Kotava

Key takeaways

Kotava belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Kotava to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Kotava from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Kotava (sometimes also spelled Kodava) is an international auxiliary language (IAL) created by Staren Fetcey in 1978 that focuses on the principle of cultural neutrality. The name means "the language of one and all", and the Kotava community has adopted the slogan "a project humanistic and universal, utopian and realistic". The language is mainly known in French-speaking countries and most learning materials for it are in French.

History Kotava was invented by Staren Fetcey, a Canadian traveler and linguist, who began the project in the summer of 1975, on the basis of her study of previous IAL projects. The language was first made available to the public in 1978, and two major revisions were made in 1988 and 1993. Since then, the language has stabilized, with a lexicon of more than 17,000 basic roots. In 2005, a committee of seven members was established with the responsibility of guiding the future evolution of the language. The overall goal was to create a potential IAL that was not based on a particular cultural substrate. To do this, a number of subgoals were established:

A simple and limited phonetic system that can be pronounced easily by the majority of people. A simple and totally regular grammar that reflects the grammars of the majority of languages in the world. A clear morphology, with each morpheme having a well-defined and exclusive function. An a priori lexicon that does not favor any language. A collection of basic roots that are clearly defined and homonym-free. They are completely invented and absolutely independent of any existing language (Staren Fetcey considers the Western origin of Esperanto as a disadvantage). Mechanisms for productive derivation and composition to allow for maximum expressiveness, from the most general to the most subtle and precise.

Properties

Classification As an a priori constructed language, Kotava is not related to any other language, natural or constructed. The word order is very free, but current practice leans toward object–subject–verb. All objects and other complements must be introduced by prepositions. There are also innovations involving conjunctions and prepositions (its system of locative prepositions).

Alphabet Kotava is written with the Latin alphabet but does not use the letters H or Q. The letter H, which was used only to palatalize a preceding L, M, or N, was eliminated and replaced by the letter Y in all cases. The only diacritic is an acute accent indicating stress on the final vowel in the first person of verbs. Like in French, a space is added between text and exclamation or question marks.

Phonology In Kotava, there are no irregular pronunciations; the sound is always predictable from the spelling and vice versa. Most consonants are pronounced as in the IPA, except for ⟨c⟩, pronounced [ʃ]; ⟨j⟩, pronounced [ʒ]; and ⟨y⟩, pronounced [j]. The consonants (in IPA form) are:

The vowels are pronounced as in Spanish, Swahili, or Tahitian, with no differences of length and no nasalization.

There are five diphthongs: ay, ey, iy (very rare), oy, and uy (very rare). The stress rule in Kotava is regular for all polysyllabic words: on the last syllable (ultima) if the word has a final consonant; on the second-last syllable (penult) if the word has a final vowel except for the first person of conjugated verbs, which is stressed on the last syllable and marked with an acute accent.

Morphology Kotava has strict morphological rules, which are outlined in a table that prescribes order and interaction. All parts of speech are marked and so there is no ambiguity. Nouns and pronouns are invariable, and there is no system of declensions. There are no affixes of gender or plurality, both of which can be indicated with particles or other words if necessary. One unusual feature of Kotava is the "euphonic" principle, which matches endings of adjectives and other modifiers with their nouns.

Grammar

Pronouns The main personal pronouns are the following:

The reflexive pronoun is int, and the reciprocal pronoun is sint. Possessives are created by adding -af to the personal pronoun. Other pronouns include coba (thing), tan (unknown person), tel (known person), and tol (one of two).

Verbs Verbs are conjugated into three tenses (present, past, and future) and four moods (realis, imperative, conditional, and relative). In addition, there are mechanisms for voices, aspects, modalities and other nuances, which permit a great deal of subtlety in expression. There are seven persons for verbs, including an inclusive and exclusive first-person plural. The first person singular is used as the verb's lemma. Suffixes to the root indicate person and tense. The following table exemplifies that with the verbs tí (to be) and estú (to eat):

The following modifiers can be used before the verb:

The past tense is indicated by a -y- interfix before the verb's final vowel:

danká ("I sing") → dankayá ("I sang") Similarly, the future tense is indicated by a -t- interfix:

estul ("you eat") → estutul ("you will eat")

Nouns There is no grammatical gender. To indicate the sex or gender of a person or animal, -ya is used for females and -ye for males.

Voice Kotava has five grammatical voices:

active - doalié (I fight) passive - zo doalié (I am fought) reflexive - va int tcaté (I wash myself) reciprocal - va sint disuked (they look at each other) complementary - va lupa mbi zilí (I am given a cake)

Numbers Numbers take the form of radical prefixes, which can be suffixed with certain attributes:

Suffixes:

-oy (cardinal numbers) -eaf (ordinal numbers) -da (years) -ka (days) jon- … -af (multiplied by) fuxe- … -af (divided by) vol- (negative numbers) Mathematical signs:

= dum (equals) + do (plus) - bas (minus) × jon (times) / fuxe (divided by)

Literature Literature has an important place in the Kotava-speaking community. There are hundreds of translations of novels (Leo Tolstoy, Émile Zola, Guy de Maupassant, Octave Mirbeau, Albert Camus, Molière, Mikhail Sholokhov, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Victor Hugo, etc.), tales (La Fontaine, Charles Perrault, Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, legends of the world) and other literary texts (Machiavelli, etc.).

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Kotava

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Kotava claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Kotava before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Kotava ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Kotava

In research: Kotava appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Kotava in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Kotava is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1978 introductions, Constructed languages, Constructed languages introduced in the 1970s, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Kotava outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

How to study Kotava in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Kotava means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Kotava out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Kotava in simple terms?

Kotava (sometimes also spelled Kodava) is an international auxiliary language (IAL) created by Staren Fetcey in 1978 that focuses on the principle of cultural neutrality. The name means "the language of one and all", and the Kotava community has adopted the slogan "a project humanistic and universa…

Why does Kotava matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Kotava?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Kotava.