Ithkuil

Ithkuil
Iţkuîl
Pronunciation	/ɪθˈkʊ.il/
Created by	John Quijada
Date	1978–2011
Users	None
Purpose	constructed language Ithkuil
Writing system	original (Içtaîl), with romanized transcription
Language codes
ISO 639-3	None (mis)
Glottolog	None

A phrase in the original version of Ithkuil, rendered in native script.

Romanization: Oumpeá äx’ääļuktëx.

Translation: "On the contrary, I think it may turn out that this rugged mountain range trails off at some point."

Ithkuil is a constructed language created by John Quijada, designed to express deeper levels of human cognition briefly yet overtly and clearly, particularly with regard to human categorization. Ithkuil is notable for its grammatical complexity and extensive phoneme inventory. The name "Ithkuil" is an anglicized form of Iţkuîl, which in the original form roughly means "hypothetical representation of a language".

Ithkuil is presented as a cross between an a priori philosophical and a logical language. It strives to minimize the ambiguities and semantic vagueness found in natural human languages.

The many examples from the original grammar book show that a message, like a meaningful phrase or a sentence, can usually be expressed in Ithkuil with fewer sounds, or lexically distinct speech-elements, than in natural human languages. Quijada deems his creation too complex and strictly regular a language to have developed naturally, but nonetheless a language suited to human conversation. No person, including Quijada, is known to be able to speak Ithkuil fluently.

In 2004—and again in 2009 with its offshoot Ilaksh—Ithkuil was featured in the Russian-language popular science and IT magazine Computerra. In 2008, it won the Smiley Award.

The second "definitive (or 'official')" revision is a major revision that was released on 15 July 2011 and is also named Ithkuil out of convenience and continuity. A sizeable portion of this article deals with the original version of Ithkuil released in 2004, but it is indicated which sections deal with which version of Ithkuil.

Outline

Ithkuil (2004)

Influences

For his influences, Quijada cites the "morpho-phonology of Abkhaz verb complexes, the moods of verbs of certain American Indian languages, the aspectual system of Niger–Kordofanian languages, the nominal case systems of Basque and Dagestanian languages, the enclitic system of the Wakashan languages, the positional orientation systems of Tzeltal and Guugu Yimidhirr, the Semitic triliteral root morphology, and the hearsay and possessive categories of Suzette Elgin's Láadan language".

Ilaksh: the first revision of Ithkuil (2007)

Ilaksh
Created by	John Quijada
Date	June 2007
Users	None
Purpose	constructed language Ithkuil Ilaksh
Writing system	Içtaîl
Language codes
ISO 639-3	None (mis)
Glottolog	None

Since the mention of Ithkuil in the Russian magazine Computerra, several speakers of Russian contacted Quijada and expressed enthusiasm to learn Ithkuil, with several complaining about its difficulty in pronunciation. Quijada remade Ithkuil's morphophonology and published the revision on 10 June 2007 as Ilaksh. The innovation featured other amendments to grammar, like some additional Levels or a slight shuffling of noun cases.

The Ilaksh script was redesigned. It has two forms, a sequential "informal" system suitable for handwriting or compact typesetting, and a "formal" logographic system with artistic possibilities resembling Maya scripts.

In the "informal" writing system, several parallel sets of lines are shaped to correspond sequentially to the different parallel sets of lexemes and inflections. It is directly pronounceable. The author designed it with reserve for convenient handwriting. The overall design would permit compact, clear, black-and-white rendering.

In the colorful "formal" script, a single complex glyph represents an entire sentence. Diversely shaped, shaded and superimposed "cartouches" represent the syntactic relations of the verb and noun phrases of a sentence. The edges of the cartouches have particular shapes that indicate one set of inflections, the colors indicate another set of inflections, and the textures yet another one. On the cartouches, "letters" of hexagonal outline spell out the shapes of particular lexemes. The cartouches form phrases, with primary phrases overlapping subordinate phrases. The coloring system utilizes different color densities and texturing for different colors in order to be usable by color-blind people. These density conventions also allow the formal system to be inexpensively printed in black-and-white, or inscribed or imprinted on stone or other materials.

As of July 2011, Quijada plans to adopt the formal script "for use as an alternative, 'ornamental' writing system for artistic purposes" to the 2011 revision of Ithkuil, which was made to be morphologically similar to Ilaksh.

Phonology

Ithkuil (2004)

The phonological system of the original Ithkuil consists of 65 consonants and 17 vowels. The consonants are as follows:

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar		Retroflex	Post- alveolar	Palatal		Velar	Uvular	Pharyn- geal	Glottal
				central	lateral			central	lateral
Nasal		m	n̪							ŋ
Plosive	voiced	b	d̪					ɟ		ɡ	ɢ
	voiceless	p	t̪					c		k	q		ʔ
	aspirated	pʰ	t̪ʰ					cʰ		kʰ	qʰ
	ejective	pʼ	t̪ʼ					cʼ		kʼ	qʼ
Affricate	voiced			d͡z		ɖ͡ʐ	d͡ʒ
	voiceless			t͡s		ʈ͡ʂ	t͡ʃ
	aspirated			t͡sʰ		ʈ͡ʂʰ	t͡ʃʰ		cʎ̥˔ʰ
	ejective			t͡sʼ		ʈ͡ʂʼ	t͡ʃʼ	c͡çʼ		k͡xʼ	q͡χʼ
Fricative	voiced	v	ð	z		ʐ	ʒ	ʝ		ɣ
	voiceless	f	θ	s	ɬ	ʂ	ʃ	ç		x	χ	ħ	h
Approximant			l̪, ɫ̪			ɭ˞		j		w	ʁ̞
Flap						ɽ

/m n̪ ŋ l ɫ ɭ˞/ can be syllabic. /h/ is [ɸ] when preceded by a vowel and followed by another consonant. [cʎ̥˔ʰ] is in free variation with [cʎ̥˔ʼ], the latter being more common at the beginning of a word. All consonants except /j w/ can be geminated; when geminated, /h/ is a bidental fricative and /ɽ/ an alveolar trill.

The vowels are as follows:

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i y	ʉ	ɯ u
Near-close	ɪ		ʊ
Close-mid	e ø		ɤ o
Open-mid	ɛ œ		ɔ
Open	æ	a	ɑ

The diphthongs of the original Ithkuil are /ai̯/, /æi̯/, /ei̯/, /ɤi̯/, /øi̯/, /oi̯/, /ʊi̯/, /au̯/, /æu̯/, /eu̯/, /ɤu̯/, /ɪu̯/, /ou̯/, /øu̯/, /aɯ̯/, /eɯ̯/, /ɤɯ̯/, /ʊɯ̯/, /oɯ̯/, /ɪɯ̯/, /æɯ̯/, /øɯ̯/, /ʉɯ̯/, /ae̯/. All other sequences of vowels are pronounced as separate syllables.

Ilaksh (2007)

The phonological system of Ilaksh consists of 30 consonants and 10 vowels. The consonants are as follows:

		Labial	Dental		Alveolar	Retroflex	Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar		Uvular	Glottal
			central	lateral					plain	labial
Nasal		m	n̪						ŋ
Plosive	voiced	b	d̪						ɡ
	voiceless	p	t̪						k			ʔ
Affricate	voiced				d͡z		d͡ʒ
	voiceless				t͡s		t͡ʃ
Fricative	voiced	v	ð		z		ʒ
	voiceless	f	θ		s		ʃ	ç	x			h
Approximant				l̪				j		w	ʁ̞
Flap						ɽ

/m n̪ ŋ l/ can be syllabic. /h/ is [ɸ] when preceded by a vowel and followed by another consonant. All consonants except /j w/ can be geminated; when geminated, /h/ is a bidental fricative and /ɽ/ an alveolar trill. The clusters /n̪j/, /tj/, /dj/, and /lj/ may be pronounced as such or as the palatals [ɲ], [c], [ɟ], and [ʎ].

The vowels are as follows:

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i	ɨ ʉ	u
Close-mid	e ø	ə	o
Open	æ	a

The 14 diphthongs of Ilaksh are /ai̯/, /æi̯/, /ei̯/, /əi̯/, /oi̯/, /øi̯/, /ui̯/, /au̯/, /æu̯/, /eu̯/, /əu̯/, /iu̯/, /ou̯/, and /øu̯/. All other sequences of vowels are pronounced as separate syllables.

Ithkuil (2011)

The newly revised Ithkuil has 45 consonants and 13 vowels. The consonants are as follows:

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar		Retroflex	Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
				central	lateral
Nasal		m	n̪						ŋ
Plosive	voiced	b	d̪						ɡ
	voiceless	p	t̪						k	q	ʔ
	aspirated	pʰ	t̪ʰ						kʰ	qʰ
	ejective	pʼ	t̪ʼ						kʼ	qʼ
Affricate	voiced			d͡z			d͡ʒ
	voiceless			t͡s			t͡ʃ
	aspirated			t͡sʰ			t͡ʃʰ
	ejective			t͡sʼ			t͡ʃʼ
Fricative	voiced	v	ð	z			ʒ
	voiceless	f	θ	s	ɬ		ʃ	ç	x	χ	h
Approximant			l̪					j	w	ʁ̞
Flap						ɽ

/m n̪ ŋ l ɽ/ can be syllabic. All consonants except /j w/ can be geminated; when geminated, /h/ is a bidental fricative or a voiceless pharyngeal fricative ([ħ]), and /ɽ/ is an alveolar trill.

The 13 vowels of Ithkuil are as follows:

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i	ʉ	u
Near-close	ɪ		ʊ
Close-mid	ø
Mid	e	ə	o
Open-mid	ɛ		ɔ
Open		a	ɑ

The diphthongs in Ithkuil are /aɪ̯/, /ɛɪ̯/, /əɪ̯/, /ɔɪ̯/, /œɪ̯/, /ʊɪ̯/, /aʊ̯/, /ɛʊ̯/, /əʊ̯/, /ɪʊ̯/, /ɔʊ̯/, /œʊ̯/. All other sequences of vowels are pronounced as separate syllables.

Grammar

Ithkuil (2004)

The lexicon of Ithkuil potentially consists of 3,600 word roots; just 900 were assigned individual translations. Each root consists of 2 consonantal radicals, and can derive thousands of lexemes through the use of Ithkuil's complex rules of morphophonology, which involve both consonantal and vocal mutation, shifts in syllabic stress and tone, and affixation.

Ithkuil words can be divided into just two parts of speech, formatives and adjuncts. Formatives can function both as nouns and as verbs, depending on the morpho-semantic context. Both nominal and verbal formatives are inflected to one of the possible 3 stems, 3 patterns, 2 designations (formal or informal), 9 configurations, 4 affiliations, 4 perspectives, 6 extensions, 2 foci, 4 contexts, 2 essences, and 81 cases; formatives also can take on some of the 153 affixes, which are further qualified into one of 9 degrees. Verbal formatives are additionally inflected for 7 illocutions and 7 conflations.

Verbal adjuncts work in conjunction with adjacent formatives to provide additional grammatical information. Two types of verbal adjuncts are inflected to indicate 14 valencies, 6 versions, 8 formats, 37 derivations, 30 modalities, 4 levels, 9 validations, 9 phases, 9 sanctions, 32 aspects, 8 moods, and 24 biases.

An example of morphological analysis

(based entirely on the original Ithkuil grammar book)

The word iţkuîl is a formative derived from the root k-l (broadly concerning "speech", "voice", or even "interpretation") through the addition of several morphological determinants:

• The -u- vocalic infix

  kul is the holistic variety of the Stem 2 of the three other possible stems from k-l. Translating roughly as "a meaningful unit of speech", i.e. "a word", it gives no emphasis on the meaning or the vocal rendering of the word.

• The u → uî mutation of the infix

  Secondary, as opposed to primary, mode, means that the word kuîl refers not to a real-life phenomenon, but rather to a mental representation, or projection, of that phenomenon; to an imaginary or hypothetical object. Thus "a made-up word".

• A grade 8 mutation of the first radical consonant: k → ţk

  The configuration of the term is composite. Roughly corresponding to the plurality concept in Indo-European languages, it also implies the objects in question (words, kuîl) to be diverse, while forming a "coherent emergent entity" (rather than just a collection or an array of different words), thus meaning "a vocabulary/lexicon".

• The i- vocalic prefix, one of the 24 possible for formative roots

  The extension is delimitive, perceiving "the vocabulary" as entire, with clearly distinguished boundaries, as opposed to it being just a local manifestation – such as slang or a dialect – of a broader lexicon (-ţkuîl).

  The affiliation of the set of objects in question is coalescent. This indicates that the individual members of the set act together toward a higher purpose by coordinating their complementary functions. Thus, "a vocabulary/lexicon" becomes "a language".

• Syllabic stress on the penultimate syllable (-u-)

  The perspective of the noun is monadic, seeing "the language" as a single and specific entity, rather than a collection of many languages existing separately, the general phenomenon ("human languages") or the abstract idea of language.

Thus, the approximate translation of iţkuîl is "an idea/fantasy of a complete purposeful system of complementary speech elements", or simply "an imaginary language".

Numeral system

Ithkuil uses a numeral system of base 100. There are roots for the numbers 1 to 10 (l-s, k-s, š-s, p-s, ţ-s, t-s, n-s, x-s, f-s, and m-s), and the stem-specific derivative affix is used with a root to add a multiple of 10, providing the numerals up to 99. Ithkuil does not use the concept of zero. Numbers greater than 100 are expressed periphrastically in speech, whereas Içtaîl has logograms for the numbers 1 to 100 and for even powers of 100.

Ithkuil (2011)

The lexicon of Ithkuil potentially consists of approximately 3,600 word roots. So far, just over 900 are assigned with individual translations. Each root consists of a cluster of 1–4 consonants (five-consonant clusters are also available, but remain without an assigned meaning). From the root, word stems are formed by affixing the vocalic affix that indicates pattern, stem type, and function.

Ithkuil words can be divided into just two parts of speech, formatives and adjuncts. Formatives can function both as nouns and as verbs, depending on the morpho-semantic context. There are words that function as nouns and verbs, but these derive from the same root.

Formatives

Roots

Roots are Ithkuil's most basic semantic units. All Ithkuil formatives are derived from a limited number of roots. Each root consists of a consonants cluster of 1 to 5 consonants. There are approximately 3,600 roots, of which just over 900 have been assigned meanings. No five-consonant-cluster roots have been assigned meanings.

Stems and pattern

There are three stems associated with each root. Each stem comes in three patterns, one holistic and two complementary ones. Holistic stem 1 typically refers to the most general manifestation of a root, whereas holistic stems 2 and 3 typically refer to more specific manifestations associated with the root. Each holistic stem has two complementary stems associated with it, which refer to the complementary concepts related to the holistic stem. The specific meaning of complementary stems depends somewhat on the root. These are derived from the word roots by prefixing a vowel or diphthong that also indicates the grammatical category function. Two examples are given in the tables below:

Holistic stem 1		Holistic stem 2		Holistic stem 3
nuclear family member (a)mm-		male nuclear family member emm-		female nuclear family member umm-
Complementary stems		Complementary stems		Complementary stems
parent omm-	child âmm-	father ömm-	son êmm-	mother îmm-/ûmm	daughter ômm-

Holistic stem 1		Holistic stem 2		Holistic stem 3
higher-order animal lifeform (a)q-		human eq-		non-human higher-order animal lifeform uq-
Complementary stems		Complementary stems		Complementary stems
male higher-order animal lifeform oq-	female higher-order animal lifeform âq-	male öq-	female êq-	male non-human higher-order animal lifeform îq-/ûq-	female non-human higher-order animal lifeform ôq-

Basic morphology

All Ithkuil formatives, whether functioning as nouns or verbs, inflect for various grammatical categories that are quite dissimilar from any of those in natural languages. Quantization is more or less covered by the grammatical categories configuration, affiliation, and perspective, even though these do not technically refer to number per se.

Category	Indicates
Configuration	the physical similarity and relationship between the members of a set, e.g. trees may occur in a collection of the same species, of different species, or even in a patternless collection with plants that are not trees.
Affiliation	the subjective purpose or function of members of a set, e.g. a group of trees may occur naturally and have no purpose, they may have the same purpose, complementary purposes, or different purposes.
Perspective	the boundedness of a set, i.e. if it is viewed as a single unit, multiple disconnected units, viewed generically, or its characteristics considered abstractly.
Extension	the referred part of a set, e.g. its beginning or its end.
Essence	whether the referred set is in the real world or exists solely psychologically.
Context	the psychological relevance of the set, e.g. merely its existence or the set as symbolic for something else.
Designation	the authority or permanence of a set.

Cases

There are 92 grammatical cases in Ithkuil. Both nominal and verbal formatives inflect for case. The grammatical cases of Ithkuil can be divided into several distinct groups:

Category	Identifies
Transrelative	the participants to the verb
Possessive	possessive relationships between nouns
Associative	non-possessive relationships between nouns and adverbial relationships with verbs
Temporal	temporal relationships
Spatial	spatial relationships; this does not cover spatial relationships such as 'to be inside of', which are covered by separate formatives
Vocative	direct address
Comparison	comparisons to other nouns

Verbal morphology

Several distinct grammatical categories apply only to verbal formatives. These are listed below:

Category	Indicates
Function	the general relationship that the verbal formative has with its nominal participants (state, action, description)
Mood	attitudes or perspectives on the act or the degree of factuality
Illocution	the general purpose of the speech act (assertion, question, warning, demand, etc.)
Relation	whether the verbal formative is part of a subordinate clause
Phase	the temporal pattern of the act or occurrence
Sanction	the sort of truthfulness the listener should ascribe to it (assertion, allegation, counterargument, refutation, etc.)
Valence	the manner of participation of two separate entities to the verbal formative
Version	whether the action is goal-oriented or not + whether successfully completed
Validation	the evidence supporting the statement
Aspect	the temporal relationship of the verbal formative in its context
Bias	the speaker's emotional attitude towards the action

Ithkuil nominal formatives also carry a function, but cannot be inflected for them, always remaining in the "stative".

Adjuncts

There are two types of adjuncts in Ithkuil: personal-reference adjuncts and verbal adjuncts. All adjuncts are highly synthetic.

Personal-reference adjuncts

Personal-reference adjuncts are akin to pronouns in English. There are two types of personal-reference adjuncts in Ithkuil: Single-referent and dual-referent.

Verbal adjuncts

Verbal adjuncts are adjuncts that work in conjunction with verbal formatives to provide information about the latter's valence, level, phase, sanction, illocution, modality, aspect, and bias. Of these, modality and level can only be indicating using verbal adjuncts, whereas the others can also be expressed on the verbal formative.

Orthography

Ithkuil's native script is called Içtaîl, the (2004) Ithkuil word for 'hypothetical writing system'. It is a morphophonemic script because characters convey both phonetic and morphological information. Its use is closely tied to Ithkuil's grammatical system, which allows much of the phonological aspect of words to be morpho-syntactically inferred. Those parts of an Ithkuil word whose pronunciation is predictable are not written, whereas the characters used to indicate the pronunciation of the unpredictable parts of a word also convey the grammatical information necessary to reconstruct the implicit phonetics. Words are thus written in a highly abbreviated manner, particularly useful for the highly inflected, occasionally elongated words of the Ithkuil language. The script is also used alphabetically for transliterating foreign words.

Possible advantages

The Sapir–Whorf hypothesis postulates that a person's language influences their perceptions and cognitive patterns. Stanislav Kozlovsky proposed, in the Russian popular-scientific magazine Computerra, that a fluent speaker of Ithkuil, accordingly, would think "about five or six times as fast" as a speaker of a typical natural language. One may also argue that, Ithkuil being an extremely precise and synthetic language, its speaker would, under the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, have a more discerning, deeper understanding both of everyday situations and of broader phenomena, and of abstract philosophical categories.

However, strong forms of linguistic relativity, of which the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is the leading example, have been disproven within mainstream linguistics. Moreover, in line with this, John Quijada (Ithkuil's creator) has stated he does not believe a speaker would think necessarily any faster, because even though Ithkuil is terse, a single word requires a lot more thought before it can be spoken than it would in a natural language.

"For these reasons, I believe use of Ithkuil would probably allow one to think more deeply, critically, and analytically; but think faster? I doubt it."

Kozlovsky also likened Ithkuil to the fictional Speedtalk from Robert A. Heinlein's novella Gulf, and contrasted both languages with the Newspeak of the communicationally restricted society of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. Ithkuil is by far the most complete language of the three. John Quijada acknowledged the similarity of Ithkuil's design goals to those of Speedtalk, remarking that,

"[h]owever, Heinlein's Speedtalk appears to focus only on the morpho-phonological component of language[, whereas] Ithkuil has been designed with an equal focus on [morphology, lexico-morphology, or lexico-semantics]. Additionally, the apparent purpose of Heinlein's language is simple rapidity/brevity of speech and thought, while Ithkuil is focused on maximal communication in the most efficient manner, a somewhat different purpose, in which brevity per se is irrelevant."

External links

• Ithkuil official site, now presenting the version as of July 2011
• New Yorker article on the history of Ithkuil – December 2012
• Community on Reddit devoted to the Ithkuil language