Iskel

Iskel
Pronunciation	[ís.kel]
Created by	Suqi
Date	2019
Native to	Iskeland, Juya Gwaña
Language family	language isolate
Official status
Official language in	Iskeland

Iskel, pronounced [ískel] natively or /ˈɪskəl/ in English, is Suqi's first and most developed conlang. It was originally heavily based on Italian, Spanish, Korean, English, and Latin (creating the acronym ISKEL), but has been leaning much more a priori as development has progressed. Iskel first originated from a much more relex-like, or even code-like language called Lanesil, which only combined elements of English and Spanish in a transparently jumbled way, but was quickly replaced with a new language structure as Suqi learned more about linguistics. Some remnants of Lanesil still exist in Iskel, such as the word kire (to want) based on the Spanish word quiere (he/she/it wants), or the word to (two) based on the English word two.

Dialects

There are three dialects spoken in Iskel which have different significance depending on which setting they're spoken in. The dialects are Lanikel [lánikel], Kliqel [k͡ǁíqel], and Duskel [ɽʌʂʼkʼɛɭ] (also spelled Drâŝkkel). They differ primarily in phoneme inventory. Outside of the phonology section, this article uses only the Lanikel dialect since it is the most dominant.

Setting

There are three settings where Iskel is spoken that canonically have no knowledge of each other. One setting is the real world, where it is Suqi's personal constructed language. Another setting is in an alternate history Earth, as the native language of the inhabitants of Iskeland, a moderately-sized island west of Africa overlapping with the coordinates 0,0. The third setting is in an archipelago called Juya Gwaña which exists on the Agma Schwa Minecraft server, Nguhcraft. The primary structure of Iskel is determined by its real-world setting, with it being a personal conlang, however there are sometimes influences from its alternate history setting. There are no influences from Nguhcraft, however.

Real-World

In the real world, Lanikel and Kliqel are interchangeable forms of Iskel stemming from two different stages in the language's creation process, meanwhile Duskel is a rarely used form of the language most distinct for having an appalling phoneme inventory for no reason. Duskel can be interchanged for Lanikel and Kliqel, but any use of it would have a purpose which is not the case for the other two.

Iskeland

In the alternate-history Iskeland is a part of, the island used to be colonized by the French Empire and its multiple dialects are a result of that colonization.

Lanikel is the most common form of Iskel in Iskeland. Its phonology was heavily influenced by French during the colonial period, though native features like clicks remained. After decolonization, language leaders reformed Lanikel to remove French-influenced vocabulary.

Kliqel is the least common form of the language. It was created to modify the phonology of Lanikel to remove French influence, drawing inspiration from the neighboring dialect Duskel, which went almost untouched by French influence. Kliqel is only used by elites and did not catch on for every-day people due to the changes they'd have to make.

Duskel is a variety of Iskel that predates French colonization, spoken by a group on the island that repelled French invasion on their region of Iskeland. The dialect is not spoken much, however, because its speakers are heavily outnumbered on the island. Duskel does not use the Latin script unlike Lanikel and Kliqel, it uses a fusion of several phonecian-derived scripts, including Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Devanagari, and Armenian. Duskel does not mark diacritics.

Juya Gwaña

Juya Gwaña only has the Lanikel dialect spoken on it. The other two do not exist in the world of Nguhcraft.

Phonology

Each dialect has the exact same number of phonemes, as their only phonological differences are phoneme pronunciation, except for Duskel where the Lanikel phonemes /əː ɲ̩ j̩̃/ (Kliqel phonemes /ɛː ɲ̩ ɲ̩ʷ/) merge with Duskel's /ɯ̰̤̃́ːː c ʂʼ/ phonemes, respectively. They do not differ in allophony or phonotactics.

Pitch Accent

All dialects have the same pitch accent, which includes three tones and tonelessness. The three tones are high, mid, and low. Words can be entirely atonal or entirely tonal, but most often they are a mix of both. All tones are phonemic. Mid tones can occur in words with high, low, or no other tones. Pitch accent can be applied to vowels and phonemically syllabic consonants, but not allophonically syllabic consonants.

The high tone is the most common and occurs in most words, usually once.

The mid tone is the second most common, and most often occurs in words with many syllables, but can occur in words with few syllables as well. The mid tone appears usually once as well, but occurs twice in a word more often than the high tone.

The low tone is the rarest and is more characterized by extratonal articulations like stronger airflow, slight devoicing, length across every sound in the syllable, and a visible, non-audible scrunching of the philtrum. The degree of scrunching in the philtrium is directly proportional to the intensity of the other extratonal articulations. A root word with a low tone cannot also contain a high tone, implying a mutual contrast. A low tone only ever occurs once in a root word.

Phonotactics

The phonotactics in all Iskel dialects are the same. There is a (C)(C)(C)V(V)(V)(C)(C)(C)(ʰ) syllable structure (where C excludes /ʰ/), with only 3 consonants and 3 vowels (triphthongs or three nuclei) being able to be adjacent at a time. All phonemes can be adjacent to one another except for Lanikel and Kliqel's /ɾ/s and Duskel's /r/. Geminate consonants or long vowels count as one instead of two. No phoneme can occur three times in a row. Long vowels cannot be part of polypthongs. Syllabic consonants cannot be adjacent to a vowel or another syllabic nucleus.

Kaḥpíḥpaḥ

An unusual suprasegmental feature occurs in all dialects and is known as kaḥpíḥpaḥ [kaʰ.píʰ.paʰ] in Lanikel (qaḥpíḥpaḥ [qaʰ.píʰ.paʰ] in Kliqel and kaḥphíḥphaḥ [kʼɑʰ.pʰɪ́ʰ.pʰɑʰ] in Duskel). It is transcribed as aspiration in IPA /ʰ/, and ⟨ḥ⟩ in romanization for all dialects. Some authors choose to transcribe this as a subscript /ₕ/ instead, which also replaces syllable breaks.

Phonetically, it is a very brief period of voicelessness, but with the notable absence of any frication, a voiceless glottal approximant if it were a consonant. Its behavior, however, warrants an analysis as a suprasegmental feature rather than a phoneme, although it is phonemic.

The kaḥpíḥpaḥ is very unusual in that not only is its position in a syllable mutually exclusive from the position of any other phoneme, but when a syllable is expanded due to the addition of a morpheme, the kaḥpíḥpaḥ moves to the end of the new syllable instead of remaining in its original position.

Allophony

In all dialects, plosives preceding other plosives (besides themselves) or a word boundary, always have an audible release. /ʔ/, in the dialects that have it, has no audible release word finally if preceded by a vowel.

When the kaḥpíḥpaḥ occurs after a vowel, the vowel is shortened to approximately half its typical length. After a consonant, the consonant becomes allophonically syllabic on account of being detached from any following vowel.

Phoneme Inventories

Lanikel

See Lanikel orthography for more information about the romanization.

Lanikel's phonology is the oldest, though slight modifications have been made over time. It resembles Lanesil's parent languages English and Spanish more than the other dialects.

All consonants can be long except for /ɾ/.

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Dorsal	Glottal
Nasal		ɱ m		n n		ɲ ny, ñ	ŋ ng, ŋ
Stop	Voiceless	p p		t t	t͡ʃ ch, č		k k	ʔ q
	Voiced	b b		d͡z dz, ẑ	d͡ʒ j		ɡ g
Fricative	Voiceless	f f	θ th, þ	s s	ʃ sh, š	ʎ̝̊ lh, ç	x x	h h
	Voiced	v v	ð d	z z	ʒ zh, ž
Approximant	Oral	w w		l l		j y
	Nasal	w̃ wǹ, ṽ		l̃ lǹ, ł		j̃ yǹ, ỹ
Vibrant				ɾ r			ʀ rr, ř
Click	Nasal		ŋ͡ʇ cn	ŋ͡ǃ¡ cǹ		ŋ͡ǂ cñ
	Tenuis		k͡ʇ ct	k͡ǃ¡ cl		k͡ǂ cy

All syllabic consonants can be long except for /ɾ̩/.

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Dorsal
Nasal		ɱ̩ ṃ		n̩ ṇ	ɲ̩ ṇy	ŋ̩ ṇg
Fricative		v̩ ṿ	ð̩ ḍ	z̩ ẓ	ʒ̍ ẓh
Approximant	Oral	w̩ ẉ		l̩ ḷ	j̍ ẏ
	Nasal	w̩̃ ẉǹ		l̩̃ ḷǹ	j̩̃ ẏǹ
Vibrant				ɾ̩ ṛ		ʀ̩ ṛr

All vowels can be long.

	Front	Near-Front	Near-Back	Back
Close	i i	ɪ î	ʊ û	u u
Mid	e e	ə ê	ʌ ô	o o
Open	a a			ɑ â

Kliqel

See Kliqel orthography for more information about the romanization.

Kliqel was created for two purposes: 1) in order to reduce the amount of words that sounded like they came from English and Spanish, and 2) for Suqi to practice pronunciation of unfamiliar clusters. Many of the phonemes were shifted to different values, but kept the same place in their words.

All consonants can be long except for /ɾ/.

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar		Palatal	Uvular	Glottal
				Median	Lateral
Nasal	Plain	m m		n n		ɲ ny, ñ	ɴ ng, ŋ
	Labialized	mʷ mů		nʷ nů		ɲʷ nẙ
Plosive	Voiceless	p p		t t			q q
	Voiced	b b
Affricate	Voiceless			t͡s ts, ĉ
	Voiced			d͡z dz, ẑ
Fricative	Voiceless	ɸ f	θ th, þ	s s	ɬ lh, ł	ç ch, ç	χ x	h h
	Voiced	β v	ð d	z z		ʝ j
Glide		w w		ɾ r	l l	j y
Trill				r rr			ʀ g
Click	Nasal		ŋ͡ʇ cn	ŋ͡ǃ¡ kn		ŋ͡ǂ kñ
	Aspirated		k͡ʇʰ cs
	Tenuis		k͡ʇ ct	k͡ǃ¡ kr	k͡ǁ kl	k͡ǂ ky

All syllabic consonants can be long except for /ɾ̩/.

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Uvular
Nasal	Plain	m̩ ṃ		n̩ ṇ	ɲ̩ ṇy	ɴ̩ ṇg
	Labialized	m̩ʷ ṃů		n̩ʷ ṇů	ɲ̩ʷ ṇẙ
Fricative		β̩ ṿ	ð̩ ḍ	z̩ ẓ	ʝ̍ ẏh
Approximant		w̩ ẉ		l̩ ḷ	j̍ ẏ
Vibrant				ɾ̩ ṛ		ʀ̩ ṛr

All vowels can be long.

	Front	Back
		Unrounded	Rounded
Close	i i	ɯ î	u u
Close-Mid	e e	ɤ û	o o
Open-Mid	ɛ ê		ɔ ô
Open	a a		ɑ â

Duskel

.See Duskel orthography for more information about the romanization.

Duskel is the second oldest, created much closer to Lanesil than Lanikel's current phonology. It was created to be an "evil" version of Iskel, but only for aesthetics. Duskel was never prioritized, so it only changed once after it was created, which was upon the creation of this wiki when it was finally updated to have sounds corresponding to all the new Iskel phonemes that have been added.

All consonants can be long except for /r/.

		Bilabial	Bidental	Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Guttural
Nasal		m m			ɳ n
Stop	Voiceless	pʰ ph		t͡s ts		c c	ʔ q
	Voiced			d͡z dz		ɟ dy	ɢ gr
Fricative	Voiceless	ɸ f		s s	ʂ sr, ṡ	ʃ sh, š	x kh
	Voiced	β v		z z	ʐ zr, ż	ʝ j	ɣ gh, ǧ
Approximant				ɹ rh	ɭ l	j y	ɰ w
Trill		ʙ b		r rr, ř
Tap				ɾ dh	ɽ dr
Glottalic	Voiceless	pʼ p			ʂʼ ŝ		kʼ kk
	Voiced						ʛ gg
Click	Nasal			ŋ͡ǁ gl	ŋ͡ǃ kn		m͡ʞ km
	Tenuis			k͡ǁ kl	k͡ǃ kt		m̥͡ʞ kp
Percussive			ʭ x

All syllabic consonants can be long except for /r̩/.

	Bilabial	Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Guttural
Nasal	m̩ ṃ		n̩ ṇ
Stop				ɟ̩ ḍy	ɢ̩ ġr
Fricative	β̩ ṿ	z̩ ẓ	ʐ̩ ẓr	ʝ̍ ẏh	ɣ̍ ġh
Approximant		ɹ̩ ṛh	ɭ̍ ḷ	j̍ ẏ	ɰ̍ ẉ
Vibrant		r̩ ṛr	ɽ̍ ḍr

All vowels can be long except for /ɯ̰̤̃́ːː/.

	Front	Central	Back
			Unrounded	Rounded
Nasal			ɯ̰̤̃́ːː î
High	ɪ i	ə ê	ɯ û	ʊ u
Mid	ɛ e	œ ô	ʌ â	ɔ o
Low			ɑ a

Syntax

Semantic Roles

There are four primary semantic roles in Iskel, which determine the syntactic structure of the language. They are referred to as the sender (S, snd), the message (M, mss), the receiver (R, rcv), and the transfer (T, trf). They loosely overlap with the more commonly known roles of agent, instrument, patient, and verb, respectively, but are distinct and can have any part of speech.

The sender is whatever sets the transfer (or action) in motion in a sentence. Without the sender, the action cannot begin.

The message is whatever is causally transferred from the sender to the receiver in the action. Without the message, steps can be taken to initiate the action, but it cannot manifest.

The receiver is whatever the message affects as a direct consequence of its sending. Without the receiver, the action can begin, but not end.

The transfer is the process by which the message is directed from the sender to the receiver. Without the transfer, nothing happens at all despite everything being there to make it happen.

Iskel uses the word order SRTM. The sender is often omitted, only being included when specification is necessary. The receiver and message may also be omitted, but this is rare. When the receiver is omitted but the sender isn't, the sender must be marked. A word of any part of speech may play any semantic role, but the semantic role must be marked on whichever word is not the typical part of speech that it is, i.e. S, R, and M as nouns, and T as a verb.

Role Descriptors

Combining with the semantic roles are five role descriptors which are cliticized to the end of the semantic roles. These descriptors detail different relationships a word can have to the semantic role cliticized onto it. They may also be cliticized to the end of the word or another clitic to apply their meaning onto that other morpheme instead. The role descriptors are the present actor (prac), that which fills the role in that instance; the potential actor (poac), that which can fill the role; the performance (pfmc), the filling of the role; the identity (idty), the role itself; and the condition (cdtn), that which makes it possible to fill the role.

Morphology

Most bound morphemes in Iskel are clitics rather than affixes, since their placement in a word and relative to other clitics is highly variable. Morphemes will be listed in sets of three, reflecting their Lanikel, Kliqel, and Duskel forms, respectively.

Parts of speech:

• Noun (n): -a
  • Nouns are words denoting a certain concept existing within a larger relationship. That relationship is typically with a verb, adjunct, or both. A noun may also exist as a standalone sentence in Iskel, denoting mere existence.
• Verb (v): -e
  • Verbs are words denoting a certain quality that their receiver is stated to change into having.
• Adjunct (adj): -o
  • Adjuncts are words denoting a certain quality that their modifyee has.

Semantic roles:

• Sender (snd): žâ-
  • Iya_R žâkíle_S seta_M.
  • (Knowledge sends this to me.)
  • “I know this from knowing it.”
• Receiver (rcv): šâ-
  • Iya_S šâkíle_R seta_M.
  • (I send this to knowledge.)
  • “I know/teach more from this.”
• Transfer (trf): sč(î)-
  • Iya_R kíle_T seta_M.
  • (I know this.)
  • “I know this.”
• Message (mss): ii-
  • Iya_S iikíle_M seta_R.
  • (I send knowledge to this.)
  • “I teach this (student).”

The semantic roles of receiver, transfer, and message are not marked if their position in a word has not changed from the base SRTM order and they are a noun, verb, and noun repsectively.

Role descriptors:

• Present Actor (prac): unmarked
• Potential Actor (poac): -(o)y
• Performance (pfmc): -êl
• Identity (idty): -rî
• Condition (cdtn): -(ẏ)ss