pokht dialects" refer to the influence of the Pokht language, which was historically, and to a much lesser extent still is, spoken natively in the Pokht region and the wider southern Mainland. Typical features of the South dialects include a lack of T-D lenition altogether, the use of a or ai as informal singular second person pronouns, and very occasionally, the lowering of /o/ to /ɔ/, though this is most common in bilingual speakers of Pokht and Izhkut.

The South dialects, and by proxy the Pokht language as well, are notable in that they are generally considered the basis of early forms of the Colonial dialects; including O-lowering and lack of T-D lenition; the lack of T-D lenition also influenced Bay Islands Creole phonology.

Colonial

Main article: Colonial Izhkut

Example texts

UDHR Article 1

In Izhkut:

"Yalos udleg'iu taplia io hegrij uos khrugid io pliedu. Zre goshmis menna uë diusra io vobbis io blaid ana narro mensi uos proinid teyea."

Standard Izhkut: [ˈjalos udleg͜ iʊ̯ taplia̯ iɔ̯ ˈhegɾʲiɟ ˈuɔ̯s xˈɾʷugið iɔ̯ ˈpliɨ̯ðu ‖ zɾe ˈgoʃmis mêna uɛ̯ ðiʊ̯sɾa iɔ̯ vôbis iɔ̯ blaɪ̯ð ana nâɾo menˈsi uɔ̯s ˈpɾoɪ̯nið teˈjea̯ ‖]

General Colonial: [ˈjalɔs udleg͜ iʊ̯ taplia̯ iʊ̯ ˈhegɹid͡ʒ ˈɔʊ̯s hˈɹʷugid iʊ̯ ˈplie̯du ‖ zɹe ˈgɔʃmis meːna ʊ̯ɛ diʊ̯sɹa iʊ̯ vɔːbis iʊ̯ blaɪ̯d ana naːɹɔ ˈmensi ɔʊ̯s ˈpɹɔɪ̯nid teˈja ‖]

In English:

"All humans are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."