Kail (Traditional)
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Overview
Kail is the most popular language of the Th'ega Federation, with Prochae coming second. Current estimates suggest that 99.8% of all Th'ega speak Kail as their first language, with the remaining 0.2% speaking Prochae. Kail is different from terrestrial languages in that it seems to be genetically hardwired into Th'ega, rather than being a mix of different languages like English or Esperanto. Some suggest that basic natural nouns like "dirt" or "rock" are actually embedded in the Th'ega's genes, while more modern and technological words like "city" or "metal" likely developed on their own. Complex rules, sentence structures etc also developed with these more modern words.
History
Th'ega scientists believe that Kail originated in semi-intelligent beings on early Kavla, similar to early mammals on Earth. It is theorised that animals began to associate certain objects with particular sounds, which lead to the creation of the language. Strangely enough, all species with this ability save for "recent" Th'ega ancestors went extinct. This is now referred to as the "Great Extinction" or "Kavla'ani Ochria" (literally translates as "Kavla'an's Wrath"). With the Th'ega being the only species who could speak the language remaining, it began to evolve rapidly. As the Th'ega progressed technologically, new words were created. The reason Kail seems to have so few dialects or offshoots is because at the time of all this growth and evolution, almost all Th'ega lived in a ring around the equator of Kavla. Communication between settlements was frequent and normally face-to-face due to the tightly-packed nature of this ring.
After this growth plateaued, Kail remained relatively unchanged up until around 175,000 CE. At this point, a mass migration had begun. Many isolated Th'ega settlements near the poles of Kavla began re-integrating into society. The migrants brought many new technologies to the equatorial settlements as well as a plethora of new words. Since then, Kail has been changing incredibly slowly, as is the norm with most things originating from Kavla.
Basics of Kail
Taken from the Federation's native cluster's bestselling book, Kail in a Nutshell by Dr. Iasonas Georgiou and Ith'ae Orikan.
Chapter One: Basic Rules
Kail often confuses English-speaking people as it frequently makes use of an apostrophe followed by an ending like "ae" or "an". They are, in fact, quite simple. For example, female names in Kail will almost always end in " 'ae " while male names will most likely end in " 'en ". Some other common rules include:
- The ending " 'an " can be translated as "God of" followed by the word the ending was attached to. For example, "Arenis'an" translates as "God of the Cosmos"
- The ending " 'en " can be translated as the title Mr or Sir, but the word "Annhei" is commonly used for this purpose. Similarly, the " 'ae " in female names can be translated as Miss or Mrs, though "Annkre" is morely frequently used.
- " 'ion " is often mis-translated as "City of", but actually has no literal meaning. It is solely used to denote that someone is referring to a city.
- Word order matters in Kail. Like English, a typical Kail sentence will have the subject first, the verb and then the object. However, descriptive words (e.g. adverbs) come after the thing/action they are describing. A demonstration of this can be found below.
Take Vell'ae Ikrael's famous quote as an example of the word order rule.
"Ikum Kavla'an! Endro'i ektas proficilus kran'ae aktam!"
The most common English translation of this is "My God! The city looks like something out of a horror film!". Breaking down the sentence, the rule becomes clear. "Endro'i ektas proficilus" is the easiest part, literally translating as "The city looks (like)". An easy way to remember "proficilus" would be to associate it with the word "profile", as their meanings are somewhat similar. "kran'ae aktam!" is normally the part people get wrong, as they think "kran'ae" translates as "horror" as in "horror film". Actually, "aktam" is the Kail word for "horror" in that context, with "kran'ae" being the word for "film". So now we can literally translate the last sentence of Ikrael's quote as
"The city looks like (something) from a film horror"
Chapter Two: Common Words and Phrases
If you're planning a trip to Raelka or Kavla, be prepared to get blank looks when you speak Xeno or English. Almost all Th'ega do not speak any of the popular languages of their intergalactic neighbours, save for a few. While this may not be the case after 200,002 CE (article about coming soon!), you'll just have to learn Kail. If you're learning any language, it's always useful to know some common words and phrases. Below are two tables with common words/phrases and their closest English translations.
| Word | English Translation | English Translation (Literal) |
|---|---|---|
| Critaqua | Hello | Good to see you |
| Krikae | Hi | Hi |
| Pritaqua | Bye | Goodbye |
| Trikae | See you | We will meet again soon |
| Yuets-Laha | Thank you | Thank you |
| Ganz-Laha | You're welcome / No problem | You're welcome |
| Projha | Great / Good | Great |
| Crojha | Bad / Not good | Not great |
| Igranui | Sad / Upset | Sad / Upset |
| Krasya-Crojha | Ill / Sick / Unwell | Bad health |