Jaguar has approximately 17 consonantal phones and 21 combinations of basic vowels, oral-nasal contrast, and tone. All vocoids, except for [h], are voiced and used as vowels and all non-vocoids are used as consonants.
There are 8 basic vowels, all of which appear as oral vowels with either high or low tone; 5 of these also appear as nasal vowels (for which no tone distinctions have been made). The vowel qualities are shown in the following table.
| Rhotic | Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| High | [i˨ i˦ ĩ] | [u˨ u˦ ũ] | ||
| Lax-high | [ɚ˨ ɚ˦] | |||
| Mid-high | [e˨ e˦] | [o˨ o˦] | ||
| Mid-low | [ɜ˨ ɜ˦ ɜ̃] | |||
| Low | [æ˨ æ˦ æ̃] | [ɑ˨ ɑ˦ ɑ̃] |
Jaguar has no laterals or affricates. The consonant qualities are shown in the following table.
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatoalveolar | Palatal | Velar | Epiglottal | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Voiceless stops | [p] | [t] | [k] | ||||
| Voiced stops | [b] | [d] | [g] | ||||
| Nasals (voiced) | [m] | [n] | [ŋ] | ||||
| Voiceless fricatives | [s] | [ʃ] | [ç] | [h] | |||
| Voiced fricatives | [z] | [ʒ] | [ʝ] | ||||
| Trills (voiced) | [ʢ] | ||||||
Note: the IPA symbol for the voiced epiglottal fricative has been substituted for the missing epiglottal trill symbol.
No consistent or significant stress has been detected. Vowel lengthening and increasing or decreasing tone contrast substitute for sentence-level intonation.
The syllable structure is (C)V(C), with codas permitted only in final syllables and onsets required except initially. There is no liaison of final consonants with following initial vowels.
Of the 18 consonant phones, 4 (the voiceless stops) appear in all positions; 3 (the voiced fricatives) appear only when immediately following a nasal vowel while the 3 voiceless fricatives appear only otherwise; 3 (the voiced stops) appear only when immediately following an oral vowel while the 3 nasals appear only otherwise; [h] appears initially and non-finally after a nasal vowel while [ʢ] appears otherwise.
This results in 11 consonant phonemes.
Jaguar has no native script; the orthography used for it here (and those elsewhere) has been devised for presentational purposes.
The vowel letter and diacritic combinations are shown in the following table, with the 1st in each cell used when the vowel has low tone, the 2nd used when the vowel has high tone, and the 3rd used when the vowel is nasal.
| Rhotic | Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| High | i, î, ĩ | u, û, ũ | ||
| Lax-high | r, r̂ | |||
| Mid-high | e, ê | o, ô | ||
| Mid-low | ɜ, ɜ̂, ɜ̃ | |||
| Low | æ, æ̂, æ̃ | a, â, ã |
Rather than use a purely phonemic orthography (or for that matter, a purely phonetic one), a mixed system has been used here with the letters for consonants following nasal vowels distinct from those for consonants following oral vowels; this redundency reduces the problem of missing or incorrect vowel diacritics.
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatoalveolar | Palatal | Velar | Epiglottal | Glottal | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Voiceless Stops | p | /p/ | t | /t/ | k | /k/ | ' | /ʔ/ | ||||||
| Voiced Stops | b | /b/ | d | /d/ | g | /g/ | ||||||||
| Nasals (voiced) | m | n | ŋ | |||||||||||
| Voiceless Fricatives | s | /s/ | x | /ʃ/ | ç | /ç/ | h | /h/ | ||||||
| Voiced Fricatives | z | ʒ | j | |||||||||||
| Trills (voiced) | v | /h/ | ||||||||||||
Orthographic example: xæ̂gu'av ([ʃæ˦.gu˨.ʔɑ˨ʢ]).
page started: 2014.Dec.27 Sat
current date: 2014.Dec.27 Sat
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content and form originated by qiihoskeh