Tengarsa: Phonology

[nyxelestia]

Consonants

Most come in pairs, there is one triad of them, and then a quartet of isolates. The pairs are unvoiced-voiced pairs. The isolates are often put together as an additional pair when paired-consonants can serve a grammatical function.

Pairs:

f , v
p , b
t , d
k , g
h , th
s , sh

Triad:

m , n , j
(m , n , ʤ)

Isolates:

r
l
y
w

The y and w are mostly present as wedges between strings of vowels and rarely make appearances as their own, separate consonants. On the rare occasions they do make appearances as their own independent consonants (particularly at the beginning of words), the w usually takes on a hw sounds (usually spelled wh in English). The y, mean while, will usually start to resemble more of a yj or yzh sound, or in IPA a slurring together of the y and a very soft ʒ.


The arrangement of consonants can streamline certain grammatical functions (i.e. the first consonant of adjectives often ‘switch off’ within a pair for different adjective strengths).

Vowels

There are short vowels, long ones, and diphthongs

Short:

a (æ)
aw (a)
e/eh (ɛ)
ih (ɪ)

Long:

i (iː)
o (o)
ai (aɪ)
u (uː)
ei (e)

Diphthongs:

ao (or aʊ)
ia (iæ)
ie (iɛ)
ea (ɛæ)
aie (aɪɛ)
ua (ua)
ue (uɛ)
ui (ui)


Vowel lengths are often used for grammatical purposes, especially in verbs.

Comments

[nyxelestia.livejournal.com]

Wait how's it similar to Latin? *total linguistics amateur*

I'm actually making a language somewhat like that. Mermish essentially have "underwater" and "overwater" - when the mermaids are communicating underwater, the language is different than when it's overwater or talking to non-mermaids who don't have the physiological capacity to make the sufficient sounds for underwater Mermish.

[jissai1988.livejournal.com]

In latin you attach ending to words depending on if it is the subject, with a predicate, direct object, indirect object, vocative, ect.

For instance, puella is nominative for "girl."
puellae is "of the girls."

however, puellae can also mean "girls."

Voco puellam. I call to the girl. -am being the ending for the direct object. : )

Puella is also the first case for nouns. It changes if it is of a different case, such as:

Gaium agricolae video.

I see Gaius in the fields. -um is the direct object ending for that case of nouns. in this case, masculine.

Entendes? ( Is so excited to be talking about languages! did I say that right in spanish? )