Omonkwi

Omonkwi
Omokwi
Pronunciation	[/o.ˈmoŋ.kʷi/]
Created by	Nicolás Campi
Setting	Earth-like planet
Native speakers	Unknown (ca. 2005)
Language family	Omon Omonkwi

Omonkwi, [o.ˈmoŋ.kʷi], is a naturalistic a priori artlang lightly inspired in some Mesoamerican aboriginal languages. It features ergative-absolutive alignment, and tends to form compounds.

Introduction

Omonkwi started as an early attempt to capture the sounds I liked from mesoamerican indigenous languages via a poorly pronounced (by my high-school teacher) version of deity names in the Popol Vuh. Names such as Vucub Caquix, Cabrakán, Zipacná and Chimalmat. It can be viewed as a weird kind of homage, trying to create a language out respect for it but not having the materials to know more about it, something common before the rise of the internet as we know it.

Phonology

The phonology is quite rich and includes more phonemes than either of its inspirational donors; including the distinction of š ž, s z, and the voiced stops.

Consonants

	Bilabial	Dental	Palatal	Velar	Labio-Velar	Glottal
Stop	p b	t d	č [t͡ʃ]	k g	kw gw [kʷ ɡʷ]
Fricative	f v				hw [hʷ]	h
Sibilant		s z	š ž [ʃ ʒ]
Nasal	m	n		(ŋ)	nw [ŋʷ]
Liquid		l r
Approximant			y [j]		w

Notes:

• The palatal č is treated is not a stop but is treated as one due to distribution.
• The velar nasal ŋ only appears preceding a velar, but nw is always ŋ.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i ī		u ū
Mid	e ē		o ō
Open		a ā

Grammar

Nouns

Omonkwi nouns inflect for number (plural and singular) and at least 5 cases (ergative, absolutive, dative, genitive and locative). The general word order is SOV with variations allowed for emphasis and focus. The verb "to be" is often ommited when context is clear.

Number

The Omonkwi plural has different forms that are quite predictable. All words ending in a vowel will take a reduced suffix -t, however, those that are only one syllable often take a -tin ending. This can include some irregular plurals that change the root.

ipāgna → ipāgnat ("mountain, mountains")

īpni → īpnit ("soul, souls")

gōkwi → gōkwit ("land, lands")

wui → witin ("day, days")

Words that end in a stop, an 'n' or 'x', take the suffix -tin. However, words ending in -l take a plural ending -llin.

teōp → teōptin ("eagle, eagles")

ix → ixtin ("house, houses")

šival → šivallin ("jaw, jaws")

Other irregular plurals are words ending with 'tl' in their final syllable; in those cases the '-tl' becomes -l but taking the -tin suffix. In addition to those, some animate nouns may take a suffix consisting of the reduplication of the first syllable.

atli → altin ("body, bodies")

teōp → teteōp ("eagle, eagles")

cases

marks for possessed and possessor. teōpca, -ca ergative

šival, šivalba locative

-ma, genitive

na-, for, dative?

ipācnat gōki-ma šivallin

Example texts

Sample:

ipāgnat šival gōkwili

Mountains (are) the jaws of the Earth.

Sample wordlist

• atli body
• buip face
• gōkwili earth
• hib arm
• inti friend
• ipāgna mountain
• īpni heart, soul
• ix house
• ixīpni body (poetic)
• ižki mouth
• lohip sky
• lupi people
• nungistix home of the gods
• pāwi love
• šival jaw, snout
• teōp eagle
• teyi water
• wui day
• xīban heart, organ
• xowi city
• zībun head