Khēqothu

Khēqothu is a historic language spoken by the dracofolk species in the Never Ending Project. though the language is not often spoken in modern times, it is still used in many forms of art and historic study, and thus is still relevant to the modern times.

Classification and Dialects
there are roughly four different dialects of Khēqothu used, split into northern formal, northern informal, southern, and eastern (aka human). for practicality, this article is currently only documenting northern formal.

Consonants
dracofolk (the species that speaks this language natively) cannot make an alveolar plosive except in affricates, so it is only listed in affricates. for humans, it is acceptable to pronounce the ts or dz affricates as plosives.

Phonotactics
(C)(C)V(V)(C) syllables. all words operate under sibilant-coronal harmony, with preference to postalveolar consonants.

/i/ and /o/ vowels before approximants or lateral approximants become ɪ and ʊ, respectively, regardless of dialect, even though the specific realization of the back vowel varies greatly depending on dialect

number system
unlike much of the language, which has changed drastically over time, the number system used in Khēqothu is almost completely unchanged since its conception. the system is base 6, with digits going in ascending order of size. the entire system used only a total of 15 words. every number is described by simply saying the names of the digits in order, with the final being marked with an additional suffix. the two additional words come before a number, to mark if its an amount (the five apples), an item of a sequence (the fifth apple), or the number itself (the number five ).

negative numbers are described by simply inverting the voicing of words for the digits of a number

the first word listed is the form used for digits other than the final digit of the number, the second is the one used if its the final digit.

the words used:

0=kem/kehim

1=pis/pa'ils

2=trū/troyū

3=kholq/khio

4=pran/purāq

5=tyef/tyefil

Nouns
all nouns in Khēqothu are made by taking an adjective word and then putting a noun-marking particle before it. there are many different particles that are used for different purposes, but the most basic are ta (/tsa/), sa (/tʃa/), and shu (/ʃə/). ta and sa are interchangeable, and which one is used is decided by the harmony of the word following it. both are used in the subject or (much more rarely) the direct object of a sentence. shu is used exclusively to indicate directional indirect objects, eg towards x, and only in present tense, but it is still extremely commonly used, because when a sentence has no object, it is used by itself to indicate tense.

in (most dialects of) Khēqothu, adjectives "spiral" around a noun, with each one of a phrase being on the opposite side of the noun from the previous, eg "big, heavy rock" becomes "big rock heavy". in the southern dialect, however, adjectives always come before.

in Khēqothu, tense is not marked in verbs, but in object particles, with 5 different tenses, being distant past, recent past, present, near future, and distant future.

Verbs
adverbs come after verbs

Syntax
all sentences of moods other than imperative are SOV, and between the subject and object phrase, a particle of ru is used to separate them. imperative sentences are SVO, and no separator particles are used.