Koǧan

Aspect	Details
Name	*Caudia*, from Latin *cauda* "tail" — a metaphor for “tail-end” of Latinity
Location	Southeast of the Balearics, equidistant from Ibiza, Algiers, and Cagliari
Size	Roughly 120 km long, mountainous interior, coastal plains
Geological Origin	Volcanic + limestone; freshwater aquifers, arable valleys
Climate	Mediterranean; olive, fig, almond, and cereal agriculture
Historical Timeline	Phoenician colony, Muslim conquest, Cordoban/Andalusian territory, later than Reconquista,

Koǧa was part of the Caliphate of Córdoba from early on and developed as an exceptionally tolerant multicultural haven, offering the greatest protection and coexistence for Jews and Christians anywhere in the empire. Extended exposure to Classical Arabic, not merely rural dialects. Jewish linguistic influence (e.g., Hebrew calques, Semitic syntax transfers, or Judeo-Romance variants). Christian Latin continuity via protected ecclesiastical communities and monastic scribes. An intellectual center for translation, scientific synthesis, and lexical borrowing in philosophy, agriculture, medicine, and jurisprudence.

Historical Background of Caudia

The island of Caudia (endonym: Koǧa) occupies a unique position in the Romance-speaking world. Located in the western Mediterranean, equidistant from Ibiza, Algiers, and Cagliari, Caudia developed in partial isolation yet maintained sustained maritime contact with several major cultural centers. Its linguistic history reflects a sequence of layered influences, beginning with Roman colonization and extending through a complex legacy of religious, political, and intellectual exchange. The result is a Romance language of singular character, deeply shaped by Semitic and Hellenistic overlays, yet structurally descended from Vulgar Latin.

I. Late Roman and Early Post-Roman Period

During the late Roman Empire, Caudia was settled by a community of Latin-speaking provincials with strong ties to the eastern Mediterranean. Archaeological and textual evidence suggest that the early Caudian population may have included a substantial Jewish demographic, either as voluntary migrants or as resettled populations following the destruction of the Second Temple and later Roman crackdowns. These settlers brought with them not only Latin but also a background in Koine Greek, Hebrew, and the legalistic registers of Classical education.

The variety of Latin spoken on Caudia diverged early from continental Vulgar Latin. While it maintained the phonological shifts typical of spoken Latin (e.g., syncope, monophthongization), the syntactic and lexical profile of early Caudian Latin bore traces of its learned origins:

• Lexical borrowings from Greek and Hebrew entered at an early stage.
• Certain Classical Latin archaisms, particularly in legal and rhetorical constructions, were preserved in fossilized forms.
• Syntax exhibited conservatism in verbal periphrases and pronoun usage, possibly influenced by scriptural Hebrew and ecclesiastical Latin.

This substratum, referred to by linguists as Proto-Koǧan, laid the foundation for later development. It is best viewed as a peripheral but not isolated offshoot of Proto-Romance, exhibiting both conservatism and early hybridization.

II. Islamic Period: Integration into al-Andalus

In the early 8th century CE, Caudia was absorbed into the expanding Umayyad Caliphate, and subsequently became an overseas dependency of the Emirate, later Caliphate, of Córdoba. Owing to its small size and strategic position, Caudia functioned less as a military outpost and more as an intellectual and mercantile enclave. Its ports hosted traders, translators, and jurists; its inland monasteries and zawiyas (زوايا) became centers of scholarship and religious dialogue.

During this period, Caudia acquired a reputation for exceptional religious tolerance. Jewish, Christian, and Muslim communities coexisted under the relatively lenient dhimmi system, with Jewish communities in particular enjoying a degree of autonomy and prestige rarely matched elsewhere in the Islamic world. Koǧan oral traditions record this period as a "golden age" of letters.

The impact on the language was profound:

• Arabic loanwords entered in significant numbers, particularly in domains such as philosophy, jurisprudence, medicine, agriculture, architecture, and administration.
• Unlike Iberian Romance languages, Arabic borrowings were typically adopted without the definite article al-, a sign of the Caudians’ familiarity with Arabic morphology and semantics. Thus, mufada (pillow) rather than almufada, or zawija (monastery) rather than alzawija.
• Arabic borrowings were often morphologically integrated into native derivational patterns, and show consistent phonological adaptation to Koǧan phonotactics.
• The variety of Arabic spoken on the island was closer to Classical Arabic (fuṣḥā) than to Maghrebi vernaculars, further differentiating Caudian Arabic from that of the Iberian Peninsula.

This period also witnessed the rise of Caudia as a translation center, where Hebrew exegetes, Latin scribes, and Arabic philosophers worked in tandem to produce multilingual treatises. This tri-scriptural culture left a permanent imprint on Koǧan lexicon and discourse style.

III. Post-Andalusian Period: Semi-Autonomous Continuity

The island's relationship to the Christian Reconquista was anomalous. While Caudia formally came under the suzerainty of various Christian polities (at various times Pisa, Aragon, or Genoa), it was rarely subjected to direct ecclesiastical or military control. As such, Caudia remained culturally hybrid, and retained both Arabic and Hebrew institutions long after their suppression on the mainland.

During this period, Latin liturgical practices reasserted themselves, particularly in coastal cathedrals and episcopal centers. However, these coexisted with enduring Muslim and Jewish communities. The vernacular Koǧan language became the principal vehicle of interfaith communication, absorbing and transmitting the philosophical, legal, and agricultural terminologies of the three traditions.

The linguistic consequences included:

• Continued but more selective lexical borrowing from Latin and emerging Ibero-Romance varieties.
• Increased semantic specialization in loanwords — e.g., Arabic terms retained specific technical senses.
• Preservation of older grammatical constructions due to textual conservatism in religious and legal documents.
• Emergence of a prestige dialect among urban literati, with phonological hypercorrections and borrowings from ecclesiastical Latin.

IV. Linguistic Summary

The Koǧan language as it exists today is thus the product of a deeply stratified linguistic ecology, in which:

• Proto-Romance provides the grammatical skeleton.
• Classical Latin and Koine Greek supply archaisms and syntactic conservatism.
• Hebrew contributes both lexical items and subtle syntactic calques, particularly in parallelism and discourse structure.
• Arabic offers a rich stratum of vocabulary and intellectual idioms, stripped of folk transmission markers such as definite articles.
• Ecclesiastical Latin in the post-Reconquista era reaffirms certain nominal and participial structures in formal contexts.

The resulting language is Romance at its core, but notably non-European in its evolution — a Romance language that grew up not under the shadow of Charlemagne or Castile, but under the dome of Córdoba and the scrolls of Tiberias.

Phonology

Forms that differ from IPA are shown in bold. Most allophony occurs intervocalically.

Koǧan Consonant Phonemes

Manner \ Place	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Nasal	/m/	/n	/ɲ/ ñ
Stop (voiceless)	/p/	/t~θ/ t		/k/
Stop (voiced)	/b/	/d~ð/ d		/g~ɣ̞/
Fricative (voiceless)	/f/	/s/	/ʃ/ x	/x~h/ h
Fricative (voiced)	/v/	/z/	/ʒ/ zh
Affricate			/tʃ/ c
Affricate			/dʒ/ ǧ
Lateral approximant		/l/	/ʎ/ ll
Approximant		/ɾ/ r	/ʝ/ j
Trill		/r/ rr

Voicing spreads in consonant cluster, and is usually written.

Koǧan Vowel Phonemes

Height \ Backness	Front	Central	Back
High	/i/		/u/
Mid-high (close-mid)	/e/	(/ǝ/)	/o/
Mid-low (open-mid)	/ɛ/ è		/ɔ/ ò
Low	/a/

Schwa is found in rushed speech and apocopated syllables.

Traits

Aragonese has many historical traits in common with Catalan and Aragonese. Some are conservative features that are also shared with the Asturleonese languages and Galician–Portuguese, where Spanish innovated in ways that did not spread to nearby languages. It also has many conservative vocabulary items in common with Sardinian.

• Romance initial f- is preserved, e.g. fīlium > fillo ('son', Sp. hijo, Cat. fill, Pt. filho).
• cl-, fl-, pl- are never preserved, becoming zh-, x-, br-.
• Romance palatal approximant (ge-, gi-, i-) consistently became medieval [ʒ], unlikely medieval Catalan and Portuguese.
• Romance groups -lt-, -ct- result in [jt], e.g. factum > fèjto ('done', Sp. hecho, Cat. fet, Gal./Port. feito), multum > mwito ('many, much', Sp. mucho, Cat. molt, Gal. moito, Port. muito).
• Romance groups -x-, -ps-, scj- result in voiceless palatal fricative 'sj [ʃ], e.g. coxu > coxo ('crippled', Sp. cojo, Cat. coix), ipse > èxe, scientia > exènca.
• Romance groups -lj-, -c'l-, -t'l- result in palatal lateral lj [ʎ], e.g. muliere > muller ('woman', Sp. mujer, Cat. muller), acuc'la > agulla ('needle', Sp. aguja, Cat. agulla).
• Open o, e from Romance result systematically in diphthongs [we], [je], e.g. vet'la > vièlla ('old woman', Sp. vieja, Cat. vella, Pt. velha). This includes before a palatal approximant, e.g. octō > wèjto ('eight', Sp. ocho, Cat. vuit, Pt. oito). Spanish diphthongizes except before yod, whereas Catalan only diphthongizes before yod.
• Voiced stops /b, d, ɡ/ lenited to approximants [β, ð, ɣ]. This continues through the present, so it is sometimes written, sometimes not.
• Loss of neither final unstressed -e nor -o, e.g. grande > grande ('big'), factum > fèjto ('done'). Catalan loses both -e and -o (Cat. gran, fet); Spanish preserves -o and sometimes -e (Sp. hecho, gran ~ grande). Aragonese loses -e but not -o.
• Unlike Spanish and Aragonese, voiced sibilants do not become voiceless.
• The palatal /j/ is often realized as a fricative [ʝ].
• Latin -b- became -v- in past imperfect endings of verbs of the second and third conjugations: teneva, teniva ('he had', Sp. tenía, Cat. tenia), dormiva ('he was sleeping', Sp. dormía, Cat. dormia).
• Voicing of many intervocalic stop consonants, e.g. cletam > zjeda ('sheep hurdle', Cat. cleda, Fr. claie), cuculliatam > coguljada ('crested lark', Sp. cogujada, Cat. cogullada).
• Latin geminate -ll- became [ʎ].
• Initial [r] is trilled.

Nouns

Gender	Markers	Examples	Notes
Masculine	-ò, -e	librò, kwò	Default for most Latin-derived nouns
Feminine	-a, -è	taza, mira	Inherited from Latin -a and Arabic -ah
Ambiguous/loan	-consonant	saxan, xiber, kativ	Gender marked only via articles/clitics

Plural Formation

Singular Ending	Plural Ending	Example (Sing.)	Example (Pl.)	Notes
Vowel (a, e, ò, è, o, u)	-s	taza	tazas	Add -s directly to vowel-final nouns
Consonant	-es	saxan	saxanes	Insert epenthetic -e- for ease of pronunciation
Irregular	Varies	midraxa	midraxot	Certain inherited or borrowed nouns are irregular

Articles

Definite Articles

Gender	Singular	Plural	Etymology/Notes
Masculine	al	als	Arabic al- + Romance plural -s
Feminine	la	las	from Latin illa

Indefinite Articles

Gender	Singular	Plural	Etymology/Notes
Masculine	un	uns	Latin unus
Feminine	una	unas	Latin una

als and uns tend to assimilate the voicing of the following head now, i.e. /alz/ or /unz/ vs /al̥s/ or /un̥s/

Pronouns

Number	Person	Politeness	Nom.	Acc.	Dat.	Obl.	Poss.	Clitic Acc.	Clitic Dat.
Singular	1	-	zhè	me		mi	mi/ma/mes/mas	-me	-mi
	2	Informal	tu	te		ti	ti/ta/tes/tas	-te	-ti
	3m	-	èl	so		si	se/sa/ses/sas	-se	-si
	3f	-	èlla	lo		li	le/lua/les/luas	-le	li
Plural	1	-	nos		nov		nòsce/nòca/nòsces/nòscas	-nos	-ni
	2	Informal	vos		vov		vèsce/vèsca/vèsces/vèscas	-vos	-vi
	3	-	èls	los		lis	lor/lar/lors/lars	-las	lis
Both	2	Formal	antu	-	lèkum	kum	paraph	-kum	-ki

Two clitics both attaching to a verb is possible. If there are two, dative always precedes accusative, e.g. da-mi-le "give me her".

Another important pronoun is es. It reflexive without person or number, clitic or independent, dative or accusative.

Verbs

• -ar class -> active, from -āre, e.g. kantar 'to sing'
• -èr class -> active, from -ēre, e.g. temer 'to fear'
• -ir class -> inchoative, from -īre, e.g. dormir 'to sleep'
• -òr class -> mediopassive, from -or, e.g. moròr 'to die', lavòr 'to bathe (oneself)'. Amazingly, new verbs enter this category, such as umidékor "to get wet"

For -ar, present indicative active: -o, -as, -a, -am, -ac, -an. -èr is -o, -ès, -è, -èm, -èc, -èm. -ir is -o, -is, -i, -im, -ic, -im. -òr is -o, -us, -u, -um, -uc, -um. -ò- appears in other stems.

Person	Present	Imperfect	Preterite	Synthetic Future	Periphrastic Future
1sg	kanto	kantèva	kantè	kantarè	avjo kantar
2sg	kantas	kantèvas	kantàs	kantaràs	avjas kantar
3sg	kanta	kantèva	kantà	kantarà	avja kantar
1pl	kantam	kantèvam	kantam	kantarèm	avjam kantar
2pl	kantac	kantèvac	kantac	kantarèc	avjac kantar
3pl	kantan	kantèvan	kantàron	kantaràn	avjan kantar

Person	Present Subjunctive	Preterite Subjunctive	Conditional
1sg	kantje	kantèse	volria kantar
2sg	kantjes	kantèses	volrias kantar
3sg	kantje	kantèse	volria kantar
1pl	kantjem	kantèsem	volriam kantar
2pl	kantjec	kantèsec	volriac kantar
3pl	kantjen	kantèsen	volrian kantar

• 2sg: kanta!
• 2pl: kantac!
• 3sg: kantje!
• 3pl: kantan! (or kantjen!
• Negative forms use subjunctive:
  • non kantjes
  • non kantjec
  • non kantje
  • non kantjen

• Infinitive: kantar
• Past participle: kantat
• Gerund: kantant
• Present participle: kantanto (used adjectivally)
• Perfect participle: kantat

Vocab

• mèǧ - middle
• ǧurn - daily
• oǧo - I hear
• zhamar - to cry out
• rezhina - queen
• lloria - glory
• lezher - to read
• ehwiver - to write
• espèǧar - to watch
• mazhòr - bigger
• eca - road
• paxènxa - patience
• soc - companion
• raxò - reason
• nojta - night
• año - lamb
• ahwa - water
• bruvia - rain
• lihwor - liquid
• xor - flower
• kwo - which
• xama - flame
• i/j' - and

More Arabic

kadi

major, from القاضي

xadrez

chess, from الشطرنج

mufada

pillow, from المخدة

zhafran

saffron, from الزعفران

zejtona

olive, from الزيتون

ohalá

hopefully, from ¿إن شاء الله?

mihrab

sanctum, from محراب

zawija

monastery, from زاوية

azhur

blue, from لازورد

taza

cup, from طاسة

sekwa

irrigation ditch, from سَاقِيَة

kazar

castle, from اَلْقَصْر

safanòria

carrot, from *سَفُنَّارْيَة

midraxa

seminary, from مدرسة (Heb)

sahan

plate, courtyard, from صحن

kativ

scribe, from كاتب (Heb)

xiber

ink, from حبر

baharat

seasoning, from بهارات

mira

mirror, from مرآة

diwan

court, from ديوان

gwaf

endowment, from وقف

zit

oil, olive oil, from زيت

Sound Changes

Stress followed Latin rules: penultimate if heavy, otherwise antepenultimate. Write latin c as k. Write latin qu as kw.

Vowels

• a,ā -> a
• e -> è
• ē -> e
• o -> ò
• ō -> o
• ī, i -> i
• ū, u -> u
• 'è -> jè (stressed)
• 'ò -> wè (stressed)

Palatalization

• li,ll -> ll
• di, de -> ǧ
• tiV, teV -> cV
• trV -> cV
• drV -> ǧV
• lt -> jt
• gn -> ñ
• cl -> zh
• ViV -> VzhV
• fl -> x
• gl -> ll

Lenition

• V[bdg]V -> V[vðh]V (not written for ð)
• V[ptk]V -> V[bdg]V
• medial kw -> xw
• initial and medial ß -> gw

Cluster

• pl -> br
• kr stays
• de-geminate all except rr, ll
• skr -> ehw
• sp -> esp
• str -> ec
• st -> est

rhotic

• initial r -> rr
• [lns]r -> [lns]rr (and old geminates)

Late

• snobs say ʁ instead of r
• Arabic ð written dh
• Arabic ṯ written th

Passages

North Wind

• La Tramutaña j'al Sol kontendègwan kwo de èls era mazhòr.

Rerum Novarum

Language	Text
Latin	Salutem et Apostolicam Benedictionem. Rerum novarum semel excitata cupiditate, quae diu societatem commovit, illud fere consequens erat, ut hominum mentes ad res novas cogitationes appellerentur: unde factum est ut ex una parte homines, qui opibus praestarent, eas veluti ius suum esse contenderent, nulla in re aut divino aut humano iuri obnoxias; ex altera vero parte ut opifices, inopia et duriore condicione pressati, id unum quaererent, ut se ab eiusmodi servitute omnino expediant. Quae res eos, vel invita, in easdem sententias et consilia impulerunt, quae socialismi nomine vulgo appellantur; siquidem facilius est animis eorum persuadere, eas opes, quae iniquitate et iniuria coacervatae sint, ita in commune deduci posse, ut iis, qui nulla re praediti sint, pro sua parte prosint. Verum haec omnia, quae hucusque a socialistis proposita sunt, tametsi in speciem alliciant, nihil aliud ostendunt, nisi falsas rationes et inefficaces ad id, quod spectant; immo vero talia remedia longe peiora sunt morbis, quae sanare velle videntur.
Spanish	Salud y Bendición Apostólica. Una vez despertado el deseo de cosas nuevas, que desde hace tiempo agita a la sociedad, era casi inevitable que los ánimos de los hombres se inclinaran hacia nuevas ideas: de aquí resultó que, por una parte, los que poseían riquezas las defendieran como si fueran un derecho suyo, no sujeto en nada a la ley divina ni humana; y por otra, que los obreros, oprimidos por la miseria y una condición más dura, solo buscaran librarse completamente de tal servidumbre. Esto los llevó, incluso contra su voluntad, a abrazar aquellas opiniones y proyectos que comúnmente se llaman socialismo; pues es más fácil persuadir a sus almas que esas riquezas, acumuladas por la iniquidad y la injusticia, podrían distribuirse en común para beneficiar, según su parte, a aquellos que nada poseen. Pero todas estas propuestas de los socialistas, aunque parezcan atractivas a primera vista, no muestran más que razones falsas e ineficaces para lograr su propósito; antes bien, tales remedios son mucho peores que los males que pretenden curar.
Catalan	Salut i Benedicció Apostòlica. Una vegada despertada la set de coses noves, que fa temps que agita la societat, era gairebé inevitable que els ànims dels homes es decantessin cap a noves idees: d’aquí va resultar que, d’una banda, els qui posseïen riqueses les defensessin com si fossin un dret seu, no sotmès a cap llei divina ni humana; i de l’altra, que els treballadors, oprimits per la misèria i una condició més dura, només cerquessin alliberar-se completament d’aquesta servitud. Això els va portar, fins i tot contra la seva voluntat, a abraçar aquelles opinions i projectes que s’anomenen comunament socialisme; perquè és més fàcil convèncer els seus esperits que aquestes riqueses, acumulades amb iniquitat i injustícia, podrien repartir-se en comú per beneficiar, segons la seva part, els qui no tenen res.
Italian	Salute e Benedizione Apostolica. Una volta suscitata la brama di cose nuove, che da tempo turba la società, era quasi inevitabile che gli animi degli uomini si volgessero a nuove idee: ne è derivato che, da una parte, coloro che possedevano ricchezze le rivendicassero come un loro diritto, non soggetto in nulla alla legge divina o umana; dall’altra, che i lavoratori, oppressi dalla miseria e da una condizione più dura, cercassero unicamente di liberarsi completamente da tale servitù. Ciò li ha spinti, anche contro la loro volontà, ad abbracciare quelle opinioni e quei progetti che vengono comunemente chiamati socialismo; poiché è più facile persuadere le loro menti che tali ricchezze, accumulate con iniquità e ingiustizia, possano essere distribuite in comune, così da giovare, secondo la loro parte, a coloro che nulla possiedono. Ma tutte queste proposte dei socialisti, benché a prima vista sembrino allettanti, non dimostrano altro che ragionamenti falsi e inefficaci per il fine che si propongono; anzi, tali rimedi sono di gran lunga peggiori dei mali che pretendono di sanare.
Koǧan	Salut i Benedikzho Apostòlik. Una gwedata despertat al xok de kosas nwèvas, kwe fa tèm agita la soxedat, èra kwazi inegwitabile kwe las animas dals òmes se gwolvòsen verz unas idèzhas nwevas: