Dakwəx

Phonology

Inspiration: Mandarin dialects

Consonants

Consonant phonemes in Low Sjowaázh

		Labial	Dental	Lateral	Retroflex	Alveolo-palatal	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m /m/	n /n/				ny /ɲ/
Plosive	tenuis	b /p/	d /t/				gy /c/	g /k/	' /ʔ/
	aspirated		t /tʰ/				ky /cʰ/	k /kʰ/
	ejective		t' /tʼ/				ky' /cʼ/	k' /kʼ/
Fricative	lenis		z /z̊/		zh /ʐ̊/	zy /ʑ̊/		gh /ɣ̊/
	fortis		s /sˑ/	sl /ɬˑ/	sh /ʂˑ/	sy /ɕˑ/		kh /xˑ/	h /h/
Affricate	tenuis		j /ts/	jl /tɬ/	jh /tʂ/	jy /tɕ/
	aspirated		c /tsʰ/	cl /tɬʰ/	ch /tʂʰ/	cy /tɕʰ/
	ejective		c' /tsʼ/	cl' /tɬʼ/	ch' /tʂʼ/	cy' /tɕʼ/
Approximant				l /l/		ly /ʎ/	y /j/	w /w/

All consonants are long, compared to English: with plain stops the hold is longer, with aspirated stops the aspiration is longer, and with affricates the frication is longer. The voice onset time of the aspirated and ejective stops is twice as long as that found in most other languages.

Stops and affricates

All stops and affricates, except for the bilabial and glottal, have a three-way laryngeal contrast between unaspirated, aspirated, and ejective. The labials /p, pʰ, m/ are found mainly in grammatical affixes and loanwords. Most of the contrasts in the inventory lie within coronal territory at the alveolar and palatoalveolar places of articulation.

The aspirated stops /tʰ, kʰ/ (orthographic ⟨t⟩, ⟨k⟩) are typically aspirated with velar frication [tx, kx] (they are phonetically affricates — homorganic in the case of [kx], heterorganic in the case of [tx]). The acoustic difference between an affricate and a stop + fricative consonant cluster is the rate of increase in the amplitude of the frication noise (i.e. the rise time); affricates have a short rise time, consonant clusters have a longer rise time between the stop and fricative. There is variation within Dakwəx, however, in this respect: some speakers lack strong velar frication having instead a period of aspiration.

Similarly the unaspirated velar /k/ (orthographic ⟨g⟩) is realized as with optional voiced velar frication following the stop burst: [k] ~ [kɣ].

While the aspiration of stops is markedly long compared to most other languages, the aspiration of the affricates is quite short: the main feature distinguishing /ts/, /tɬ/, /tʂ/ and /tɕ/ from /tsʰ/, /tɬʰ/, /tʂʰ/ and /tɕʰ/ is that the frication is half again as long in the latter: [tsʰˑ], [tɬʰˑ], [tʂʰˑ], [tɕʰˑ]. The ejectives /ts'/, /tɬ'/, /tʂ'/, /tɕ'/, on the other hand, have short frication, presumably due to the lack of pulmonic airflow. There is a period of near silence before the glottalized onset of the vowel.

Fricatives

Dakwəx fricatives are noisier than the fricatives that occur in English.

Dakwəx also does not have consistent phonetic voicing in the "voiced" fricative members: /z, ʐ, ʑ, ɣ/ may be partially devoiced during the constriction. In stem-initial position, /ʐ/ has a slight tendency to be voiceless near the offset, /z/ and /ʑ/ are often mostly voiceless with phonetic voicing only at the onset, /ɣ/ is also only partially voiced with voicing at onset. A more consistent acoustic correlate of the "voicing" is the duration of the consonant: "voiceless" consonants have longer durations than "voiced" consonants.

Glottal(ized) consonants

Consonants involving a glottal closure — the glottal stop, ejective stops, and the glottalized sonorants — may have optional creaky voice on voiced sounds adjacent to the glottal gesture. Glottal stops may also be realized entirely as creaky voice instead of single glottal closure.

Vowels

The Dakwəx vowel has only 4 qualities, although there is phonemic vowel length and nasalization.

Dakwəx oral vowels

	Front		Central		Back
	short	long	short	long	short	long
Close	i /ɪ/	ii /iː/			o /ʊ/	oo /uː/
Mid	e /ɛ/	ee /ɛː/
Open					a /ɑ/	aa /ɑː/

Dakwəx nasal vowels

	Front		Central		Back
	short	long	short	long	short	long
Close	iñ /ĩ/	iiñ /ĩː/
Mid	eñ /ɛ̃/	eeñ /ɛ̃ː/			oñ /õ/	ooñ /õː/
Open					añ /ɑ̃/	aañ /ɑ̃ː/

Suprasegmentals

Standard Dakwəx has a simple pitch accent system like that of Ancient Greek – namely, only one mora in a word receives high pitch. A mora with high pitch is marked with an acute accent.

Some other Sjowaazhic languages are more strongly tonal. For example, in the Clac'oóny topolect, every word will have at least one high pitched vowel or diphthong but may have more than one, especially in longer words.