User:Juhhmi/Irbel

Irbel /iɹ.vʲeʎ/ (or Westlang /ɚwəl/) is an a priori language isolate spoken in one of the Western Kingdoms of eastern Sword of Vortex.

Phonology

Consonants

There are twenty-one phonemically distinguished consonants since the palatalization process forms contrastive pairs.

	Bilabial	Labio-dental	Alveolar	Post-alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal			n		ɲ
Plosive	p pʲ		t tʲ		c	k
Fricative		f fʲ v vʲ	s	ʒ	ɕ ç	x	h
Approximant			ɹ		j
Trill			r
Lateral approximant			l lʲ		ʎ

Affricates: /t͡ɕ/ and /d͡ʑ/

Coarticulated consonants: /w/, /ɥ/ and /ɧ/

Vowels

Monophthongs

There are six phonemic vowels of which four come in palatal/non-palatal allophone pairs.

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i y	ɨ: ʉ	u
Near-close	ɪ
Close-mid	e ø	ɘ
Mid		ə
Near-open	æ
Open		ä	ɑ

Diphthongs

Graphemes y and v in coda are used to form diphthongs ay /äɪ̯/, ey /ei̯/, av /ɑʊ̯/ and ev /øy̯/ which occur in both open and closed syllables (without or with coda). Normally between vowels, y forms a long semi-vowel /j:/ and v is /w~ɥ/ so the diphthong nature has to be indicated by h after y or v: aya /ɑj:ä/ vs. ayha /ɑʊ̯hɑ/. Grapheme w as a lone nucleus represents two diphthongs: word-initially wC or whV is /ou̯/ and word-medially /uʉ̯/.

Orthography

Palatalization

The language is written with a modified Westlang (Latin) alphabet script. Notable is the phonemic palatalization which naturally occurs in consonants before front vowels /e/ and /i/. Attempts to express the palatalization have accumulated into a complex system which was greatly simplified by Beate Lucuc /vʲäɕ lukux/ in year 521 of 7th era.

• "Mute" front vowels which trigger palatalization: close ı used with u, and open e with a. Can be used word-finally to change the last coda consonant into palatalized: caoc /kɑkʰ/ vs. caec /kɑcʰ/
• "Mute" back vowel o occurs between vowels and non-palatalized or not fully spirantized coda: cac /kax/ vs. caoc /kakʰ/
• Pronounced front vowels: í and é. Use of u and a respectively with consonants, indicates that no palatilization occurs around í and é.
• Vowels ı and e can be used in single-syllable words in place of pronounced í and é if there is no risk of confusion: céc = cec, but catéta /kɑt͡ɕetɑ/ ≠ cateta /kɑɕtɑ/
• Only two vowels are written in a same syllable. If palatalization of both onset and coda is required, both triggers are placed after the consonants: ceace /cäc/
• If a syllable has a front vowel as nucleus but both onset and coda not palatalized, h can be used to alter the coda instead of o: caétaét /ketet͡ɕ/ vs. caétaéht /ketetʰ/

Consonants

Realization of different graphemes in a word, and * means that the grapheme is not used in the position.

Consonant pairs

Grapheme	Plain			Palatalized
	Initial	Before consonants	Word-final	Initial	Before consonants	Word-final
p	p	f	pʰ	pʲ	fʲ	pʲ
b	v	f	f	vʲ	fʲ	fʲ
n	n	N	n	ɲ	Nʲ	ɲ
t	t	s	tʰ	t͡ɕ	ɕ	tʲ
s	s	s	s	ɕ	ɕ	ɕ
r	r	r	r	ɻ	ɻ	ɻ
l	l	l	l	lʲ	ʎ	ʎ
c	k	x	x	c	ç	ç
x	x	*	*	ç	*	*
g	ks	ʔs	ks	ɧ	ʔç	ç
j	j	ʒ	ʒ	d͡ʑ	ʑ	ʑ
v	w	*	*	ɥ	*	*

• Grapheme v is only used in codas after a and e to indicate the diphthongs /ɑʊ̯/ and /øy̯/.

Ligatures

Grapheme	Phoneme	Notes
q	kɘ
d	kɪ
f	ç	After a
k	ç	After u
m	n:	Between vowels
w	w:/ɥ:	Between back/front vowels
y	j:	Between vowels

• Word-initial w before a back vowel is realized as /əw-/ and before front vowels as /əɥ-/. Word-initial y is similarly /əj-/ and m is /ən-/. In coda, y is used only after a and e for diphthongs /äɪ̯/ and /ei̯/ respectively

Vowels

Grapheme	With consonants
	not palatalized:	palatalized:
a	ɑ	ä
u	u	ʉ
é	ɘ	e
í	ɪ	i

Glottal fricative /h/ separates pronounced vowels in pronunciation and is inserted if more than two vowels would line: cíu /cihu/ vs. cíhuıt /cihuɕ/

Ligatures ... w & j

Digraphs

Examples of the use of e and ı with consonants.

Grapheme	Phoneme	Notes
cı	c	Before u
	cʰ	After u, e and i
ce	c	Before a
	cʰ	After a
oc	kʰ	Word-finally
ot	tʰ	After e and i
op	pʰ	After e and i
av	ɑʊ̯	Before vowels: avh
ev	øy̯	Before vowels: evh
ay	äɪ̯	Before vowels: ayh
ey	ei̯	Before vowels: eyh
eu	ø	Stressed syllable, considered as front vowel
ia	æ	Similarly to eu

Examples: cıuq /cʉkɘ/, cíu /cihu/, cead /cäkɪ/, céa /cehɑ/