Ahakqau

INTRODUCTION

Trying to create a phonologically and morphologically less complex conlang.

PHONOLOGY

Phoneme Inventory

Consonants

Ahakqau has a total of thirteen consonants which according to WALS (the World Atlas of Language Structures) is a small inventory. The consonant inventory is notable for the presence of a lateral obstruent and an initial velar nasal.

	Labial	Central Alveolar	Lateral Alveolar	Palato-Alveolar	Velar
Voiceless Stop	/p/	/t/	/tɬ/	/tʃ/	/k/
Voiced Fricative	/v/	/ɹ/	/l/	/ʒ/	/ɣ/
Nasal	/m/	/n/			/ŋ/

NOTE: While /ɹ, l/ are not phonetically fricatives, they pattern phonologically with the rest of the voiced fricatives.

Vowels

Ahakqau has a total of three short monophthongs, three long monophthings and six diphthongs making a total of twelve phonological vowels. Long monophthongs are realised as diphthongs but patterb with the short monophthongs. According to WALS, which only considers the quality of monophthongs, this is a small vowel quality inventory.

	Short Front	Long Front	Short Central	Long Central	Short Back	Long Back
High Monophthong	/i/	/eɪ			/u/	/oʊ/
Low Monophthong			/ä/	/ɛə/

	Front	Central	Back
High Diphthong	/ɔɪ/	/iə/, /uə/	/ɛʊ/
Low Diphthong	/aɪ/		/ɑʊ/

Orthography

Ahakqau is written in the Latin alphabet. It is a phonemic alphabet which also reflects sandhi.

Latin Letter	IPA Value
⟨a⟩	/ä/
⟨aa⟩	/ɛə/
⟨ai⟩	/aɪ/
⟨au⟩	/ɑʊ/
⟨g⟩	/ɣ/
⟨i⟩	/i/
⟨ia⟩	/iə/
⟨ii⟩	/eɪ/
⟨iu⟩	/ɛʊ/
⟨j⟩	/ʒ/
⟨k⟩	/k/
⟨l⟩	/l/
⟨m⟩	/m/
⟨n⟩	/n/
⟨ŋ⟩	/ŋ/
⟨p⟩	/p/
⟨q⟩	/tɬ/
⟨r⟩	/ɹ/
⟨t⟩	/t/
⟨u⟩	/u/
⟨ua⟩	/uə/
⟨ui⟩	/ɔɪ/
⟨uu⟩	/oʊ/
⟨v⟩	/v/
⟨x⟩	/tʃ/