KOOLAŊ
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Word Formation

This page describes the means by which English words are converted into Koolaŋ words. Please note that this page is simply meant to loosely describe the general rationale behind Koolaŋ word formation. It is not a strict or rigorous set of rules to be followed; exceptions are often made to resolve homonyms (such as "nail" and "neil"), or for English words where these rules fall apart (such as "iron"). It is also not an invitation for you to coin new Koolaŋ roots at your own whim; remember that Koolaŋ's vocabulary is deliberately minimized in order to keep the language easy to learn.

Basics

When an English word is converted into a Koolaŋ word, the principle is that vowels are converted based on spelling, whereas consonants are converted based on pronunciation (mostly; exceptions will be described later). The reason for this is that English's spoken vowels are not only excessively numerous, but also vary heavily depending on the dialect. On the other hand, written English is quite standardized and varies little between dialects, and uses only five vowel letters. English's consonant sounds are also relatively uncontentious and managable. Thus, Koolaŋ combines the best of both worlds when creating its vocabulary.

Vowel letters are kept exactly as they are, without alteration. The groups of consonant letters between them are generally converted based on their phonemic pronunciation.

'w' and 'y'

'w' and 'y' are confusing letters which aren't really consonants and also aren't really vowels. Therefore, there are many special rules for dealing with them.

Whenever the letter 'y' is used as a vowel, it is converted into 'i'.

Anytime the letters 'w' or 'y' follow a vowel letter, they are kept exactly as they are.

In any other case, the letters 'w' and 'y' are treated as consonants according to the normal rules.

Silent 'k'

For words starting with the 'kn' cluster such as "know" or "knife", you may except the silent 'k' to vanish in the corresponding Koolaŋ words. However, Koolaŋ actually decides to keep this formerly silent 'k', because it makes words more recognizable and avoids confusion (for instance, "know" would otherwise become "now"). Pronouncing /kn/ isn't as hard as you think, once you get the hang of it. If Esperanto speakers can get used to it, you can too!

Silent 'gh'

Here's a fun fact: the silent 'gh' in words like "night", "weight", and "daughter" is there because it actually used to be pronounced /x/! Furthermore, it used to be written with the letter 'ȝ' instead of the 'gh' digraph. Koolaŋ revives both the letter 'ȝ' and the now-silent /x/ sound it once represented, because once again, it helps make words more recognizable. Also because it's an awesome letter for an awesome sound.

The "Nobody's Happy" Vowel

As mentioned before, the vowels of Koolaŋ words are based on the spellings of English words rather than pronunciation, since written English is far less fragmented than spoken English is. However, even standard written English is not without its points of contention, namely US/UK spelling differences such as "color/colour", "gray/grey", or "aluminum/aluminium". To pick one spelling over the other would imply that Koolaŋ percieves that spelling as being more "correct" than the other, which contradicts Koolaŋ's goal of working for all English speakers regardless of dialect/region.

To solve this, Koolaŋ replaces these contentious vowel sequences with the letter 'œ', so that nobody's happy! This is the reason 'œ' is also called The "Nobody's Happy" Vowel.

Words ending in 's'

When 's' is at the end of a word, it is always translated as 's' in the corresponding Koolaŋ word, even if it's actually pronounced /z/. This is a rather arbitrary rule which exists mostly for aesthetic purposes, mainly to justify "is" staying as "is" instead of becoming "iz" because I think it looks way nicer.