Naikaumi Language

Naikaumi (/nai̯.ka.u.mi/) is an analytic OSV language with a moderately permissive syllable structure (max. (C)(C)V(C)(C)(C)). Its phonemic inventory includes 11 consonants and 8 vowel nuclei (4 monomoraic and 4 contour/glide-based nuclei). Monomoraic vowels carry a binary register contrast (High vs Low), while bimoraic and trimoraic nuclei are toneless. Mora count is phonologically relevant but not contrastive in length alone. The writing system is a featural two-tier segmental script. Consonants are written along a horizontal baseline, while vowel nuclei are encoded supralinearly using contour-based curves that reflect moraic structure. Ligatures form regularly in consonant clusters. In informal or space-constrained contexts, vowels may be partially or entirely omitted, producing a consonant-skeleton shorthand variant with optional vowel-class diacritics.