The Qolst

The Qolst are people from the North end of what they call "Ṇaš," which was a continent located in their world. They speak Qolst, and are a very poetic people.

Phonology

Consonants
LabialsDentalsRetroflexPalatalsVelarsUvularGlottal
Plosivesp b t d ʈ ɖ c ɟ k g q ɢ ʔ
Fricativesf v s ʃ ʒ š ž x ɣ χ ʁ
Affricatesʦ ʣ
Nasalsm n ɳ ɲ ñ ŋ
Liquidsl
Semivowelsw j
Vowels
FrontCentralBack
Highi y ɯ
Closee ɪ o ʊ
Openɛ ə ʌ
Lowæ a

This is a table showing all of the sounds in this language. As you can see, it has quite a few sounds that English speakers might have a hard time pronouncing. Do note, however, the a lot of time there is a romanization of certain symbols at the far right of the box, and those are not sounds in themselves. The rest of the sounds spelled oddly are to be spelled like that

I will also be putting some sound rules here. The basic rule for syllables is CV(l)(f)(C), the l for liquids and f for fricatives. Another important rule is that everything in the uvular column changes to a velar in between vowels, including at the start and end of a word. This does mean that in some cases the name of the language is pronounced "Kolst" (though you won't find this distinction in the writing system)

Another cool thing is that z only exists in the "dz" combination. This is just because of a "ds" combination, which got changed to a "dz."

Grammar

Now that we have that out of the way, I would like to start of with the basic grammar. The first thing I would like to note is that there are no adjectives in Qolst. Kinda. See, verbs can be "adjectivized," as in a "blue-ing ocean." Instead of "the wall is green," you say "the wall greens."

The cases in Qolst are nominative, accusative, genitive, and dative. Since Qolst is in most cases a fusional languages, these suffixes combine with how many of the object there are.

The tenses are far past, near past, present, and future.

And, the language is USUALLY SOV.

Here is a table of the pronouns they use:

SingularPlural
First personʣɛʣə (inclusive), ʣəl (exclusive)
Second personpwʌqʌʔ
Third personjəlŋciŋ

As we learned before, the subject comes at the beginning of a sentence. How about we try to make a sentence?

ʣɛ- I
qolst- People (interesting, right? RIGHT???)

Now how would we say "I am a person?"

ʣɛ kolst.

ʣɛ kolst

I am a person.

Remember how the vowel makes the q become a k!

You might notice how there is no copula here. That's because Qolst doesn't use a copula! They do use a negative one, though.

el- Negative Copula

ʣɛ elqolst.

ʣɛ elqolst

I am not a person.

This negates the qolst! There are two weird things going on though. The first is that el isn't really a negative copula. It just negates things. Easy. The SECOND thing is, kolst became qolst again! That's 'cause the vowel isn't next to qolst anymore! So you always have to mind if there is a vowel around the q.