The Kuhin Language

This page presents a guide to the Kuhin language, a personal conlang built on predicate logic and triconsonantal roots.

Phonology

Kuhin's phonology contains a total of 40 phonemes, consisting of 34 consonants and 6 vowels.

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Pharyngeal	Glottal
Stop	p b p'		t d t'		k g k'		ʔ
Nasal	m		n
Fricative	f v	θ ð	s z s'	ʃ ʒ	x ɣ	ħ ʕ	h
Affricate			ts dz	tʃ dʒ
Trill			r
Approx.	w		l	j

	Short		Long
	Front	Back	Front	Back
Open	i	u	i:	u:
Close	a		a:

Orthography

The Kuhin alphabet uses no diacritics. The order of the alphabet is based on a mixture of the orderings used in Ge'ez and Laiqbun:

a	a:	u	u:	i	i:	ʔ	h	ħ	ʕ	l	r	m	n	s	s'	z	ʃ	ʒ	k
a	aa	u	uu	i	ii	'	h	j	q	l	r	m	n	s	ss	z	sh	zh	k
k'	g	p	p'	b	t	t'	d	x	ɣ	w	j	ts	dz	tʃ	dʒ	f	v	θ	ð
kk	g	p	pp	b	t	tt	d	kh	gh	w	y	c	x	ch	xh	f	v	th	dh

In some circumstances, a digraph is confusable with a consonant cluster occurring at a syllabic boundary. This is prevented by adding a hyphen if it is a cluster, thus distinguishing "kh" from "k-h," for instance.

Basic Grammar

The core of Kuhin's grammar is the usage of triconsonantal roots, which exist in five forms demonstrated here using the root k-t-b (x1 writes x2):

kVtVb, the noun form of a predicate, e.g. katab "a writer"
kVtbV, the verb form of a predicate, e.g. katba "to write"
kVtVbV, the verb form of a predicate with person added, e.g. kataba "I write"
VktVb, the relative clause, e.g. aktab "which writes"
VkVtVb, the content clause, e.g. akatab "(the fact) that x1 writes"

a	a:	u	u:	i	i:	ʔ	h	ħ	ʕ	l	r	m	n	s	s'	z	ʃ	ʒ	k
a	aa	u	uu	i	ii	'	h	j	q	l	r	m	n	s	ss	z	sh	zh	k
k'	g	p	p'	b	t	t'	d	x	ɣ	w	j	ts	dz	tʃ	dʒ	f	v	θ	ð
kk	g	p	pp	b	t	tt	d	kh	gh	w	y	c	x	ch	xh	f	v	th	dh

a	a:	u	u:	i	i:	ʔ	h	ħ	ʕ	l	r	m	n	s	s'	z	ʃ	ʒ	k
a	aa	u	uu	i	ii	'	h	j	q	l	r	m	n	s	ss	z	sh	zh	k
k'	g	p	p'	b	t	t'	d	x	ɣ	w	j	ts	dz	tʃ	dʒ	f	v	θ	ð
kk	g	p	pp	b	t	tt	d	kh	gh	w	y	c	x	ch	xh	f	v	th	dh

a	a:	u	u:	i	i:	ʔ	h	ħ	ʕ	l	r	m	n	s	s'	z	ʃ	ʒ	k
a	aa	u	uu	i	ii	'	h	j	q	l	r	m	n	s	ss	z	sh	zh	k
k'	g	p	p'	b	t	t'	d	x	ɣ	w	j	ts	dz	tʃ	dʒ	f	v	θ	ð
kk	g	p	pp	b	t	tt	d	kh	gh	w	y	c	x	ch	xh	f	v	th	dh