Jan12 –  A Constructed Language

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Jan12 Phonology and Orthography

Overview

Jan12 uses the latin alphabet, more or less. the letters used are:

a â b c d e f g h i î j k l m n o p r s t u û v x y z

Sounds and Transliteration

The 1st table show the vowel phones that can appear, both short and long, along with the corresponding transliteration. The 2nd table shows the consonants. Letters marked with an asterisk * appear in more than one place in the tables.

Short and Long Vowels

	Unrounded												Rounded
	Front								Central				Back
High	i*	i	î	i:	-				-				-				u*	u	û	u:
High-Mid	-				e	e	ei	e:	-				o	o	ou	o:	-
Low-Mid	-					E	e	E:	-					O	o	O:	-
Low	-				-				a	A\	â	A\:	-				-

Consonants

		Labial				Coronal				Dorsal						Guttural
Stops	V'less	p	p	-		t	t	-		-		k	k	-		-
	Voiced	b	b			d	d					g	g
Nasals	Voiced	m	m	-		n*	n	-		-		n*	N	-		-
Affricates	V'less	-				-		c	tS)	-						-
	Voiced							j	dZ)
Fricatives	V'less	-		f	f	s	s	x	S	-						h	h
Trills	Voiced	-				r	r	-		-						-
Approximants		u*	w	-		l	l	-		i*	j	-				-

Phonotactics

Only short vowels can appear before sonorant codas. Only long vowels and diphthongs can appear without codas. Short and long i, a, and u are not distinguished before obstruent codas. Unstressed [E] and [O] in open syllables may become [e] and [o].

Diphthongs include ai [ai], au [au], oi [Oi], and eu [Eu]. All other vowel sequences are disyllabic.

Any single consonant or none may appear as an onset. The only onset clusters are

• ku [kw] and gu [gw] (only before [i], [e], [E], [A\], and [ai]).
• pi [pj] and bi [bj] (only before [u], [o], [O], [A\], and [au]).

Any single consonant except [b], [d], [g], and [dZ)] may occur in coda position. There are no coda clusters.

Medial clusters (coda + onset) may occur. The consonants [p], [t], [tS)], [k], [f], [s], [S], [v], [z], [Z], [m], [n], and [l] can be geminate (coda + onset). [t:S)] is written tc.

Allophonic Distribution

The allophone [N] appears before k or g; [n] appears otherwise.

[v], [Z], and [z] alternate with [f], [S], and [s], respectively, in coda position (appearing before voiced obstruents).

r and d are complementary with r appearing in coda position and d appearing elsewhere.

Prosody

Syllables can be light (1 mora) or heavy (2 or 3 moras). Stress is basically on the penult. The exceptions are: monosyllables (ultima stress), disyllables with heavy ultima and light penult (ultima stress), and polysyllables with heavy ultima and light penult (antepenult stress).

page started: 2013.Jan.18 Fri
current date: 2013.Feb.26 Tue
content and form originated by qiihoskeh

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