Konwe Language

**Konwe** (*Konwe-nehun*) is a language spoken by the Konwe People, who primarily reside in the south of the state of Hirota, in the Yokoze Confederation. It is not a member of any major language family, but has been grouped with languages such as Ankikan, Shingōan, and Tsukimotoan due to some similarities in grammar and vocabulary. Konwe is recognized as an official minority language in Yokoze and the language can be found on public and private signage in southern Hirota.

The Konwe language has its own unique writing system, which is a syllabic (moraic) script that contains 58 charaters. The script of the Traveler's Tongue is also occasionally used to write in the Konwe language.

## Phonology

### Vowels

 Mid
 Open

All Konwe vowels are pure – that is, there are no diphthongs, only monophthongs. Konwe has five vowels, and vowel length is phonemic, with each having both a short and a long version. Elongated vowels are usually denoted with a repeated vowel character.

### Consonants

Some Konwe consonants have several allophones, which may give the impression of a larger inventory of sounds. However, some of these allophones have since become phonemic.

The syllable structure of Konwe is (C)(G)V(C), that is, a core vowel surrounded by an optional onset consonant or a glide /j/.

Konwe includes a pitch accent, which is not represented in syllabic writing; for example [tuꜜ.ʂa] ("desert") and [tu.ʂaꜜ] ("opaque") are both spelled (*tusha*), and are only differentiated by the tone contour.

## Grammar

### Sentence structure

Konwe word order is subject–object–verb. The only strict rule of word order is that the verb must be placed at the end of a sentence (possibly followed by sentence-end particles). This is because Konwe sentence elements are marked with particles that identify their grammatical functions.

The basic sentence structure is topic–comment. For example, *Nako ya Yemon-ku pisi*. *Nako* ("this") is the topic of the sentence, indicated by the particle *ya*. The verb *pisi* is a copula, commonly translated as "to be" or "it is" (though there are other verbs that can be translated as "to be"), however, this word may be omitted in less formal cases and the sentence will still be grammatically correct. As a phrase, *Yemon-ku pisi* is the comment. This sentence literally translates to "As for this, (it) is Mr./Ms. Yemon." Thus, similarly to Shingōan, Konwe is often called a topic-prominent language, which means it has a strong tendency to indicate the topic separately from the subject, and that the two do not always coincide. The sentence *Wopo ya sutmun ko umoa* literally means, "As for wolves/wolf, (the) fur (is) thick". The topic is *Wopo* "wolf", and the subject is *sutmun* "fur".

In Konwe, the subject or object of a sentence does not need to be stated if it is obvious from context. Konwe speakers, therefore, tend to omit pronouns on the theory they are inferred from the previous sentence, and are therefore understood. In the context of the above example, *sutmun-ko umoa* would mean "[their] fur is thick," while *umoa* by itself would mean "[it] is thick." A single verb can be a complete sentence: *Makash*! "[I / we / they / etc] did [it]!" or "hurray!". In addition, since adjectives can form the predicate in a Konwe sentence, a single adjective can be a complete sentence: *Ekap'a* "[It's] amazing!".