Ka'atha [MMB]
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Registered by
[Deactivated User] on 22 January 2020
Language type
A priori
Species
Human/humanoid
About Ka'atha
Ka'atha is a language spoken by anthropomorphic chameleons. They live primarily on the northern islands of the Great Sea, while a neighboring group of geckos (who speak a variant) live more to the south.
It was inspired by a conversation with a friend that started out as a joke and turned into an hours-long brainstorm.
It was inspired by a conversation with a friend that started out as a joke and turned into an hours-long brainstorm.
Language family relationships
[view] About IsolatesThis is a family for isolate languages.
Phonology
| Consonants | Bilabial | Dental | Alveolar | Post- Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||||||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||||||||||
| Plosive | t | d | [k]1 | [g]2 | ʔ | |||||||||
| Fricative | [θ]3 | [ð]4 | (s) | (ʃ) | ʒ | x | h | ɦ | ||||||
| Affricate | t͡s | t͡ʃ | d͡ʒ | |||||||||||
| Lateral approximant | l | |||||||||||||
| Approximant | j | |||||||||||||
| Click | ǃ | ǂ | ||||||||||||
| Blends | ja |
- allophone of /g/
- allophone of /k/
- allophone of /ð/
- allophone of /θ/
| Vowels | Front | Near- front | Central | Back | ||||
| Close | i | ɯ | ||||||
| Near-close | ɪ | |||||||
| Close-mid | e | ɤ | ||||||
| Mid | ə | |||||||
| Open-mid | ɛ | ʌ | ||||||
| Near-open | æ | |||||||
| Open | ɑ | |||||||
| Polyphthongs | aɪ |
Syllable StructureSyllables usually end with fricatives or vowels, especially the final syllable. Some variants will actually add an extra vowel (usually a schwa) to the end of words that break this rule. On the other hand, words never begin with vowels. Casual speech turns neighboring vowels into diphthongs, while formal speech separates them. For this reason, formal and casual speech have different stress patterns.
Stress informationPrimary stress falls on the first syllable. Secondary stress raditates out from the primary stress, hitting every other syllable.
OtherBecause of their long tongues, Ka'atha tend to lisp, compared to the Nu'usha. They can make /s/ and /ʃ/ but prefer not to. Because of their inflexible lips, they are limited in the bilabial/labiodental phonemes they can make. They can't make rounded vowels either, so "o" and "u" represent /ɤ/ and /ɯ/.
Orthography
Below is the orthography for Ka'atha. This includes all graphemes as defined in the language's phonology settings - excluding the non-distinct graphemes/polygraphs.
 Ka'athaOrthography [edit] | |||||||||||
| !/ǃ/ | '/ʔ/ | //ǂ/ | Aa/ɑ/ | AH ah/æ/ | AI ai/aɪ/ | CH ch/t͡ʃ/ | Dd/d/ | DJ dj/d͡ʒ/ | Ee/ɛ/ | EY ey/e/ | Gg[g] |
| Hh/h/ | HH hh/ɦ/ | Ii/i/ | IA ia/ja/ | IH ih/ɪ/ | Jj/ʒ/ | Kk[k] | KH kh/x/ | Ll/l/ | Mm/m/ | Nn/n/ | NG ng/ŋ/ |
| NY ny/ɲ/ | Oo/ɤ/ | Ss/s/1 | SH sh/ʃ/2 | Tt/t/ | TH th[θ], [ð] | TS ts/t͡s/ | Uu/ɯ/ | UH uh/ə/, /ʌ/ | Yy/j/ | ||
| ✖ Unknown alphabetical order [change] | |||||||||||
- loan words only
- loan words only
Latest 8 related articles listed below.
Ka'atha Phonotactics
A running list of notes re: phonology, stress patterns, etc.
16-Apr-20 20:40Ka'atha Background
This article has little to do with the specifics of the lang...
16-Apr-20 19:11Lessons (2)
