Language

The language of the Kemoverse is primarily based on a linguistic design that was the synthetic result of the evolution of Neofur. Named Cyranese by an unknown person, it is the global language spoken by Kemonae, with a variety of dialects depending on circumstances. To speak Cyranese yourself, try to imagine your lips to have 1/4th of its strength and focus on a growling, guttural tone emitting from the back of the mouth.

Phonology

Cyranese has 10 phonemic consonants.

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Retroflex	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal		m	n
Stop			t			k [k~q]
Fricative	voiceless		s [s~ɕ]			h [x~χ~ʕ~h]
	voiced			z [ʐ~ʑ]
Approximant			r [ɹ~ɾ~r]	i [j]		l [l~ɫ]

	front	central	back
Close	i		u
Mid	e [æ]	o [ə~ʌ]
Open		a [a]

Phonotactics

Allowed clusters

	m	n	t	r	s	z	l	j	k	h
m				mz			ml		mk
n			nt	nr	ns	nz	nl	nj	nk
t		tn		tr	ts	tz	tl	tj	tk	th
r			rt			rz			rk
s			st			sz			sk	sh
z		zn	zt					zj		zh
l	lm						ll		lk
j				jr		jz
k			kt	kr	ks				kl	kh
h									hk

Three-consonant clusters: rst nst llm rzk

No vowel clusters? (ae occurs on one word) Assimilation (sz > s/ss)

(C)(C)V(C)(C) syllable

Ortography

	Letter Name	IPA value	Environment	Pronunciation guide	Example word	Notes
a		[a]	Everywhere	As a "raw" or "palm"
e		[æ]	Everywhere	As ä in finnish or a in "trap", but more central
h		[x~χ~ʕ~h]		No direct equivalent in English, except ch in Scottish words such as "Loch" Equivalent to German "Buch", Russian хороший (khoroshij), etc. Can also be pronounced further back in the mouth; the variant pronunciation [h] such as in English "happy" occurs but is rare.
i		[i]	Between consonants, word-initially before a consonant, word-finally after a consonant (CiC, #iC, Ci#)	As ee in "fleece"
		[j]	Between, before and after vowels Between a consonant and a vowel (ViV, (C)iV, Vi(C))	As y in "your"
j			Everywhere			Used in the old orthography, still found in proper names
k		[kʰ~qʰ]	Word-initially	As c in "cat"; might be pronounced slightly further back in the mouth. Aspirated.
		[k~q]	Elsewhere	As c in "cut"; might be pronounced slightly further back in the mouth. Not aspirated.
l		[l]	Word-initially, between vowels, between a consonant and a vowel ((C)lV, VlV)	As l in "lump" or "allow"
		[ɫ]	Syllable-finally	As l in "feel"
m		[m]	Everywhere	As m in "meet" or "hum"
n		[n]	Everywhere	As n in "nod" or "Hun"
o		[ə]	Unstressed syllables	As a in "comma"
		[ʌ]	Stressed syllables	As u in "strut"
r		[ɹ~ɾ~r]	Everywhere	The most common pronunciations is as r English "rump" [ɾ] is a common allophone after consonants, and is pronounced as t or d as in water, butter, petal, gotta, peddle. A trilled [r] is possible, but rare.		In free variation, albeit [ɾ] is more common after other consonants (Cr); [r] is rare but possible
s		[s]	Word-initially	As s in "sap"
		[ɕ]	Elsewhere	As sh in Japanese "塩" (shio) as sh in English "shirt" [ʃ] is also possible
sz			Word-initially			Not an actual letter of the alphabet; Actually a cluster where the <z> gets assimilated by the <s>
t		[tʰ]	Word-initially	As t in "tap"
		[t]	Elsewhere	As t in "stable"
u		[u]	Everywhere	As oo in "room" or "goose"
v		[x~χ~ʕ~h]	Word-initially	See <h>		Remnant of old orthography?
		[ʐ~ʑ]	Word-internally, between vowels	See <z>
		[k~q]	Word-finally	See <q>	azev [aʑæk]
z		[ʐ~ʑ]	Everywhere	As ż in polish "żona" or ж in Russian "жена" (žena) As j in Japanese "火事" (kaji) is also possible but less common

Obsolete letters

	Letter Name	IPA value	Environment	Pronunciation guide	Example word	Notes
b		[m]	Same as <m>	See <m>		Occurs in a few words, replaced by <m>
d		[tʰ] or [t]	Same as <t>	See <t>		Occurs in a few words, replaced by <t>
f		[x~χ~ʕ~h]	Everywhere	See <h>	felanek [xælanæk]	Occurs in a few words, replaced by <h>
g		[kʰ] or [k]	Same as <k>	See <k>		Occurs in a few words, replaced by <k>
ll		[l]	Syllable-finally	As l in "lump" or "allow"	allmezintek [almæʑinteæk]	Occurs in a few words, replaced by <l> and pronounced [ɫ]
p		[kʰ] or [k]	Same as <k>	See <k>		Occurs in a few words, replaced by <k>
x		[kɕ]	Everywhere
y		[j]	Everywhere	As y in "your"

Grammar

Cyranese is an agglutinative language, where words are changed or composed by stringing multiple morphemes together in a clear way, and morphemes only carry single meanings; this is similar to Japanese and Finnish grammar. Cyranese makes uses of case to mark the role of words in sentences, therefore nouns, pronouns and adjectives must agree in case and number, which is distinguished between singular and plural. Meanwhile, there is no grammatical gender. Word order is canonically subject-verb-object (SVO), as most European languages. Verbs only take past and non-past distinction, and further tense, aspect and mode distinctions are made using auxiliaries.

-moderately agglutinating

-cases: nominative, oblique/accusative, genitive, instrumental

-number: singular/plural or no distinction

-no grammatical gender

-past vs non-past verbs, mode and aspect rarely distinguished through auxiliaries

Wordlist

	word	meaning
	marzka	buttterfly
	emer	snail
	jaskia	snake
	isesz	worm
	mila	potato
	seterk	cabbage
	ramoka	sunflower
	szima	pumpkin
	neksil	poppy flower
	raszak	lupine
x	felanek	cattail
	almaselk	dandelion
	inakozn	tulip
x	semp	shrimp
	rekro	small fish
	satkan	medium fish
	amotka	big fish