Kēlen (pronounced �ke:.len is a

constructed language A constructed language (sometimes called a conlang) is a language whose phonology, grammar, and vocabulary, instead of having developed naturally, are consciously devised for some purpose, which may include being devised for a work of fiction. ...

created by Sylvia Sotomayor in 1998. The language is designed to be a truly ''alien'' language by violating a key linguistic universal — namely that all human languages have verbs. In Kēlen, relationships between noun phrases making up the sentence are expressed by one of four ''relationals''. According to Sotomayor, these relationals perform the functions of verbs but lack any of the semantic content. However, the semantic content found in common verbs, such as those that are

semantic primes Semantic primes or semantic primitives are a set of semantic concepts that are argued to be innately understood by all people but impossible to express in simpler terms. They represent words or phrases that are learned through practice but cannot ...

, can also be found in Kēlen's relationals, which calls into question whether Kēlen is technically verbless. Despite its distinctive grammar, Kēlen is an expressive and intelligible language; Texts written in Kēlen have been translated into other languages by several people other than the creator of the language. In an interview, Sotomayor stated that she aimed for Kēlen to be naturalistic apart from its verblessness, and that to achieve this she employs the principle "change one thing and keep everything else the same".

Background and history

In its concultural setting, Kēlen is spoken by an alien species called the Kēleñi, for whom the language was created. Kēlen has gained recognition and acclaim within the conlanging community. It is mentioned prominently by Sarah L. Higley in her book '' Hildegard of Bingen's Unknown Language: An edition, translation and discussion'' (Palgrave Macmillan 2007), ''The New Middle Ages'' , ) where she discusses Lingua Ignota in the context of constructed languages up to the present day. Higley describes Kēlen as an example of the desire for originality in contemporary conlanging, by virtue of its verbless grammar, and notes that it is a prominent example of a conlang created by a woman. She also says that "fellow conlangers consider Kēlen to be efficient, elegant, strange and innovative, and its writing system is greatly admired." Kēlen is also discussed at length i
this paper
by M. Yu. Sidorova and O.N. Shuvalova, Several glossed examples are given. At the third Language Creation Conference David J. Peterson awarded the ''Smiley Award'' to Kēlen, describing it as "an

engineered language Engineered languages (often abbreviated to engelangs, or, less commonly, engilangs) are constructed languages devised to test or prove some hypotheses about how languages work or might work. There are at least three subcategories, philosophical ...

with the soul of an

artistic language An artistic language, or artlang, is a constructed language designed for aesthetic and phonetic pleasure. Language can be artistic to the extent that artists use it as a source of creativity in art, poetry, calligraphy or as a metaphor to address ...

". Peterson explains that while its experimental structure is in many ways similar to an engineered language, the amount of linguistic and concultural detail given by Sotomayor (including inflection of the relationals, three different scripts, and information on Kēleñi culture and society such as a calendar and a method of divination) make it a fully-fledged artistic project rather than a simple experiment.

Phonology

Consonants

Sylvia Sotomayor analyses the voiceless alveolar fricative / s/ as a stop, because "it used to be ronouncedlike German /z/ or /ts/. This pronunciation is still found in some dialects." In addition, all

sonorants In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant or resonant is a speech sound that is produced with continuous, non-turbulent airflow in the vocal tract; these are the manners of articulation that are most often voiced in the world's languages. Vowels are ...

, except / ʎ/, can be geminated, as follows: mm / mː/, nn / nː/, ññ / ɲː/, ŋŋ / ŋː/, ll / lː/, rr / rː/.

Vowels

Kēlen has the same five

monophthongs A monophthong ( ; , ) is a pure vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation. The monophthongs can be contrasted with diphthongs, wh ...

as in

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, with the addition of vowel length and diphthongs making it similar to the system found in Hawaiian. Some dialects also use a central short monophthong.

Monophthongs

Diphthongs

Sotomayor specifies that when any two vowels appear next to one another that are not specified as being read as diphthongs, they are instead spoken as two separate vowels.

Syllable Structure

Kēlen uses a (C)V(C)

syllable structure A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological "b ...

Writing systems

The romanization of Kēlen is given in the phonology section next to the phonemes that each Latin character represents. However, Kēlen also features three original writing systems by Sylvia Sotomayor. * Kēlen Writing System - While not given its own name by Sotomayor, the primary writing system of Kēlen is ostensibly an

alphabet An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letter (alphabet), letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character ...

, and bears a superficial resemblance to Devanagari. * Box Script - A variation upon the standard writing system which encloses text within a box. * Ceremonial Interlace Alphabet - An alphabet used for ceremonial purposes where each character is represented by a pattern which crosses over itself, "interlacing." as Sotomayor says, "Letters start in the bottom right hand corner, and continue over - under - over - under (or under - over, etc.) until they end at the top right hand corner."

Grammar

Syntax

The word order of Kēlen depends upon the relational used in a given sentence. However,

adjectives In linguistics, an adjective (abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the mai ...

always come after nouns.

Pronouns

Personal pronouns in Kēlen have singular, dual, paucal, and plural forms, as well as distinctions of clusivity in the first-person. Kēlen features reflexive pronouns, most of which can also be used as so-called "reduced" forms of the ordinary personal pronouns with the exception of the 3rd person inanimate, "ja". When used as reduced pronouns, some are considered more or less polite than others. Le, ri, and ma can all be used as reduced forms of the singular, dual, and paucal of their corresponding full-length personal pronouns. Ma can be freely used in place of any 3rd person pronoun. Using le as a reduced pronoun is considered polite, ri is considered impolite, and ma is "neutral as far as politeness is concerned". There are three

demonstrative pronouns Demonstratives (abbreviated ) are words, such as ''this'' and ''that'', used to indicate which entities are being referred to and to distinguish those entities from others. They are typically deictic; their meaning depending on a particular frame ...

in Kēlen, distinguishing between the proximal, medial, and distal. They can be used as adjectives, and "generally follow the noun they modify, but can immediately precede it. They can also be used to reference a previously mentioned noun. However, in certain contexts, the noun they are assumed to modify is 'place'". The table below outlines potential uses of the demonstrative pronouns.

Indefinite pronouns An indefinite pronoun is a pronoun which does not have a specific familiar referent. Indefinite pronouns are in contrast to definite pronouns. Indefinite pronouns can represent either count nouns or noncount nouns. They often have related forms ...

in Kēlen function similarly to the demonstratives, where they can be used either as modifiers or standalone. Unlike the demonstratives, however, which indefinite is used depends upon number and animacy.

Nouns

Animacy

Kēlen makes extensive use of a system of

animacy Animacy (antonym: inanimacy) is a grammatical and semantic feature, existing in some languages, expressing how sentient or alive the referent of a noun is. Widely expressed, animacy is one of the most elementary principles in languages around th ...

, with a set of mandatory

prefixes A prefix is an affix which is placed before the stem of a word. Adding it to the beginning of one word changes it into another word. For example, when the prefix ''un-'' is added to the word ''happy'', it creates the word ''unhappy''. Particula ...

on all noun stems, the usage of which depends upon the speaker's view of what they are talking about. Sotomayor provides an animacy hierarchy as follows, with 1 being the most likely to be considered animate by any given speaker, and 7 the least: # Kēleñi Kin # Kēleñi Non-Kin # Īrāñi & Humans # Natural Forces, Pets # Animals, Natural Objects # Tools # Everything Else Prefixes are given for animate, inanimate, and possessed nouns. Sotomayor describes the latter as " eferringto those inanimates that are considered to be part of a person, such as body parts."

Number

Kēlen's nouns are suffixed for grammatical number, distinguishing between the singular and the plural. The suffixes used for the singular are dependent upon the ending of the noun stem, and the suffixes for the plural depend upon the animacy.

Relationals

According to Sotomayor, in lieu of verbs Kēlen uses four so-called "Relationals". She describes these on her site with examples of the potential uses of each within the context of larger sentences, with the abbreviation "NP" for " Noun Phrase".

La

La is the relational of existence: "La is used to express a static state, a location, or equivalence." It inflects for tense,

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, and modality.

Ñi

Ñi is the relational of change: "Ñi is used to express a coming into existence, a change in state (when the noun phrase that is the object of ñi has more than one noun in it), or a change in location." Ñi inflects for agent.

Se

Se is the transactional relational, "Se is used to express giving and receiving, with the object given or received as the object of se and the giver as the source and the receiver as the beneficiary. This pattern is extended to encompass speech and information. Se is also used to express sensing and experiencing of mental states." Se inflects for source, beneficiary and tense.

Pa

Pa is the most recent relational in-fiction, "In many ways it expresses the same thing as LA NP pa NP", but indicates a passive meaning. Pa is never inflected.

References

External links

An Introduction to Kēlen

"Verblessness in Kēlen", presented at the 2nd Language Creation Conference
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kelen category:Artistic languages category:Constructed languages category:Constructed languages introduced in the 1990s category:1998 introductions