User:Chrysophylax/merrish

Phonology

Consonants

Chrysophylax/merrish has 18 vowels, of which a significant portion are fricatives.

	bilabial	labiodental	dental	(post)alveolar	velar	uvular
nasal	m		n
stops			t d		⟨c⟩ k g	⟨k⟩ q
fricatives		f v	⟨th⟩ þ ⟨dh⟩ ð	⟨z⟩ s̺ˡ ⟨s⟩ ʃ	x	⟨h⟩ χ
tap			⟨r⟩ ɾ
approximant	⟨bh⟩ w

Vowels

Chrysophylax/merrish has, in the traditional analysis, a phonemically vertical three-vowel system. There is no length distinction. Phonetically, the low vowel a can be realised as a back, semi-rounded vowel [ɑʷ] before uvular consonants or as an (occasionally long) [æ] before a historical /j/ (written ⟨gh⟩ in the orthography).

Some have argued one should count another vowel phoneme æ on the basis of minimal pairs such as mbha [mwa] and mbhagh [mwæː]. Traditionally, however, consensus has been that in light of its restricted appearance (only appearing before historical /j/, does not appear in CVC syllables) and metrical patterning (CV syllables with *æ count as heavy syllables unlike those with an /a i u/), æ is at most a marginal, emerging phoneme and better viewed as an allophone of /a/.

	Front	Near-front	Central	Near-back	Back
Close	i e a
Near‑close
Close‑mid
Mid
Open‑mid
Near‑open
Open