Koxori language

Standard Koxori (Kokhorü /koˈxory/, [kʰɔˈχɔɾʏ̈], Kokhorü inše) is a Southern Alapetek language of the Koxoric branch. It is the official and national language of Koxor, as well as its crown dependency Ikhatia. It is most closely related to other Southern Alapetek languages such as Ghazvan and Hethalan, and also to the Eriya, Nyvonic and Daunic languages.

Vowels
Koxori also has, 7 phonemic diphthongs. However, /ey̯/ is usually pronounced merged with /ei̯/, and /i̯e/ as [ʲɪ]. For example, the verb liej "live" is conventionally transcribed as /li̯ej/ but generally actually pronounced [lʲɪç]. In less formal registers, however, these vowels weaken in certain conditions. In unstressed syllables, most of the vowels lower (except /ɑ/ → /ə/), and the back unrounded vowels are almost always pronounced more centralised:

Vowel harmony
In compounding and affixation, Koxori vowels must match with the harmonic value of the other vowels in the word. While the harmony system is complicated and often unpredictable, there are two general patterns: i-umlaut (where vowels are shifted towards the front and up) and u-umlaut (where vowels are moved towards the back). /ɑ/ is a neutral vowel, and never harmonises; whether or not it is opaque and blocks harmony depends on whether it was /æ/ or /ɑ/ in Old Koxori before the two vowels merged in the Middle Koxori vowel shift. In transcription for learners of Koxori, transparent /ɑ/ (descending from original /æ/) is often transcribed as ⟨à⟩ or ⟨ä⟩.

Grammar
Koxori is a largely agglutinative, head-marking, strongly head-final language, with mainly subject-object-verb word order. There are four noun classes, based broadly on animacy, three grammatical numbers, and three levels of evidentiality.

Verbs
Koxori verbs consist of three main parts: person marking, followed by the root, followed by tense and mood affixes. The whole verb also declines for aspect through vowel shifting.

Person
Verbs always begin with a minimum of two prefixes that denote the person of the subject and direct and indirect object of the verb phrase. These person prefixes are usually the only part of the sentence that declines for case, though case markings are also sometimes added to nouns for clarity. A subject (nominative or partitive) and object (accusative or partitive) prefix are required; the others are optional.

Orthography
For many centuries, Koxoriek scribes used a syllabary writing system known as the Khorensejmi, "Khorensi script". By the mid-1600s, however, this had been all but replaced by an Augustine-based alphabet with 31 letters. The digraphs kh and gh are each counted as letters. b and v are only ever used in loanwords. On systems which do not support them, the letters č, ö, š, ü, ÿ and ž are sometimes transcribed as ch, oe, sh, ue, ij (or ye) and zh respectively.