I'd just like to mention this couldn't have been done without @[Deactivated User]. She deserves a lot of credit too.
LotM - Jul 17: Felinese
▲
0▲ 0 ▼ 0
The Language of the Month this July is Kawa's Felinese! Felinese is spoken by a spacefaring species of gynomorphic alien cat people. Fittingly, it has a conscript with a high-tech aesthetic, as well as a purring phonology with tons of resonants and trills.
This public article was written by [Deactivated User], and last updated on 25 Nov 2019, 13:25.
[comments] [history] fellotm jul 17lotm
10. LotM - Aug 17: Mayessa
?
?
11. LotM - Aug 18: Tsienic
?
?
12. LotM - Aug 19: Xhorial
?
?
18. LotM - Dec 19: Siren
?
?
21. LotM - Feb 16: Jutean
?
?
40. LotM - Jun 16: Silvish
?
?
54. LotM - May 18: Uyendur
?
?
55. LotM - May 19: Norþic
?
?
58. LotM - Nov 15: Aveli
?
?
60. LotM - Nov 17: Adenish
?
?
62. LotM - Nov 19: Balak
?
?
68. LotM - Oct 17: Ulyan
?
?
69. LotM - Oct 18: Umofa
?
?
70. LotM - Oct 19: Amaian
?
?
72. LotM - Sep 15: Mbamigi
?
?
73. LotM - Sep 16: Lonish
?
?
75. LotM - Sep 18: Rùma
?
?
76. LotM - Sep 19: Mikyoan
?
?
For this July's language of the month, we're travelling to a galaxy far, far away, to look at Kawa's 
Felinese, the native language of a species of feline aliens called the felin. Read on to learn all about the speech of spacefaring gynomorph cat people!Felinese has a load of taps, trills, and fricatives, as befits a language spoken by a feline species. The taps and trills are /ɾ r ʀ/, which are augmented by the trilled and tapped release clusters /mɾ hɾ gʀ/. In addition to the labial approximant /ʋ/, there are a whopping three labial fricatives, /β f v/, plus two sibilants /s ʃ/, and /θ h/ to round the whole set out. We finish off our tour of the sonorants with the sole lateral /l/ and the nasals /m n/. Finally, we have stops at 4 places of articulation, /p b t d c k/, and a single affricate /tʃ/.
Our next stop is the vowel system. There is one low vowel, /ɐ/, with a short allophone [ɐ̌]. There are two low mid vowels, /ɛ ɔ/, which are only found in diphthongs with /ɪ/. The other mid vowels contain the schwa (written <e>) and one high mid back vowel /o/. The high vowels are /ɪ i: u/. Finally, we have the four diphthongs /ɛɪ ɔɪ aɪ ɪɐ/.
One last note on phonology is that the felin have the ability to produce a coarticulated purr with any utterance. This doesn't change the value of any phonemes, but it can dramatically alter the pragmatics of a sentence.
Felinese also has a couple of scripts. The one in present use is alphabetic, and derives from the Felin Upperspeech. Although there is no article on the script, you can see many examples among the translations. The older script, derived from Lowerspeech, is a logography, which is no longer in common use. This article shows some nifty examples of how Felin computers encode these two scripts.
Felinese has a mildly agglutinative, slightly fusional grammar. Verbs agree with the subject and mark for one of four tense-aspect combinations: present progressive, past, present, and future. On top of that, they can also inflect for imperative, interrogative, abilitative, and propositional moods. Furthermore, a noun can be zero-derived from a verb, and a verb or noun can take the -aw suffix to become an adjective. That's absolutely it for noun declensions. That's right: no numbers or cases are present in Felinese nouns, although pronouns do have number (singular and plural only).
Syntax is largely head-final, with SOV order in the clause, and adjectives and numerals preceding the noun. However, nouns precede the relative clause, which is formed using a gapped construction with an overall adjectival structure. That about wraps it up for basic Felinese syntax.
If you want more, check out its articles, grammar tables, the lexibuild sets, or translations, and make sure to study the phrasebook before your next trip into the Firrhna star system.
Got suggestions for how the next LotM should be written? See something in Felinese that wasn't covered and you wish it had been? Feel free to shoot us (phi2dao, argyle, protondonor, or Avlönskt) a PM with your questions, comments, and/or concerns. Also feel free to drop by the LotM clan if you have other feedback, want to join in the voting process, or nominate a language! ✎ Edit Article ✖ Delete Article
Comments
Edit history
on 25/11/19 13:250[Deactivated User]moved to proper folder
on 01/03/19 18:52-9[Deactivated User]Removed the WIP tag
