The Kha language is spoken on the island of the same name, one of the six member states of the Lendosan Confederation.
Isolate[]
It is considered a language isolate, being unrelated to any surviving language. According to Kha folklore, the Kha arrived in their current homeland by sea, and is generally assumed that their original homeland was either on the Western coast of Longerath or in Smalik. However, whatever culture the settlers split away from no longer exists, presumably having been absorbed or destroyed by a larger one — this leaves the Kha people as the only surviving branch. A number of linguists have attempted to prove connections between Kha and other languages, but have not gained any widespread acceptance in the academic community.
Grammar[]
The Kha language's most noticeable grammatical difference from the languages around it is its use of an ergative-absolutive case system rather than a nominative-accusative one. It does not have grammatical gender, and plural markings are optional. Verbs do not have conjugation. Adjectives are placed either before or after their noun based on whether they describe an inherent or transitory quality, and do not take different forms to agree with their noun.
Phonetics[]
Kha is a tonal language, with syllables able to be pronounced in a level, rising, or falling tone. Kha speakers indicate rising and falling tones using accents, with the level tone having no accent — for example, the three tones of the syllable "kha" would be written "kha", "khá", and "khà" (the latter being the one used for the nation of Kha itself). Outside Kha, however, these tone markings are seldom written.
It is written with the Liliani alphabet, using 22 letters (including the glottal stop, marked with a small dash or apostrophe), plus three two-letter combinations. The pronunciation has been influenced by the Lendian language, which most Kha also speak, and there have also been evolutions since the writing system was first established — the letter x, for example, originally represented a different sound to the letters kh, but the sound has since been lost. The various changes that have occurred in the language over the years means that Kha is not always written phonetically.
| Letter | Pronunciation |
|---|---|
| A, a | Pronounced as in "far". |
| E, e | Pronounced as in "rest" when followed by a consonant, otherwise pronounced as in "bay". |
| I, i | Pronounced as in "machine". |
| O, o | Pronounced as in "open". |
| U, u | Pronounced as in "boot". |
| B, b | Pronounced as in "burn". |
| D, d | Pronounced as in "dog". |
| G, g | Pronounced as in "get". |
| H, h | Pronounced as in "hay" when followed by vowel and like the "ch" in "loch" when followed by a consonant. |
| J, j | Pronounced as in "jar". |
| L, l | Pronounced as in "lead". |
| M, m | Pronounced as in "milk". |
| N, n | Pronounced as in "need". |
| P, p | Pronounced as in "pen". |
| R, r | Pronounced roughly as in "road". |
| S, s | Pronounced as in "sold". |
| Z, z | Pronounced as in "zoo". |
| T, t | Pronounced as in "tall". |
| Q, q | Pronounced like the "ch" in "chair". |
| X, x | Pronounced like the "ch" in "loch". |
| K, k | Pronounced as in "kite". |
| ' | A glottal stop |
| Kh, kh | Pronounced like the "ch" in "loch". |
| Sh, sh | Pronounced like the "sh" in "shop". |
| Th, th | Pronounced as in "think" (never as in "this"). |