Hakiti

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Hakiti, conlang created by elgrande
Please note that all the history of the language, its development, its phonolgy as well as anything else that makes up the language is merely fictional and that this language is not and has never been spoken. Any similarity to natural languages is only coincidental and not intended.

1.) What letters exist?

The language was originally not written in the Latin alphabet, but in an alphabet similar to the Latin one. However, the differences between what two different writer's letters looked like was often bigger than the differences between the letters of either of those writers and those of the Latin alphabet would have been. Therefore, the Latin alphabet is in a way a good and practical compromise. The language used more letters than the Latin alphabet has and some letters look very unlike any Latin letters. That is why a number of additional letters are used.

The following letters exist: a A
ɑ A̱
b B
β ɸ
c C
d D
ɖ Ḏ
e E
f F
g G
h H
ĥ Ĥ
j J
k K
l L
m M
n N
ɲ
o O
p P
q Q
r R
ɾ �?
s S
t T
u U
v V
w W
x X
y Y
z Z
�? Ẕ

2.) How is the language pronounced?

It depends. As Hakiti is an ancient language, we do not know for sure how the letters were pronounced, whether or not there were phonemic distinctions not marked in spelling, etc. This has led to people developing strong regional pronunciations depending on how a word spelt in a particular way would be pronounced in the language they were familiar with. The elite, however, tries to pronounce Hakiti as close as possible in the way it used to be pronounced. This is funny, because when scholars find out some new detail about the pronunciation , the elite tries to change their pronunciation. Some regional accents, however, have gained more and more influence. A special pronunciation has been created for TV. It is a mixture of the most influential regional accent, today's elite's pronunciation and former elite's pronunciation from a few decades ago, when not so many details about the original pronunciation were known yet. It is supposed to be understandable to everyone, not to sound overeducated and to be neutral. We want to give an overview on how sounds are pronounced in the three most important ways of pronunciation. The first is the pronunciation used by ordinary people in the capital, the second is a reconstructed pronunciation, used by today's elite, the third is TV pronunciation.

a A || [a] | [a] | [a]
ɑ A̱ || [a] | [a:]| [a]
b B || [b] | [b] | [b]
β ɸ || [b] | [B] | [v]
c C || [ts] | [T] | [s]
d D || [d] | [d] | [d]
ɖ Ḏ || [d] | [D] | [d]
e E || [i] | [e:]| [ei]
f F || [-] | [P] | [f]
g G || [gj] | [g] | [g]
h H || [k] | [h] | [x]
ĥ Ĥ || [x] | [x] | [x]
i I || [ji] | [i] | [i]
j J || [z] | [Z^]| [Z]
k K || [k] | [k] | [k]
l L || [w] | [l] | [l]
m M || [m] | [m] | [m]
n N || [n] | [n] | [n]
ɲ || [n] | traditional and TV: nasalation of preceeding vowel
o O || [ou] | [o:]| [oU]
p P || [p] | [ph]| [p]
q Q || [k] | [q] | [k]
r R || [r] | [r] | [r]
ɾ �? || [r] | [R] | [r]
s S || [S] | [s] | [s]
t T || [t] | [t] | [t]
u U || [u] | [u] | [u]
v V || [w] | [v] | [v]
w W || [w] | [w] | [ŭ]
x X || [ks] | [C] | [C]
y Y || [y] | [ai]| [ay]
z Z || [z] | [z] | [z]
�? Ẕ || [z] | [D] | [dz]

== 3.) What about the pronouns? ==
Hakiti has two sets of pronouns in the second and third person. One is used when addressing people felt as superior to yourself, the other, when addressing people felt as inferior to yourself (children, (in classical times) slaves, prisoners, etc.). Both sets are entirely classical. In modern usage, the two sets are not always used as they used to be. When Hakiti was revived, people often hesitated to show that they felt superior to others. But as pronouns that show superiority are much more common in classical texts and were therefore felt more familiar, simple people tended to use those pronouns more often.

The pronouns in the subject case are:
mimi
do�?a | voxa
taɲ | qiti


mnos
ĥar | βjos
wok | ciji


When the pronouns are in the object case, they must traditionally be marked by the prefix "as-". But the "s" is only preserved in some of those pronouns and elided in others to facilitate pronunciation. In modern usage, there are a lot of regions and social classes, where case marking has been lost. The pronouns in their object forms are:
asmimi
azdo�?a | asvoxa
ataɲ | aqiti


asnos (rare: asmos)
aĥar | azβjos
aswok | aciji


Other pronouns:

- We know from some texts that there must have been pejorative second-person pronoun, sometimes used towards slaves. The usual pronouns used to refer to slaves where deemed normal. Today's speakers would use different means to offend people. Besides, offensive language is marked much more clearly in today's Hakiti, since minor mistakes in register are easily forgiven.

- The pronoun "ol" originally means "everyone/all/everything". It has come to mean "one/(impersonal)you" in addition to this. We do not know how this idea used to be expressed in classical usage. "ol �?ira" can therefore mean "everyone says" and "one says/they (in general) say" or "every says". This confusion is unlikely to happen in speech, though. Modern Hakiti uses intonation more than any other language. To mean "It is generally said that...", people put no stress on the word "ol", whereas it otherwise has normal stress. We distinguish three kinds of stress for single words, which are sometimes marked with accent marks. Words with normal stress are the most common ones. Those words can be marked with ´. Others have no stress, marked with `. Surrounding words often sound louder and slightly more stressed then. Those words with no stress are often not meant in their traditional, literal sense and their meaning is weaker. Ever rarer are those words that receive particular words. Here the speaker usually knows that he's basically using the wrong word but thinks its best to use this word anyway. In this case a ^ may be used

Compare:
"ól �?íra" = everyone says
"òl �?íra" = it is said that
"ôl �?íra" = everyone without exception says ("everyone" on its own may not be clear enough. Just stressing the word makes it more clear that special attention has to be paid to this word), "everyone" says that (not really everyone)

"ól �?îra" = everyone says (but not really "says", probably the real word ought to be something like "writes", "shows in sign language", or something similar)