Modern Ikotan

General information
Modern Ikotan, or Iekotanria Ceyen, is a language spoken by the Ik people of Eastern Nretya. It is a worn down version of the complicated Ancient Ikotan, where most of the Modern Ikotan letters come from. However, there are some letter borrowings from Nadarian script. An art tool was used to build the letters for show on the internet. The letters are on this project made on a website called Scratch. You can also find these symbols in the Script section.

The Ik people live in a region in Eastern Nretya, called Ikland, or Ikolende. This is west of Nadaria, north of the Nomil people, and east of the Nretyan Sea. They believe in the religion Klarotism, or Klarotil in Modern Ikotan. Klarotism is a belief that there is one Creator, or "Klarot". The word "creator" has three synonyms. There is a word for the creator-god, a person who creates things, and a word for an inanimate object that creates something. Another belief of the religion is that everything creates everything. This may sound a little confusing; it's more philosophical than religious.

Alphabet
As you can see from the tables above, vowels have some variety, and there are no bilabial or labio-dental consonants.

The Modern Ikotan Alphabet is: a e i o u y r l n h k s z g d t j c. In the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), the Modern Ikotan alphabet is this: ä  e̞  i o̞ u  j ɾ l n h k s z g  d̪   t̪   ʤ ʧ.

Modern Ikotan sounds are quite similar to Spanish sounds. However, its phonotactics give Modern Ikotan a unique sound.

Phonotactics
There is an average amount of consonant clusters allowed in each syllable, these are: n, h, k, z, g, d, and t with either an r, l, or y before or after it, depending on where it is in the syllable. You can also put s in front of many of those clusters or in front of a single letter. The phonological restraints look like this: (s)(C)(L)V(L)(C), L being either r, l, y, or i, and C being any other consonant. The letter s cannot appear before a fricative or a voiced consonant in the same syllable.

Grammar
Modern Ikotan grammar is most like Indo-European languages, including conjugation by person and number, base ten, and verb tenses.

Basic Grammar
There are no articles or adpositions. The sentence order is VSO. Adverbs must match tense when applied to a verb. Basically this means you need to add a tense prefix, using the prefixes used for verbs. The past tense prefix is de- and the future tense prefix is lo-. There aren't plural forms in Modern Ikotan; if a noun's number is specified, just treat the number itself as an adjective i.e. the three in "three apples" is treated as an adjective, and native speakers of Modern Ikotan will say "apple three", or "cere ce", because there are no plural forms of nouns.

Modern Ikotan has a general stress rule with no exceptions. Always stress the second-to-last syllable of each word. Examples: CE-re, ie-ko-TAN-ria, ke-NE-ri.

Conjugation
There are four pronouns, ni, nos, lis, and gis. Definitions are given below. Verbs are conjugated according to these four pronouns. There are three verb types, two with a subtype not much different from the original. The main types are -el, -en, and -et. The two subtypes are -an and -it.

In the following tables, verb forms and conjugation are shown. In order from left to right, the top row is the ni and nos forms, and the bottom row is the lis and gis forms.

Tense, Aspect, and Mood
The prefixes de- and lo- are used for past and future tense respectively. The suffix -i is added to the verb ending to change the mood to imperative. The suffix -de is added to the end of the verb to change the mood to conditional. Spelling Notes: If the verb already ends in a 't' or a 'd', add the suffix -e.

To change the verb to a negative, add the prefix ne- before tense prefixes i.e. neloskrililte (3s/3p "to write" future tense negative conditional).

To express a progressive aspect, add the suffix -ite. To express a perfect aspect, add the suffix -rez. To express a perfect progressive aspect, add the suffix -itrez. Remember to add these suffixes after all other suffixes.

Script
There is actually an alphabet for Modern Ikotan that uses unique letters. Using a font tool, the author of this page has created images of the script in action.

This image to the right is an example text using Ikotan script. Here is the transliteration and translation of the text. Transliteration: Ge ni inotes 21. Translation: I am 21 years old. Literal translation: I have 21 years.

Here's a list of the complete alphabet with their transliterations. Some letterforms may be familiar to you, such as i, y, r, k, and j. Try writing your own sentences with this script. Only one thing; You have to write right-to-left, as shown in the example text above the alphabet.

Also, there are numerals and punctuation symbols, as shown below.

The author of this page forgot to add a symbol to the puncuation in the font, so one of the following symbols is edited using Paint. This message is here to inform the reader of possible inaccuracy.

Example text
"Sald dedanes las nos nosa kede die nosa Klarot, alio deles karit las raolnyo nos acea dago."

"Our lives are given to us by our Creator, and we must spread that message to everyone."