Sep08 –  A Constructed Language

Sep08 Phonology and Orthography

Legend: Definitions, Terms, <Text>, {}, [IPA], -Tags-, and "Glosses".

Letters and Sounds

The tables show the relevent phonetic symbols (in IPA) with the corresponding orthographic (romanization) symbols. The orthography is phonemic. The 28 letters and digraphs used are:
a b ch d e f g h i j k kh l m n o p r s sh sl t tl u v w y z — q x aren't used and c occurs only in the digraph.

In the following tables, an asterisk * indicates that the letter is used for more than one sound.

Vowel Qualities and Quantities

There are 5 short vowels, 5 long vowels, and 3 diphthongs. The diphthongs are [ɔi] oi, [ai] ai, and [au] au.

Short Vowels

	front										central		back
high	i	i	-								-		-								u	u
low-mid	-						ɛ	e	-		-		-		ɔ	o	-
low	-								a	a	-		-

Long Vowels

	front										central		back
high	iː	ii	-								-		-								uː	uu
high-mid	-				eː	ee	-				-		-				oː	oo	-
low	-								aː	aa	-		-

Consonant Qualities

There are 22 consonant phonemes using 32 phones (v and w are the same phoneme).

Consonants

		labial				coronal						dorsal								guttural
nasal	voiced	m	m	-		-		n	n*	-		ɲ	n*	ŋ	n*	-				-
stop	ejective	p'	p	-		-		t'	t	-		-		k'	k	-				-
	voiceless	p		-		-		t		-		-		k		-				-
	voiced	b	b	-		-		d	d	-		-		g	g	-				-
affricate	ejective	-				t͡ɬ'	tl	-		t͡ɕ'	ch	-								-
	voiceless	-				t͡ɬ		-		t͡ɕ		-								-
	voiced	-				-				d͡ʑ	j	-								-
fricative	voiceless	-		f	f	ɬ	sl	s	s	ɕ	sh	-						χ	kh	h	h*
	voiced	-		v	v	-		z	z	-		ʝ	y*	ɣ	h*	-				-
rhotic	voiced	-				-		r	r	-		-								-
vocoid	voiced	-				l	l	-				j	y*	-		w	w	-		-

Phonotactics

There may be additional phonetic variations.

Onsets

• An onset is a single consonant, a cluster, or null.
• The onset clusters are kw, gw, py, by, ky, gy, pl, bl, fl, kl, gl, khl, pr, br, fr, kr, gr, khr.
• The clusters kw and gw merge with k and g (respectively) before u and o and the clusters ky and gy merge with k and g (respectively) before i and e.
• The consonants v/w, y, and h appear only as onsets.
• The consonant h is [ɣ] after a vowel and [h] otherwise.
• The allophones [j] and [w] appear only in clusters.

Rhymes

The following rhyme types appear:

light: -V
heavy: -Vː, -VV, -VC
extraheavy: -VːC, -VVC, -VCC

• The ejective allophones of p, t, tl, ch, and k appear as codas while the plain allophones appear as onsets.
• The syllable-final coda consonant can be only p, t, tl, ch, k, f, s, sl, sh, kh.
• The preceding coda consonant can be only m, n, s, r, l and only r can appear before a fricative.

Rhyme + Onset

• A coda nasal assimilates to a following onset: [m] appears before p, b, m, [n] appears before t, d, n, tl, ch, j, [ɲ] appears before y, and [ŋ] appears otherwise.
• Any coda consonant except the voiced stops and affricate may be geminated (the ejectives become plain).

Prosody

Stress is determined by weight factors: the ultima is stressed when it's heavy; otherwise, the penult is stressed.

Writing System

The writing system provides a letter for each historical phoneme. There are 10 consonant letters, 4 vowel letters (which appear under the consonant letters), and 1 null vowel mark   u. The glottal stop letter q also becomes null between vowels.

Consonant & Semivowel Letters

labial

coronal

dorsal

guttural

nasal

voiced

-

-

n

n

-

-

ŋ

n

-

-

stop

ejective

-

-

t'

t

-

-

k'

k

-

-

voiceless

-

-

t

-

-

k

-

ʔ

q

voiced

-

-

d

-

-

g

-

-

affricate

ejective

-

-

t͡ɕ'

c

-

-

voiceless

-

-

t͡ɕ

-

-

plain

-

-

d͡ʑ

-

-

fricative

voiceless

-

-

s

z

ɕ

s

-

χ

x

h

h

rhotic

voiced

-

-

-

ʀ~ʁ

h

-

higher vocoid

voiced

-

-

l

l

-

i

i

-

ɤ

o

-

-

lower vocoid

voiced

-

-

ɛ

e

ɑ

a

-

-

Example: nekoquta nekoquta [nɛˈgɤʔ.tɑ] [NE'GOQ.TA].

Sep08 Keyboard Mapping Table

Sep08 (US) Keyboard

~ `				! 1				@ 2				# 3				$ 4				% 5				^ 6				& 7				* 8				( 9				) 0				_ -				+ =				BackSp
Tab						Q q				W w				E  e				R r				T t				Y y				U  u				I  i				O  o				P p				{ [				} ]				| \
CapLck							A  a				S s				D d				F f				G g				H h				J j				K k				L l				: ;				"  '				Enter
Shift									Z z				X x				C c				V v				B b				N n				M m				< ,				> .				? /				Shift
Ctrl				(func)							Alt																										Alt					Ctrl				(arrows)

This has been copied from the Aug18A pages. This keyboard assumes that the Sep08 font is simply mapped onto the ASCII alphabetic values. The 1st symbol on each key is for the shift-key value.

page started: 2018.Sep.19 Wed
current date: 2018.Sep.19 Wed
content and form originated by qiihoskeh

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