Kail (Traditional)

Overview

The traditional variant of Kail, commonly just referred to as "Kail", is one of the four official languages of the small Th'ega Federation. As a member of the Kallic Group, Kail is very closely related to Zheiona-Kallic and Prochae (although Prochae uses a different script). Historically slow in its evolution, the language is currently experiencing rapid growth thanks to the Th'ega's contact with other nations and languages. Similar to some ancient terrestrial languages, such as Cantonese or Thai, traditional Kail uses tones in its spoken form. There are 7 distinct official tones, with a further 2 unofficial ones that are common amongst the older generations of Th'ega. Each tone is used to denote a tense, with each of the official 7 tones being matched with a tense each and the unofficial tones are used to denote archaic tenses that have since split into new ones in modern Kail.

History

Template:Language Infobox V2The current leading theory regarding Kail's origin suggests it came from a member of the Erdoki language family (some compatible theories also suggest this elusive member was Uzhedo, though their evidence and sources are weak at best). As Th'ega technology advanced, Kail began to shift away from its Erdoki roots. As of 200,000 CE, only about 6% of Traditional Kail's vocabulary is directly derived from the Erdoki family.

In 146,400 CE, Kail (still yet to be split into simplified and traditional versions) began standardising its written and spoken forms. Around this time, both the extant and extinct members of the Kallic Group began to emerge. Zheiona-Kallic in particular arose in a cluster of conservative settlements that refused to follow the new standardised rules and to use new, modernised vocabulary. Just a few hundred years after Zheina-Kallic formed, Prochae began to emerge in the highly-religious urban "belt" along Kavla's equator.

After the standardisation began to slow and, eventually, stop, Kail remained somewhat unchanged until first contact was made with humans in the Viana Cluster. In 198,379 CE, the same year as the Th'ega Federation's formation, Kail was split into traditional and simplified variants. The traditional version still remains dominant, but almost all Th'ega speak simplified as their second language. Designed by a collection of linguistic scholars (both experts of Kail and alien languages), Simplified Kail removes a lot of the more complex features of Traditional Kail, with the intention of allowing more non-natives to be able to communicate with Th'ega more easily. For example, Simplified Kail removes all but 3 tenses, leaving just the bare-necessities of the perfect, present and future tenses being represented