Cokkel

Cokkel ([ˈtʃok.kel], formerly Cokjazik) is an artistic language that uses false cognates to build its core vocabulary. Its grammar is mostly influenced by Uralic and Turkic - its flair might be best describes as "Central Asian".

Etymology

The name of this language derives from the words "cok", meaning "many, much" and "kel" meaning "language". This refers to the fact that this language derives its vocabulary and part of its grammar from many languages.

Orthography

The Cokkel alphabet contains all 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, each corresponding to one sound. Cokkel is analyzed as having 6 vowels and 20 consonants.

Letters in Cokkel
Aa	Bb	Cc	Dd	Ee	Ff	Gg	Hh	Ii	Jj	Kk	Ll	Mm	Nn	Oo	Pp	Qq	Rr	Ss	Tt	Uu	Vv	Ww	Xx	Yy	Zz

All of these are pronounced exactly like their IPA counterpart except for ⟨c⟩, ⟨q⟩ and ⟨x⟩.

• ⟨c⟩ is pronounced as /tʃ/, that is, like the "ch" in "China"
• ⟨q⟩ is pronounced as /ʔ/, that is like the pause of airflow in "uh-oh"
• ⟨x⟩ is pronounced as /ks/, that is like the "x" in "taxi"

Phonology

Consonants

Consonant phonemes

	Labial	Coronal	Dorsal	Glottal
Nasal	m	n
Stop	p b	t d	k ɡ	ʔ
Affricate		t͡ʃ	ks*
Fricative	f v	s z		h
Approximant	w	l	j
Trill		r

* "ks" is technically not widely deemed an affricate. However it is analyzed in this language as such to fit phonotactical rules.

Vowels

Vowel phonemes

	Front	Back
Close	i y	u
Close-mid	e	o
Open	a

Prosody

Stress falls on the penultimate syllable for non-compound words. In compound words the primary stress is on the first syllable and the secondary stress on the first syllable of the compound.

Phonotactics

Cokkel uses a strict (C)V(C) rule. That is, that a syllable must have at least one vowel, and may have an onset and a coda consonant.

Grammar

Cokkel's sentence structure is SVO. It is an nominative-accusative aligned language. It has aritcles for nouns and uses seven cases and three tenses.

Verbs

Verbs conjugate to tense and person.

Conjugation of "gez"
(to go, to walk)

	mi	tu	o	mis	tus	os
Present	gezem	gezen	gez	gezemes	gezenes	gezes
Past	gezdem	gezden	gezde	gezdemes	gezdenes	gezdes
Future	gezgem	gezgen	gezge	gezgemes	gezgenes	gezges

There are two affixes to indicate tense and six to indicate person, with the tense affix coming before the personal affix. These regular affixes are listed below:

Tense affixes

Future	Past
-g-	-d-

Personal affixes

	Singular	Plural
1st	-m	-m-s
2nd	-n	-n-s
3rd		-s

Nouns

Nouns decline to number, definitiveness and case. The possessive can be constructed via noun + personal pronoun ending but isn't deemed a case in itself.

Articles

Articles

	Singular	Plural
Definite	al	las
Indefinite	yci	ycis

Cases

	Singular	Plural
Nominative		-s
Accusative	-n	-n-s
Genitive	-s	-s-s
Dative	-t	-t-s
Ablative	-p	-p-s
Locative	d-	d-s
Instrumental	l-	l-s

Swadesh list

English	Cokkel	Notes
I	mi	derived from English "me" and the Irish and Turkish -m ending.
you	tu	from Spanish "tú" and Hungarian "te".
we	mis	plural of "mi"
this	kono	from Japanese kono and Hmong no
that	cono	original
what	ha	onomatopoeic (huh?)
who	hu	from English "who"
not	ne	from Dutch "nee" and Hungarian "nem"
all	ol	from Greek "ola" and English "all"
many	cok	from English "chock-full", Hungarian "sok" and Turkish "çok"
one	yci	from Finnish "yksi" and Japanese "ichi"
two	du	from Korean "tul/dul" and Indonesian "dua"
big	noi	from Hawaiian "nui" and Hungarian "nagy"