The Kikan people are a group of realmstravelers, creatures with
the ability to travel between realities. The Kikan group inhabits
a specific reality node, called "Kika" by them. They are all different
species, but share the ability to realmstravel and share a culture,
language, and vague set of beliefs. Some can shape-shift, nearly all
can communicate telepathically (though language is the most common
means of communication for various practical reasons).
The Kikan language is directly related to their culture and
way of life. It includes many loan-words from Earth languages,
especially English and Hawaiian. This is because our reality, and
our own planet especially, are particularly simple to jump to
from Kika, so most young Kikan realmshoppers travel here when they
are still learning. They've picked up things from english because,
well, lets face it, it's a pretty widely spoken language here.
Hawaiian is probably often incorporated because they spend a lot
of time in Hawai`i (I mean hey, who doesn't like Hawai`i?), and
the "feel" of the language is in some ways similar to Kikan.
Many Kikan words have intimate (lela) and
nonintimate (pure)terms. This is a
little bit like the formal and informal terms in some Earth languages.
Similar idea, at least. Intimate terms are used in romantic settings.
They are used for courtship, dating, love-play, etc... Nonintimate
terms are used in everyday conversation, whether with family,
friends, or commercial institutions. Using the incorrect term
is not looked down upon, but may be taken the wrong way. It's usually pretty
easy to tell which form is appropriate, though. Pure and
lela words are usually obviously related to eachother...
Words for parts of the body are the most common words with both
pure and lela forms. For example:
pora* hand, nint.
pora*qa hand, int.
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