Yoketian

The Yoketians were the first civilization of Hudar. Their written history started around the year -2000 and reached its heyday around -700. They were organized in a number of rivaling slave-owning city-states, ruled by a duke (acway, literally 'strong man'). The cities constantly fought each other.

Their religion was polytheistic and featured multiple human sacrifices (wirawča), mostly of prisoners of war. Once a year, there was a feast during which a slave was crowned duke and everything normally considered sinful was allowed. After the feast, the Yoketi sacrificed the slave to the sun god Ma'elchor.

The Yoketians were ultimately conquered by the Nolikan emperor Ahmelati in the year 78.

Etymology: Yōket literally means 'the nurturing place'.

=Language=

The Yoketi language (yōkettu) was the first written language of Hudar. Writing started with logograms but later evolved into a syllabary, which was borrowed to write Nolikan. The writing system was never standarized. There were often two or three glyphs for the same syllable; and their shapes varied from city to city.

Allophony
As in any language, there were some allophonic variations:


 * /e i o u/ before /h ʔ/ are lowered to.
 * /n/ assimilates to place of articulation of a following obstruent, which in turn is voiced
 * dental and palatal consonants followed by y turn into geminates, for example s+y -> ss, n+y -> nn
 * /pj kj qj mj/ turn into

Stress and phonotactics
Stress falls always on the penultimate syllable. Long vowels are found only in open syllables. /l r/ do not occur in word-initial positions, and aspirated obstruent occur only before vowels.