Khurbyish Lesson #1 -- Letters, sounds, and some other basic stuff

As some of you may already know, "Khurbyish" (pronounced kurb-yish, only two syllables) is the name of the primary language of the planet Nummorro, spoken and written by the Numnums, K'hyurbhis, Blurbys, and the majority of other intelligent species who share the planet with them (though some of those other species do still speak their original languages as well.)

Modern-day Khurbyish is actually a combination of two older languages which are no longer in use -- the Nummian language spoken by Numnums in the distant past, and Ancient Khurbyish, which was the original language of the K'hyurbhis and was also spoken by some Blurbys.  Though some bits of Ancient Khurbyish (and words derived from that long-dead language) can still be found in the modern version, the Nummian language's largest surviving contribution seems to be its alphabet, which the current Khurbyish alphabet is closely based on... though some Numnum names and the names of places in Numnum-populated areas still include occasional elements of Nummian, often blended with modern Khurbyish (the most notable example being the continent of Ummiboro, which essentially means something along the lines of "Numnum Lands." The name is derived from one of several old Nummian words that referred to Numnums, combined with the standard Khurbyish word "boro" meaning place, town, land, etc.)

Since its development many, many thousands of years ago, the Khurbyish language has spread far from its planet of origin.  It has basically become a universal language among species capable of Num Warp travel throughout the entire First Nherbi, spoken on worlds as close as Nummorro's neighbors Brijetoo and Bifiboro and as far away as Kekyb and Zwoobah.  As a result of this widespread usage, various dialects of Khurbyish have sprung up, perhaps the most unusual being the "Brijuo-Khurbyish" used by the Burijeoo (which discards the standard Khurbyish alphabet, replacing it with that of the Brijuo language which Khurbyish replaced, and mixes fragments of Brijuo itself in with standard Khurbyish to create a new form of the language that some speakers of standard Khurbyish find difficult to understand at times.)  Khurbyish has even been adopted by the internherbi Council of Iklai based in the 40th Nherbi as a sort of "language of diplomacy," ensuring that its members (who come from a variety of alien species from all over) have a common language between them.

Vowels

Like many languages (but unlike English), pronunciation in Khurbyish follows very consistent rules; vowels in particular are always pronounced the same, regardless of what combination of letters they are surrounded by.

The following is a table of the vowel sounds present in Khurbyish and the symbols which represent them (as the image is pretty large, it's been shrunk down automatically by the site and may not be super readable; you may want to click on it to see the full-size version.)

The right column of vowels are pronounced exactly like their equivalents on the left column, but with a Y sound preceding them (for example, the letter matching the pronunciation "yay" sounds pretty much exactly like the English exclamation "yay!" does.)  The "consonant Y" sound does not have its own letter in Khurbyish, existing only in the form of these secondary vowels.

One exception to the usual rule of pronouncing Khurbyish vowels exists with "oo."  This sound can be combined with one of the other primary vowel sounds (those in the left column) in order to create a W sound -- for example, in the Khurbyish word "wa" (meaning sword or blade, and written as "OO - AH.")  A more complicated example is the name "Poowuku" (which would be spelled in Khurbyish as "P - OO - OO - OO - K - OO"), where the second and third instances of "oo" combine into "woo" instead of being pronounced separately; it's impossible to have "woo" followed by "oo" in standard Khurbyish, as a string of three "oo" will always have the second and third become "woo" while the first stays as "oo."  The only way to represent such a word in Khurbyish would be to separate it into two words by using a small dash between them (a symbol which is usually used to separate two parts of a place's name, or someone's first name from any surnames.)  To turn "Poowuku" into "Pwu'ooku," you would need to place this dash  between the second and third "oo."

Another quirk of Khurbyish is that in writing, certain vowels followed by R are sometimes dropped.  This is the case with combinations of "UH - R" and "IH - R," which are both pronounced approximately the same (like "er" in English) and are generally written as just an R by itself, especially when positioned in such a way that the pronunciation as "er" is clear.  For example, "Blurby" is written as "B - L - R - B - EE" in Khurbyish, as the only possible pronunciation of an R sandwiched between two other consonants would be "er."  "YUH - R" and "YIH - R" are also pronounced the same ("yer"), but in the case of those combinations the vowel stays in place, as otherwise there would be no indication that the Y sound is supposed to precede the "er."

Consonants

As with the vowels, Khurbyish consonants have consistent pronunciations regardless of what other letters they are used in combination with (with one exception, which will be explained in more detail after the chart.)

Here's a table of the Khurbyish consonant sounds and the symbols used to represent them.

The pronunciations of most of these should be self-explanatory.  Khurbyish G is a "hard G" as in "guy" or "gross," though you probably could have guessed that considering that the J sound already has its own letter.  "ZH" is a bit of an unusual one, and its pronunciation is somewhat harder to explain than the others.  The closest equivalent I can find in a common English word is in "vision," where the "si" combination makes a very different sound from a standard English S but not quite a standard English Z, either.

The lone exception to the "every consonant in Khurbyish has one pronunciation" rule mentioned above is F, which is sometimes pronounced as a V sound instead.  Though some obscure Khurbyish dialects replace many F sounds with V sounds (and still others never use V, pronouncing F as F no matter what other sounds it is combined with), standard Khurbyish pronunciation uses the V sound only in the case of "F - EH," "F - AY," and "F - OO" combinations.  A common example of this change in pronunciation can be found in "veryeh" (F - EH - R - YEH), the Khurbyish word for bread.

Pluralizing, possessives, and adjectives

Making Khurbyish plurals is pretty easy when compared to a language like English which is riddled with a chaotic jumble of inconsistent plural forms (due primarily to borrowing from so many other languages.)  To make a word plural, you simply add "N" (if it ends in a vowel) or "EH - N" (if it ends in a consonant) to the end of that word.  For example, the Khurbyish plural of Blurby would be "Blurbyn" (B - L - R - B - EE - N), and the plural of Numnum would be "Numnumen" (N - UH - M - N - UH - M - EH - N.)

Creating possessive forms of a word or name works in a similar way.  To create a possessive form of a word that ends in a vowel or most consonants, you add Z to the end.  For example, the Khurbyish word for a paternal aunt or uncle is "yikiztiso" (YIH - K - EE - Z - T - EE - S - OH), literally meaning "father's brother or sister."  Words ending in Z, S, J, CH, SH, or ZH are a bit different, and to make a possessive form of them you add "EH - Z" to the end, similarly to how plurals of words ending in a consonant work.

A third way to make new words by adding a single letter or sound is to "adjective-ize" a word.  To do so, simply add "R" to the end of the word.  Though some Khurbyish adjectives exist as independent words from nouns with a similar meaning, many of them are created in this way -- examples include words like "narr" (snowy, derived from "na" meaning snow), "kukar" (insectoid or "buggy," derived from "kuka" which is a term for hard-shelled invertebrates), and even the name "Nummer" (which literally translates to "Numnum-like," albeit using the shortened "Num" rather than the full "Numnum.")