Kawa

Kawa (/kawa/) is an artlang created by Tariselan. Kawa takes some minor inspiration from Māori, English, Spanish, French, and Mandarin. The language itself is created with the intent to be spoken between the creator and their partner. It was started around 12^th of July 2022.

Phonology

Orthography

Kawa uses the Latin script with 2 additional letters: ⟨Ŋŋ⟩, ⟨Ƿƿ⟩

Kawa Alphabet

Letter	Aa	Bb	Dd	Ee	Ff	Gg	Hh	Ii	Jj	Kk	Mm	Nn	Ŋŋ	Oo	Pp	Qq	Ss	Tt	Uu	Vv	Ww	Ƿƿ	Zz
IPA	/a/	/b/	/tʷ/	/e/	/f/	/g/	/h/	/i/	/j/	/k/	/m/	/n/	/ŋ/	/o/	/p/	/kʷ/	/s/	/t/	/u/	/v/	/w/	/ʍ/	/sʷ/
Name	/am/	/ba/	/tʷa/	/em/	/fa/	/ga/	/ha/	/im/	/ja/	/ka/	/ma/	/na/	/ŋa/	/om/	/pa/	/kʷa/	/sa/	/ta/	/um/	/va/	/wa/	/ʍa/	/sʷa/

Consonants

Consonant phonemes

	Labial	Coronal	Guttural
Nasal	m	n	ŋ
Stops	p b	t tʷ	k kʷ g
Fricatives	f v	s sʷ	h
Approximants	w	j	ʍ1

Notes:

1. During allophonic realisation, /w/ is affected by /ʍ/, however, in the writing system, it is seen and analysed as the soft version of /h/

Vowels

Vowel Phonemes

	Front	Back
Close	i	u
Mid	e	o
Open	a

Phonotactics

Kawa follows a (C)²V(C) syllable structure.

Initial C

All consonants are allowed to be in initial position.

Initial C²

/kn/, /gn/, /st/, /stʷ/, /sk/, /skʷ/, /kʷʍ/, /tʷʍ/, /sʷʍ/, /Nw/, /Nʍ/¹, /Nj/², /mb/

1. [+nasal] > [-voice] /_ʍ
2. A speaker may realise /nj/ as /ɲ/ (nj > ɲ)

V

• /a/ is allowed after and befor all consonants
• /e/ is allowed after and befor all consonants
• /i/ isn't allowed before or after /j/
• /o/ is allowed after and befor all consonants
• /u/ isn't allowed before or after /w/

Final C

/m/, /ŋ/, /b/, /g/, /t/, /f/, /v/, /s/

Morphology

Nouns

Nouns are inflected for case.

Noun Cases

	Nominative/Accusative	Genitive	Dative
-C	-o	-i	-a
-V	-mo	-mi	-ma

Pronouns

Pronouns are inflected for Case, Person, and derogatress.

Personal Pronouns

	Nominative	Accusative	Dative	Genitive
1st Person Plain	imo		imwa	iŋi
1st Person Derogatory	imwo	imƿo	ima	iŋwi
2nd Person Plain	teo		ta	da
2nd Person Derogatory	dƿeo	gweo	dam	diwi
3rd Person Plain	sov		sovia	sovio
3rd Person Derogatory	zof	zov	zia	zio

Verbs

Verbs are marked for tense and mood with a particle.

Verb Particles

	Indicative	Imperative	Conditional
Present	gaŋ	qaŋ	gagaŋ
Past	goŋ		gogoŋ
Future	kam		kakam

The Copula

The copula, ⟨qe⟩ /kʷ/ in Kawa functions both as the verb "to be" and the verb "to have". It is the only verb that conjugates differently, it conjugates as following:

The Copula

	Indicative	Imperative	Conditional
Present	gaŋqe	qeqe	gaqegaŋ
Past	goŋqe		goqegoŋ
Future	kamqe		kaqekam