Malkahar

You decide to stay the night in Alkahar, as braving the freezing-cold desert at night has left you with a chill. Your group is spending the night at a local tavern that rents out rooms for the night. You’ve gotten your things settled in your chambers, and you’re planning on having a strong drink then going you bed.
You go downstairs, and you see a small group of people chatting amicably. They all wear the rough cloth headdresses common to farmers. Each has a drink in front of them, that harsh red liquor they call ankhanam. Their eyes follow you as you come down the stairs; you get the sense that foreigners aren’t very common out here in the desert.
You decide to grab a drink, as you know barely enough of the Kaharian tongue to do that. After a short amount of pointing and after becoming a silver coin poorer, you sit down in the corner of the bar. Your eyes travel to the group of farmers as they chat in that harsh tongue.
It’s much too fast to follow, and eventually you give up. You’re just about to finish your drink and head back upstairs when one of the them breaks away from the group. He walks right up to your table, and you immediately place your hand on the pommel of your blade.
"No harm." he says, his accent pleasant despite the language it usually spoke. "We are travelling to the desert for a hunt on the morrow. You wish to join?" He clearly has some trouble with Common but you find yourself nodding along. You return to your room; now you have an appointment to keep.

Writing System

The Kaharians use the Common alphabet, with modifications to include the harsh "lkh" sound and the incredibly common vowel "ai".

Morphology

Malkahar nouns can have one of eight different cases (nominative, accusative, dative, genitive, possessed objects, ablative, locative, comitative and instrumental) and one of two genders (masculine or feminine). Adjectives also loosely follow this pattern.
Verbs are constructed from four parts: the stem or root, a subject marker, a time marker and then an aspect marker. Stems are almost always regular, and there is very little variation of the markers (past tenses always have -te- as a time marker, for instance).

Syntax

OSV is the standard order for most sentences in Malkahar, but questions take a SVQO (Q being the question word) and pronouns find their way to the S area regardless of their grammatical case.

Vocabulary

Malkahar vocabulary is all original, with only a few borrowed words for things Kaharians wouldn't regularly come into contact with.

Phonetics

The language is composed of 14 vowels and 28 vowels, with the "lkh" sound being unique to the language.

Spoken by

• Kaharian

Common Female Names

Ailai, Brei, Buri, Damsi, Flirai, Girai, Kyera, Losar, Misi, Nira, Pnepoi, Reza, Sziri, Tiksil, Yarezi.

Common Male Names

Amram, Brona, Ditra, Gora, Isola, Jako, Khalka, Kuza, Mesa, Ptro, Relkha, Testa, Visha, Yorun, Zotash.

Geographic Distribution

Malkahar is spoken by the Kaharian tepilar native to the Khanate of Kahari.

Common Idioms and Expressions

X as the horse rides. ~ For describing straight line distances.

Kinder than a hoof to the face. ~ Not kind at all.

Wilder than a dust devil. ~ Incredibly wild.

Is that your dream and wish? ~ Used sarcastically to deride someone's opinion.

Prettier than the best of the horses. ~ The most beautiful person you've ever met.

Art Credit: emperorcharlesii (me!)