Kimow

Kimow
Kimau
kimow
Pronunciation	[ˈkʰím.ǒʊ] [ˈkʰǐɯ.ɑ̄w]
Created by	Jukethatbox
Date	2024
Native speakers	7.7 million(total) (2024) Kimo: 3.96 million Wakki: 3.74 million
Language family	language isolate Kimow
Dialects	Kimo dialects Igkin dialects Kemḥu Kka Mukku (†) Wakki dialects
Writing system	Latin

Kimow(/kiːmoʊ/, kimow; Kimow: [ˈkʰím.ǒʊ] or [ˈkʰǐɯ.ɑ̄w]), also(but less commonly) called Kimau, is a language isolate that is notorious for the fact that the majority of its words are polysemous, meaning they have various meanings. For example, the name of the language, Kimow, can mean "Kimow"(adj.), "the Kimow language", "the Kimow people", "an ethnic Kimow", "a Kimow speaker(so not necessarily an ethnic Kimow)", "a member of the Kimow diaspora", "Kimow food" or "a Kimow city". There are also only two main dialects, the Kimo and the Wakki, and their homonymic meanings differ greatly at times, making mutual understanding difficult. Tone and phonology vary slightly as well, though not as greatly and are thus more mutually intelligible.

Phonology

Orthography

Kimow uses its own version of the Latin alphabet for writing.

Vowels + pulmonic consonants

Letter (Maj-min)	A a	B b	C c	D d	E e	F f	G g	H h	Ḥ ḥ	I i	J j	K k	Ḵ ḵ	L l	M m	N n	O o	Ö ö	P p	S s	T t	U u	W w	V v	Y y	Z z
IPA	a	bʱ	c	dʱ	e ɘ	f	gʱ ʔ	h	ɦ	i	ɟ g̟	kʰ	q	l	m ɯ	n ŋ	o ɑ	ø ɵ/œ	pʰ	s	tʰ	u/ʊ w		v	j	z

Consonants

Aside from Wakki dialects using [w] as a replacement for [u] and [ʊ], consonants do not vary at all between Kimow speakers.

		Bilabial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar/ Labial-velar	Uvular	Glottal
Plosive	pulmonic				c ɟ		q	ʔ
	aspirated	pʰ bʱ		tʰ dʱ		kʰ gʱ
	ejective	pʼ bʼ		tʼ		kʼ gʼ	qʼ
Nasal		m		n	ɲ	ŋ
Fricative	pulmonic		f v	s z	ç			h ɦ
	ejective		fʼ vʼ	sʼ zʼ
Approximant	normal				j	w
	lateral			l		ɫ

Dentalisation

When an alveolar plosive([t] or [d]) is behind a voiced fricative([z] or [v]), the plosive is dentalised, turning into [t̪] or [d̪]. This rule is present in all dialects apart from the moribund Mukku dialect.

Vowels

Red sounds are exclusive to Kimo dialects, while blue sounds are exclusive to Wakki dialects. Green sounds are exclusive to Igkin dialects, which although are a subset of Kimo dialects, do have some different sounds. Black sounds are in all sets of dialects.

	Front	Central	Near-close	Back
Close	i			ɯ u
Near-close			ʊ
Close-mid	e ø	ɘ ɵ		o
Open	a œ			ɑ

Prosody

Stress

Across all dialects, stress has only one pattern: prototonic in most cases, oxytonic when there is a case marker.

Tone

Use of tone in Kimow is not indicated in the orthography and varies by Kimo and Wakki dialects, though within their own subsets they tend to conform to one standard tone system.

Tone
Kimo	Wakki
high [˦ ]	rising [˩˥]
rising [˩˥]	mid [˧]
falling [˥˩]	low rising [˩˨]
	rising-falling [˧˦˧]
extra low [˩]	low [˨]
low [˨]

Morphology

Homonyms

Kimow is notorious for the fact that many of its words are homonyms with various meanings that can differ greatly from each other. Additionally, these different meanings can sometimes be simply up to dialectic difference, such as in the word vesi(visi in Wakki dialects). To analyse the many meanings of a typical Kimow word, one can use the Itou table, as so:

Itou table for vesi

	Kimo	Wakki
Word	vesi
Pronunciation	[věsȉ] [vɘ̌sȉ]	[vēsì]
Meaning 1...n	bicycle vehicle two-wheeled vehicle two wheels (coll.) Dutch/Netherlands Amsterdam bridge for bicycles bicycle path	boat ship cargo ship ship cargo navy sailor (rare) United Kingdom (rare) United States

Pronouns

Personal

Personal pronouns are only used in Kimo dialects. In Wakki dialects, the subject is inferred through verb conjugation alone.

		Singular	Plural
Person	First	ku [kʰú]	sagku [sáʔ.kʰȕ]
	Second	seḵ [sèq] [sɘ̀q]	iḵḵim [íqʼǐm]
	Third	vu [vù]	sutvu [sút̪.vú]

Demonstrative

Demonstrative pronouns are placed after the noun they are describing.

	Near	Far
Singular	ki [kʰí] [kʰǐ]	keḥki [kʰé.ɦkì] [kʰě.ɦkì]
Plural	ka [kʰà] [kʰǎ]	keḥka [kʰé.ɦkà] [kʰě.ɦkà]

Syntax

Constituent order

The Kimo dialect mainly uses SOV, though in the Wakki dialect, the subject is inferred through verb conjugation, meaning the verb order is more like VO.