Rakas

Rakas
Karosaganaki
Karosaganaki written in Higsata (left) and Yusuki (right)
Pronunciation	[kaɾo̞saɡaɾ̃aˈci]
Created by	Hildägard Millinnster Friðlech (alias)
Date	2025
Setting	Yossam
Ethnicity	Rakas
Language family	Dakas Rakas

Rakas (/ˈrækəs, ˈrɑ-/; Rakas: Karosaganaki [kaɾo̞saɡaɾ̃aˈci]), is a Dakas language spoken by the Rakas people, native to the lowlying forested regions and grasslands of Yossam. It is the most widely-spoken Dakas language. Rakas is a mostly isolating language with a modest phonology and fairly simple phonotactics.

Name

Rakas (Rakas: [ˈdakas, ˈɾa-]) is the endonym of the Rakas people, borrowed into English to refer to both the people and language, though the Rakas people rarely refer to their language as the Rakas language, instead calling it Karosaganaki, which literally means ‘we speak it’, or ‘that which we speak’.

Writing System

Rakas is written with the Higsata and Yusuki syllabaries. Higsata is written by pressing specialised tools into wood to imprint marks into it. It is the older of the two, used for public signage and in formal situations. Yusuki is written with a brush on paper, and is used for personal notes and corresspondences.

Phonology

Rakas has a fairly small consonant inventory with between ten and eleven consonants, five monophongs, and two diphthongs, far fewer than its closest relative, Wetih. Its syllable structure is fairly simple, being CV(C), where any consonant besides /ʔ/ can be placed in coda position. It has a simple vowel harmony system that affects mid vowels. Stress falls on the first syllable of the main root in a word.

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Velar &   Palatal	Glottal
Nasal		(m)	n ~ ɾ̃
Stop	voiceless		t	k	(ʔ ~ ∅)
	voiced	b	d ~ ɾ	ɡ
Continuant		w ~ β	s	j	h ~ θ

• [ɨ] may be inserted after coda consonants in formal and poetic registers.
• /m/ may occur in loanwords.
• [n] and [ɾ̃] occur in free-variation, with [ɾ̃] ocurring most often between vowels. It is realised as [ŋ] in coda, except before alveolars (besides itself) and /j/.
• /k/ and /ɡ/ are palatalised to [c] and [ɟ] respectively before /i/ and /i̯o/.
• Voiceless stops are generally unreleased as codas.
• Glottal stop is initial only and may be analysed as the lack of a consonant. It may be unpronounced, leading to surface polyphthongs and long vowels.
• /b/ is realised as [m] in codas, and sometimes initially in women's speech.
• /d/ may be realised as [ɾ], occurring most often between vowels. It is sometimes pronounced [r] as a coda.
• /ɡ/ is realised as [ʔ] in coda position, sometimes causing creaky voicing in the preceding vowel.
• /w/ may be realised as [β]. It is sometimes pronounced [ɸ] as a coda, most frequently after /u/.
• /j/ is sometimes realised as [ʃ] as a coda, most frequently after /i/.
• [h] and [θ] occur in free-variation as an onset. As a coda, it's always realised as [θ].

Vowels

	Front	Back
Close	i	u
Mid	e	o
Open	a
Diphthongs	u̯e, i̯o

• The mid vowels /e/ and /o/ are realised as true mid [e̞] and [o̞] respectively.
• /a/ is usually realised as central [ä].
• The segments /u̯e/ and /i̯o/ occur mostly as part of Rakas's vowel harmony.

Vowel Harmony

Rakas's mid vowels are affected by a simple vowel harmony, where vowels later in a word affect earlier vowels, depending on stress.

	Stressed	Unstressed
e(...o)	u̯e	o
o(...e)	i̯o	e

Grammar

Typology

In general, Rakas is a head-initial isolating language, with prepositional particles serving as case markers. There are three grammatical numbers: singular, plural, and collective. Adjectives precede the nouns they modify. Rakas's morphosyntactic alignment most resembles nominative-accusative languages, though with distinct cases marking causative and passive arguments seperately from the nominative case. It is a verb-subject-object language.