Kelun

Kelun or Kelunese (Kelun: se Kệlungìz) is a language spoken somewhere in the world of Maleka.

Consonants
Kelun has the following consonants:

Vowels
Kelun has 8 basic vowels:

/a e i o u â ê ô/

The vowels a, e, i, o, and u can have 3 forms:

/a e i o u/

/á é í ó ú/

/à è ì ò ù/

The vowels â and ê can have 2 forms:

/â ê/

/â̛ ê̛/

The vowel ô can only have one form: /ô/.

Pronunciation of the different vowels and vowel forms differ between dialects. Most varieties of Kelun feature a type of vowel harmony in which all vowels in a root word and its affixes must have the same form. The vowel forms â̛ and ê̛ correspond with á é í ó ú, while â and ê correspond with a e i o u or à è ì ò ù.

All vowels can also be nasalized (ạ), long (ā), or both (ạ̄).

Syllable structure
The basic syllable structure is (C)CV(C), with an obligatory nucleus, an obligatory onset with one or two consonants, and an optional coda with only one consonant. It is presumed that all consonant clusters are allowed, however, this is debated.

"Ś"
The word ś, meaning "or", is the only known Kelun word without a vowel, and it is normally said as if it is part of the first syllable of the following word (but written as a separate word), but if there it begins with two consonants and/or ś-, ś may be pronounced with a vowel following it, like śa.

Nouns
In Kelun, nouns always end in a consonant. They can be singular or plural, and they have 21 cases.

A notable feature Kelun is that some body parts coming in pairs (i.e. hands, feet, arms, legs, eyes, ears) use the singular. This is because in earlier stages, there existed a dual number to specify two of any noun, which merged with the singular in modern Kelun.

In Kelun there is a definite article se, which agrees with nouns in case and number, but no indefinite article. Instead, absence of an article indicates that the noun is indefinite.

There are many derivational affixes for nouns, mostly infixes that go between the final vowel and consonant of a noun, but also some prefixes. There are no derivational suffixes, since suffixes are reserved for inflection.

Verbs
Verbs show aspect (imperfective, perfective, and habitual). The imperfective forms generally end in -a, perfective forms in -ê, and habitual forms in -ụ̄. These forms, without further marking, are infinitives.

Non-past tense conjugations for regular verbs (present if imperfective or habitual, future if perfective): Past tense conjugations are the same, but with -mị- added between the infinitive and the conjugational suffixes: Imperfective and habitual verbs also have a future form, which is identical to the past tense conjugations except with -đō̂- instead of -mị-: The subjunctive mood of a verb is shown with the prefix lā-. The imperative mood is shown by omitting the final vowel of the infinitive and adding the following suffixes: Kelun has an active, passive, and antipassive voice. The passive voice is expressed with -im- appended to the verb root, and the antipassive is expressed with -ix-.

A quirk of Kelun is that it does not have a verb for "to be", instead, nouns and adjectives have a verbal form expressing a similar meaning, which is shown with the suffix -ēx- for the stem. So, in Kelun, the sentence "I am a tree" can be expressed as "(ẉe) kárḗxát", literally "(I) tree". ("kár" is the word for tree).

Adjectives
With little exception, most adjectives end in -ṛ. There are only 32 known adjective roots, instead, most adjectives derive from nouns or verbs using the suffix -aṛ or -ịṛ. Adjectives generally come after nouns.

Syntax
In Kelun, the basic word order is SVO, however, word order can be different some of the time. Kelun is a pro-drop language, which means pronouns can be dropped if it can be inferred.

Pronouns
The basic pronouns are ẉe (first person), ñe (second person), and be (third person), but they inflect for number and case, with the -e taken off when suffixes are added. There is also a reflexive form of the pronouns, which has -ô instead of -e (ẉô, ñô, and bô), and does not inflect for number or case.

There is also a demonstrative pronoun (ṟè) and an impersonal pronoun (śe), both of which also inflect for number and case.

Relative pronouns are ṇe (who), ce (what), and ṛé (which), and interrogative pronouns are the same, but beginning with voiced consonants instead of voiceless ones (ne, đe, and ré). Indefinite pronouns are derived from the relative pronouns ṇe and ce, with prefixes lâ- (corresponding to some-), f- (any-), ṗu- (every-), and vi- (no-).

Conjunctions
Known Kelun conjunctions include là ("and"), ś ("or", the only known Kelun word that does not contain a vowel), gū́ ("but"), etc.

Numbers
Kelun uses a vigesimal (base-20) counting system. The numerals below are the root nouns, and the adjective form of all numerals uses the suffix -aṛ. Unlike other adjectives, they do not decline for number.

Colors
There are 5 primary colors in Kelun. Most languages with 5 primary colors have words for black, white, red, yellow, and green, but Kelun has words for black, white, red, green, and blue, and uses the additive method of color mixing to create compound words for the secondary colors cyan, magenta, and yellow, and tertiary colors. It is important to note that some tertiary colors have no commonly used English equivalent. Even the Kelun tertiary colors themselves are not commonly used, and are known to appear in only 2 manuscripts.