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Kozea
Native name: mryandyā (classic /ˈmrjandjaː/; modern /ˈmrjand͡ʒaː/)


Yes! I'm in the mood to write something up right now, and the fact that people have asked for it makes me a lot more motivated too. Unless you have not seen the videos that have brought the language into the knowledge of some people, the thread for them is here. There is a playlist for you to put on if you wish to enjoy them all in one epic marathon.

0. A sēonéngath!


The title of this section is a phrase with which you may be well acquainted, despite not knowing its meaning, if you have watched any of the clips. In fact, if you've watched all of them (13 ones at my time of writing), and haven't skipped the intros or outros, you will have heard it no less than 26 times, as it is the first thing sung in the beginning of the theme song that's played twice in every episode.

Its classical pronunciation is /a sʲɛː.ɔnˈɛŋað/, but you would, if anything, recognise the modern pronunciation /a ʃɔːnˈɛŋað/, which is the variety of Kozea used in the song as well as all of the spoken lines of the videos. The phrase means welcome (said only to two or more people; a single person is greeted with a sēonêin, classically pronounced /a sʲɛː.ɔnˈɛː.ɪn/ and in the modern tongue as /a ʃɔːnˈɛɪ̯n/). If you choose to read on, you will be enlightened with details on the specific grammar as well as the phonological development between classic and modern Kozea, when it comes to this phrase, and many others.

This is thus my greeting and welcoming of the readers of this thread, and as I may probably be accompanied by but a single reader at the time, let me be a bit more personal (note that Kozea has no concept of using plural address for formality, though), and give thee, my current reader, a dedicated welcoming. A sēonêin!

1. Introduction

Kozea is at least two or three years old now. It may have some interesting points (sort of a classlessness in some ways, as well as a verb system that stands in a weird contrast with its particles as opposed to the many affixes used elsewhere, but they could technically be viewed as just another set of the unstressed prefixes that it also has, but for the sake of consistency, I will stick to my old tradition of writing them as separate words) and some boring points (for example, a very Indo-European gender system of masculine, feminine and neuter with not much of any actual sexual distinction, except for the obviously masculine or feminine things like men and women). It may be of interest to those that want to understand more of the videos and maybe compose comments of their own in Kozea and whatnot.

The language is for a conworld. There are two main well-developed forms of Kozea; classic and modern (which can vary in formality). In time, they differ by an unspecified amount of centuries. As the modern variety is spoken on an island, by a fairly small population, it has remained very frozen, but the pronunciation differs in a couple of ways. The grammar differs a little less, but there are notable things such as the innovation of a secondary possessive construction (classical Kozea has but a single way to express possession, which is through the genitive case, which is also used for compound words, similarly to modern Greek, while modern Kozea tends not to use this for possession anymore, but still for compounds). Of course, there have also been semantical drifts and words that have fallen out of fashion, and contractions.

There are other, less-developed forms, one of which is also insular and conservative and mutually intelligible with modern Kozea, but with some differences in pronunciation and so on, as well as a single, conservative mainland variety that is nearly mutually intelligible, but would require some training beforehand (similar to the situation between Estonian and Finnish).

The language was originally spoken by tribes of hunters from the woody mountains of the mainland (similar to Norway) as well as fishermen from the rocky shores, and this is reflected here and there in the language, and on the island, hunting is still a primary way of getting food and clothes, while the mainland has developed rapidly (it has trains, for example) and left most of the old traditions behind. The situation between the language in the mainland and modern Kozea could perhaps be likened to the amount of differences between Old French and late Latin. They're not mutually intelligible at all. The religious tradition of thinking of every living thing as having a so called inner force (classic and modern naêri) yields many sayings and regular expressions too, and occurs in common words and swearwords and proverbs alike.

In the videos, we're not aiming to mimic this setting; we're just pretending that Sēonkêrā and Hwōistā are either tourists in our world or the videos are simply very anachronistic or something. Don't think too much about it. Once again, modern Kozea is spoken in those videos, with some colloquialness/slang involved.

NOTE: this text uses hyphens to separate morphemes and roots for comprehensible glossing. The romanisation doesn't actually use hyphens within words like this.

You can click any picture to go look at the clip that it came from (except for the intro picture, since the intro is in every episode).

2. General information

The language, both classic and modern, is a nominative-accusative language with VSO word order. The verbal particles or prefixes, no matter what we choose to view them as, have a specific precedence order (kind of like how the mathematical operation multiplication goes before addition); for example the negative particle will always be the closest to the root, while the participle particle will always be the furthest away from it, which is also the case for the future particle and the continuous aspect particle (participle particles, future particles and continuous particles can not coöccur with any of each other). The causative particle goes before the root (unless there's a negative, which of course takes precedence and moves in between the causative and the root).

Kozea has nouns, verbs, adjectives and pronouns as main word classes. Adjectives and nouns could arguably be considered as a single class (nouns) as they work in the same way. Verbs, adjectives and nouns alike can all use the same personal endings, but the verbs form negation differently from nouns/adjectives (there is otherwise no general, single word for 'not'). There are seven cases (nominative, accusative, vocative, locative, lative, dative and genitive). The verbs can be said to differ between non-future and future, but the progressive aspect is inherently in the present and participles are inherently in the past, and neither of these three features can be combined.

2.1. Phonology

2.1.1. The vowel inventory of classic Kozea



The ʊ̯ is written between parentheses because it's not an actual phoneme on its own, but I needed it on the chart to draw the diphthong arrow from /ɔ/ to show that the inventory contains the diphthong /ɔʊ̯/. [eː e] are between brackets because the only exist as allophones of /ɛː ɛ/ after /aː a/. As we can see, the language contrasts length in monophthongs but not in the one diphthong. The quality changes for some vowels depending on length.

/ɔʊ̯/ can only occur in stressed syllables and word-finally. If the stress in a root that contains a stressed /ɔʊ̯/ moves for some reason (such as a suffix that moves the stress to itself), the /ɔʊ̯/ is monophthongised to /ɔ/. This is reflected in the orthography.

2.1.2. The consonant inventory of classic Kozea



The consonants within brackets are allophones of other sounds. [q] is the pronunciation of /k/ intervocalically and finally. [ɣ] is the pronunciation of [ɡ] under the same conditions. [b] is the pronunciation of /p/ under the same conditions and also in clusters with voiced sounds, such as /mp/, which is pronounced [mb]. /s z/ are realised as [sʲ zʲ] before [ɛː ɛ iː i].

All consonants, except for /f h θ ʍ ç w j/ (and respective allophones) can be geminated. All consonants, except for /w j ç ʍ ɲ ʎ/ can be "palatalised" (occur in clusters with /j/) non-finally, and it could of course be argued that /ç ɲ ʎ/ are the palatalised counterparts of /h n l/, but they bear the status of true phonemes.

/ʍ/ generally occurs initially only, but it can appear non-initially in prefixed word and in reduplicated stems.

2.1.3. The vowel inventory of modern Kozea



The monophthongs have not changed, except for /oː/, that has changed its quality into /ɔː/. The previously sole diphthong /ɔʊ̯/ remains and has gotten company by /aɪ̯ ɛɪ̯ ɔɪ̯ aʊ̯ ɛʊ̯/. /ɛʊ̯/ is a very recent development coming from the vowel cluster /ɛa/ (length of any of the two may vary) and is only used by the most recent generation and a handful of adults above their age. The rise of all of the new diphthongs come not from a vowel shift (as the monophthongs have indeed been left virtually unchanged), but from the many vowel clusters of classic Kozea simplifying into diphthongs.

2.1.4. The consonant inventory of modern Kozea



Not too much has changed, but there are some interesting things to be aware of. The palatalised allophones of /s z/ have disappeared and instead with see a new column containing /ʃ ʒ/ (these did, however, not come from the palatalised allophones, but from the clusters [sʲj zʲj]. These are also phonemes in their own right and no mere allophones. Along with them, they have also brought the corresponding affricate phonemes /t͡ʃ d͡ʒ/, which have developed out of both /t d/ and /k ɡ/ respectively, under certain conditions (more often from /k g/ than from /t d/, which required more specific conditions than the former two).

Another change is the appearance /ʀ/ and the demotion of /x/ to a mere allophone, as [x]. What happened is that /x/ turned into /ʀ/, but recently [x] has reappeared as an allophone both of /ʀ/ and as an alternative to [q] in modern, colloquial speech among the teenage generation and a few of their parents' generation. Not visible on the map is that [ɣ] has received a similar alternative; [w] is now a common realisation by the aforementioned generation.

Another big difference is that /t/ can no longer be geminated. All such occurrences have turned into /zː/, which is reflected in the otherwise quite conservative spelling of modern Kozea.

2.2. Romanisation

Kozea has a native alphabetic script, but I will not cover that for now. Instead, I will introduce the romanisation, which is made to mimic the quirks and conservativeness in some aspects of the native spelling. While the spelling for classic Kozea was completely phonemic, modern Kozea often hasn't changed the spelling when pronunciation has changed and some vowel clusters will mark a reduced or even lost vowel as long when the length has actually been shifted to the following vowel (for example, dēaoni ['arm'] is pronounced /ˈdɛː.a.ɔnɪ/ in classic but /ˈd͡ʒaːnɪ/ in modern; the /ɛː/ has been absorbed and turned the /d/ into an affricate while passing on its length to the surviving /a/ which has become /aː/; this is necessary to keep in mind when reading modern Kozea).

2.2.1. Writing classic Kozea

I will only go through the spelling of classic Kozea, as this is the basis of modern Kozea anyway. The romanisation uses three diacritics. A vowel without any diacritic (‹a›) is short and unstressed (unless the default stress falls on it; if no stress is marked on the word, the stress falls on the first syllable – Kozea has variable stress much like Greek, and every words is marked for stress if it doesn't fall on the first syllable, and some affixes may move or extend the stress). A vowel with an acute accent (‹á›) is short and stressed. One with a macron (‹ā›) is long and unstressed (once again, unless it is the first syllable of a word with no stress marked) and finally one with a circumflex (‹â›) is both long and stressed. Words can have stress on more than one syllable.



Let's look at some words to make sure that the message has been conveyed properly.


3. Grammar

3.1. Nouns/adjectives

These, whether properly collectively called nouns or separated into two concepts, are declined in the exact same way. Nouns in Kozea are declined according to number (singular, dual and plural) and case (one of the seven previously mentioned ones; we'll take a closer look at how they are used later on). Nouns have one of three genders (masculine, feminine or neuter) with which attributive adjectives agree (they're inflected just like their parent noun). The genders have different endings and there are different subclasses (declensions) within the masculine and feminine genders.

Let us begin with masculines ending in -ā for now. There are many words like this, so we can play with them for a long time without having to consult any other words. This is by far the most common ending for masculine words. Like in European languages, many things that are not naturally of any specific sex are randomly distributed across any of the three genders. Their endings are generally the important feature to determine the gender of a given noun.


This is a picture of Hwōistā stuck in a tree. A tree in Kozea is called hwānā. These are both nominals that end with an -ā and they do indeed fall under the first masculine declension. Let us inflect them both in classic Kozea!



This is the correct inflection in modern Kozea too. The masculine first declension has remained unchanged except for the regular pronunciation drifts, but other declensions, such as the feminine first declension, has changed a bit through analogy with this declension. Do note that, in modern Kozea, the dual endings are actually pronounced as though they began with -w- rather than -o-, though. Let us put some of these together. Kozea has no copula, and we actually need no more than these two words to form a proper sentence describing the situation.

Hwān-ām Hwōist-ā.
Hwoista is in the tree.
tree-LOC.M.SING Hwoista-NOM.M.SING
"In tree Hwoista."
/ˈʍaːnaːm ˈʍoː.ɪstaː/ (classic),
/ˈʍaːnaːm ˈʍɔɪ̯staː/ (modern)

As the story progresses, Hwoista shouts for Sēonkêrā. The fellow giving his thumb up to Hwoista at the beginning of this thread. His name is a bit interesting, pronounciation-wise. sēon- is an unstressed prefix that emphasises the good in something. Quite a positive and fine thing to have in one's name. Kērā on its own is a male name too, and Sēonkêrā is a variant of it. What's interesting is that while Kērā in modern Kozea has been palatalised to [ˈt͡ʃɛːraː], the /k/ has remained hard in Sēonkêrā. The reason is that the /nk/ cluster (realised as [ŋk]) was preserved precisely as a cluster and the /k/ never softened.

The other interesting part is that the sēon- prefix is an example of the absorbed /ɛː/ yielding a palatalised preciding consonant and a shifted stress, like the previous example with dēaoni, so in modern Kozea it's not pronounced *[ˈsʲɛː.ɔn], but [ʃɔːn]. Our friends are thus called /ˈʍɔɪ̯staː/ and /ʃɔːŋˈkɛːraː/ in the modern language, respectively.

Like I said, as the story progresses, Hwoista shouts for Seonkera. However, this call for help does not end with -ā, but with -i. This is the vocative mentioned above. The ending used when addressing someone or something directly. Even a tree, which Hwoista actually does in the clip. And there's a lot of calling for Hwōisti rather than *Hwōistā throughout the movies too. It's the vocative, and that's why.

3.2. Personal endings

There are six suffixes that denote the person involved with the thing going on. Three for the three singular persons and three for the three plural persons (which cover the dual too). These can be applied to nouns/adjectives and verbs alike, and as such, let's wait just a little longer before we get to the verbs. When Hwoista finds himself trapped in the tree, he obviously doesn't shout, in third person, that Hwoista is in the tree, but in first person, I am in the tree. We can use a personal ending slapped right after the inflected locative tree for that, and that's precisely what he does. Let's look at the six endings.


Now all we have to do is obviously to pick the ending corresponding to the word I; the first person singular, -air.

Hwān-ām-air!
I am in the tree!
tree-LOC.M.SING-1PS
"In tree I!"
/ˈʍaːnaːma.ɪr/ (classic),
/ˈʍaːnaːmaɪ̯r/ (modern)


In this scene, our heroes are practising their flawless walk. Kozea has a very general word for movement and walking, similar to English go but sometimes with an even wider application and might also function kind of like an auxilary sometimes. Even better for us, it's general enough to actually be the word generally used to translate climb in the sense of climbing the tree. Note however, that in Kozea, unlike English, you don't simply climb a tree (accusative), but you climb into a tree (lative).

The word is, fittingly enough, yet another word beginning with that nice /ʍ/ sound, so we are well on our way to create quite the alliteration here. The verb is quoted as hwaltā, which is the third person singular non-future ending. The reason that verbs are quoted by the inflected form and not by the stem is that a small amount of verbs have slightly different endings, and those verbs are simply suffixless in this inflected form. Thus hwaltā means he/she/it goes/went, generally. Remember the VSO word order now.

Hwalt-ā Hwōist-ā hwān-annā.
Hwoista climbed the tree.
go-3PS Hwoista-NOM.M.SING tree-LAT.M.SING
"Goes Hwoista into tree."
/ˈʍaltaː ˈʍoː.ɪstaː ˈʍaːnanːaː/ (classic)
/ˈʍaltaː ˈʍɔɪ̯staː ˈʍaːnanːaː/ (modern)

Hwalt-air hwān-annā.
I climbed the tree.
go-1PS tree-LAT.M.SING
"I go into tree."
/ˈʍalta.ɪr ˈʍaːnanːaː/ (classic)
/ˈʍaltaɪ̯r ˈʍaːnanːaː/ (modern)

3.3. Verbal particles/unstressed prefixes

3.3.1. The interrogative marker

In the end, we never get to know whether Hwoista got down from the tree. As such, we may want to ask us the question whether he did so. Kozea doesn't change its word order to ask questions, but unless there's an obviously interrogative word involved in the sentence, there is a particle, or arguably an unstressed prefix (but we will write all verbal particles/unstressed prefixes separately in accordance with my tradition of writing Kozea), that denotes an interrogative mood.

In classic Kozea, this particle is īna, and in modern it has been contracted to 'na, written with an apostrophe to denote the loss of the initial vowel and also to orthographically separate it from the continuous aspect particle, which is also na (in some places; we'll explore this later). The particle is placed at the beginning of the sentence.

The second thing we need to know before we can ask the question is how to say down from or out of the tree. We already know how to say in the tree and into the tree. The answer is actually the genitive case, which does denote origin not only in the sense of possession, but also in an ablative-like sense of motional and radical origin.

Īna hwalt-ā Hwōist-ā hwān-āe? (classic)
'Na hwalt-ā Hwōist-ā hwān-āe? (modern)
Did Hwoista get down from the tree?
INT go-3PS Hwoista-NOM.M.SING tree-GEN.M.SING
"Eh goes Hwoista of tree?"
/ˈiːna ˈʍaltaː ˈʍoː.ɪstaː ˈʍaːnaː.e/ (classic)
/na ˈʍaltaː ˈʍɔɪ̯staː ˈʍaːnaɪ̯/ (modern)

3.3.2. The continuous/progressive aspect marker

As said, the continuous or progressive aspect marker is also na. Only sometimes, though, it was said. The difference comes before vowels and classic and modern Kozea both handle this differently. While the old language increases the mass of the word to establish a bridge between the vowels, yielding nad, modern Kozea simply collapses the vowels together into that of the following word and produces a simple n'. Let's use the word ampā ('eat'; 'drink'; 'consume') that has already been mentioned, so that we can look at both of these versions of the particle in both varieties of the tongue.

na hwalt-ā; she's walking (classic and modern) /na ˈʍaltaː/
nad amp-ā; she's eating (classic) /nad ˈambaː/
n'amp-ā; she's eating (modern) /ˈnambaː/


This particle carries a pretty radical meaning of an event occuring in the present, while verbs are otherwise often best interpreted by default as referring to the past somehow. The picture above is taken from a point in the video where Hwoista repeatedly reminds himself out loud of how he had really wanted to do this. To climb the tree. This he had wanted back in the days as a little child, but alas, he had been too short to pull off the task at hand at the time. Now, returning to the school of his childhood, many years later, he reflects upon the desires of the past for a brief moment before he bravely fulfills the dream of his youngest days.

So what does he actually say? What words does he use? Two very common and very useful words. The first word is zēidā, which can mean to want, desire, yearn for and wish, slightly depending on context and the grammar of surrounding words. The general meaning is the former. Note how the modern pronunciation is /ˈzɛɪ̯daː/, rather than something like */ˈʒɛɪ̯daː/, even though the classic pronunciation is [ˈzʲɛː.ɪdaː]; the palatalisation was actually not that important for softening of /s z t d/, but instead the main factors were the combinations of following vowels, while the palatalisation, which was never more than an allophone anyway, simply reverted, as the vowel environment didn't permit the change.

The second word is gowâ (classic /ɡɔˈwaː/, modern /ɡ(ɔˈ)waː/), which you might have heard quite a few times in the videos, if you've watched them. It's both a grammatically compenent word and a common interjection. The general translations include also, too, as well, indeed , really and truly, for example. It is as indeed or truly that it is a common interjection.

Zēid-air gowâ. (classic and modern)
How I've wanted ([to do/have] this).
want-1PS EMPH
"I want(ed) truly."
/ˈzʲɛː.ɪda.ɪr ɡɔˈwaː/ (classic)
/ˈzɛɪ̯daɪ̯r ɡɔˈwaː/ (modern)

This is interpreted as an expression of a desire that was felt in the past or from the past up until now. Just like in the sentences referring to the tree, this unmarked aspect or tense has been taken to refer to the past. In the case of this particular lexeme, the unmarked aspect tends to denote either a past will or a desire much stronger than in certain other cases. Let us add the progressive aspect to the mix.

Na zēid-air gowâ. (classic and modern)
I really want to ([do/have] this).
want-1PS EMPH
"I want truly."
/na ˈzʲɛː.ɪda.ɪr ɡɔˈwaː/ (classic)
/na ˈzɛɪ̯daɪ̯r ɡɔˈwaː/ (modern)

This could, for example, be said of wanting to go somewhere during the day or even next year, but probably not for a lifelong dream of visiting the other side of the world. It would be used to indicate one's will to have some more food or to go outside or play a game. It is simply the way that a will would almost always be expressed. The aspectually unmarked usage of the word zēidā is thus quite restricted.

Take this as an indication that Kozea might sometimes use the progressive a little more frequently than English does. Do not be fooled by the temporal semantics of these two examples now, though; while the unmarked aspect generally goes hand in hand with a meaning that implies a past tense, this must, and is, not always the case. Let us learn yet another pair of words.


The verb syāg-ā means to love, and seems fitting for the above affectionate extract of Hwoista engaging in a romantic expression of just the semantics described by this verb, with his dear Īawi (classic /ˈiː.awɪ/, but in modern language yet another example of a swallowed vowel and a shifted length, but this time with /iː/ rather than /ɛː/; /ˈjaːwɪ/). The classic pronunciation is quite simply [ˈsʲjaːɣaː], while the /j/ has helped softening the sound in modern Kozea, giving /ˈʃaːɣaː/~[ˈʃaːwaː]. By now, what the following phrase will be, should probably be quite obvious; we are indeed going to learn how to speak the mighty sentence I love you.

There is, however, a slight semantical difference here, and the comparison coming up will only be valid in modern Kozea. In the older language, this word strictly denoted romantic love or quite deep affection. It still does, in modern Kozea, but depending on how one uses it, and that's precisely what we'll be looking at here.

Now, Kozea has no fancy way of incorporating an object, except for the oftentimes completely omitted third person, into a verbal phrase, and as such, to include the second person singular into our sentence, we'll have to do it like in English, by using a personal pronoun. In Kozea, the singular personal pronouns are all inflected for gender. The third person has forms for all three genders while the first and second person have forms for the masculine and feminine genders only.

The phrase will thus differ depending on whether it is said to a male or a female. For now, we'll need the accusative form, and to keep it simple for a moment, we'll use the feminine one, as the spelling of the masculine one differs between classic and modern Kozea; you, said about a woman, is nāen. This first sentence will be valid, both grammatically and semantically, in both varieties.

Syāgair nāen. (classic and modern)
I love you (I am, romantically and affectionately, in love with you).
love-1PS 2PS.F.ACC.SING
"I love you."
/ˈsjʲaːɣa.ɪr ˈnaː.en/ (classic)
/ˈʃaːɣaɪ̯r naɪ̯n/~[ˈʃaːwaɪ̯r naɪ̯n] (modern)

This is yet another sentence using the unmarked aspect, but it obviously does not convey any semantics relating to the past. The feelings expressed through this exclamation are very much contemporary with the movement of the speaker's lips, just as those movements had just previously been contemporary with another type of oral confirmation of the very true affection. This time, the unmarked aspect simply states that the love is not just a briefly temporary thing, as opposed to our next example, which, like I have already said, is valid only in modern Kozea.

Na syāgair nāen. (modern only)
I love you (for having just said the funniest thing ever, for example, but don't worry; I don't mean to say that I have feelings for you).
CONT love-1PS 2PS.F.ACC.SING
"I love you."
/na ˈʃaːɣaɪ̯r naɪ̯n/~[na ˈʃaːwaɪ̯r naɪ̯n] (modern)

This is thus just an exclamation that you might heave out of your mouth as you're struggling to breath while laughing hard at something that your dear friend just said, but friend is also the keyword here. Nothing more than a friend. Just be careful with your intonation, as the interrogative particle is the same, except for the orthographical convention of the apostrophe. Interrogative intonation in Kozea is akin to that of English.

'Na syāgair nāen? (modern only)
Do I love you (once again, romantic)?

You'll have to repeat yourself to ask the less deep question.

'Na na syāgair nāen? (modern only)
Do I love you (temporarily, without romantic feelings involved, for being such a funny girl)?

The latter example is obviously non-sensical and it would be a very odd question to ask, but nonetheless a grammatically correct sentence.

3.3.3. The participle marker


Let us move back to the beginning of the thread. You were introduced with phrases used to welcome someone; a sēonéngath for multiple addressees and a sēonêin for singular agreement. The little /a/ in the beginning is in fact another one of these little markers, particles or unstressed prefixes, or whatever you prefer to call them by now.

Like the progressive marker na/nad (or n', in modern), a also has a second form used before vowels, which is ēad, with a nice, little twist to the vowel aside from the addition of the linking /d/ (or, technically, the retention of it, as even older Kozea than classic Kozea used to have but a single form, which was eventually reduced before consonants into classic Kozea).

Unlike na, however, this word has not been reduced further before vowels in modern Kozea; after all, not much would be left of it, since it doesn't begin with a consonant (and neither has it, as could perhaps have been possible, shifted to something like *d'). However, the pronunciation of the longer form has been a little simplified, but not, as you might have expected, according to the, by now, familiar rule of swallowing the /ɛː/ or /iː/, turning it into a glide, and shifting the length and stress to the following vowel, which would have yielded */jaːd/ in modern Kozea, but instead, as the very common word it is, went through another, unconditional, sound change, and has in fact ended up in modern Kozea as /ɛd/ (note the short vowel; this is not a typo).

So what does participle even mean in this context? One usually gets to hear of present participles versus past participles and sometimes also versus future participles. There is no such division in Kozea. There is simply a participle. Its meaning is a resultative one, and I would guess that past participle is the best name for it, even though this is not always correct, but mostly. It could also be argued that it is some kind of derivational prefix for resultative adjectives, supposedly.

We will not use the phrase a sēonéngath for now, as it uses not only a verb of the other class than the one that we have learned how to inflect for person, but also contains irregular stem changes between the different persons. Instead, we will look at yet another common expression making use of the participle marker and stretched its phrasal usage all the way into four different personal endings; 1PS, 2PS, 1PP and 2PP.

One of the forms of the phrase that I'm talking about is a tōist-air (classic /a ˈtoː.ɪsta.ɪr/, modern /a ˈtɔɪ̯staɪ̯r/). This means thank you and is said on the behalf of oneself only, which is given away by the use of the 1PS ending -air, telling us that this is something that is inflected for the first person singular. To say it on the behalf of oneself and others as well, the 1PP ending is thus of course used; a tōist-oan. However, the second person versions (2PS a tōist-ām and 2PP a tōistoth) mean you're welcome said to either one person or several, respectively.

However, tōist-ā does not actually mean to thank, but to give, and its usage together with the participle marker is a bit uncommon. While one would expect a tōistair to mean I am given in the sense of 'I was kidnapped and deprived of my liberty and dignity as a human being and given away as a slave', in reality, it carries a passive-like meaning of something was given to me, which is of course also possible to do in English with the word give, more or less.

This is however not the case with most verbs, including a sēon-êin, which literally means you are/were seen (not something like you saw), but let's leave that irregularly inflected word aside for now and keep working with tōist-ā and let's also apply the participle marker to syāg-ā and zēid-ā too, as well as amp-ā, so that we can use ēad too.

Now, a popular usage of the particle is to denote that something has been done, and sometimes even is being done, progressively. It can differ, often lexically, but in general, for most verbs, it denotes a past or resultative thing, and obviously also work like an attributive, adjective-like past participle, as in English. Without explaining further about the irregular word used in the phrase welcome, let me just say that the 3PS of to see is īm, with no suffix, so that we can use that too, as it has a slightly unconventional usage together with the past participle too.


This is Seonkera looking at a hamburger that he's about to eat. How fitting, now that we have amp-ā (eat; drink; consume) and īm (see; look) to work with! Sure, the looking is in the present tense and the eating is in the future, but that doesn't stop us from deciding to put it in a past context, and that's what we shall do now. At least partially, and you'll see what I mean by this.

What's important to know is that when the participle is used in more of a verbal sense than an attributive one, is that the subject is often dropped and expected to be understood out of context or of course by native understanding of the ways that is commonly used in. We thus get the following, for example.

Ēad ampā. (classic and modern)
I (or someone else, depending on context) have eaten. OR It was/is eaten.
PTCPL eat-3PS
"(It was/is) eaten."
/ˈɛː.ad ˈambaː/ (classic)
/ɛdˈambaː/ (modern)

As you can see, the subject is up for flexible interpretation of several possibilities for this sentence. The usual interpretation for this one would probably be that of a first person singular (the one who said the sentence) unless context specifies something different. Be careful with semantics of the roots when trying to use the participle. If you try to use this to say that Seonkera has eaten, you will be making a funny mistake.

Ēad ampā Sēonkêrā. (classic and modern)
Seonkera was eaten.
PTCPL eat-3PS Seonkera-NOM.M.SING
"(It was/is) eaten Seonkera."
/ˈɛː.ad ˈambaː sʲɛː.ɔŋˈkɛːraː/ (classic)
/ɛdˈambaː ʃɔːŋˈkɛːraː/ (modern)

The solution is hopefully obvious by now, though. The very first sentences we wrote were in the past, as you should remember by now.

Ampā Sēonkêrā. (classic and modern)
Seonkera ate/was eating.
eat-3PS Seonkera-NOM.M.SING

The present tense should also be obvious by now.

Nad ampā Sēonkêrā. (classic)
N'ampā Sēonkêrā. (modern)
Seonkera is eating.
CONT eat-3PS Seonkera-NOM.M.SING

Then there was the matter of our friend looking at the burger. Let us simplify, since Kozea doesn't really have any word for this, by simply calling it food. In classic Kozea, this is nōhain, and indeed nō'in is a valid lexeme in the modern language, but it sounds a bit stilted and old-fashioned, and most people would prefer to call it ampo, which is a contraction of the slang term ampoppri that existed already during the classic period. Both of these words have neuter gender, though (although ampoppri is feminine), so let's look at how to inflect those.

We'll begin with a table for classic Kozea. We'll also want to inflect some word ending in -o, as those are handled a bit differently between classic and modern Kozea, but since ampo is not a proper word in the old tongue, we'll use the word for word itself; wēano. Once again, the following table shows the classic inflection of these two words.



As you can see, there are some differences from, but also similarities to, the masculine inflection. Many of the case endings, despite having slight differences in vowels, still use the same consonants as the corresponding ones for masculines. The singular vocative ends with -i, just like for masculines. There is no difference in the dual at all, and nōhain was left out for that reason, while wēano was left simply to show that, in the dual, the -o of the root word had been merged with the initial -o- of the dual suffixes already in classic Kozea. Note that otherwise, the two words do use the exact same endings, even when many of them end in /ɔ oː/; classic Kozea likes vowel clusters a lot, even for vowels that are the same.

The words are pronounced /ˈnoːha.ɪn/ and /ˈwɛː.anɔ/, respectively, in classic Kozea. Now comes the corresponding table for modern Kozea.



As you can see, the differences, at least orthographically, are few. The only words that differ are marked in bold. However, the pronunciation of all endings beginning with -o- (except for the singular and accusative -o itself) have been reduced to /w/, even for the long ones, just like with the dual endings of the masculine words. nō'in is pronounced /nɔɪ̯n/. While you might suspect something like */ˈwjaːnɔ/ for wēano, this doesn't hold true, because /wj/ is not a permitted cluster, remember? The pronunciation has actually stayed /ˈwɛː.anɔ/~/ˈwɛ.anɔ/ for the most part, but if you remember correctly from earlier, you might recall that a very recent diphthong /ɛʊ̯/ is on the rise, and the younger people tend to say /ˈwɛʊ̯nɔ/.

The words marked with asterisks in both tables are those ending in the plural nominative and genitive ending -u. This ending is simply -o for monosyllabic roots, so, for example, the word land, meaning spice, has the plural nominative and genitive lando, rather than *landu.

Now, then, ampo of course has the same inflection as wēano. Seeing things, and even looking at them is done with the accusative case in Kozea. Since we already know how to do it, let's start simple with the continuous aspect. After all, the participle construction usually drops the subject. The subject can be added if really necessary for disambiguation, and will then appear in the dative case, but this is, in classic and modern Kozea alike, considered quite a clumsy construction and is really only ever used if strictly necessary for ambiguities that could otherwise cause very embarrassing or maybe even death-threatening situations, and even then, the speaker would most probably simply rephrase the sentence not to sound like an uneducated speaker. Very well. Continuous aspect for starters it is.

Nad īm Sēonkêr-ā nōhain-o. (classic)
N'īm Sēonkêrā ampo. (modern)
Seonkera is looking at/sees the food.
CONT see.3PS Seonkera-NOM.M.SING food-ACC.N.SING
"Is seeing Seonkera food."
/ˈnad ˈiːm sʲɛː.ɔŋˈkɛːraː ˈnoːha.ɪnɔ/ (classic)
/ˈniːm ʃɔːŋˈkɛːraː ˈambɔ/ (modern)

As you may have noticed by now, by the way, Kozea doesn't have any articles. Neither definite nor indefinite.

Now for the participle usage. This particular word can actually denote both past and present with the exact same construction and this is yet another place where context might be important, as well as hand gestures such as pointing. The grammatical, although not normally semantical, ambiguity is the most prominent in questions.

Īna ēad īm nōhain? (classic)
'Na ēad īm ampo? (modern)
Did you see the food? OR Are you looking at/do you see the food?
INT PTCPL see.3PS food-NOM.N.SING
"Eh seen food?"
/ˈiːna ˈɛː.ad iːm ˈnoːha.ɪn/ (classic)
/n(a) ɛdˈiːm ˈambɔ/ (modern)

The possibility for both interpretations arises out of the fact that the participle construction simply means seen and that the lack of a copula makes it possible to use it both as 'was it seen?' and 'is it (being) seen?', and as such, it's not impossible to sometimes impose the present tense usage upon other verbs, too, but this verb is the most probably victim for such an act.


However, the progressive marker would still be the preferred way of asking the question in the present tense sense. An example can be drawn from this above idyllic summer's scene, in which Seonkera is asking Hwoista whether he sees the girl passing by on the street and Hwoista replies that he indeed is doing so. They both use the continuous aspect in this dialogue.

'Na n'ēin emm-āen ezzām ēindīs-ām? (modern; the actual line from the clip)
INT CONT see.2PS chick-ACC.F.SING there/here street-LOC.M.SING
"Eh are you seeing chick there on street?"
Īna nad ēin ent-āen ēindīs-ām sonny-ām? (classic; the grammar differs slightly)
INT CONT see.2PS chick-ACC.F.SING there/here street-LOC.M.SING
"Eh are you seeing woman on street on this?"
Do you see the chick/woman on the street?
/na nɛɪ̯n ˈɛmːaɪ̯n ˈɛzːaːm ˈɛɪ̯ndiːsaːm/ (modern)
/ˈiːna nad ˈɛː.ɪn ˈɛntaː.en ˈɛː.ɪndiːsaːm ˈsɔɲːaːm/ (classic)

Aside from the difference in grammar or choice of words to express the demonstrativeness of the street referred to, there is also a stylistic difference; while the slang-loving teenagers Seonkera and Hwoista chose to use the less formal word emmi, translated to chick, I simply used enti, meaning woman for the corresponding sentence in classic Kozea.

Despite the phonological similarities between the two words, emmi is actually not derived from enti, which is the common word for woman in the modern variety too. It actually really means fruit. However, they do both end in the, by far, most common feminine nominative ending -i and do have the same inflection. We'll look at it in a little bit, but at least you can see that the accusative ending -āen bears a clear link to the 2PS feminine personal pronoun's accusative form nāen that was used earlier in this text, and that is no coïncidence.

As you can see, the adjective-like demonstrative sonny-ā, meaning this, agrees in declension with its masculine parent noun ēindīs-ā and is placed after it. That is the difference between noun phrases and attributive phrases in Kozea, as there is no copula. The difference is expressed through word order, so this is very important; ēindīs-ā sonny-ā means this street while sonnyā ēindīs-ā means this one is a street (the neuter form sōn would be used to simply say this is a street, although both sōn ēindīsā and ēindīsā sōn are actually fine for that, but this is an exception to the common rule, allowed with this particular demonstrative). The word dōs-ā means big or much and as such hwānā dōsā means big tree while dōsā hwānā means the tree is big.

Now let us move on to the second and final line of the dialogue, spoken by Hwoista in reply to Seonkera's question.

Ē(i). N'eng. (modern)
Ēi. Nad eng. (classic)
Yes. I see (her).
yes – CONT see.1PS
"Yes. I am seeing."
/ˈɛ(ɪ̯) – nɛŋ/ (modern)
/ˈɛː.ɪ – nad ɛŋ/ (classic)

This is also an example of the aforementioned possibility to incorporate, or more accurately, leave out, third person objects from sentencs that are in reality transitive; the accusative forms of the third person pronouns are very rarely used in any of these two varieties of the language.

Let us now use syāg-ā. We know that the unmarked form of the verb implies a present tense and a romantic love. We know that the continuous aspect makes the sense remain in the present tense, but removes the seriousness from the semantics. So what if one would actually like to say that one loved someone, in the past? If the person has passed away, and the speaker hasn't begun to hate the memory of the person in retrospective, the unmarked version is fine still, but if those feelings no longer remain, or if the person is still alive, but no longer subject to one's romantic feelings, the unmarked phrase just doesn't cut it anymore. This is a job for the participle marker.

A syāgā Hwōistā. (classic and modern)
I loved/used to love Hwoista.
PTCPL love.3PS Hwoista-NOM.M.SING
"(Was) loved Hwoista (by me)."
/a ˈsʲjaːɣaː ˈʍoː.ɪstaː/ (classic)
/aˈʃaːɣaː ˈʍɔɪ̯staː/~[aˈʃaːwaː ˈʍɔɪ̯staː] (modern)

Once again, the subject is left out and assumed to be understood from context (and like I said, 1PS is usually the safest bet unless context specifies otherwise). Anyway, as we saw with the unmarked usage of zēid-ā, we did indeed describe a past and possibly continuous event, but its semantics suggested a strong and old desire. To simply say that one (has) wanted something, without any emphasis on the amount of will involved, the participle is once again the way to go.

A zēidā nōhain. (classic)
A zēidā ampo. (modern)
I (have) wanted food.
PTCPL want-3PS food-NOM.N.SING
"(Was) wanted food."
/a ˈzʲɛː.ɪdaː ˈnoːha.ɪn/ (classic)
/aˈzɛɪdaː ˈambɔ/ (modern)

Now, as promised, before we move on to a new type of verbal marker, let us just look at how to inflect the feminine ent-i, meaning, once again, woman in both varieties. We begin again with the table for the older way of speaking.



I left the dual out this time, because it differs in no way from the dual of the masculine or the neuter words; just remove the -i and attach the same endings as for those. Then there is the modern one.



As you can see, the only orthographical difference lies within the new spelling of the plural dative, which has been replaced with the corresponding suffix of masculines and duals in modern Kozea. There are, however, orthographically hidden differences in pronunciation of some of the endings. The suffixes in /ɛː.a ɛ.aː ɛ.a/ have all turned into /jaː/, which may cause a change in the stem consonant if it's one of the consonant that has gone through mutation in combination with /j/ since classic Kozea, which is indeed the case for the /t/ at the end of the root of ent-i, which, for example, has the vocative plural /ˈɛnt͡ʃaː/ in the modern tongue. The /t/ in the nominative plural ending -ēat is sometimes colloquially omitted, or at least voiced to /d/.

3.3.4. The future/intension marker


This is the third time that the theme song picture is used, because the theme song has a good example of this next particle, that occurs as the penultimate word of the lyrics, and thus you might have heard it many times enough to recognise it immediately. The word is xri. The version used before vowels is xrēad in classic Kozea and simply xr' in modern, but it sometimes used as xri even before vowels for separation (maybe due to hesitation), emphasis or meter in poetry or music, which is actually the case for our next example. It can not be used together with any of the previous markers (continuous na and participle a), so there is no precedence order to worry about even yet.

The example from the song is actually the second clause of a longer sentence, but the clause is extractable and works just as well on its own, even though it loses the context to make sense out of what it refers to. Let us then translate the very final line of the theme song.

Xri ōso-ild-ath. (this is how the lyrics go) OR Xr'ōso-ild-ath. (modern)
Xrēad ōso-ild-ath. (classic)
You (PLUR) will (get to) know (see; understand; acquire the knowledge).
FUT know-SUBJ-2PP
"Will you know."
/ʀr(ɪ)ˈɔːsɔɪ̯ldað/ (modern)
/ˈxrɛː.ad ˈoːsɔ.ɪldað/ (classic)

This verb is another irregular one, so let's not worry too much about its inflection for now, but do notice how the regular subjunctive infix -ild- goes between the root of the verb and the personal ending. We will have a closer look at mood later, but for now, you'll be fine off knowing that the usage of the subjunctive in this case is simply a device to put some mystery into the saying and to try to catch the viewer's attention and increase the desire to watch all of the episodes in order to see what mystical things the duo may be up to, and to discover what could be so exciting that it deserves, or perhaps demands, a blurry subjunctive when referred to.

We can, however, apply it in one context where it is required, just to have a brief look. We can use some words from before. For example, I stated that zēid-ā can mean both to want and to wish. It is actually no more difficult to set these semantics apart than to make use of the subjunctive. Not on the word itself, but on the verb following it. This will also be the first time we chain two verbs together in one tangled up relationship, and as you will see, Kozea has no infinitive. It just inflects the related verbs according to the referents involved.

Na zēid-air hwalt-ām. (classic and modern)
I want you to go.
CONT want-1PS go-2PS
"I am wanting you go."[/color]
/na ˈzʲɛː.ɪda.ɪr ˈʍaltaːm/ (classic)
/naˈzɛɪ̯daɪ̯r ˈʍaltaːm/ (modern)

Nothing odd. You might have forgotten the 2PS ending -ām from before, since this is the first time we actually use it, but it's up there in the table, if you need to remind yourself. So let's add the subjunctive.

Na zēid-air hwalt-ild-ām. (classic and modern)
I wish that you would go.
CONT want-1PS go-SUBJ-2PS
"I am wanting you go."[/color]
/na ˈzʲɛː.ɪda.ɪr ˈʍaltɪldaːm/ (classic)
/naˈzɛɪ̯daɪ̯r ˈʍaltɪldaːm/ (modern)

In reality, the semantics may not be that different, and it is of course no coïncidence that the two meanings are packed into the same root depending on the usage of it.


We will take a look at one final usage of the future/intention marker before we move on to a new particle. We have not yet seen it used in a sentence where it denotes intention. In the picture above, Hwoista is pointing away from himself, and Seonkera on the other side of the table, towards an intended destination to which he is about to go. Let's see what he says to convey this message to his mate.

Xri hwalt-air tōist-air-six terr-ôz-o ezzā(e) amp-air. (modern)
Xri hwalt-air tōist-air-six terr-ôz-o amp-air. (classic)
I am going to go get myself something more to drink.
FUT go-1PS give-1PS-REFL some-COMP-ACC.N.SING (3PS(.ACC)) eat/drink-1PS
"Will I go I give myself something more [that] I drink."
/ʀrɪˈʍaltaɪ̯r ˈtɔɪ̯staɪ̯rsɪʀ tɛrːˈɔːzɔ ˈɛzːaːɪ̯ ˈambaɪ̯r/ (modern)
/xrɪ ˈʍalta.ɪr ˈtoː.ɪsta.ɪrsɪx tɛrːˈoːzɔ ˈamba.ɪr/ (classic)

While the convention is to use /ʀ/ for the modern Kozea when it comes to transcriptions between slashes, the allophone [x] is, as said in the beginning of the text, gaining ground again, and word-finally, /ɪʀ/ or /iːʀ/ will often even come out as [ç], which is definitely the case for our young, hip fellow in this clip. He even showcases another most modern slang feature; the relative neuter singular pronoun (which is also the corresponding personal pronoun) ezzāe should, in proper language, be inflected for the accusative, which is ezzā (thus the parentheses above), but the nominative and the accusative are slowly falling together for this word nowadays, even though this is frowned upon by older or greatly educated people. Hwoista may be charming, but he is not a poet.

You may also note how this word (which would be ettāe; accusative ettā) in the classic translation, has been entirely left out. In this kind of a context, it is redundant, and was not used as such back then. It is a newer innovation, but unlike some of the other features, it is by all means considered formal and proper in the modern variety.

There are many familiar words in this sentence, but also a fair amount of new roots and morphemes. The reflexive -six is easy to use. It's simply added after the personal ending. terr-o is the accusative form of tēir ('some(thing)'), which is the singular neuter nominative form of tīrā ('some(one)'. tīrā, however, is a modern innovation; in classic Kozea the paradigm was suppletive, and the masculine and feminine forms were mēlā and millin, respectively, while the plural forms did indeed use the root tīr- already back then. The infix -ôz- is a stressed one (meaning that it moves the stress away from the root and on to itself), carrying a comparative meaning and can be used in the sense of more for adjectives, nouns and verbs alike.

There are more particles, but let us leave it at here for now.

_________________
= | = | = | = | = | =
‹› · Ḿḿ Ńń Ĺĺ Śś Źź Ąą Ǫǫ Ųų Æ̨æ̨ Ǽǽ Œ̨œ̨ Œ́œ́ Ɣɣ Y̋y̋ Įį Şş Z̧z̧ θ
Āā Ēē Īī Ōō Ūū ↗ Ṭṭ C̣c̣ Łł Ḍḍ Ṣṣ Ẓẓ Ṇṇ Ŋŋ e˞ o˞ ʷ ʲ ʰ ə

3.3. Using verbs together

We have already looked at this, as a slight off-topic subject in the previous section. We used it to speak about the will and the wish to leave, and as we saw, the usage is no more difficult than letting the verbs follow each other like links in a chain, inflecting them according to the referents intended as subjects. Let us look at an example out of one of the episodes.


In this picture, Hwoista has just expressed anger after losing in a video game, and Seonkera is trying to put a smile on his face by asking him whether he wants do something else, about which the rest of the episode revolves; going to the mall! Let us look at how he expresses it.

Na zēid-ām hwalt-ild-oan onnō-ānai? (modern)
Īna na zēid-ām hwalt-ild-oan onnō-ānai? (classic)
Would you like (us) to go to the market?
[INT] CONT want-2PS go-SUBJ-1PP market-LAT.F.SING
"(Eh) you are wanting we go to market?"
/na ˈzɛɪ̯daːm ˈʍaltɪldwan ˈonːwaːnaɪ̯/ (modern)
/ˈiːna na ˈzʲɛː.ɪdaːm ˈʍaltɪldɔ.an ˈɔnːoːaːna.ɪ/ (classic)

As you might notice, Seonkera doesn't use any interrogative particle. This is another recent and colloquial feature of the modern language that is also not considered proper but is used by the young generation nonetheless. This happens when the continuous aspect is used in a questions, as the two words now have the exact same pronunciation, which often causes one of them to disappear in casual speech. Sometimes one might even hear a recently developed syllabic [n̩] here and there in modern colloquial speech, such as [ˈn̩a ˈzɛɪ̯daːm ˈʍaltɪldwan ˈonːwaːnaɪ̯], as a slight retention of the two words after having merged. You may note how I, despite the subjunctive together with zēid-ā, did not translate it as wish; it just sounds less conventional for this kind of phrase in English, and the indicative and subjunctive semantics obviously still go hand in hand for the same root.

You may recognise the feminine singular lative ending -ānai from the table for ent-i before. The word for market belongs to the same declension, and its nominative form is thus onnō-i.

4. Possession

Kozea has two main ways of referring to possessors and their possessions or otherwise affiliated things, animals or people. One would translate to the English use of possessive pronouns (or arguably genitive forms of the personal pronouns), which can be done in two ways in Kozea (with a third variation in modern Kozea) and one would translate into the English usage of the verb have, to which Kozea lacks a corresponding verb and instead uses a different construction. We will look at the latter, corresponding to have, to begin with.


In the above scene, Seonkera is telling Hwoista about how he has been thinking. While he does not specifically use any phrase involving possession, the name of the episode is sāx, which means thought or idea, which is most definitely something that one can have. It is a neuter word with nothing out of the ordinary going on with the declension.

So how is it done? Well, we have in fact already used the construction in one of the earliest examples, but the English translation didn't involve any possession, as such a translation would make little conventional sense in English. Do you remember the sentence hwānām Hwōistā? This was translated as 'Hwoista is in the tree', but one might as well have written 'the tree has Hwoista'. The construction for such a possessive phrase is, in fact, the same; it uses the possessor in the locative followed by the possession in the nominative.

Sēonkêr-ām sāx. (classic and modern)
Seonkera has an idea.
Seonkera-LOC thought.NOM.N.SING
"In/at Seonkera thought."
/sʲɛː.ɔŋˈkɛːraːm saːx/ (classic)
/ʃɔːŋˈkɛːraːm ˈsaːʀ/ (modern)

The same grammar applies for personal usage. The personal pronouns are also used in the locative. For example, the 1PS in the locative are anâim in the masculine and enâid in the feminine, respectively; the latter is generally pronounced with no /d/ in modern Kozea, though.

Anâim/enâid sāx. (classic and modern)
I (MASC/FEM) have an idea.
1PS.M/F.LOC thought.NOM.N.SING
/aˈnaː.ɪm/ɛˈnaː.ɪd saːx/ (classic)
/aˈnaɪ̯m/ɛˈnaɪ̯ ˈsaːʀ/ (modern)


This posture of Hwoista's, with those extended arms, is an expression of offense that he displays after Seonkera's comment about his sister passing by on the street. His sister. That's a possessive. Let's see how he refers to her in his offensively defensive exclamation. We will get to learn yet another nominative personal pronoun, too; the 1PS feminine.

Lyónd-îr-i ēzi! (modern)
Lôindon-îr-î ēzi! (classic)
She/that (female) one is my sister!
sister-POSS.1PS-NOM.F.SING 3PS.F.NOM
"Sister mine she!"
/ˈʎɔndˈiːrɪ ˈɛːzɪ/ (modern)
/ˈloː.ɪndɔnˈiːrɪ ˈɛːzɪ/ (classic)

The modern word for sister, lyond-i is derived from the classic lōindon-i, which may still be used in very formal or archaic or possibly poetic contexts, but not as the everyday word. The infix -îr- is a stressed one, but unlike the stressed comparative -ôz- that we saw earlier, it doesn't move the stress from the root, but adds a second stress to the word. Second, but not secondary; both syllables are now equally stressed. In total, there are eight endings. Classic ones first.



The reflexive third person forms are used when referring to something that belongs to the subject, while the third person ones are used for a secondary third person. īm Hwōist-ā lyónd/lôindon-îs-āen means 'Hwoista saw his (own) sister', while īm Hwōistā lyónd/lôindon-îm-āen means 'Hwoista saw his/her (some other 3PS's) sister'. Let's look at the modern affixes.



The only difference is that the final /a/ of the plural ones have been put within parentheses. This is because they're only used at the end of a word, such as sâx-árra ('our thought') but not elsewhere sâx-árr-u ('our thoughts').

Now let us put the sentence in the third person, instead. In fact, the title of the video, lyónd-îm-i Hwōist-ā, means Hwoista's sister, but it uses a construction that is not valid in classic Kozea, and we'll look at a different example before I explain what's going on in that modern phrasing. The following example will be valid in modern Kozea, but very old-fashioned, and not something that one would hear in everyday speech.

Sāx Hwōist-āe. (classic and poetic modern)
Hwoista's idea.
thought-NOM.N.SING Hwoista-GEN.M.SING
"Thought Hwoista's."
[ˈsaːxˈʍoː.ɪstaː] (classic)
[ˈsaːxˈʍɔɪ̯staː] (modern)

I used square brackets here, rather than slashes, to stress that /x/ (modern /ʀ/) and /ʍ/ tend to merge into [xʍ] in both varieties. So this phrasing is not that different from English, other than the reversed word order, but like I said, this sounds stilted in modern Kozea. However, modern Kozea still uses the genitive, just like classic Kozea, to form compound words, in a fashion similar to Greek (for example, mīs-ā erm-āer means past (time) in both varieties, and can be literally translated as something like 'time before's').

So the modern way to form third person possession in Kozea is generally through the third person possessive together with the simple nominative of the possessor, which is precisely what is being done in the name of the episode about Hwoista's sister crossing the street.

Lyónd-îm-i Hwōist-ā. (modern only)
Hwoista's sister.
sister-POSS.3PS-NOM.F.SING Hwoista-NOM.M.SING
"Sister his Hwoista."
/ˈʎɔndˈiːmɪ ˈʍɔɪ̯staː/ (modern)

For a final example, to confirm the consistency of what has been said above, let's just do one last example for this section.

Hwōist-ām lōindon-i. (classic)
Hwōist-ām lyond-i. (modern)
Hwoista has a sister.
Hwoista-LOC.M.SING sister-NOM.F.SING
"In/at Hwoista sister."
/ˈʍoː.ɪstaːm ˈloː.ɪndɔnɪ/ (classic)
/ˈʍɔɪ̯staːm ˈʎɔndɪ/ (modern)

Indeed having a sister is expressed using the same grammar as having an idea. It is consistent.

5. Phrases

Let us round it up with some phrases for now.

5.1. Liking something


Depicted above is the smile of a seemingly eccentric stranger by the name of Thāerā (classic /ˈθaː.eraː/ and modern /ˈθaɪ̯raː/), given to the two friends, after walking up to them and stating, out of the blue, that he likes apples. Good for us! Now we can imitate his words and learn a convenient phrase, so that we don't have to go around saying that we love things, that we simply like. Modern Kozea uses a word that was present in the old tongue too, mreôz, but has made its sense more casual. It conveyed a stronger sense of affection (although not necessarily as strong as love; in fact, the word wasn't even used of human beings), and one would instead have used mind-ā back in the days.

There is a slight grammatical difference between the usage of the two. While mreôz puts the favoured object in the dative case, mind-ā more familiarly uses the accusative. What you may also notice is that the former verb has no -ā suffix in the 3PS. This is because it is one of the few aforementioned verbs of the second conjugation, with slightly different endings. Let us look at a table of those. The endings apply for the classic and the modern tongues alike.


The /e/ phonemes are both /j/ in modern Kozea and the /a/ in 1PP -ean has been lengthened. Otherwise the pronunciation is the same for both varieties. Now let us see the words spoken by Thaera.

Mreôz-ir yastin-ōiz. (modern)
like-1PS apple-DAT.N.PLUR
"I like at apples."
Mind-air yastin-og. (classic)
I like apples.
like-1PS apple-ACC.N.PLUR
"I like apples"
/ˈmrjɔːzɪr ˈjastɪnɔɪ̯ʒ/ (modern)
/ˈmɪnda.ɪr ˈjastinɔɣ/ (classic)

Thus yastin is a neuter root meaning apple. Note the lack of any progressive marker; Thaera's liking for apples is a genuine one and not a temporary fart in the wind (the progressive marker would be used, for example, if someone told you about an idea of theirs, and you were to reply that you like it; it would denote a different kind of liking, more closely connected to the current moment).

Note also how the ‹z› in the neuter plural dative suffix -ōiz is pronounced /ʒ/ in modern Kozea; this is akin to the [ç] that may sometimes be the realisation of /ʀ/, kind of as a double allophone of its allophone [x], although in the case of /ʒ/, it is set in stone for modern Kozea; this is always the proper pronunciation of ‹z› at the end of a word after /iː ɪ/. It is always /z/ in the classic language, though.

While we're at it, we might as well take a look at Hwoista's reaction to the words spoken by Thaera, as it will introduce us to the negative particle as well as our first example of a personal pronoun in the nominative, which we won't see used very much as the language is pro-drop.

'Na yastinu? Me mreôz-ir hēgrā. (modern)
Īna yastinu? Me mind-air hēgrā. (classic)
Apples? I don't like (those/them/apples).
INT apple-NOM.N.PLUR – NEG like-1PS 1PS.NOM.M
"Eh apples? Not I like I."
/na ˈjastɪnɔʊ̯ – mɛ ˈmrjɔːzɪr ˈhɛːɣraː/~[–ˈhɛʊ̯raː] (modern)
/ˈiːna ˈjastɪnɔʊ̯ – mɛ ˈmɪnda.ɪr ˈhɛːɣraː/ (classic)

Yet again the third person object is left out entirely. The negative particle is me, and like the other ones, has a different form before vowels, which is mōid in classic and m' in modern. The word hēgrā is the masculine nominative 1PS personal pronoun and the reason it is used in this sentence is for Hwoista to put emphasis on himself; he's stressing that while Thaera might like apples, Hwoista himself sure does not.

5.2. Introducing oneself


We use the introduction picture yet again, fitting not only because of the title of this subsection, but also because this screenshot actually says, in a sloppy and childish rendition of the native script, the title of the series; Sēonkêrā Hwōistām. As we know very well by now, Sēonkêrā and Hwōistā are our two characters used throughout this text to provide us with wisdom, laughter and examples. Specifically, these words are their names and it is name that we are now going to learn how to specify for oneself during an initial meeting with a new individual.

The word for name in Kozea is rīt-ā. Initial /r/ is actually a fairly uncommon thing to see. Using what we learned in the section on possessives, we can conclude that my name is rît-îr-ā and it is indeed used as such for one's own introduction. The lack of a copula is well-known by now. We simply need to use the words in immediate succession.

Rît-îr-ā Nōiz. (classic and modern)
My name is Noiz.
name-POSS.1PS-NOM.M.SING Noiz.NOM.M.SING
"Name mine Noiz."
/ˈriːtˈiːraː ˈnoː.ɪz/ (classic)
/ˈriːtˈiːraː ˈnɔɪ̯ʒ/ (modern)

Note again the modern pronunciation of the word final ‹z› as /ʒ/ after /iː ɪ/. Nōiz is the name of the brother of aforementioned Īawi (Hwoista's girlfriend), who has not yet (at the current time of writing this) appeared on the series, but has been mentioned twice (in episodes two and four). The name means song, poem (Kozea poetry is generally sung) or music and belongs to an irregular masculine declension. It is, in classic Kozea, declined as follows.



The modern variety has regularised the declension a bit.



The most striking change might be that the genitive and the nominative have merged. Due to the modern innovation in the expression of third person possession described previously, and the fact that compounds using this root more or less only use the plural genitive form (classic nottā, modern nozzā), the singular genitive of this word is virtually never used at all in modern Kozea, and its similarity in form and sound to the nominative easily put the classic genitive for this declension out of use eventually.

5.3. Meeting, greeting and retreating

Saying hello, good bye and more formal phrases such as good day are a common thing to include in an introductory set of lessons, and I will be no exception to that rule.


In the above picture, Seonkera is waving at Hwoista from a distance, shouting hēi. While it may look similar to European words for informal greetings, this word carries no such meaning. It's simply a very informal interjection used to gain someone's attention, indeed similar to the English near-homophone hey, but, again, with the difference that it can not be used as an informal greeting, like the English word can. A more proper translation would be hey, you.


It doesn't take long into the same episode before we get to hear a real word for hello, though. Using an informal and general way to say it, the above picture is an extract of Hwoista greeting the fine tree that he is about to get better acquainted with within few moments. Now, in classic Kozea and the modern variety alike, the word alâir-ā means beautiful or fine at its core, but has been used as a fairly general word for very positive things even back in the older days of the classic language.

Most words beginning in an unstressed /al/ lost that initial /a/ in modern Kozea, and indeed 'lâir-ā is finding more and more ground in the recent generations, but this word and its derivatives has stood out as an opponent to this sound change and generally remains with the /a/ in all but the most colloquial speech. It has yielded three mutually suppletive words for hi; âla, alâ and 'lā. Any of these is fine for an informal greeting. They all also carry the meaning of good bye. Hwoista does use them in both meanings; he means good bye when he says alâ for the second time, referring to the little stick in his hand, before he throws said stick away. We can see him forming that /l/ in the screenshot.

So why were these words derived from beautiful? It will make sense once we look at some of the more formal and extensive expressions dealing with greetings and farewells.

ngōw-on (alâir-annā); good morning/day (classic /ˈŋoːwɔn aˈlaː.ɪranːa/, modern /ˈŋɔːwɔn (a)ˈlaːɪ̯ranːaː/~[ŋɔʊ̯n –])
sēonxrôn-ān; good evening/night (not before sleep) (classic /sʲɛː.ɔnˈxroːnaːn/, modern /ʃɔ(ː)ŋˈʁrɔːnaːn/)
xrōn-ān (alâir-ān) – || – (classic only; /ˈʁrɔːnaːn (a)ˈlaɪ̯raːn/)
āiw-annā (alâir-annā); good night; sleep well; sweet dreams (before sleep) (classic /ˈaː.ɪwanːaː aˈlaː.ɪranːaː/, modern /ˈaɪ̯wanːaː (a)ˈlaɪ̯ranːaː/)

What's true for most of these phrases, is that they use beautiful as an attribute. What's true for all of them is that they use the lative case, similar to how these expressions are often in the accusative case, because they are shortened versions of expressions such as 'I wish you a good day'; in Kozea the expressions are short for things like 'may we enter (into) a good day (this time/day [too])'. As you can see, the attribute is often optional. Colloquially, only the core nouns tend to be used, as further shortenings of the phrases. ngōw-on is the lative of ngōw-eth, which is a masculine noun of an irregular declension that we will look at some other time.

We now know what we can say to greet people as we meet them and when it's time to retreat from them again.

5.3. Yay and nay


This picture is out of a deep moment where Hwoista gives a harsh one-word answer to his comrade. It is yes. Hwoista says it as ē, which is the common colloquial way of saying and writing it in the modern language, but the formal and classic way is ēi. There are other colloquial variations similar to yup in English, such as ēiddā, which can be heard in the episode with the tree as Hwoista raises his middle finger as he figures out how to get up into the tree.

These are, however, only valid responses to affirmative statements and questions. To disagree with a negative statement, classic Kozea uses āet (modern ā(e(d)); it can be shortened by one step or two) with the more colloquial or emphasised counterpart attāe (modern addā(e), with an unconditional sound change in anology with āed).

To say no, classic Kozea uses mēa. This is the formal spelling in Kozea, but actual pronunciation and colloquial spelling is mē. The classic tongue comes with variations such as memm, mīta and māi, while the modern language has changed the latter two into mīza and mēi. mīda or mida may also be heard these days.

In response to āet/āed and their alternatives, the way to say no is however mess in classic and formal modern Kozea and mā(e(d)) in colloquial modern.

5.3. Counting to 10, or LOOK HERE, JANKO, and there will be no need for a PM

Let us begin by counting to ten in the classic language. The numbers 1 and 2 are inflected for number, gender and case, although 2 has the same forms for all genders in most cases. To say 0, one simply uses the negative form of tēir (something, as we saw earlier), which is tēirárm. It, too, of course is inflected just like the attribute it really is.





The endings are familiar from the normal nouns/adjectives. These two words have not changed in modern Kozea.

Now for the rest of them up until 10, at first in classic Kozea.

3: lāprā /ˈlaːbraː/
4: hwoyóndae /ʍɔˈjɔndaː.e/
5: dyānār /ˈdjaːnaːr/
6: nyaôprā /ɲaˈɔːbraː/
7: nyaôassyā /ɲaˈɔː.asʲːjaː/
8: aldúmrizā /alˈdɔʊ̯mrɪzaː/
9: īdyo /ˈiːdjɔ/
10: dōannā /ˈdoː.anːaː/

Now for formal modern Kozea.

3: lāprā /ˈlaːbraː/
4: hwondae /ˈʍɔndaɪ̯/
5: dyānār /ˈd͡ʒaːnaːr/
6: nyaôprā /ˈɲɔːbraː/
7: nyaôassyā /ˈɲɔːʃːaː/
8: aldúmrizā /alˈdɔʊ̯mrɪzaː/
9: īdyo /ˈiːd͡ʒɔ/
10: dōannā /ˈdwaːn(ː)aː/

In both classic and formal modern language, these are all invariable; they never inflect for anything. However, in modern colloquial Kozea, there is something interesting going on. The numbers have been reanalysed as adjectives (they are originally genitives of older words) and are inflected as such. In colloquial speech, the number 8 is often also simply dumrizā, and the /n(ː)/ of dōannā is never geminated.

Due to the different endings of some of these, although most of them end in -ā, some genders have unexpected forms. lāpr-ā (3), nyaôpr-ā (6), nyaôassy-ā (7), dumriz-ā (8) and dōann-ā behave like regular adjectives, which means that in the masculine, they inflect according to nouns like hwān-ā, in the feminine they inflect according to ent-i and in the neuter, they inflect according to nō'in, getting the endings -ā, -ī and -Ø respectively for the singular nominative of each gender. The one exception is nyaôpr-ā which has the nominative singular neuter suffix -o, as /br/ is not a permitted final cluster, but does not otherwise inflect like wēano.

In the masculine nominative singular, the numbers 4, 5 and 9 become hwond-ā, dyāmr-ā (note the /m/) and īdy-ā, respectively. The /n/ of 5 is retained only in the neuter singular nominative which remains dyānār just as 9 remains īdyo in this form, which, unlike 6, is inflected like wēano. 4 becomes hwond, as expected, but in the feminine singular nominative it becomes hwond-āe (-āe is another pretty common feminine suffix that we haven't looked at yet, but it's not very different from the declension of -i), while 5 and 9 become dyāmr-i and īdy-i, respectively.

This development is a most living one and speakers are very inconsistent and may do it sometimes, but others not. Contributing factors may be casual and rapid speech, while articulated or hesitated speech as well as formal, and still usually written, context will reinforce the old, constant system.

That is it, for now! My gosh. So many characters I couldn't even fit them into a single post. I hope someone will read at least some of it!

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‹› · Ḿḿ Ńń Ĺĺ Śś Źź Ąą Ǫǫ Ųų Æ̨æ̨ Ǽǽ Œ̨œ̨ Œ́œ́ Ɣɣ Y̋y̋ Įį Şş Z̧z̧ θ
Āā Ēē Īī Ōō Ūū ↗ Ṭṭ C̣c̣ Łł Ḍḍ Ṣṣ Ẓẓ Ṇṇ Ŋŋ e˞ o˞ ʷ ʲ ʰ ə

Wow. This deserves... reading.

It feels Irishy, a bit.

I'll better stop at this; my typical feedback to other people's conlangs is mostly nitpicking, which doesn't appear the right thing to start with... maybe later ;)

Kudos.

The level of work you've put into it is astounding and your conlang almost feels real. I couldn't read all of it yet, but I probably will along the days. @_@

Also, the Janko joke made me laugh. (It's hard to miss such big font sizes. XD)

Why is affricate a place of articulation?

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Native
Mutually intelligibile with native language
Almost fluent
Little
Little more
Everybody can speak it!
Speedlang

Really? How so? The grammar?


Nitpicking might be good, but since the language has already established itself in these videos and so on, I won't change anything that would make the lines of the videos invalid.


Heh. I'm glad you're inclined to read it at all! Take your time.


I actually think Janko already has the numbers of classic Kozea, but in case I've changed anything since then (it was a long time ago), it'll be good for him to know. I also haven't given him the modern ones.


It isn't. I just didn't want to make two tables.

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‹› · Ḿḿ Ńń Ĺĺ Śś Źź Ąą Ǫǫ Ųų Æ̨æ̨ Ǽǽ Œ̨œ̨ Œ́œ́ Ɣɣ Y̋y̋ Įį Şş Z̧z̧ θ
Āā Ēē Īī Ōō Ūū ↗ Ṭṭ C̣c̣ Łł Ḍḍ Ṣṣ Ẓẓ Ṇṇ Ŋŋ e˞ o˞ ʷ ʲ ʰ ə

Ooh, lots of text.

Of course, I'm more partial to modern languages, so I'll only be reading about that.

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초보

You'll probably get more joy out of knowing anything about the modern variety too, since there is no exciting material in the old tongue.

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‹› · Ḿḿ Ńń Ĺĺ Śś Źź Ąą Ǫǫ Ųų Æ̨æ̨ Ǽǽ Œ̨œ̨ Œ́œ́ Ɣɣ Y̋y̋ Įį Şş Z̧z̧ θ
Āā Ēē Īī Ōō Ūū ↗ Ṭṭ C̣c̣ Łł Ḍḍ Ṣṣ Ẓẓ Ṇṇ Ŋŋ e˞ o˞ ʷ ʲ ʰ ə

Overall very nice, but you got [q] in the nasal row.


You look Canadian.

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Up in blue sky silly blimp goes by
Where it come from where it go
Ziggy-Zaggy it fly high

Oh, crap. Oops. I'll fix that up some day.


... I didn't get it the first time, but now I do. Haha.

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‹› · Ḿḿ Ńń Ĺĺ Śś Źź Ąą Ǫǫ Ųų Æ̨æ̨ Ǽǽ Œ̨œ̨ Œ́œ́ Ɣɣ Y̋y̋ Įį Şş Z̧z̧ θ
Āā Ēē Īī Ōō Ūū ↗ Ṭṭ C̣c̣ Łł Ḍḍ Ṣṣ Ẓẓ Ṇṇ Ŋŋ e˞ o˞ ʷ ʲ ʰ ə

Awesomely detailed! Wow!

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"Wait for the starvation of glaciers, chicken hamburger Noel Weber Arthur."

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Thanks! Did you find the strength to read any of it?

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‹› · Ḿḿ Ńń Ĺĺ Śś Źź Ąą Ǫǫ Ųų Æ̨æ̨ Ǽǽ Œ̨œ̨ Œ́œ́ Ɣɣ Y̋y̋ Įį Şş Z̧z̧ θ
Āā Ēē Īī Ōō Ūū ↗ Ṭṭ C̣c̣ Łł Ḍḍ Ṣṣ Ẓẓ Ṇṇ Ŋŋ e˞ o˞ ʷ ʲ ʰ ə

I did! It looks really good. It has its own feel. It reminds me of Scottish Gaelic and Sanskrit.

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"Wait for the starvation of glaciers, chicken hamburger Noel Weber Arthur."

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Just gave this a read through (all the way even!) and I like it!

I rather like how the modern version sounds, and it's good how you make it sound like you're describing a living language I also like what you've done with the semantics of the various verbal particles. That was rather interesting.

(Something tells me the Gaelic vibe some people are getting might have something to do with things like spelling /ˈd͡ʒaːnɪ/ <dēaoni>...)

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Languages!
Native: Proficient: Decent: Have dabbled in:

One of the few conlangs that have more than one speaker. Those videos are rather fun.

Thanks!


True. I guess this clears up the Gaelic impressions, then. What about Sanskrit? What are the similarities there?


Wow. Kudos. Awesome.

Nice to hear. Thanks!


Good point!

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‹› · Ḿḿ Ńń Ĺĺ Śś Źź Ąą Ǫǫ Ųų Æ̨æ̨ Ǽǽ Œ̨œ̨ Œ́œ́ Ɣɣ Y̋y̋ Įį Şş Z̧z̧ θ
Āā Ēē Īī Ōō Ūū ↗ Ṭṭ C̣c̣ Łł Ḍḍ Ṣṣ Ẓẓ Ṇṇ Ŋŋ e˞ o˞ ʷ ʲ ʰ ə