Ekoata is a revamp of my older project Gikamlig, which will now be its successor. The same interest applies here: be creative first, naturalistic second. Gikamlig is going to be about taking some of the features of Ekoata and taking it several steps further. As such, Gikamlig will be, in my opinion, more creative, so don't expect anything too exciting here for now. To see the history of Ekoata, take a look at the page for Gikamlig.
Phonology[]
Consonants[]
Bilabial
Labio-dental
Dental
Alveolar
Post-alveolar
Palatal
Velar
Uvular
Glottal
Nasal
m
n
Plosive
p b
t d
c
k g
Lab. Plos.
pʷ bʷ
tʷ dʷ
cʷ
kʷ gʷ
Fricative
(β)
f
(ð)
s z
ʃ ʒ
ç
(x) (ɣ)
h
Lab. Fric.
sʷ zʷ
çʷ
(xʷ)
hʷ
Trill
ʀ (ʁ)
Lab. Trill
ʀʷ (ʁʷ)
The uvular trill can be used as a vowel, along with /m/ and /n/
Voiced plosives are fricitivized between vowels (Unless they are labial)
Vowels[]
Front
Central
Back
Close
i
ɯ u
Close-mid
e ø
o
Open-mid
ɛä (ɛː)
ɔä (ɔː)
Open
ä
Phonotactics[]
The standard syllable structure is (C)(C)V(C)(C), with some additional constraints.
Writing System[]
Letter
Sound
Letter
Sound
Letter
Sound
Grammar[]
Ekoata is an example of an agglutinative language in the transition of becoming more fusional in morphology. The most dramatic example is with the singular person, which has almost completely merged with conjugations regarding tense and aspect (although not entirely. For example, the suffix -uj, still retains the now archaic format of "-u" meaning present non-perfect and "-j" representing the first person singular). Also because of the merging of suffixes regarding person and number, the imperative mood had greatly simplified. As a consequence, the immergeance of separate subject pronouns developed. Furthermore, the present and future tense merged into the non-past.
New types of inflection have developed. For example, the suffix "-o/-e", once meaning roughly, "may" or "might", has come to represent the subjunctive mood. The optative mood eventually grew out of this development as well, along with a plural form of the suffix ("-os/-esw").
Nouns[]
Here are some of the major inflections for subjects and Indirect Objects:
Definite
Indefinite
Possessed
Genitive
Sub. Singular
-a
-am
-asw
-agi
Sub. Plural
-ar
-amar
-apw
-agar
Ind. Singular
-en
-im
-esw
ege
Ind. Plural
-er
-imer
-epw
eger
As can be seen, not only does the noun that possesses inflected, but that which is possessed as well. This allows for even freer and more compact word order, and it will be explained how this can be a life saver later.
While nouns decline rather simplistically, articles contain a diverse number of inflections, some of which have evolved into fusional forms.
Nominitive
Gen.
Def. Sing.
Ka
Kagi
Def. Plural
Kaz
Kagaz
Indef. Sing.
Ma
Maf
Indef. Plural
Bra
Bras
Another feature is how there are declinations solely for subjects and indefinite objects, but none for definite objects. Definite objects are unique in the language as they are not treated a separate nouns. Rather, they act as suffixes of the sentence's verbs. The result is that Ekoata verbs can become absurdly long, and in some circumstances, a single word can represent an entire thought, meaning in certain cases Ekoata acts as a polysynthetic language. Some example words where this occurs include: Prôggatoazgits (He has/will have been hit by a boulder), Subudztu (He washes himself), and Sjpendan (I am eating fish. Literally "I fisheat"). Further discussion regarding this feature will be explained in the Verb Section.
Verbs[]
Nouns once came in one of two genders: Animate or Inanimate, the latter of which merged into the former. Originally, when a noun was used as a verb, animate nouns would inflect to what are called "light" verbs, and inanimate nouns to "dark" verbs; however, these dark and light verbs are still used heavily to this day. The notable difference is that light verbs conjugate with unrounded vowels, and dark with rounded (with the exception of ê).
