(Compiled from Aila's Notes)

Ka'aulele is a language that emerged from the needs and thoughts of alchemical bird-people. It's flowing and melodic, and its vocabulary reflects the kinds of words they would wish to use. For example, there are five words for "rain" because of its importance to their day to day lives.

Below is some basic linguistic information about the language; this isn't meant to be exhaustive, and you don't need to read it to understand the story. For a larger body of information, please visit the Ka'aulele pages on the web site: http://nafina.com/

Phonetics and Pronunciation. Ka'aulele is pronounced similarly to the Polynesian family of languages. The following consonants are pronounced more or less identically to English: f, h, k, l, m, n, p, t. The "r" sound is a Japanese-style palatal sound, "rolled" only once; English speakers may find it closer to a "d" sound at first. The "w" sound floats half way between English "w" and "v"; this is perhaps similar to German. Finally, one other consonant doesn't explicitly exist in most Western languages---a "glottal stop". This is written with an apostrophe in romanized text, and is pronounced like "uh-oh" in English; it's the sound-stop in the middle. The glottal stop is called 'aka in Ka'aulele.

Lenition (see below) may introduce another consonant sound which is half way between "ts" and "s". This is usually just written as "s".

Unlike many Polynesian languages, Ka'aulele has only five vowel sounds. These are pronounced in a mostly-standard Romance language style: e, i, o, u are pronounced, respectively, as eh, ee, oh, oo. The "a" sound is part way between an English "ah" and "uh". The "e" is sometimes written with an accent mark (é) to make pronunciation more obvious to English speakers, but the mark has no other significance.

Consonants are always followed by vowels. All words end in vowels, and may start with them. Vowels may be next to each other and become a diphthong (e.g. tafaulé -- /tah-FOW-leh/); words may consist entirely of vowels, in fact. In practice, words starting with a vowel will have an implicit 'aka in front when they're pronounced.

Stresses are typically present on the next-to-last syllable. Adding prefixes or suffixes does not move the stress. This isn't a hard and fast rule; for example, Ka'aulele itself is an exception. Sometimes for poetic purposes, stresses are moved around, but in common conversational speech, it helps clarity greatly to stay with the standard stresses.

Lenition. When a prefix is added to any word beginning with k, p, r, t, or 'aka, the beginning consonant may also be softened. These letters turn into a more voiced version: h, f, l, s, and nothing, respectively, e.g. tefani (sister) might become more like na-sefani (sisters). The words are written in their original spellings in Ka'aulele writing, but they are sometimes written in the spoken way in romanized text.

Particles. Nearly every grammatical construction in Ka'aulele takes place by way of particles. These are very short utterances that typically go after the word to which they are attached. Here are some common ones:

Plurals. There are a few prefixes in Ka'aulele as well. The most common you'll see is also the most quirky: na markers a plural. Words beginning with an "a" gain the 'aka: ana (song) becomes na'ana (songs). Most other words simply add the na to the front. Words beginning with na already will gain an extra one: nahala (guardian) becomes nanahala (guardians). In some irregular words that begin with an "a" syllable (consonant+"a"), that syllable is replaced. For example, Ka'aulele becomes Na'aulele.

Pronouns. There are only two pronouns in Ka'aulele: eia (or the more formal eilia) is the first-person pronoun. Lua (or the more formal luania) is the second-person pronoun. To express number, the normal plural rules apply: eia becomes naeia (we). To express a group that does not include oneself, the plural can be applied to a name, such as Na'Aila (Aila and her group). For an unspecified third party, the word tanau is used in place of a name; its plural is, of course, nasanau.

Verbs. Verbs in Ka'aulele work with particles like any other word. However, in some cases, the particles may become a prefix; for clarity, this is discouraged, but it's sometimes used in poetry.

The following is a short table of verb particles that you might see commonly. The verb fuwa (to go) is used below for clarity.

Writing. The Ka'aulele writing system places consonants as major "glyphs", and vowels are written as markers tucked around them. Vowels that come before consonants go to the left; vowels that come after consonants go to the right. Vowels by themselves (e.g. words entirely made of vowels) have a "vowel hanger" as a consonant glyph.

Consonant glyphs are written left to right, top to bottom; or top to bottom, left to right. Vowel markers are written top to bottom, and then left to right.

Below is a sample of what Ka'aulele text looks like when it's written by hand.

This is a Ka'aulele proverb: "Meet at a crossroads, leave on a new path."