The Kohl Language

Kohl (Kow) is a language (or more accurately, an umbrella term for several inter-intelligible sublanguages) of Colanexa. It is the most widespread language in the north, serving as a sort of lingua franca between foreign regions in this area.

The origins of Kohl are poorly-documented. Versions of it were believed to have been spoken primarily by northern tribes of Kalu-bloods, before incorporating elements of Dragonia tongues and spreading.

It is believed that the Dragonia invented the original Kohl script several thousand years ago. Before this, messages for Kalu merchants were conveyed with points not unlike braille, but on a 3x3 grid instead of in 2x3 forms. Following the invention of the proper script, it was picked up quickly by the Kalu and Dragonia. Different variants were made to adapt to other dialects’ phonology. Eventually, it was spread over Schremn to the northeast, including Kalubio and Bathole. There are differences between the Eastern and Western dialects though. Most of the Kohl used throughout Ramfut is the Eastern dialect.

Phonology
There are twenty-five “base” sounds in Kohl, consisting of nine vowels and sixteen consonants. There are also two special characters: an ambiguous apostrophe-like symbol that is used to represent either a glottal stop or a voiceless glottal fricative, depending on both dialect and context, and the diagonal slash which represents a held or trilled letter when following it. In the case of vowels, it means a long vowel. For consonants, it can mean a consonant is held, trilled, or doubled (such as “little” or “bubble”).

All vowels in Kohl have at least one alternate pronunciation. In the eastern dialects (Yówokow), there are two alternates; a nasal one and a fricative one, denoted with special marks on or over the vowel affected (the western dialects of Xázukow does not use fricative vowels, though some retain distinction via a tone system). Several consonants have secondary pronunciations, also denoted by special alterations to a consonant.

Syntax and Grammar
Kohl typically follows a SOV word order. It relies heavily on auxiliaries to indicate the aspect, tense, and mood of verbs, leading to a S-aux-OV structure. Furthermore, the subject is omitted when known from context or conjugation, making the most common sentence structure aux-O-V. Words describing the object of the sentence are fairly flexible in ordering however.

Verbs decline by person (1st, 2nd, 3rd) and number (singular, plural). Auxiliaries are used to describe tense, frequency, mood, and aspect. They decline the same way as the verb they describe. Verbs appear at the end of a sentence in Kohl, unless used imperatively (as commands); in this case, they appear at the front of a sentence.

Nouns are grouped into two gender groups; masculine and feminine. The gender of a noun is determined by its suffix. However, nouns are further divided into sub-gender, as strong or weak masculine/feminine nouns depending on their prefix. A noun’s purpose in a sentence is indicated by a case conjugation. Nouns can take one of seven cases in Kohl; nominative, genitive, comparative, directive, instrumental, locative, or situational. Generally, cases are denoted with suffixes, though the instrumental is accompanied with a prefix.

Many nouns are “simple” nouns, describing individual objects. Nouns can be combined to form more complex nouns, in different combination orders, affecting gender. For example, “tža” (meaning “water”) is a weak feminine noun. “Nóske’u”, meaning “animal,” is a strong masculine noun. The two can be combined to form “tžánosk," meaning “fish” (lit; water-animal), a strong masculine noun. Alternatively, they can be combined as “nosktžá," a weak feminine noun that also means fish (lit; animal-water). Only the full noun declines for complex nouns, not each component.

Nouns can also decline as verbs, turning a noun effectively into a verb. For example, "nosktžán" would mean “to fish” (as in “to do like a fish,” not “go fishing”). This meaning could vary in context. For example, the phrase “Ehna auñ nosktȝázä” would be translated literally as “In gold, fish he.” It might mean something closer to “He is swimming (very well) in gold” in actuality, perhaps implying richness.

Adjectives decline in gender for singular weak nouns, but in number for plural ones. They decline in both gender and number for strong nouns. They decline in case for both strong and weak nouns. Unlike nouns, their structure is fixed, even when made up of several simple nouns, verbs, and other adjectives.

Major Dialects
As mentioned earlier, there are two major groups of Kohl; those spoken in the northwest, and in the northeast. The Eastern dialect (sometimes referred to as “Yówokow”, or “East Kohl”) is closer to traditional Kohl, containing many features that have been phased out in the Western dialect (“Xázukow,” “West Kohl”) thanks to influence of neighbouring languages. For example, there are no fricative vowels in Western Kohl. Additionally, verb auxiliaries denoting simple time (past, present, future) are instead added as a prefix to a verb instead of being actual auxiliaries like in Eastern Kohl. For example, "vasácä kéna uzájeny duwä ukháıtoŋ pwikhódä" (he/she came to the mall in the morning) in the Eastern dialect would be closer to "kö uzájeny duwä ukháıtoŋ vapwikhódä" in the Western dialect. There are also differences in vocabulary, phrasing, spelling (variants of the core letters are sometimes different) and pronunciation of words, but these are less significant and have lots of variations within the major dialects themselves. While they may cause some confusion at first, these differences tend to still be intelligible to all speakers.