Tíkhona isjKénar

Classification and Dialects
Tíkona isjKénar comes in three principal parts:

tíkona meaning language (composed itself of tiw "tongue" and khóne "sound")

and

isjKénar meaning isj "people" + kéna "river" + r [genitive marker]

There is only one principle dialect of kelanese and that is this main dialect. Variations include the use of aspirate consonants instead of fricatives (see phonology) but aside from that, the vocabulary, syntax, and phonology is quite cohesive.

Consonants
''Orthography is written plainly, IPA realizations are in square brackets. ''

Vowels
''Orthography is written plainly, IPA realizations are in square brackets. ''

Phonotactics
There are highly loose phonotactics in Kelanese. Complex clusters are uncommon but not unheard of. Words frequently start with both consonants and vowels. Words that are animate typically end in vowels though this is not universally true. Another rule is stress. Animate nouns tend to be stressed initially and stress tends to move right with decreasing levels of animacy but this is once again not totally universal.

I-Mutation (Umlaut)
Umlaut in the form of i-mutation occurs in several positions in the language. It can happen intentionally in borrowings, by metaphony in borrowings but this is less common. It is more common to happen in native nouns in the plural and in the instrumental case. Outside of these instances, there is really no use for the vowels with umlauts. When an umlaut occurs, the  vowel or yod sound that causes it affects the vowel preceding the consonant that precedes either the yod or the vowel. This means the yod does not count as that consonant sound. Some times double umlauts (such as plural instrumental nouns) occurs. When this occurs, the second umlaut is ignored. The umlaut is also ignored if the vowel to be umlauted is an  which is why there is not i-with-umlaut letter of the alphabet. This is an integral part of the language and only occurs in prescribed declined forms of nouns and rarely in borrowings. For example fas /fas/ means "foot" or "paw" and in the plural it becomes fäst /fɛst/ meaning "feet" or "paws". Some nouns do have the umlaut in the singular nominative though, like âlju /ɛʎu/ which comes from Latin "alium" and means "garlic". Therefore, in the plural this is âljut with the umlaut already in place.

Writing System
There are several digraphs (but no trigraphs) that you should know:

bh, dh, gh, kh, ph, th make the sounds /β ð ɣ x ɸ θ/ respectively. These sounds were originally aspirates /bʱ dʱ gʱ kʰ pʰ tʰ/ but have since become fricatives as shown previously.

sj and zj make the sounds /ʃ ʒ/ respectively.

tj and dj make the sounds /tʃ dʒ/ respectively.

kj and gj make the sounds /ç ɟ/ respectively, however these are new additions, uncommon, and may be removed or substituted for kh and gh respectively.

nj and lj make the sounds /ɲ ʎ/ respectively.

ts and dz, of course make the sounds /ts dz/ respectively.

Apostrophes can be used to prevent these digraphs however it is usually reserved for foreign words or phonetic spellings. All other consonant and vowel combinations form no special sounds a part from the single sounds they represent.

Vowels do not form diphthongs different vowels together are always separated by hiatuses and double vowels of the same kind create long vowels. Likewise, double consonants create geminated consonants. The semivowels /j/ and /w/ however do form vocalic diphthongs.

'''Note that acute accents simply mark stress. Stress marking is not obligatory but in formal or academic writings, every polysylabic word should and usually is marked for stress especially when disambiguation is needed which occurs frequently due to the rules of animacy (see phonotactics). Circumflexes mark stressed vowels that are umlauted and is therefore the stressed form of all vowels with an umlaut and follows the same conventions of acute accent. It should be noted that ''umlauts must always be marked. 'When techinical limitations prevent this, a "y" may follow the vowel to indicate it has been umlauted. Therefore fäst (plural of fas) can be written fayst. The "y" does not appear anywhere else in the language.

Nouns
Nouns are currently the most developed part of the language and probably the part of speech you'll be using most.

Gender
I find gender to be a misleading term for this, but it is technical. Regardless, there are three "genders" of nouns in the language. Animate-who, animate-what, and inanimate.

Animate-who: this gender is reserved exclusively for human beings, deities, God, gods, and the like. It is generally marked by the following endings: -a, -te, -bh, -o, and -tji* (these endings are nearly universal, but it sometimes violated)

Animate-what: this gender is used for animals, living things, some disease names, and large natural forces. It is marked by -a though some words (like tath) are animate-what but do not end in final a and some words like fenía (borrowed from Latin fenestra) end in -a and are inanimate.

Inanimate: All other nouns are inanimate and they compose the bulk of nominals. They are unmarked in the singular nominative.

''*causes i-mutation of vowel preceding the consonants before the . ''