Kitonese

The Kitonese language (officially Ki Ngok 俟言; Keoi Ki 言俟 also used) is an Austronesian language spoken by around 680,000 people, primarily in Kiton (Kiton 俟東) where it is the national language. Since 63BC, Kitonese has been written with Chinese characters, Kekwefu (kekwefu n tayun 文鄣, lit. "Chinese writing"), though its vocabulary consists mainly of Sanskrit words, making it one of the few languages to combine Sanskrit and Chinese influences on a major scale. The language is highly stratified between sociolects; topolects vary considerably little.

History
The history of Kitonese is largely unknown to historical linguists. While Kiton lies in the region of Austronesia in the Pacific (located near Taiwan and the Philipines), it does not belong to the Malayo-Polynesian language family. It displays some peculiar features not common to the linguistic area, such as case declensions, verb conjugations and a SOV word order, leading some to classify it as an Indo-European language, a move which has caused much controversy.

The language uses Chinese characters, but does not use much modern Chinese vocabulary. This is probably due to Chinese contact in the 5th century BCE during the end Zhou period, leading to the absorption of Chinese characters as a new form of writing, although the Chinese characters they did accept were an archaic and dialectal form of Ancient Chinese. This explains, for example, the word 社會 (lit. gathering of shrines) does not mean "society" unlike most Sinoxenic languages, as link was not drawn during the brief period of Chinese contact.

The language known today as Kitonese was the local dialect of Akelaksa (keoi ake laksa 言域焦), the ancient capital of Kiton. When King Sengyan (Sengyan Kimaita 成寅王) moved his capital to Akelaksa, he declared the local dialect as the national language. To this day, Kitonese is widely used and universally understood in the Kingdom. While Kitonese is the official language in all constituent kingdoms of Kiton, the State Union of Ailongeng'ai uses the indigenous Sari'iki language as the official state language, which is part of the Tongic group of the Austronesian language family.

Phonology
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Kekwefu writing
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Pronunciation
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Syntax
The Kitonese language follows the SOV pattern very rigidly. This means that a sentence must always end in a verb. Although this rule may seem unnecessary due to case markings, this helps determine the semantic function of a word as verbs and derived nouns are represented by the same word (eg. sekeh 為 doing and seku 為 action).

Traditionally, Kitonese linguists call the language NADV rather than SOV. It is an acronym for the three arguments, Nominative (subject), Accusative (direct object), Dative (indirect object) together with the Verb, parts of a simple sentence. The pure NADV model forms the basic structure of a sentence in Kitonese, and the arguments N and A are not marked by any case markers. Only the dative case has a case marking, the marking ki- 至-. These are separate from other cases as they are the only ones in which case markings preceed the noun in both Kekwefu and transliterated form.

Predicate sentences
Predicate sentences are the simplest form of sentence which equates or atrributes a quality to a noun. It only has one noun, the subject and is called a first degree sentence. ''Injeh neh naruarah seh. ''音戒 乃子雄也 Injeh is a man. The copula nei 乃 is employed between the two nouns as an equal sign, but this copula only works for equating sentences with two nouns. It converts whatever is between it and seh 也 into a verb. Therefore, 乃子雄也 is a considered a verb. Nowadays, the seh 也 is usually omitted in slang Kitonese.

Siohi niruwa seh 昊 青也 The sky is blue. Niruwa 青 is an adjective, which means that nei 乃 is omitted. The verb seh is written as 是 rather than 也. 也 is only used for the equative; 是 is to be used for the attributive.

Intransitive verbs, such as narijuheh 死, "die" ameh 雨 "rain" and safungkeleh 臻 "arrive" all do not take direct objects.

Ameteh. 雨 It rained.

Direct objects
Chirifu paopoi rikaheteh 持 蹴鞠已踢 Chirifu kicked the ball.

Emphasis
Emphasis can be brought by arranging word order within a sentence. In this case, the particle sa 者 and the punctuation mark ijun ";" are employed. The particle ijun, known as awasanyokun karakah 句顛字仔 (lit. sentence-inverting particle) implies that the SOV order is overturned and marks the new object.

''Sa Chirufu paopoi rikaheteh. ''持者 蹴鞠已踢 Chirifu kicked the ball.

''Sa paopoi ijun Chirifu rikaheteh. ''蹴鞠者；持 已踢 Chirifu kicked the ball.

Adjunct
Adjuncts are used to add bits of information to a sentence beyond the framework of a standard SOV sentence. They consist of adjectives, adverbs and determiners.

Adjectives
Adjectives are the simplest form of adjunct and are used to modify the arguments.

Adverbs
Adverbs are used to modify the verb in a sentence.

Nouns
'NOTE: Kitonese grammar is undergoing renovation. The grammar rules in this section are considered obsolete and the rules in "Syntax" are the standard against any discrepancy.'

Although nouns are not declined according to grammatical number, gender or definitiveness, they are declined for grammatical case by particles known as  karakah 字仔. (IMPORTANT: while karakah precede the noun in writing; they follow the noun in speech. This keeps in line with Classical Chinese granmar.) Case refers to the grammatical function of the noun in a phrase or sentence.

The cases, direct translations of their Sanskrit counterparts, are:
 * 1) Nominative: Sekeyana/Karta 為者 "agent"
 * 2) Accusative: Seku/Karman 為 "deed"
 * 3) Genetive: Sarukwahesu/Sambhanda 舉髻 "attachment"
 * 4) Instrumental: Soseki/Karana 所為 "instrument"
 * 5) Dative: Saruprakesu/Sampradana 舉高予 "bestowal"
 * 6) Ablative: Safungkesu/Apadana 離予 "taking off"
 * 7) Locative: Hejisoseki/Adhikarana 首所為 "location"
 * 8) Vocative: Yaneh/- 嗚呼 "oh!"

Nominative/Sekeyana
The nominative case marks the subject of a sentence, as implied by the Kitonese name. It has no karakah and is marked by a space in Kekwefu orthography.Let's look at an example: Chirifu walks. The word chirifu 持 means "upholding". It is a direct translation of the term "dharma" and is a common Kitonese name. Here the agent (Chirifu) is the one performing the action (walking). This would be translated as: Chirifu pasiheh. 持 走 Note that Kitonese has no full stops. The only punctuations are the comma and semicolon, explained later.

Accusative/Seku
The accusative case marks the direct object of a verb. Its karakah is ahi, with no equivalent in Kekwefu. Another example: Hitikaya kicked the ball. To translate this, we need to know that verbs always finish a clause. The translated sentence is: Hitikaya paopoi ahi rikehate. 柱子 蹴鞠踢

Genitive/Sarukwahesu
The genitive form of a word carries the meaning of the word "of". If we give Hitikaya another ball: Hitikaya kicked Chirifu's ball. The genitive noun (Chirifu) goes after the "ball": Hitikaya paopoi neh Chirifu rihekate. 柱子 蹴鞠矣持踢 The karakah neh 矣 is one of two genitive postpositions. It implies that the genitive noun owns the object.

The second genitive, nguh 尹, implies the genitive noun is lower in position to the object, such that it is inappropriate to say that the genitive noun "owns" it: Injeh's god is Hiohoi. (Injeh worships Hiohoi.) Translated, it is: Aruluh nguh Injeh naei Hiohoi tahendeh. 神尹音戒 乃孝亥也有 This example brings up a good topic: the predicate. The predicate sentence equates two nouns or ascribes a quality to a noun. The word naei 乃 comes between the two equating phrases and ends with the copula taheh 也. In this case, the honorific tahendeh 也有 is used. The honorific will be explained later. 

Instrumental/Soseki
The instrumental case denotes that the noun used to perform an action. It carries the meaning of "by" and is represented by the karakah sih 以. When meaning "with" the karakah shieh - sih 與 is used. The word is the same, simply with different kekwefu. Let's try a sentence: Tara walks with Sileki. Shieh sih acts as a circumfix: Tara shieh Silekisih pasiheh. 星 與析麗俟走

Verbs
The lexical form of verbs end in -eh. This the form found in dictionaries. Kitonese syntax dictates that verbs be placed at the end of a sentence. Take the informal sentence, ngwoi kanafu ahi nyawasi 吳 食嚼, "You are eating food". Notice how "food", kanafu 食 is derived from the verb kanaheh; nyaweh 嚼 also becomes nyawasi. These will be discussed later on.
 * taraheh 行 cross
 * kanahe 食 dine f.
 * nyaweh 嚼 eat inf.
 * aukeleh 去 or 格至 go

Honorific

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Mood

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Present tense
The present tense is unique that it conjugates with respect to person.

Influences of Sanskrit and Chinese
The whole of Kitonese culture is a unique mix of ancient Indic and Sinitic influences on the native Ki tradition. The obvious influences of Chinese is the Kengep n Tharun, the Chinese writing system brought by the early Chinese immigrant tribe of Shichi 矢子 in 2300BC as per tradition. (Shichi was the ancestor of many noble families in Kiton, including the present ruling house of Kangtaga 庚德.) The Chinese influences seen in Kitonese culture are markedly different from modern Chinese due to lack of contact for centuries since the mid-Shang dynasty and this helps us paint a clearer picture of the formative years of Chinese civilization. These influences tend to be kept to the noble tiers of society and longstanding tradition, such as royal naming customs and noble clan names.

Indic culture, on the other hand, seems to be more widespread and pervasive throughout the common people. It was the language of literacy, religion and science for many centuries. Its prolific use meant the adaption of many Sanskrit words, changed to adapt to Kitonese pronunciations. Clear examples include suyah/Suyeh "sun/sun-god" cf. Sans. surya "sun" samujah "sea" cf. Sans. samudra "ocean" narijufu 'death" cf. Sans. mṛtyu "death". Words such as Sans. vṛksha "birch" evolved to wangasang "tree"; vṛksham -> urkshang -> urngsang -> wangsang -> wangasang.

A non-exhaustive list of rules to predict the Kitonese equivalent of a Sanskrit word:
 * 1) Ascertain its gender. It may end in -ah (male), -am (neuter) or -ā (female).
 * 2) Convert -am to -ang. Proper nouns are to be converted from -ah to -eh and -am to -eng.
 * 3) m may change to n.
 * 4) r may change to y.
 * 5) i and u may expand to eye and ewe.
 * 6) hu and hv -> fu and f. (This rule is constant throughout the Kitonese language.)
 * 7) tr/ty -> tr/j; dr/dy -> j.
 * 8) Therefore:
 * 9) m. suryah -> suyah; Saviter -> Sautreh
 * 10) n. ashyam -> ashang; madhu -> nedeweng
 * 11) f. dhenu -> tainu; kanta -> kanta

Kitonese naming convention
Kitonese names are usually Chinese, Indic or native in origin. Western names are increasingly popular, but this topic will only address indigenous naming traditions. Kitonese naming customs differ between commoners (those not in a chiefly clan), chiefly clan members and chiefs.

Commoners
Names of members of the general public contain patronyms rather than surnames. They tend to be Indic or native in origin, with Sinoxenic forms mostly at the high-working class and above.

Top ten male names:
 * 1) Hitika 柱 pillar
 * 2) Suyikah 陽樣 solar
 * 3) Shayok 甦 revival
 * 4) Injeh  音戒  Indra, Hindu king of gods (Injeh 胤 is used when referring the god Indra.)
 * 5) Chirifu 持 dharma
 * 6) Kaji 速 speed
 * 7) Ashuyin 御夫 Ashvin, Hindu version of Gemini
 * 8) (grandfather's name)+ja (naneje neh aenakeh 名大矣父太）子 son of..
 * 9) Nowu 信 valour
 * 10) Hiohoimule 孝亥僕 servant of Hiohoi

Top ten female names:
 * 1) Niyei 淑 virgin
 * 2) Songma 桑摩 Soma, Moon (The name Selena is also commonly spelt as such.)
 * 3) Shachi 佘旨 Shachi, Hindu version of Hera
 * 4) Sheti 和 peace
 * 5) Puya 蓮花 lotus
 * 6) Sarasuati 溪娘 Saraswati, Hindu goddess of wisdom
 * 7) Rita 麗多
 * 8) Sita 喜多
 * 9) Einji 胤姬 Aindri, same person as Shachi (the names Angie and Angela are commonly spelt as such.)
 * 10) Kita 姬多

Genesis 1:1
Nakadikweh, Parameshuarah akaman wa bumi ahi kinendeta. 大元刻、上帝 天及地造有了 "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." Narrator, Gen 1:1, KJV

Bhagavad Gita 4:7
''Waratajah yaneh! Hinnefu darma e herasang wa adarma e nakakoshitu taheh, yannefu atmanasuh shigahenjahe.'' 咨伯羅多嗣；該時法降亦非法大勢有、此時此時我本 將顯 (O son of Warata [Bharata]! Whenever there exists a derease of dharma and a prevalence of irreligiousity, then my soul will manifest.) "O son of Bharata! Wherever the law is in decline and irreligiousity is on the rise, then I will personally undergo incarnation." Krishna, BV 4:7 (translation own)

Fake Death Note Rules
若間矣13日者，用者矣死書 名弗寫、即其生將斷必 (If in the span of 13 days, the user does not write names, his life will surely be cut.) If the user of the Death Note fails to consecutively write names within 13 days of each other, then the user will die. 若有人者 以便矣之殽或以便矣滅是書非用克成使，即庶生矣諸與此觸了人將斷必 If a person makes this notebook unusable by tearing it up or burning it, all the humans who have touched the Death Note will die.
 * 1) Waka naga 13 siahan gi neh, pukeyana Narijufu e Notegi ingawak ahi ma kekweheta, deh negi jiufu ahi wagakenjahe heka.
 * 1) Waka kakan neh nele sih eigi fuyutan gi woh eigi angnihan gi sisi note ahi na-ulefusawa yaraiba, deh saru jiufu ahi chuh shieh eisih mayehetawan narah gi wagakenjafuke heka.