Kiʞik language
| Kiʞik | |
|---|---|
| Kiʞik kukʉk | |
| Native to | Kiravian Federacy |
Native speakers | 145,000 (21205) |
| Coscivian | |
| Official status | |
Official language in | Kekeik-ꓘaikukɯk |
| Regulated by | Kikik Language Board |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
Kikik (Kikik: Kiʞik) is a language spoken by some 145,000 people living in the Kiravian Federacy. It originated in the Kikidan Valley of Éorsa, where its speakers were subjects of the Coscivian Empire for the entirety of the language's written history, and was transplanted to Kiravia by emigrants when the valley was depopulated during the collapse of the Third Empire. It is a language isolate, showing no evidence of a genetic relationship with the Cosco-Adratic languages, Elutic languages, or any other extant language family of Éorsa. Kikik is best known for having only two consonants: the voiceless velar stop (k) and the back-released velar click (ʞ).
Grammar
Kiʞik has a nominative-accusative morphosyntactic alignment and expresses grammatical relationships through inflection (mainly affixes) and word order. Kiʞik declarative sentences follow a subject-verb-object arrangement, and interrogative sentences follow a verb-subject-object arrangement. Nouns decline for two numbers (singular and plural), and four cases (nominative, genitive, and accusative). There is no grammatical gender and, unlike in most Cosco-Adratic languages, no noun classes. Verbs inflect for three persons, three tenses (past, present, and future), and two aspects (perfect and imperfect). The perfect aspect is formed by changing the final k present in all imperfect verb stems to a ʞ.
| Case | keke person | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | Plural | |||
| Nominative | keke | –n | kekekık | -(k)ık |
| Genitive | kekeɯk | –ɯk | kekék | –ék |
| Accusative | kekeá | -á | kekeå | -å |
| Dative | kekeki | –(ı)ki | kekekʉki | –(ʉ)ki |
| Aspect | Tense | kʉikekuk to write | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | 2nd | 3rd | |||||
| Simple | Past | kʉikekukuk | –uk | kʉikekukék | -ék | kʉikekukéi | -éi |
| Present | kʉikekukik | -ik | kʉikekukûk | –ûk | kʉikekuké | -é | |
| Future | kʉikekukɯ | -ɯ | kʉikekukåk | -åk | kʉikekuku | -u | |
| Perfect | Past | kʉikekuʞuk | –ʞuk | kʉikekuʞék | -ʞék | kʉikekuʞéi | -ʞéi |
| Present | kʉikekuʞik | -ʞik | kʉikekuʞûk | –ʞûk | kʉikekuʞé | -ʞé | |
| Future | kʉikekuʞɯ | -ʞɯ | kʉikekuʞåk | -ʞåk | kʉikekuʞu | -ʞu | |
Vocabulary
The majority of the lexicon is native to Kiʞik, including a large body of neologisms constructed from Kiʞik roots. There are numerous loanwords from High Coscivian, Kiravic Coscivian, and other Coscivian languages, such as ʞekʞka̲ka ("Empire", fr. Coscivian Rektārka) and kaʞi̲ʞù ("principle" fr. Coscivian kalinin) borrowed over the course of thousands of years of the Kiʞik people assimilating into Coscivian literary culture and adapted to Kiʞik's unique phonology. There are also a great many calques of Coscivian words recomposed from Kiʞik roots. The Kiʞik Language Commission has adopted a general policy of linguistic purism regarding the further development of Kiʞik vocabulary and literature, strongly favouring derivation of new terms from Kiʞik roots and periphrasic translations over foreign borrowings. Kiʞik also contains a small number of loanwords with ultimately non-Coscivian etymologies, many of which are related to religion, such as ékkʞéʞʞia (fr. Latin ecclesia) and eʞkkiʞoʞkuʞ (fr. Latin episcopus).
Kui ʞoʞkukéi káikō-ı-ʞôkèkık kikuiuk kō Kokokōʞaʞaʞka kaʞu ꓘʞakokókík ʞekʞka̲ka ok keôkukéi ʉkʉki.
He came from the islands to fight for Komala against the Fakolan Empire and died on a riverbank.
- Kiʞkakó - Great Kirav, Kiravia
- Iʞkʞéka - Ixnay
- ꓘꓘeku - Heku
- Kokokōʞaʞaʞka - Komala
- Kekeik - Bridge
- ꓘaikuk - Tower
- Kukʉk - Speech, languageʞ
- Kåikokokak - Religion, ideology
- ꓘekakuiuik - Fuel
- ꓘeikuoki - Metal
- ꓘoki - Council, committee
- Kuiʞu - Sleep
- ꓘʉk - River, stream
- ꓘukokokui - Potato
Language Development
The Kiʞik Language Commission (Kiʞik: Kóki Kiʞik Kukʉkɯk), located in the town of Kekeik-ꓘaikukɯk, is the regulatory body of the Kiʞik language. It is responsible for establishing grammatical and lexical standards for the language, publishing prescriptive dictionaries, and creating educational materials in Kiʞik. The KLC originated as the Kiʞik Literary Society in 20938 and took on a formal role in 21146 when the Kirosocialist government launched a campaign to improve access to education among speakers of the Federacy's more marginal languages. Since then, the KLC has worked closely with the Literary Development Institute, an Escarda-based quango, to produce school texbooks and other materials in Kiʞik, with a recent focus on creating Kiʞik editions of major operating systems for home computing.
Kiʞik has a body of literature dating back to the Second Coscivian Empire. Coscivian classics such as the Coscivian Book of the Dead, the Book of One Thousand Moons, the Autumn Verses, and the writings of Shafto have been available in Kiʞik for centuries. Important native compositions include the Kikidan Annals (a survey of the history of the Kikidan Valley during the Second Imperial, Inter-Imperial, and Third Imperial Periods) and Letters from Varuna, a 21120s epistolary novel. Most books of the Old Testament have been translated into Kiʞik at various times, as have the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Epistle of James; but a complete translation of the Bible has yet to be made.
The Daily Kek (Kiʞik: Kek Kiuʞék) is a broadsheet newspaper published (contrary to its name) twice weekly in Kekeik-ꓘaikukɯk. Most of its content is directly translated from wire service reports, though its editorial pieces, coverage of [STATE] state politics, and local news stories are composed in Kiʞik. There are several local newspapers circulated in Kiʞik-speaking communities containing more original content, but the Daily Kek plays an important role in allowing Kiʞik-speakers to keep apprised of national and international events in the language they are most comfortable reading.
Two radio stations, WKUꓘ and WKKK, broadcast in Kiʞik. Both channels include news, talk, and music sections, as well as translated programming from Kiravian Public Radio. WKKK's music selection is mostly traditional Kiʞik music, while WKUꓘ offers Kiʞik-language turbo-folk and electropop, single-handedly sustaining the entire Kiʞik contemporary music scene. The IxReddit and the Kiravian social networking site spacebar.kr have fully-functional Kiʞik interfaces.