Ilothwii

**Ilothwii** is a language spoken by the people of the Nhlogqwa Islands.

## Real-World Information

Biblaridion began work on the first version of Ilothwii in November 2014. The original project was scrapped soon after, having "very quickly degenerated into complete trash". Ilothwii was inspired by the mythos of H.P. Lovecraft (in fact, its working title was "Lovecraftian"), and contains several Lovecraft Easter eggs. For example, the word for "he/she/it is eating" is "kthuulu", a reference to Cthulhu, one of the more famous Lovecraftian entities. This inspiration is even present in the culture of the Nhlogqwa Islanders who speak it, with their religion being tied to interpreting and mastering dreams, similar to the Lovecraft novel that introduced the titular character "The Call of Cthulhu" wherein characters receive dreams that drive them to insanity and join a cult to bring about Cthulhu's awakening.

The current version of Ilothwii is Biblaridion's sixth attempt, and while he considers Ilothwii nowhere near finished, it is his second favorite conlang as of today.

## Summary

Ilothwii is the language spoken by the inhabitants of the Nhlogqwa archipelago, one of the closest areas to the Night Lands occupied by human civilization, as well as a few port cities in Thirēa. It is unclear whether Ilothwii is a highly divergent Thirēan language or an isolate, although Biblaridion has deemed the latter as more likely. Ilothwii's unusual phonology and grammar, combined with the remoteness of the Nhlogqwa Islands, have given it a reputation of strangeness and mystery.

While a proto-form of Ilothwii is known to exist, the language has changed very little across its history, owing to its isolation and relatively small population of speakers (Ilothwii never been spoken by more than a few thousand speakers at any point in time).

## Example Text

Here is the example shown in the showcase video:

*Withohlqorthaa' mghouhlqa 'ikhthaluugha Nggaachta 'isluthuli'uughathwa, qëndu 'ihlëgqrhla'iiga' raakhli'wa' nchëghwaaja' Nhlogqwachkhwiiga' hlëhltaga' ithokshanghoongga' ghëëlithyuhlqaji'. Thuulwa' thi' uhlquugha 'iithuhlqajikthaanyi'aa tuchtlu thyukhthalwa' uthkrachhla''iiaa' thi' uyëtlqaalaa'ga' moghluji'thwa ma'gungga' ilothwiichkhwiiga' Ithunji. Ngaa' nggwahlmangaa' uhlqulthu, uhlunggra ja'iiqthwii ghaanmangkoonggquga' hlëkrajga' ilghaashwii 'intlothwii'ii ngthndaa'.*

Gloss: INDEF-Water.INSTR.CLS-INTENS-Split-AND-INV Sun-land 3.POSS-city-AUG Nekāchta 3.POSS-house-AUG-away.from World 3.POSS-Split-SUPL-REL edge-GEN.LOC Wall-Dark-next.to Nhlogqwa-call-PASS-REL INTENS-lack-REL Water.INSTR.CLS-Fire.DIR.CLS.-go-ASSOC-REL DIV-Water.LOC.CLS-land-LOC.COP. Here-GEN.LOC and land-AUG 3.POSS-Water.LOC.CLS-land-LOC.COP-AND-along few sea-city-GEN.LOC INDEF-Speak-Old-SUPL-INV INDEF-count-NEG.ABIL-INV-REL thousand-pass-from NEG-change-REL Ilothwii-call-PASS live-CONT. Although 3'-IRR-MIND.INSTR.CLS-lose-INV land-live God-ABSTR magic time-lose-ASSOC-DIS-REL INTENS-old-REL Word.CLS-hide-PASS 3.POSS-good-speak-PASS-COP 3'-know-CONT-INV.

Translation: "Far across the sea from great cities of the lands of the sun and the palaces of Nekāchta, at the furthest edge of the world before the curtain of shadow lies the desolate volcanic archipelago of Nhlogqwa. It is here, and in a select few port cities along the coast of the mainland. that Illothwii, the oldest of all tongues, still clings to existence, unchanged even after untold millennia. Though it has largely been forgotten by the mainlanders, it is still hailed as a language of ancient mystery, associated with mysticism, the occult, and antiquity."

## Phonology

Listed below is the consonant and vowel inventories for Ilothwii: characters in parentheses represent the romanization used.

Vowels
 Mid
 Low

Old Ilothwii was confirmed by Biblaridion to have had [tʰ], which became the voiceless dental fricative, which could make it likely that [kʰ] was also a phoneme. The language also had [e], which could prove that it had the classic five vowel system with length distinction, those five vowels shifting to Ilothwii's current vowel inventory,

### Phonotactics

The max syllable structure is STCLVLCT/AF.

* S= th, hl, kh, gh, s, sh, ch, j
* T= t, d, k, g, q, gq, th, hl, tl, kh, gh, s, sh, ch, j
* C=m, n, ng, t, d, k, g, q, gq, ', th, hl, tl, kh, gh, s, sh, ch, j, l, w, y, r
* L= l, r, w, y
* V= a, aa, ë, ëë, i, ii, o, oo, u, uu, m, n, ng, r, l
* A= a, aa, i, ii, u, uu
* F= n, ng, l, hl, kh, ', w, y

Words cannot end in clusters.

## Writing System

   Ilothwii is written using a modified form of the Nekāchti super-alphasyllabary, although it was much slower to adopt the Nekāchti system than other languages. This was largely due to its divergent phonology and more complex syllable structure, which was remedied by introducing additional characters and diacritics.

Modern Ilothwii writing has a far more angular aesthetic than Nekāchti, with the onset and coda characters remaining distinct from one another.

### Possible Early Writing

Archeological findings suggest that Ilothwii may have once had its own writing system, although it fell out of use over a millennia prior to the founding of the Empire of the Sun. It is uncertain whether this was even a true writing system or merely pictographs.

## Grammar

Ilothwii is a polysynthetic language, with many sentences consisting of a single, highly affixed verb complex: for example, the word *"qthlgujwaaksho'uhlëkchusiiglwaa"*, translated as "regrettably, you are about to overcook our seal meat", contains 12 morphemes. While flexible in word-order, Ilothwii is predominantly head-final.

### Nouns

Nouns take no marking beyond agreeing with their possessor in person and number. Many nouns are zero-derived from verbs: for instance, the word *ilothwii* itself translates literally as "to be spoken using words". Verbs in the 3rd-person habitual form (typically suffixed with "-ji") can be used as an agent noun, while a verb suffixed with the mediopassive participle can be seen as an patient or abstract noun. When suffixed with the copula, nouns can be used as verbs and conjugated accordingly.

### Verbs

All verbs are divided into three lexical classes: momentaneous (verbs that occur at a single point in time), durative (verbs that occur over a limited but indefinite amount of time), and stative (verbs that describe states of being). These verbs interact with five primary verbal modes (perfective, imperfective, habitual, future, and irrealis), and the meaning of each mode depends on the class of verb they're applied to. When combined with other aspectual affixes, they create a wide array of moods, aspects and meaning.

 **2nd** | th(a)-
 **Indefinite** | u/w-

Ilothwii makes heavy use of noun incorporation. While this is often used to background a verb's arguments, there are also a collection of prefixes which can be used to classify one or more of the arguments, specify the means the verb has been done with, the location/direction of the verb, or the manner in which the verb has been accomplished. These prefixes are mandatory in some verbs (such as *\*thra* "to give") , and they provide valency-changing when applied. These prefixes can be broken down into up to three forms: Direct (applies to the direct object of transitive verbs and the subject of intransitive verbs), Instrumental (indicates the means by which the action is carried out), and Locative (indicates the location of the verb). However, verbs of motion take the location or destination of motion as the direct object, they generally use the Direct classifiers rather than Locative.

## Lexicon

### Nouns

* 'ujwaa: seal
* ghëëlithyuhlqaji': archipelago
* hlquu: snow
* iishli': song
* ithiichëqunji: iceberg
* ithinkthuuji: giant armor fish (lit. "it customarily eats people in the water")
* ithokshang: lava (lit. "fire that moves like water")
* ithraaji: mythical sea creature (lit. "it water-lurks")
* ithlthu: sea creature (lit. "it lives in the water")
* ja'iiqthwii: magic
* jukh: hand
* kougu: creodont
* kshangi'wii: ash, cinder, embers (lit. "it is created by fire")
* lu'u: fish
* Nggaachta: Nekāchta
* ngu'i: rock
* nihl: person
* rii'a: woman
* rjingi'oji: spider (lit. "it customarily creates threads")
* qëndu: world
* qukthuuji: carnivore, predator (lit. "it customarily eats flesh")
* thyu: sea
* tla'i: stone
* uthmgqaji: teacher (lit. "it habitually causes knowing")

### Verbs

#### Momentaneous

* chihl: to hear, take notice
* mu'gqa: to put to sleep (causative form of mu')
* thaj: to fall
* thra: to give
* thung(gq): to die
* tlwi: to punch

#### Durative

* goj: to search for
* mu': to sleep
* otha: to speak, talk

#### Stative

* ghwaa: to be dark
* thl(i): to be cold
* rgho: to be big

#### Uncertain

* dokh (likely momentaneous): to choose, decide
* dra (likely durative): to hunt
* thm (likely stative): to know

#### Affixes

* -gqa: causative
* -ngkh: inceptive
* -(a)j(a): terminative
* nu'-: iterative
* ghëël-: diversative
* y(a)-: reversionary
* lgw(i)-: prospective
* -'ikh: experiential
* -ndë: continuative
* r(ë)-: irresultative

### Other

* chë'a': still, even
* ngaa': although
* thi': and
* tuchtlu: few