Krepian (Krepian: Krepian or in Canako Krépiant) is an official constructed language in Limaru. It is spoken by many minority communities in Limaru, specifically the Shafterlandeans, Carrenians and the Creptonese. The language has an ever-expanding vocabulary made up of many original words and loanwords (mostly) from Malay, French, Chinese and Japanese.
Etymology and nomenclature
The word Krépian is made up of two words from Old Krepian, Kre and Epien, which means language and navigation respectively. This is a special case in Krepian's naming convention for languages since most languages will instead use prase (Krepian for language, which came from Middle Krepian phasa, which itself is a cognate of Malay bahasa).
General Information
Krepian is a highly analytic language. However, all dialects of Krepian use prepositions and prefixes, although a few oddball suffixes and postpositions could also be found. Word order is based on the importance of each word in a clause, where the most important word, or head, is almost always at the front of the clause. All words are not inflected.
Phonology
Articulations not present in any major dialect are marked in italics.
Consonants
| Bilabial | Labiodental | Dental | Alveolar | Postalveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | p b | - | t d | - | c | k g | - | ʔ | ||
| Nasal | m | ɱ | n | - | ɲ | ŋ | - | - | ||
| Trill | - | - | r | - | - | - | ʀ ʀ̥ | - | ||
| Affricate | - | - | - | ts dz | tʃ dʒ | - | - | - | - | - |
| Tap or Flap | - | - | ɾ | - | - | - | - | - | ||
| Fricative | ɸ | f v | - | s z | ʃ ʒ | ʂ ʐ | - | x | χ | h |
| Approximant | - | - | - | - | j | - | - | - | ||
| Lateral approximant | - | - | l | - | - | - | - | - | ||
Other consonants found in Krepian include the voiced labial-velar approximant, w; and the velarized alveolar lateral approximant, ɫ. The semi-voiced form of consonants with both a voiced and a voiceless form denoted are also possible.
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i y | - | ɯ u |
| Close-mid | eː | - | oː |
| Mid | - | ə | - |
| Open-mid | ɛ | - | ʌ ɔ |
| Open | a | - | ɑ |
The vowels e and o are only spoken in their long form (as eːi and oːu).
Orthography
Krepian is written in Krepian script. Like the orthography of most languages, Krepian orthography has a broad degree of standardisation. With the exception of the romanised letters j, y, and s, each sound in the Krepian language corresponds to a letter in the Krepian alphabet. Diacritics placed around consonants change the place of articulation and voicing, or in Krepian terms, the 'hardness' or 'softness' of the consonant. Diacritics placed around vowels force a tone on the syllable the vowel is in.
In Canako, however, Krepian is written in the Latin alphabet, based on French orthography. Canako's writing system is explained below.
'e' is the tone letter marker. The letter after 'e' is not pronounced. '-et': Low tone '-ez': Mid tone (rare, usually unmarked) '-ex': High tone '-es': Falling tone '-eh': Rising tone
'e', 't', 'x', 's', and 'h' at the end of words are not pronounced; they serve as pitch accent markers. 'e': Word ends with a mid tone/no tone specifications 't': Word ends with a low tone 'x': Word ends with a high tone 's': Word ends with a falling tone 'h': Word ends with a high tone
A circumflex on a vowel preceding a tone letter (zetxsh) means that the tone letter is silent and the syllable is pronounced with the corresponding tone. e.g. Hôstél is pronounced "hotel" (with the h, meaning: hotel) This is not the case for 'é' and 'è'. e.g. 'Sorat dés Potatéet' (meaning: apple)
Other examples: (tone letters in bold) Pomme i grandtumt (Pomegranate) Charbicot (apricot) Chocolatés (chocolate) Myaehning i îtmménse (lion)
Except in the Shafterlands and Canako, all clauses are written without spaces between the words. However, this document will write spaces between words for greater clarity.
The prefixes "i", "di" and "de" are not counted as words, although Shafterlandeans put a space after both "di" and "de", but not "i". Canakans do not put a space after "di" but they do so for "i" and "de".
In most international Krepian books, authors place spaces between words for clarity across dialects, however, spaces are not placed after "i", "di" and "de". This document will use this international standard.
Phonotatics
The syllable structure is either one of the following: CVC, CV, VC, N, or NC. Although consonant letter clusters are not allowed in the Krepian script, a consonant letter can represent a consonant cluster. (e.g. 'Kr' is written as 'C' with a double hard mark and a rei mark.)
Grammar
Grammar in Krepian is very simple. There are no tenses, but there are words relating to time to mark tense when needed. Prefixes mark the word type of a root verb. One thing to take note of is that Krepian speakers join word prefixes with the previous word, making it sound like a suffix. However, in writing, prefixes are written as prefixes to better convey meaning.
Verbs
All verbs are marked with the prefix "di-" or "dj-". Aspects and moods are marked using nouns and adverbs that surround the verb.
When the next word starts with a "d", "dr", "dl", or "dj", the letter is replaced with "dj". Likewise, when the next starts with a vowel, "dj" is added instead of "di".
Examples:
- Daraku (meaning: to lead) -> DJaraku
- Et (meaning: inclusive or) -> DJet
Nouns
Nouns are classified into subject and object. Subjects have the prefixes "le-", ":-" (Krepian short comma), or no prefix at all; while objects have the prefix "de-". However, there are special cases described in the table below.
| Condition | Prefix (if there is an exception) |
|---|---|
| Initial letter is a vowel, except i or u | "l-", "d-" |
| Initial letter is a mid tone, low tone, or rising tone i | "l-", "de-" (high tone) |
| Initial letter is a high tone or falling tone i | "la-", "de-" (low tone) |
| Final letter is an a | "la-" |
| Final letter is a consonant, and second final letter is not an a | "la-" |
The "de-" prefix is also used to show possession.
Adjectives and adverbs
Adjectives and adverbs (usually just called "adjectives") are marked with the prefix "i-", unless the word before it is already an adjective, ends with an "i", or is a nasal, in which case there will be no prefix. However, to negate an adjective, the prefix is replaced with "na-" (Krepian for "no"). To exaggerate a adjective, the prefix is replaced with "ja-" (Krepian for "yes"). Adjectives come after the word they describe in no fixed order.
The word "des"
Since the placement of some adjectives may cause confusion, the form (noun/verb) des (word) may be used instead of the usual (noun) i(word). In this case, the word "des" (Meaning: of) acts as an object. The root word of "des" is "sur".
Such a form is commonly used when the adjective is usually used as a noun, or when showing possession. The word immediately after "des" is treated as an object, but does not require the object marker "de-".
Example: "kakak isayaka" (meaning: my sister) "des" form (more common): sayaka des kakak "sur" form (archaic): kakak sur sayaka
Since the word immediately after "des" is treated as an object, an objectified noun (de-<word>) and adjective in the "des" form has their noun and adjective reversed. However, this rule is confusing even for Krepian speakers and hence this form is actively avoided.
Example: "dekakak isayaka" (meaning: my sister) "des" form (rare in this case): dekakak des sayaka "sur" form (never used): desayaka sur kakak
Lack of common structure words
Krepian is unique in its lack of simple structural words. The following is a list of words the Krepian language lacks, and their most common replacement:
| Concept | Word | Meaning in Krepian |
|---|---|---|
| This/that/these/those | kon, son | Thing (archaic) |
| What | kas | Question marker |
| Where | lokason, hàitjǐ ~ kas | Place ~ question marker |
| When | tempes, dji, heur, he'minit'en | Time, hour |
| How | son hak ~ kas | Thing thing ~ question marker |
| Who | rin, mon | Person |
| Have (possession) | Adjective form+yài | - |
Clusivity
Krepian has 3-way clusivity, which means "exclusive or" and "inclusive or" employ different words. Using the word for "and" in Krepian ("dan") is also not allowed when it is used to mean "inclusive or".
English: Would you like to have coffee or tea? Krepian: Kafe tarin tra dihak: venta mai? (exclusive or, you can only choose either coffee or tea, not both) Krepian: Kafe et tra dihak: venta mai? (inclusive or, you can choose both coffee or tea, or either) Wrong: Kafe dan tra dihak: venta mai? (This means "would you like both coffee and tea?")
Conjunction words at the rear
In most cases, Krepian places its conjunctions (et, tarin, dan) at the back of the clause, except when only two objects are involved. However, when the next word is a verb, this form is avoided for clarity.
Coming back to our previous example, we could write the three sentences as: Tarin: Venta dekafe tra ditarin hak mai? Et: Venta dekafe tra djet hak mai? Dan: Venta dekafe tra djan hak mai?
-en suffix
The only suffix modern Krepian has is -en, which is used to denote that a word is either in a different case group to the previous usage, or has a different meaning, in the same sentence. However, if the first occurrence of a word is in the genetive case, it will be suffixed with "-en".
This suffix changes to "-an" when it is placed after a word ending with "a", or "-n" after a word ending with "e".
Examples: English: I have a orange cat. Krepian: Sayaka imíanìng orangen deyài. (My cat orange yes)
Sentence structure
Krepian speakers commonly employ complicated sentence structure in speech, where a single subject, verb, or object clause can easily contain more than 5 words. For example:
English: 1. I ate the fish. 2. I ate the salmon that came from the river for dinner but I still don't feel full.
Krepian: 1. Sayaka dimánaken deykân. 2. Sayaka irîn sènya mánac ykàn sálmén hōwè deniè'yppái dihànhan.
Word-for-word translations: 1. I (v)eat (o)fish. 2. I (a)person night eat fish salmon river (o)not-full (v)feel. (alternate: I (a)who night meal fish salmon river (o)not-full feel)
Vocabulary
Example texts
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 1
Homon fallep defuttei, ifêi dan ekalite deta yma dan varol. Homontshi defytkai dishykai des rymuk dan agishi, hětânam dǐitěak defeven zhehomon dizican tekiki iyabaig tes kiki.
Chorus to L'Internationale
Son tjuhǎn de fitjuhaan
Sjak'tjī di ma'rzandéi
Le Internatzionale
i Rin des tjá ri zjens