Kin-elleth (language)

The language of the Kin-elleth people, as well as the main lingua franca of the Endri-nâi Confederation.

Phonology

Letters represent standard orthography when written in Latin characters. Where letters appear in pairs, the one on the right is voiced.

Consonants

The Kin-elleth language uses between 19–21 consonants, with some having regional variants. Note that <f> and <v> are bilabial, not labiodental as in English.

Consonants

	Bilabial	Dental	Alveolar	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Plosive	p b		t d	k g	c	c
Nasal	m		n
Trill		r
Tap		r
Fricative	f v	th dh	s z	h	h	h
Lateral Approximant			l

Vowels

The Kin-elleth languages uses from 12–14 vowel sounds. The chart below shows the common orthography when transcribed to the Latin alphabet. Vowels to the left of a | are unrounded; vowels to the right of a | are rounded. Note that a vowel letter may have different sounds, depending on context in a word or by regional variation.

Vowels

	Front	Near-front	Central	Near-back	Back
Close	î |		î  |		| u
Near-close		i |		ô |
Close-mid	ê |				| o
Mid			e,û,o
Open-mid	e | û				| â
Open	a |				â |

Diphthongs

Common diphthongs are ai, ei, oi, ui, âi, êi , ôi, ûi.

Vowel Reduction

The main vowel in a Kin-elleth word will typically undergo vowel reduction when the word is inflected:

Original	Reduced
a	ei
e/û	ê
ê	î
i	û
î	ie/e
u	ôi/î
ô	ûi
o	ô
â	oi

Grammar

Pronouns

	Nominative	Inflected
I	pa	pei
you	rî	re
he/she/it	tha/dhe/nim	thei/dhê/nûm
we	mun	mîn
you two	riu	rûi
you (plural)	rinna	rûnna
they (person/thing)	thanâi/thanim	theinâi/theinim

Nouns

Kin-elleth nouns follow six genders, and inflect either for singular, dual, or plural.

Noun gender and number suffixes

Gender	Singular	Dual	Plural
living being	-ith	-ein	-nâi
small object	-un, -no	-in	=nî
large object	-ra, -a	-rei	-rim, -im
intangible	-er	-rei	-rim, -em
collective	-n, -in	-nâi	-nâi
area	-a	-ûr	-ui