About Hamétik

Hamétik (IPA: [ha'mɛ.tik]), code HMTK, is a constructed language (conlang) made by me!

This is the Hamétik language flag. To read more about the flag, click on this text.

Brief description:

Hamétik means literally "human expression" (ham = expression; étik = person). I started creating the language in around 2019.

My idea was to try using the concepts of phonaesthetics¹ and sound symbolism², especially the kiki-bouba effect, to create associations between phonemes and the meanings of the words themselves. The creation of the language then serves as a mental exercise for me: "How I, Inseut, think words should be according to the 'sound' they carry in my mind, not necessarily being the sound that the objects they signify make" - also bearing in mind my own biases, my native language and other languages I speak, that are mostly Indo-European ones. So Hamétik doesn't try to be a "neutral" or "accurate" language, it's a very clearly "me" language, a project made by myself that reflects my own thought processes. Since it's a very personal project, I like to categorize Hamétik as an artistic language, or personal language.

¹Phonaesthetics in the sense of the study of "phonaesthesia" - that not certain sound combinations within a particular language carry meaning.
²Sound symbolism is the perceptual similarity between the sounds of speech and the meanings of concepts. It is a form of linguistic iconicity.

I started creating the language from the pronouns, from how I thought the pronouns should sound based on an idea of ​​the spatial and sonic visualization of where the people in the discourse are.

Phonology table: