Ithkuil

Ithkuil
Iţkuîl
Pronunciation	/iθˈku.ɪl/
Created by	John Quijada
Date	1978–2016
Users	None
Purpose	Constructed language Ithkuil
Writing system	logographic
Language codes
ISO 639-3	None (mis)
Glottolog	None

Ithkuil is an experimental constructed language created by American linguist John Quijada. It is designed to express deeper levels of human cognition briefly yet overtly and clearly, particularly with regard to human categorization. It is a cross between an a priori philosophical and a logical language. It tries to minimize the ambiguities and semantic vagueness found in natural human languages. Ithkuil is notable for its grammatical complexity and extensive phoneme inventory, the latter being simplified in the final version of the language. The name "Ithkuil" is an anglicized form of Iţkuîl, which in the original form roughly means "hypothetical representation of a language". Quijada states he did not create Ithkuil to be auxiliary or used in everyday conversations. He wanted the language to be used for more elaborate and profound fields where more insightful thoughts are expected, such as philosophy, arts, science and politics.

Meaningful phrases or sentences can usually be expressed in Ithkuil with fewer linguistic units than in natural languages. For example, the two-word Ithkuil sentence "Tram-mļöi hhâsmařpţuktôx" can be translated into English as "On the contrary, I think it may turn out that this rugged mountain range trails off at some point". Quijada sees his strictly regular creation as too complex to have developed naturally, but nonetheless as a language suited to human conversation. No person, including Quijada himself, is known to be able to speak Ithkuil fluently.

Three versions of the language have been publicized: the initial version in 2004, a simplified version called Ilaksh in 2007, and the current version in 2011, with additional updates on the morphophonology and lexicon. As of 2019, a new language is being developed by Quijada based on Ithkuil, tentatively termed Ithkuil 4.

In 2004—and again in 2009 with Ilaksh—Ithkuil was featured in the Russian-language popular science and IT magazine Computerra. In 2008, David Peterson awarded it the Smiley Award. In 2013, Bartłomiej Kamiński codified the language to be able to quickly parse complicated sentences. Since July 2015, Quijada has published several Ithkuil songs in a prog rock style under the album Kaduatán, which translates to "Wayfarers". Recently, online communities for the language have developed in English, Russian, and Mandarin.

History

Influences

An example of vertical boustrophedonic Ithkuil text (2004). Translation: "As our vehicle leaves the ground and plunges over the edge of the cliff toward the valley floor, I ponder whether it is possible that one might allege I am guilty of an act of moral failure, having failed to maintain a proper course along the roadway." Romanized: Pull̀ uíqišx ma’wałg eřyaufënienˉ päţwïç aŭë’yaļt xne’wïļta’şui tua kit öllá yaqazmuiv li’yïrzişka’ p’amḿ aìlo’wëčča šu’yehtaş IPA: [ˈpʊlːˋ ʊˈɪˊqɪʃx ˈmaʔwaʟɡ ɛʁjɑʊfɤˈnɪɛnˉ ˈpæθwɯç aʊˈxɤʔjaɬt xnɛʔwiɬˈtaʔʂʊɪ tʊa kɪt œlːˈaˊ jaˈqazmʊɪv lɪʔjɯɾˈzɪʂkaʔ p’amːˊ aɪlɔˈwɤtʃːa ʃʊʔˈjɛhtaʂ] Listen:

Ithkuil evolved over 45 years as a linguistic experiment beyond Western Indo-European languages in response to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and Charles J. Fillmore’s case grammar into "a complex, intricate array of interwoven grammatical concepts" with "ideas inspired by countless hours studying texts in theoretical linguistics, cognitive grammar, psycholinguistics, language acquisition, linguistic relativity, semantics, semiotics, philosophy, fuzzy set theory, and even quantum physics." Ithkuil was heavily inspired by cognitive linguists including George Lakoff, Ronald Langacker, Gilles Fauconnier, and Len Talmy.

For his influences, Quijada cites the obscure "morphophonology 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 Yimithirr, the Semitic triliteral root morphology, and the hearsay and possessive categories of Suzette Elgin's Láadan language". The writing system's logical design borrows principles from Ethiopic and Brahmi scripts, but employs a unique morphophonemic principle. The script used throughout the Ithkuil grammar bears a superficial resemblance to Hebrew square script and the various Klingon fonts, and Ilaksh has also used a "cartouche script" and a cursive format. Because Ithkuil is designed for users to be precise in their speech, it is quite difficult to express humorous concepts in Ithkuil.

Ilaksh (2007)

The initial publication of Ithkuil in 2004 had an extensive phonology of 65 consonants and 17 vowels. Since the mention of Ithkuil in the Russian magazine Computerra, several speakers of Russian contacted Quijada and expressed enthusiasm to learn Ithkuil for its application to psychonetics, with several complaining about its difficulty in pronunciation. Quijada remade Ithkuil's morphophonology with 30 consonants and 10 vowels (and the addition of tones) and published the revision on 10 June 2007 as Ilaksh. The language featured other amendments to grammar, including some additional Levels and a change of Cases. It was redesigned to be easier to speak and included an additional writing system. The initial 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 represented 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 had 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 would spell out the forms of particular lexemes. The cartouches formed phrases, with primary phrases overlapping subordinate phrases. The coloring system utilized different color densities and texturing for different colors in order to be usable by colorblind people. These density conventions also allowed the formal system to be inexpensively printed in black-and-white, or inscribed or imprinted on stone or other materials.

Ithkuil (2011)

Ilaksh was superseded by a morphologically similar language also termed Ithkuil because of its ties to the initial publication. The script uses a unique morphophonemic principle that allows sentences representing grammatical categories to be pronounced in multiple ways as the speaker sees fit. In 2014 the category of register was introduced and in 2015 a mathematical and measurement-based sublanguage was published. Dozens on the community Reddit forum have proposed revisions to make the language more learnable. Quijada plans to adopt the cartouche script "for use as an alternative, 'ornamental' writing system for artistic purposes" to Ithkuil, in a future update of the language

A New Ithkuilic Language (2017)

Owing to complaints about the difficult patterns in the language morphology, on 30 October 2017 Quijada published a tentative outline for a new version of the language, addressing learners' desires for a more agglutinative morphophonology, including a restructured Formative outline, and extended use of Adjuncts for shortened expression of the grammar to further create phonaesthetics. Quijada has considered mandating verbal categories expressed in Formatives to be redundantly spoken aloud in Adjuncts to be more naturalistic. Despite the complexity of the language, intended only as an experiment without concern for the constraints of human learnability, he has published several updates for a new language predicated off of the original grammar, most recently in November 2019. The new language will feature an expanded lexicon and writing system that can be handwritten.

Outline

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 (61 in the chart, 4 below the chart):

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar		Post- alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyngeal	Glottal
				central	lateral
Nasal		m	n̪ n						ŋ ņ
Plosive	voiced	b	d̪ d					ɟ ǰ	ɡ	ɢ ġ
	voiceless	p	t̪ t					c ķ	k	q		ʔ ’
	aspirated	pʰ	t̪ʰ tʰ					cʰ ķʰ	kʰ	qʰ
	ejective	pʼ	t̪ʼ tʼ					cʼ ķʼ	kʼ	qʼ
Affricate	voiced			d͡z ƶ		d͡ʒ j	ɖ͡ʐ ż
	voiceless			t͡s c		t͡ʃ č	ʈ͡ʂ ċ
	aspirated			t͡sʰ cʰ		t͡ʃʰ čʰ	ʈ͡ʂʰ ċʰ
	ejective			t͡sʼ c’		t͡ʃʼ č’	ʈ͡ʂʼ ċʼ
Fricative	voiced	v	ð ḑ	z		ʒ ž	ʐ z̧	ʝ y̌	ɣ ǧ
	voiceless	f	θ ţ	s	ɬ ļ	ʃ š	ʂ ş	ç	x	χ x̧	ħ ḩ	h
Approximant				ɻ ŗ			l̪ l	j y	w	ʁ̞ ř
Velarized Approximant					ɫ̪ ł
Flap							ɽ r

The phonological system of the original Ithkuil consisted of 65 consonants; the ones above, in addition to the lateral aspirated and central ejective palatal affricates q̌ /cʎ̥˔ʰ/, çʼ /c͡çʼ/ and the velar affricates xʼ /k͡xʼ/, x̧ʼ /q͡χʼ/. /m n̪ ŋ l ɫ ɻ/ could be syllabic. h was [ɸ] when preceded by a vowel and followed by another consonant. [cʎ̥˔ʰ] was in free variation with [cʎ̥˔ʼ], the latter being more common at the beginning of a word (both spelt q̌). All consonants except y and w could be geminated; when geminated, h was a bidental fricative (h̪͆) and r was an alveolar trill (/r/).

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:

	Front		Central		Back
	Unrounded	Rounded	Unrounded	Rounded	Unrounded	Rounded
Close	i î	y ÿ		ʉ ü	ɯ ï	u û
Near-close	ɪ i					ʊ u
Close-mid	e ê	ø			ɤ ë	o ô
Open-mid	ɛ e	œ ö				ɔ o
Open	æ ä		a		ɑ â

The diphthongs were /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 were pronounced as separate syllables.

Grammar

The lexicon of the original Ithkuil consisted of the same pattern as the current form of the language. However, each root consisted of 2 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.

An example of morphological analysis

(based entirely on the original Ithkuil grammar book)

The word iţkuîl was 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 was 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 gave no emphasis on the meaning or the vocal rendering of the word.

• The u → uî mutation of the infix

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

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

The configuration of the term was 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" or "lexicon".

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

The extension was delimitive, perceiving "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 was 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 was "an idea/fantasy of a complete purposeful system of complementary speech elements", or simply "an imaginary language".

Morphophonology

Ithkuil words can be divided into just two parts of speech, Formatives and Adjuncts. Formatives can function both as nouns and as verbs, derived from the root and depending on the morphosemantic context. They can be expanded through various ‘suffixes’. 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). The current lexicon of Ithkuil can potentially consist of approximately 3,600 word roots. So far, just over 1000 have been assigned definitions. 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. In a future version of the language, pattern will be replaced by specification.

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 being 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 human being öq-	female human being 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 of Configuration, Affiliation, and Perspective, even though these do not technically refer to number per se.

Category	Indicates	Categories
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.	Uniplex, Duplex, Discrete, Aggregative, Segmentative, Componential, Coherent, Composite, Multiform
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.	Consolidative, Associative, Variative, Coalescent
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.	Monadic, Unbounded, Nomic, Abstract
Extension	the referred part of a set, e.g. its beginning or its end.	Delimitive, Proximal, Inceptive, Terminative, Graduative, Depletive
Essence	whether the referred set is in the real world or exists solely psychologically.	Normal, Representative
Context	the psychological relevance of the set, e.g. merely its existence or the set as symbolic for something else.	Existential, Functional, Representational, Amalgamate
Designation	the authority or permanence of a set.	Informal, Formal
Version	whether the action is goal-oriented or not + whether successfully completed	Processual, Completive, Ineffectual, Incompletive, Positive, Effective
Register	the mode of personal communication (narration, personal cogitation, subjective impression, direct speech, parenthetical “aside”)	Narrative, Discursive, Parenthetical, Cogitant, Impressionistic

Cases

There are 96 grammatical cases in Ithkuil, one special case being the Vocative, used for direct address. Verbal formatives inflect for case under Frame constructions (i.e., dependent clauses). The grammatical cases of Ithkuil can be divided into several distinct groups:

Category	Identifies	Amount
Transrelative	the participants to the verb	11
Possessive	possessive relationships between nouns	7
Associative	non-possessive relationships between nouns and adverbial relationships with verbs	32
Temporal	temporal relationships	15
Spatial	spatial relationships; this does not cover spatial relationships such as 'to be inside of', which are covered by separate formatives	6
Comparison	comparisons to other nouns, used in conjunction with Level	24

Verbal morphology

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

Category	Indicates	Amount
Function	the general relationship that the verbal formative has with its nominal participants (state, action, description)	4
Mood	attitudes or perspectives on the act or the degree of factuality	8
Illocution	the general purpose of the speech act (assertion, question, warning, demand, etc.)	6
Relation	whether the verbal formative is part of a subordinate clause	2
Phase	the temporal pattern of the act or occurrence	9
Sanction	the sort of truthfulness the listener should ascribe to it (assertion, allegation, counterargument, refutation, etc.)	9
Valence	the manner of participation of two separate entities to the verbal formative	14
Validation	the evidence supporting the statement	6
Aspect	the temporal relationship of the verbal formative in its context	32
Bias	the speaker's emotional attitude towards the action	24

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

Suffixes

Ithkuil uses a variety of affixes, termed suffixes, to further delineate what is described by the formative. They come in three types and often correlate with adverbs.

Adjuncts

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

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 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 indicated using verbal adjuncts, whereas the others can also be expressed on the verbal formative.

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 periphrastically in speech, whereas a special numerical script had 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.

Orthography

"Tram-mļöi hhâsmařpţuktôx" written in the Ithkuil script. English translation: "On the contrary, I think it may turn out that this rugged mountain range trails off at some point"

Ithkuil uses 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 and mathematical expressions.

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. The Sapir–Whorf hypothesis would suggest that, Ithkuil being an extremely precise and synthetic language, its speakers would have a more discerning, deeper understanding both of everyday situations and of broader phenomena, and of abstract philosophical categories.

However, strong forms of the hypothesis, which postulate that language determines thought and not only influences it, have been disproven within mainstream linguistics. Moreover, in line with this, Quijada 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, though Speedtalk and Newspeak were merely "sampled" by their creators, with an outline of neither grammar nor lexicon. 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.

Past versions

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 (61 in the chart, 4 below the chart):

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar		Retroflex	Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyngeal	Glottal
				central	lateral
Nasal		m	n̪ n						ŋ ņ
Plosive	voiced	b	d̪ d					ɟ ǰ	ɡ	ɢ ġ
	voiceless	p	t̪ t					c ķ	k	q		ʔ ’
	aspirated	pʰ	t̪ʰ tʰ					cʰ ķʰ	kʰ	qʰ
	ejective	pʼ	t̪ʼ tʼ					cʼ ķʼ	kʼ	qʼ
Affricate	voiced			d͡z ƶ		ɖ͡ʐ ż	d͡ʒ j
	voiceless			t͡s c		ʈ͡ʂ ċ	t͡ʃ č
	aspirated			t͡sʰ cʰ		ʈ͡ʂʰ ċʰ	t͡ʃʰ čʰ
	ejective			t͡sʼ c’		ʈ͡ʂʼ ċʼ	t͡ʃʼ č’
Fricative	voiced	v	ð ḑ	z		ʐ z̧	ʒ ž	ʝ y̌	ɣ ǧ
	voiceless	f	θ ţ	s	ɬ ļ	ʂ ş	ʃ š	ç	x	χ x̧	ħ ḩ	h
Approximant					ɻ ŗ	l̪ l		j y	w	ʁ̞ ř
Velarized Approximant					ɫ̪ ł
Flap						ɽ r

The phonological system of the original Ithkuil consisted of 65 consonants; the ones above, in addition to the lateral aspirated and central ejective palatal affricates q̌ /cʎ̥˔ʰ/, çʼ /c͡çʼ/ and the velar affricates xʼ /k͡xʼ/, x̧ʼ /q͡χʼ/. /m n̪ ŋ l ɫ ɻ/ could be syllabic. h was [ɸ] when preceded by a vowel and followed by another consonant. [cʎ̥˔ʰ] was in free variation with [cʎ̥˔ʼ], the latter being more common at the beginning of a word (both spelt q̌). All consonants except y and w could be geminated; when geminated, h was a bidental fricative (h̪͆) and r was an alveolar trill (/r/).

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:

	Front		Central		Back
	Unrounded	Rounded	Unrounded	Rounded	Unrounded	Rounded
Close	i î	y ÿ		ʉ ü	ɯ ï	u û
Near-close	ɪ i					ʊ u
Close-mid	e ê	ø			ɤ ë	o ô
Open-mid	ɛ e	œ ö				ɔ o
Open	æ ä		a		ɑ â

The diphthongs were /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 were pronounced as separate syllables.

Grammar

The lexicon of the original Ithkuil consisted of the same pattern as the current form of the language. However, each root consisted of 2 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.

An example of morphological analysis

(based entirely on the original Ithkuil grammar book)

The word iţkuîl was 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 was 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 gave no emphasis on the meaning or the vocal rendering of the word.

• The u → uî mutation of the infix

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

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

The configuration of the term was 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" or "lexicon".

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

The extension was delimitive, perceiving "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 was 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 was "an idea/fantasy of a complete purposeful system of complementary speech elements", or simply "an imaginary language".

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.

Phonology

The phonological system of Ilaksh was revised to consist of only 30 consonants and 10 vowels. The consonants were as follows:

		Labial	Dental		Alveolar	Retroflex	Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar		Uvular	Glottal
			central	lateral					plain	labial
Nasal		m	n̪ n						ŋ ň
Plosive	voiced	b	d̪ d						ɡ
	voiceless	p	t̪ t						k			ʔ '
Affricate	voiced				d͡z ż		d͡ʒ j
	voiceless				t͡s c		t͡ʃ č
Fricative	voiced	v	ð đ		z		ʒ ž
	voiceless	f	θ ŧ		s		ʃ š	ç	x			h
Approximant				l̪ l				j		w	ʁ̞ ř
Flap						ɽ r

/m n̪ ŋ l ɽ/ could be syllabic. All consonants except /j w ʔ/ could be geminated; when geminated, h is a bidental fricative or a voiceless pharyngeal fricative, and ɽ is 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 vowels were follows:

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i	ɨ ï ʉ ü	u
Close-mid	e ø ö	ə ë	o
Open	æ ä	a

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

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
• Information site (Russian)