Artistry in Catin

The Catin language- what is it? What does it sound like? Does it make sense?

Well, to answer those:

It is the language spoken on Catarika, Iya Rani, Iri Rani, Jangen, and Morley Atoll. It sounds a lot like Spanish mixed with Japanese and Eastern European. It is legit, and I have a large dictionary and can even say a few phrases fluently.

You may be wondering what my influences were in coming up with the Catin language known today. Catin is actually, and not much of a surprise, HEAVILY influenced by the Spanish language. Some words are direct, such as tu (you), and en (a, an), and others are very similar, such as many of the numbers: un (uno), to (dos), kuo (cuatro), si (cinco), se (seis), otu (ocho), nuo (nueve), and tie (diez) as well as some words: amu (love). The idea of naming Catin girls with suffixes ending with a and i, and naming Catin boys with suffixes ending in o and u also comes from the Spanish.

It is also quite influenced by the Japanese language. Many of the small verbs, as well as verb tenses, come from the Japanese language: da (is/am/are), ai ([from hai] yes), kaia ([from kawaii] cute), tabesa ([from taberu] eat), and a few more numbers such as sa (san), and nau (nana). The way compound numbers are said is based off of the Japanese language. The simply say the tens digit, followed by the number twn, followed by the ones digit. For example, 21 in Japanese would be Ni-Jyuu-Ichi. In Catin it would be To-Tie-Un. Adding the suffix -no to a verb changes it into a gerund or an idea. For example amu means love and Ki'n amuno means my love (as in the person they love). The preposition ni, which in Japanese means "in," became the preposition "to" in Catin.

The word for "look" is mira in Spanish, miru in Japanese, and Misa in Catin. Just a little interesting fact.

Some words have English roots, such as the expression "Furil!" which means "For reals?", hiran (here), sadi (swordfish), pesi (please), tantu (thankyou), and resu, from restaurant which combined with the Catin word for "eat" becomes Taresu.

Of course, many words are just straight up Catin. My favorite method is to look at an object and think of a word that "fits" it. A lot of Catin words start with the letter K. Another method is to just start speaking and see what comes out. A selection of Catin words are: isvari (welcome), ahaili (beautiful), mahali (hello), istui (world), ki (me), vani (child), kaisala (population), kaipa (coconut), kilu (pineapple), kile (albatross), kapantono (tuna-like fish), and resa (point, as in coastal terms).

The grammar of Catin follows English. Pretty simple. If I wanted to say "I love you" I would say "Ki amu tu." Very easy to do. Adding -ta to the end of a verb makes it past tense, like Japanese. Mikien, which means to run, changes to Mikienta, which means ran.

The pronounciation of Catin is easy. It's phonetic with little variances. All vowels are pronounced the same way every time, and Catin contains all the letters of the English alphabet except letters like C, Q, and X. It uses the same phonetics as Japanese, with the only difference being that in Catin, consonants can occur next to each other (isvari is an example) and Catin has two separate sounds for L and R, as well as a letter V. A short guide follows:

a- pronounced "ah" like father
e- pronounced "eh" like hen
i- pronounced "ee" like ring
o- pronounced "oh" like ocean
u- pronounced "oouh" like blue with a Spanish accent
r- the "R" is rolled just slightly

The language is spoken "at the front of the mouth." It's hard to explain without demonstrating, but basically think of Spanish.

Let's try out some phrases then!

Isvari ni ki'n istui!
Welsome to my world!
(common phrase)

Isvari ni!
Welsome!
(greeting at shops)

Tu da ime kaia! Ki amu tu!
You are so cute! I love you!

Aii Saairael! Aii Saaiillia! Ei Raellain Girl! I Breuislah!
Oh my gosh!
(Saaiill is a somewhat bad figure in Catin history so people curse at him all the time. These are all forms of his name mashed up with some Kevian words thrown in)

There you go! A basic intro to Catin!