Katadei Digenei (/kɑ'ta.dɛ di:'gɛ.nɛ/)
The first non-human language to be included in standard dialector programming is Katadei Digenei, spoken by szageki, large reptiles living on the remote island of Kot Petaszi. The name of the language means "thinker speech", reflecting its constructed origin. According to szageki lore, it was developed intentionally for the purpose of efficient record-keeping. Words were abbreviated or truncated such that they required carving no more than three syllabic characters, saving the scribes much time and surface area. Those scribes began using the reduced words in speech with each other as a convenience. Hunters took up the habit, and the groups that migrated into the sand fields spoke it exclusively. Today "thinker speech" is the dominant language among szageki, with only keepers in the canyon colonies continuing to use the language it came from.
Writing System
Katadei Digenei writing uses a syllabic script made of straight or gently curved lines. Each word is written vertically, but the overall text is written in reversing lines, though without reversing characters.
For most of szageki written history, the symbols were carved into sandstone. With the development of ash-based inks, scribes often carved the most commonly used symbols into smaller pieces of sandstone and used those as stamps. More complex stamps had sections that could be raised or lowered to print more than one character. Rockwriters made mostly of bone were developed in the desert-based tribes, where there is not as much sandstone available.
Geographical Distribution
Aside from its presence in dialectors, Katadei Digenei is unknown to humans. Szageki require an arid environment for long-term survival, so it is highly unlikely the language will ever be commonly heard anywhere outside of the Neszekotalo Basin of Kot Petaszi.
Phonology
A syllable consists of a vowel or a consonant and vowel pair or, as sometimes seen at the end of a word, a single consonant. Consecutive consonants and consecutive vowels do not appear except occasionally in compound generational names. Stress is placed on the second-to-last syllable.
Morphology
Words in Katadei Digenei are not inflected. Compound words are not used except in the case of tribal generation names, where numbers are affixed to both sides of the tribe leader's name. In more recent times, some new words have been created by combining the first syllables of a longer phrase, such as anarisza, "writing" from anaki rirej szadarei, "rock-marking". Another example is the Katadei Digenei word for "human", agoteszi, from agor tor eszi, "tail-supported walking". These are the only words that violate the three-character rule, with some being four or even five characters long.
Vocabulary
Katadei Digenei contains only two categories of words: markers and ways. The category of markers encompasses what can be perceived by the senses, including most of what humans think of as nouns, verbs, and adjectives. If the essence of the concept remains the same regardless of its position or orientation, then it is a marker. Ways describe the relationships between markers, including relative positions, orientations, numbers, and thoughts or opinions.
Phonetics
The sound inventory of Katadei Digenei is difficult for humans to imitate vocally. Many consonants require szageki cranial anatomy to produce, and the differences between vowel qualities, while critical for discerning meaning, are much subtler than in human languages. For transcription purposes, the following represent the nearest approximations:
- soft tap: d
- hard tap: t
- pop: p
- jaw click: k
- strong hiss: s, sz
- mild hiss: l
- growl: g
- chirr: j
- purr: r
- hum: n
The vowel continuum is represented by a, o, e, and i, in order from the mouth most open to most nearly closed. For clarity, an "e" at the end of a word is written as "ei".
Sentence Structure
Sentences are formed by markers alternating with ways, beginning and ending with markers. The most recently-heard markers in a sentence or phrase are the most important to the meaning. The two sentences totedei jesza szitodei and szitodei jesza totedei both describe the situation of a hunter and keeper szageki standing next to each other. The first sentence is translated as "The hunter is beside a keeper", and the second as "The keeper is beside a hunter," despite the fact that in each one the words for hunter and keeper appear in the opposite order. A more complicated sentence has more potential for nuance. Ditosza aken szadarei doszi kenar and Kenar aken szadarei doszi ditosza both convey the same general information, that a young szageki descended from the rock it had been sitting on. The first sentence emphasizes the motion and location over the person ("Down from the rock came the child"), while the second emphasizes the location and person over the motion ("From the rock the child went down").
The placement of ways within a sentence is primarily dependent on the distribution of markers. The way between the last two markers in a sentence must be one that describes the relationship between them. However, other ways in the sentence do not always have to relate directly to both markers that flank them. In the previous example of Kenar aken szadarei doszi ditosza, the positional doszi applies to the rock and the child, but the intentional aken cannot apply to both the rock and the descent, because neither objects nor movement can have intention. Aken is therefore assumed to apply to the descent and the child without need for any clarification. Had the ways been reversed, the sentence would have been translated as "The child had intentions about the rock it climbed down from."
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