Ithkuil (2004) The original version of Ithkuil had a significantly more complicated morphophonology.
Phonology At the left of each cell in the table below is the phoneme, and at the right its transliterated representation. The original 65 consonants were as follows: were velarized and could be syllabic.
h was when preceded by a vowel and followed by another consonant. was in free variation with , the latter being more common at the beginning of a word (both spelled
q̌). All consonants except
y and
w could be geminated; when geminated,
h was a
bidental fricative () and
r was an
alveolar trill (). At the left of each cell in the table below is the phoneme, and at the right its transliterated representation. The original 17 vowels are as follows: The diphthongs were , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . All other sequences of vowels were pronounced as separate syllables. There were four tones: falling, high, broken (falling-rising), and rising.
Grammar The lexicon of the original Ithkuil consisted of the same patterns as the 2011 form of the language. However, each root consisted of two consonantal
radicals, and could
derive thousands of
lexemes through the use of Ithkuil's complex rules of morphophonology, which involved 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 functioned both as nouns and as verbs, depending on the morphosemantic context. Formatives were inflected for the current grammatical categories, plus 2
foci, and 81
cases; they could also have taken on some of the 153 affixes, which further qualified into one of 9
degrees. Verbal formatives were additionally inflected for 7
conflations.
Verbal adjuncts similarly worked in conjunction with adjacent formatives to provide additional grammatical information. Two types of verbal adjuncts were 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.
Ilaksh (2007) In an effort to make the language more speakable, Quijada created a revision called
Ilaksh that relied on tone to reduce the phonemic inventory. The phonological system of Ilaksh was revised to consist of only 30 consonants and 10 vowels. The consonants are the same as those of Ithkuil IV with the omission of the voiceless alveolar lateral fricative . /
m n̪ ŋ l ɽ/ could be syllabic. All consonants except /
j w ʔ/ could be geminated; when geminated,
h was a
bidental fricative or a
voiceless pharyngeal fricative, and
ɽ was an
alveolar trill. The clusters /n̪j/, /tj/, /dj/, and /lj/ could be pronounced as such or as the palatals [ɲ], [c], [ɟ], and [ʎ]. The orthography used ⟨đ ŧ ż⟩ instead of ⟨ḑ ţ ẓ⟩. The vowels were the same as those of Ithkuil IV, but with an additional vowel pronounced as /
ɨ/ or /
ɯ/. The 14 diphthongs of Ilaksh were , , , , , , , , , , , , , and . All other sequences of vowels were pronounced as separate syllables. There were six tones: low, high, falling, rising, falling-rising, and rising-falling.
Ithkuil (2011) Phonology Ithkuil has 45 consonants and 13 vowels. At the left of each cell in the table below is the
phoneme, and at the right its transliterated representation if it is not written the same in
IPA as in romanized Ithkuil. The consonants are as follows: can be syllabic. All consonants except can be
geminated; when geminated, is a
bidental fricative or a
voiceless pharyngeal fricative (), and is an
alveolar trill. The 13 vowels of Ithkuil are as follows: Adjuncts serve two roles, either indicating personal referents like pronouns, or specifying additional verbal information such as grammatical bias. In a future version of the language, adjuncts will be able to convey suffix (or rather, affix) information.
Formatives Roots are Ithkuil's most basic semantic units. All Ithkuil formatives are derived from a limited number of roots. 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 stem
pattern, stem type,
function for the stem, and by stressing a particular syllable to indicate informal or formal designation. Quantization is more or less covered by the grammatical categories of
Configuration,
Affiliation, and
Perspective, even though these do not technically refer to number per se.
Verbal morphology Several distinct grammatical categories apply only to verbal formatives. These are listed below:
Function The four functions describe the general relationship that the verbal formative has with its nominal participants (state, action, description). Ithkuil nominal formatives also carry a
function, but cannot be inflected for them, always remaining in the "stative". 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.
Numerical system Ithkuil uses a
base 100 numeral system with roots for the numbers 1 to 10, and a stem-specific derivative suffix used with a number root to add a multiple of 10, providing the numerals up to 99. Ithkuil did not originally use the concept of zero. Numbers greater than 100 are expressed through multiple formatives, and a special numerical script has
logograms for the numbers 1 to 100 and exponential powers of 100. On 27 March 2015, Quijada released a mathematical sublanguage using a
dozenal number system which uses the circle constant
tau. == Writing system ==