Phonology Inventory
Consonants
Stops
| Rom.
|
IPA
|
| b
|
/b/
|
| p
|
/p/
|
| d
|
/d/
|
| t
|
/t/
|
| g
|
/g/
|
| k
|
/k/
|
| '
|
/ʔ/
|
Affricates
| Rom.
|
IPA
|
| dz
|
/d͡z/
|
| ts
|
/t͡s/
|
Fricatives
| Rom.
|
IPA
|
| v
|
/v/
|
| f
|
/f/
|
| z
|
/z/
|
| s
|
/s/
|
| lz
|
/ɮ/
|
| lh
|
/ɬ/
|
| zh
|
/ʒ/
|
| sh
|
/ʃ/
|
| x
|
/x/
|
Nasals
Liquid/Tap
Vowels
Monophthongs
| Rom.
|
IPA
|
| i
|
/i/
|
| u
|
/u/
|
| e
|
/e/
|
| o
|
/o/
|
| a
|
/ɑ/
|
| '
|
/ə/
|
Diphthongs
Rising
| Rom.
|
IPA
|
| ja
|
/ja/
|
| ju
|
/ju/
|
| wa
|
/wa/
|
| wi
|
/wi/
|
Falling
Phonotactics
Syllable Shape
Syllables are (C)V(C). However, CVC only appears word finally (except in loanwords).
Consonant Rules
- ' only appears word-medially, between two consonants (as a syllable nucleus, where it is pronounced as the vowel /ə/) or between two vowels (as an onset, where it is pronounced /ʔ/).
- Intervocalic obstruents are voiced (and are written as such). The only exception is in loanwords.
Consonant Clusters
- Consonant clusters only occur in loanwords and even then never occur word finally.
- Word-medial consonant clusters are always modified so that all consonants are voiced.
- In morphological operations, if consonant clusters are created, ' is inserted to break up the cluster.
Vowel Rules
- Vowel hiatus is not allowed between identical monophthong vowels - ' is inserted. Word-medially this is written. Across word boundries, the sound is often inserted, but never written. Vowel hiatus is allowed between identical diphthongs.
- In terms of vowel hiatus, a diphthong followed by a monophthong that is identical to the final sound of the diphthong counts as an identical vowel.
- In morphological operations, if identical vowels are put in sequence, ' is inserted to break up the hiatus.
- ' never appears in a stressed syllable.
Stress
Stress is lexical, and does not shift due to morphological operations.
Diphthong Reduplication
When reduplication of a vowel is called for by a morphological operation, only the main vowel is reduplicated, not the semi-vowel.
Orthography Notes
The orthography is mostly just a simple phonemic romanization. There are a few variations.
- ' appears at the beginning of words that are proper nouns - it is not pronounced in any way. This is the only time it should appear at the beginning of a word.
