Moon Draconic
| Moon Draconic | |
|---|---|
| Ratihomer | |
| Created by | Madoka |
| Date | 2022 |
| Setting | Alt-Earth |
| Ethnicity | Sky Dragonborns Humanoids |
| Native speakers | 15,000,000 (2023) |
| |
| Official status | |
Official language in | Kingdom of Draconia |
Introduction
Goals
Moon Draconic is my third attempt in making an actual conlang. This time I really tried my best following steps I myself organised. The language is for a project I'm trying to create!
Setting
Moon Draconic is spoken by the north inhabitants of the Kingdom of Draconia, which is the most populated area of the kingdom excluding the capital, Irisamu. In older books, the Moon Draconic was considered a dialect of it's sister language, Sun Draconic, just incorporated into one language named Draconic. With recent investigations and social, cultural movements, Moon Draconic gained independence from it's southern counterpart.
Phonology
Consonants
| → PoA ↓ Manner |
Labial | Labiodental | Alveolar | Alveolopalatal | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasals | m m | n n | |||||||
| Plosives | Voiceless | p p | t t | k k | |||||
| Voiced | b b | d d | g ɡ | ||||||
| Affricates | Voiceless | tsh tʃ | |||||||
| Voiced | dzh dʒ | ||||||||
| Fricatives | Voiceless | f f | s s | sh ʃ | x x | h h | |||
| Voiced | v v | z z | zh ʒ | ||||||
| Approximants | w w | ||||||||
| Tap or flap | r ɾ | ||||||||
| Lateral Approximants | l l | ||||||||
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i i | u u | |
| Mid | e e | o o | |
| Low | a ɐ |
Phonotactics & Syllables
Syllabic Structure
The permissible syllable structures in Moon Draconic is (C)V(C), means a syllable may consist of:
- CV: Consonant followed by a vowel.
- V: A single vowel
- CVC: Consonant, vowel, and consonant.
Forbidden combinations include:
- VC: Vowel followed by a consonant
- VV: Two consecutive vowels, meaning that there are no hiatus nor diphtongs in Moon Draconic.
The onset in Moon Draconic syllables can be branched, but it is very restritive, this situation only happens when a plosive or the labiodental fricatives (/f/, /v/) are followed by the alveolar tap (/ɾ/). Codas in Moon Draconic cannot be branched and only a few set of consonants can fullfil the spot of coda:
- The two palatal fricatives: /ʃ/, /ʒ/
- The labio-velar approximant: /w/
- The alveolar lateral approximant: /l/
- The alveolar tap: /ɾ/
Stress
Stress in Moon Draconic is fixed and generally falls on the last syllable of a word. In cases when the word has its last syllable with coda, the stress moves to the penultimate syllable.
Phonological Rules
Moon Draconic also has several phonological rules that affect the pronunciation of certain sounds based on their position within a word or in relation to neighboring sound: this include Allophonic Variations and Vowel Shifts with Stress.
Allophonic Variation:
- [l] → [ɫ]: The lateral /l/ becomes velarized [ɫ] when it occurs in the coda position.
- [ʃ] → [s]: The voiceless postalveolar fricative /ʃ/ changes to the voiceless alveolar fricative [s] if it is in the coda position and the following word starts with a vowel or a voiceless consonant.
- [ʒ] → [z]: The voiced postalveolar fricative /ʒ/ changes to the voiced alveolar fricative [z] if it is in the coda position and the following word starts with a vowel or a voiced consonant.
- [ɾ] → [ʀ~ʁ]: The alveolar tap /ɾ/ becomes a uvular trill or fricative [ʀ~ʁ] when it occurs in the onset position and is the first syllable of the word.
Vowel Shifts with Stress
/ɐ/ → /a/: /ɐ/ shifts to /a/ when stressed.
/e/ → /ɛ/: /e/ shifts to /ɛ/ when stressed.
/o/ → /ɔ/: /o/ shifts to /ɔ/ when stressed.