Kelun

Kelun or Kelunese (Kelun: Kệlungìz) is a recently discovered extinct language spoken by the indigenous Kelun people in the area around Qingdao, China.

The Kelun people were among the first to invent writing. Kelun is written using the Kelun syllabaries, which first appeared in year -1500 from an earlier logographic script that dates back to -2100. Kelun language texts came to an end around -300, but it is hypothesized that the language may have survived until around the year 0.

Classification
Kelun is generally considered to be an isolate, however, some believe that the language may be distantly related to the Koreanic, Tungusic, or Nivkh languages.

It is presumed that the language(s) of the nearby Yueshi culture is/are similar and related to Kelun, but no records of that language exist.

Consonants
Kelun has the following consonants: In the Kelun syllabaries, voicing and aspiration are distinguished with diacritics.

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 are disputed, and may have differed between dialects.

Traditionally, the Kelun syllabaries do not distinguish between the different forms of a vowel, which have to be inferred from context. However, all vowels can be nasalized (ạ), long (ā), or both (ạ̄), which the Kelun syllabaries distinguish with diacritics.