Kjaxono language

Kjaxono is a language belonging to the Xjedrqan language family, primarily spoken in Xjetjeŋ and in small communities across Brausia.

Phonology

See main article: Kjaxono phonology

Consonants

Kjaxono's consonant inventory of 41 phonemes is typical of other [...] languages, featuring a palatalized distinction in most of it's consonants, and rich employment of uvular sounds.

Consonant phonemes of Kjaxono

		Bilabial		Alveolar		Velar		Uvular	Glottal
		Plain	Palatalized	Plain	Palatalized	Plain	Palatalized
Nasal		m	mʲ	n	nʲ	ŋ	ŋʲ	ɴ
Plosive	Unvoiced	p	pʲ	t	tʲ	k	kʲ	q	ʔ
	Voiced	b		d		g	gʲ	ɢ
Affricate	Unvoiced			t͡s	t͡sʲ	k͡x	k͡xʲ	q͡χ
	Voiced			d͡z	d͡zʲ
Fricative	Unvoiced			s	sʲ	x	xʲ	χ	h
	Voiced	β		z	zʲ			ʁ
Liquid				l	ʎ			ʀ

Notes

• The status of /ʀ/ is extremely variant among Kjaxono speakers. It can be alveolar, post-velar, or even dental. In some speakers, it has merged with the voiced uvular fricative /ʁ/.
  • Most speakers pronounce /ʀ/ as /ʀ̥/ word-finally. This is not a universal phenomenon; [.efawifaewjiegjiwg]
• Fairly irregularly, some speakers pronounce /ʎ/ as a post-palatal lateral approximant /ʎ̞/. This occurs most commonly when in the same syllable as a uvular sound.
• /β/ and /ʁ/ are occasionally devoiced at the start of words.
• /s/ and /sʲ/ are pronounced word finally as dento-alveolars, /s̟/ and /s̟ʲ/, or even as dentals /s̪/ /s̪ʲ/.
• /x/ is usually pronounced as /ɣ/ when between front vowels (i.e /i(:)/, /æ/, and /e:/).

Vowels

	Front		Back
	Short	Long	Short	Long
Close	i	i:	u	u:
Open	æ	e:	o	o:

Orthography

Kjaxono is primarily written in two scripts: the Mallian script and the indigenous Qadaigjŋ script.

Grammar

See main article: Kjaxono grammar

Kjaxono is a decisively agglutinative language, with plentiful fusional and polysynthetic characteristics. Kjaxono, along with other languages of the [...] language family comprise the only example of languages with a morphosyntactic alignment of transitive-intransitive - with the agent of an intransitive verb being inflected for an intransitive case. This feature is one of the most notorious features of Kjaxono. Otherwise, Kjaxono nouns rather simply decline for only 2 cases - transitive and intransitive, as previously stated. In addition, while not explicitely inflected, Kjaxono nouns also have 2 numbers - singular and plural. Kjaxano features no grammatical gender and no adjectival agreement of any form.

In contrast, verbs are by far the most inflecting part of speech in Kjaxono. In some cases, they can represent entire sentences by themselves. Kjaxono verbs are often the epicenter of linguistic research into the language, and verbs in the [...] language family as a whole are generally one of their most known attributes in linguistics as a whole. For a overview, see §6 Verbal System and Kjaxono verbs.

Pronouns

Personal pronouns in Kjaxono

	Singular					Plural
	First-person	Second-person	Third-person			First-person	Second-person	Third-person
			Kjarelen	Non-kjarelen	Inanimate			Kjarelen	Non-kjarelen	Inanimate
Transitive	ce	ǐŋce	kjace	hamce	żoxe	cet	ǐŋcet	kjacet	hamcet	żoxet
Intransitive	zu	zeb	bekjo	hecjo		żecjet	cjet	kjabǒt	hamǒżt

In Kjaxono, only pronouns are inherently given a gender. There are three genders used: Kjarelen, used for Kjarelen species individuals, Non-kjarelen, used for non-kjarelen species individuals, aswell as non sapient animals and animate phenomena and objects, such as rain, cities, and so on, and inanimate, used for inanimate objects. Pronouns in Kjaxono are not differentiated via sex; one differentiates the sex of the noun replaced via said noun's sex being added after the pronoun. Consider the following phrase:

• Kjabǒ gqunja [placeholder] →

Nouns

As stated previously, Kjaxono nouns inflect for two cases, and 2 numbers. The transitive case is unmarked, and marks the subject of a transitive verb. The intransitive case is marked by the suffix -(ie)b. The intransitive case marks the subject of an intransitive verb. The intransitive cases sometimes takes slightly different marking based on the final phonemes of the noun it is attached to. Generally, if the noun ends with 2 or less consonants, only -b is attached; otherwise, -ieb is attached.

Case

Aside from Kjaxono's morphosyntactical alignment, case in Kjaxono is fairly straightforward. As previously stated, Kjaxono nouns inflect for two cases - the transitive and intransitive. The transitive case is unmarked and the intransitive case is marked by the suffix -(ie)b. This case's form is somewhat irregular - pronouns in the intransitive case are transparently different from their normal forms. In addition, they take slightly different forms when being applied to proper names, and inanimate nouns.

The rules for applying the intransitive case for nouns are fairly straightforward. Some speakers of Kjaxono have merged the rules for proper names and inanimate nouns with those from ordinary nouns. This is more common in [insert dialect here], but can be found across Xjetjeŋ.

Intransitive case

	Romanization	IPA	Example	Stem Meaning
Nouns ending with a single consonant, or vowel	-b	/b/	miagqub	cat
Nouns ending with two or more consonants	-ieb	/ie:b/	bhqǔngqieb	village
Proper names ending with a single consonant, or vowel	-bh	/β/	aqcjambh	aqcjam
Proper names ending with two or more consonants	-abh	/æβ	migqeżkabh	migqeżk
Inanimate nouns ending with a single consonant, or vowel	-ab	/æb/	qa'roab	building
Inanimate nouns ending with two or more consonants	-abh	/æβ/	aicŋabh	tree bark

Articles

There are four articles that are used in Kjaxono. They are suffixes that are attached onto the noun directly. Kjaxono has two types of article - the definite and indefinite - which change form slightly based on their plurality or lack of plurality. The articles are notably different from how plurality is marked on nouns. Articles do not changed based on the ending of the nouns of which they mark, occasionally leading to consonant clusters of three to even four consonants.

Kjaxono articles

	Definite	Indefinite
Singular	-kjoŋ /kʲoŋ/	-tjex /tʲek͡x/
Plural	-ŋje /ŋʲe:/	-tax /tæk͡x/

Verbal system

See main article: Kjaxono verbs

Verbs are the most complex part of speech in Kjaxono. It is by far the most difficult aspect of Kjaxono for new speakers of the language to learn, due its system-wide irregularity and general difficulty. Oftentimes, conjugation can encode all of the information needed to parse a sentence. The verbal system of Kjaxono has two main scales - a term roughly corresponding to conjugation used when talking about the Kjaxono languages - and 3 subscales therein. The two main scales are:

• Objective scale - used for transitive verbs, aswell as volitive verbs.
• Nonobjective scale - used for intransitive verbs, aswell as involitive verbs.

Each scale comprises 3 subscales. These subscales depend on the starting phoneme of the verb. Each subscale also has a unique name.

• The northern subscale is for verbs starting with front vowels.
• The southern subscale is for verbs starting with back vowels.
• The eastern subscale is for verbs starting with consonants.

Kjaxono verbs conjugate for tense, person, aspect, mood, evidentiality, "pattern", and voice. A feature not present in any other language aside from other languages within the [...] language family is the optional marking of definiteness and or indefiniteness, in regards to person marking. Hard to precisely define, they can mark for extremely specific scenarios with little equivelant in any other language. All together, Kjaxono verbs have by far the most inflection and nuance of any part of speech in Kjaxono.

Due to the complexity of the subject, Kjaxono's verbal system entails its own seperate article.