Kah
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About the language

Kah is an artificial language constructed with the main intent of being easy to master and pronounce. The basic vocabulary was realized with a keen eye on forming a powerful core lexicon with much room for derivation and compounding to increase logic. It is designed to express reoccurring daily events such as greetings and chit-chat as well as complicated industrial and digital issues.

In order to boost the ease to pick up this language, an important factor was to increase the pluriformity of the phonology in terms of phonotactics and syllabic structures without overstretching too many limits for people used to an open syllable structure. Also, Kah offers a broad variety of allophones for unfamiliar sounds in order to allow people with as many different linguistic backgrounds as possible to recognize and realize the sounds.

Of course, there is no such thing as the perfect language, let alone the perfect auxiliary language. However, I think there is a whole bunch of qualities -which are more or less negotiable- that can increase the chances of success on producing and promoting one.

Among the non-negotiable qualities are the need for a consistent orthography and grammar, an alphabetic approach to the script and an accessible phonology. Other factors that represent lesser values in this draft of an universal auxlang include aesthetics, personal likes and dislikes and (predicate) logic.

The most important aim of all when designing this language is that it was to have a culturally neutral character. Therefore Kah turned out as a so-called a priori language. This means its lexicon is not based on existing natural languages but instead was made up from scratch. 

Finally, I'd like to admit there is no current need for such a language. After all, there is a reason why I am typing this in English. However, the world's major linguae francae of this moment, mostly excel in incredibly inconsistent grammar (English, French, but also Spanish and Russian), orthography (French, English, Russian) or have a phonology that drives non-speakers mad (English, Chinese, Arabic). Also, and not in the least, they tend to be associated with a certain culture and/or ideology.

It is better to get ahead of things and have something handy in case the latter issue in particular proves to be too critical to ignore any longer. Kah is my personal opinion about and realization of what this something could look like.


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acknowledgements

The following people have been more than helpful creating this language and/or the content and features of this website:
  • Jerry Muelver
  • Jean-Claude Caraco
  • Armando Alvarez
  • George Boeree

This language was inspired by the works of
  • Rick Harrison
  • Rick Morneau
  • Kenneth Searight
  • Dana Nutter

Special thanks for the use of content

  • The site owners of News in Levels
  • Nick Bostrom, author of Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?
  • Grace Feng from Just Learn Chinese

alternatives

If this artificial language turned out to be not what you are looking for, it might pay off to try the following initiatives:
  • Ceqli
  • Esperanto
  • Ido
  • Ilomi
  • Lingwa de Planeta
  • Lingua Franca Nova
  • Loglan
  • Lojban
  • Mela
  • Neo Patwa
  • Pandunia
  • Paqatyl
  • Sambahsa
  • Sasxsek
  • Sona
  • Toki Pona
  • Vabungula

about me

One of the prime objectives of this project, is neutrality. Altough absolute neutrality is something that can never be achieved, as not choosing a side is a choice too in many cases, I made Kah as neutral as possible regarding culture, religion and politics and tried to abstain from personal judgment as much as I could. And yes, this latter pronoun suggests a certain inability of its own as it stands or falls with my subjective point of view and opinion of the definition of the word neutral.

One of the few things I can do about this, is to stay in the background myself regarding my identity. I don't think it is useful or even relevant to know my age, ethnic background, native language, nationality, religion, profession, political preference or anything like that. I am sure it is easy as pie to locate and identify me if you gave it a little try and all I can do about this is to kindly ask you not to. The intent of this project does not concern who I am. 


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