Pronouns in Kenybek

Pronouns in Kenybek are very similar to those in English, there are two types (normal and target) and an even simpler way to form possessives than in English. A quick example of word order in Kenybek is the translation of "I Speak English", "Jé parlà Ingliçin". "Jé" is "I", "parlà" is "to speak" in the present tense and "Ingliçin" is "English" as a target. So, lets break these down with a list of the normal class of pronouns:

• 1st Singular, I: Jé
• 2nd Singular, You: Tu
• 3rd Singular, He/She/It: Il
• 1st Plural, We: Nou
• 2nd Plural, Y'all/You all: Vu
• 3rd Plural, They: Vé

Now, explaining a class system to native English speakers is always a bit difficult. The different between the words "I" and "Me", "I" is the normal class and "me" is the target, as it's on the receiving end of the verb. All nouns in Kenybek are inflected for the normal/target classes, and pronouns are as well. Here is a list of the target pronouns:

• 1st Singular, Me: Mi
• 2nd Singular, You: Té
• 3rd Singular, He/She/It: Ile
• 1st Plural, We: Noun
• 2nd Plural, Y'all/You all: Vun
• 3rd Plural, They: Vén

The final topic of this post is possessives, and unlike English, they only take one form. In English you have both "my" and "mine", "your" and "yours", but in Kenybek we only have to place "à jé/tu/il/nou/vu/vé". So, "My friend" is "Amic à jé", "Your food" is "Kom à tu".

The Kenybek Alphabet

One of the most crucial pieces to any language is it's alphabet, and the Kenybek alphabet is extremely simple, and 100% phonetic all of the time as to make learning it a bit easier. The alphabet itself is:

aàbcçdeéfghijklmnoprstuùvyz

AÀBCÇDEÉFGHIJKLMNOPRSTUÙVYZ

Pronunciation of consonants:

b, d, f, g, h, k, l, m, ng, p, s, t and v are the same as in English.

• j: s in "pleasure"
• c: Hard, the same sound as k.
• gn/ñ: As in spanish niño. It has two forms of writing because many people cannot type ñ.
• r: Can be any way, preferably soft as in most british and french accents. (Car becomes cah, etc).
• ç/cc: The equivalent of an English ch, such as in "choose".
• ch: The equivalent of an English sh, such as in "shoes".
• dj: The equivalent of an English j, such as in "jam".

Pronunciation of vowels:

• à: a as in Anna, or an.
• a: ah, as in apple.
• e: eh, as in egg. Final -e is pronounced as "uh".
• i: ee, as in irrigation.
• o: oh, as in open.
• ù: the word "uh".
• y: ih, as the i in in.
• u: oo, as the oo in cool.
• é: ay, as in day.
• oe: u as in put.
• ae: ie, as in die.
• ou: ow, as in cow.

In addition to these, you will occasionally see an apostrophe in the typical speech, and that just means that two words were put together. "I am" in Kenybek is "Jé està", and the rule will be described later, but it is written and pronounced as "J'està", pronounced like "Zhehstaw".

Some example pronunciations, as phonetic as I can make them:

1. J'amarà le parl du Bathe: Jah-mah-raw leh pahrl doo bah-thuh.
2. Soem elen chàtà mésin en le vil: Suhm ehl-ehn shah-taw ihn leh vihl.

The Kenybek Language And It's Roots.

This is just an introductory post to the blog that is being created to document the constructed Kenybek language of Bath, Maine. Kenybek was made one late 2014 February-March night in Bath, and named after the river that the city runs off of. It is designed to be simple, easy to teach and have familiar influences of French, German and Esperanto. It has just been created and is undergoing a constant phase of evolution, so bear with me as I constantly change this language. Until more posts are made, Adiou!